Nick Stephenson - Eight the Hard Way

“And lock the door!” I yelled down the stairwell after him, but too late. The walkout had already banged shut. I reminded myself to get the basement door hardware changed to the self-securing kind, like the front. Now that I had a nice five-grand payday I could afford the locksmith.

Five grand. Might have a G for the tables, or at least five bills.

No, not yet. One jones at a time.

It only took a few moments to tidy the kitchenette, despite having to wipe the drips off the polished hardwood floor around Mickey’s chair. Messy didn’t even begin to describe it. I’d just started the coffee machine when I heard a creak on the stair.

“Forget something?” I called as I turned, expecting to see Mickey.

Instead, a youngish man stood at the top of the stairs, holding a gun in his gloved hand.

Pointed at me.

Which is never a good thing.

Adrenaline surged but I froze, suppressing the cop instinct to reach and draw.

The gunman seemed calm and made no move, just stared at me with clear liquid eyes beneath longish dark hair. He wore a lightweight trench coat, not unusual in this weather, and had a high-end knit scarf concealing his lower face. Average tall, average looks—except for those bottomless pale gray orbs—Caucasian, with white eyebrows. That clued me in to the fact that he had on a wig to cover what must be lighter hair.

“Who are you—”

“— and what do I want?” Part of a smile reached the upper half of his face, contrasting oddly with the slim revolver, suppressor pointed unwaveringly at my chest. “Just to talk, I assure you, but you need to divest yourself of your firearms first, so we can be civil.” English accent, though I wasn’t savvy enough about such things to place him better.

Slowly I slid my handgun from its holster and set it down on the counter.

“Put that into the freezer, along with your holdout, and sit down on the balcony,” he said, his aim never budging.

As I complied, taking the compact from the small of my back and setting both guns gently into the freezer, my mind flared with realization. “You killed the kidnappers.”

“Brava. Well reasoned. Balcony. Sit. I’ll get the coffee.”

I turned, keeping my hands in sight, and walked out onto the balcony. Settling into one of the white-painted wrought iron chairs there, I folded my hands into my lap to still their adrenalized shaking. The rational part of my mind wasn’t terribly frightened. After all, he could have shot me already, and with the suppressor no one would have noticed. In the warehouse, I hadn’t heard any shots.

Or maybe I had. I thought about the coughs.

The man stepped onto the balcony with two mugs in his hands, setting one in front of me. The gun was nowhere in sight. “I’m trusting you with hot liquid, Cal. Please, just enjoy it and don’t do anything to spoil the moment. I really have no desire to hurt you.”

I nodded in tentative agreement as I took a sip of coffee. Black, as I liked it. His appeared to have been creamed. I hadn’t even heard the fridge open. Eerie quiet, this guy.

“You know my name.”

His eyes crinkled again. “It is on the door plaque.”

“Touché. What’s yours?”

The man sipped beneath the scarf, a two-handed trick, then sat back and didn’t answer. Sounds of the street below echoed against the mishmash of classic San Francisco Victorians and more modern styles. Across the street an old woman watered plants on her balcony, an irrational act in this weather.

Nothing as strange as people, especially in a city.

“Call me Thomas,” he finally said. “It’s not my name, but it will do. Good coffee, by the way. Hard to get this side of the pond, outside of an upscale restaurant or speciality cafe.” He put the extra syllable into that word, spe-ci-a-li-ty .

I found myself liking the sound of his voice, despite the opening threat. A charming rogue, then. “It’s an expensive machine. I like good coffee.”

“Then we have more than one thing in common.”

“Oh? What else? Fast cars and guns?”

“True, but not what came to mind. We both detest people who use little girls.”

My blood surged with memories I’d rather forget, of men who tried to do things when I was much younger, with Dad away and Mom drunk or high, passed out on the sofa.

Lucky, I’m lucky. The words ran through my mind as a mantra, lucky it never got that far, always the fear, relieved only when Dad had come back home and Mom’s parties were banished again for a time.

“You’re wandering,” Thomas said, waving a diffident hand.

“Sorry. You’re right.” My voice tightened. “Very right. Kidnappers disgust me, but I wouldn’t have put them down like dogs.”

“No?” He stared at me until I dropped my eyes.

“I don’t think so. Not...not in cold blood like that. What was it? Did your gang fall out, or the plan go wrong?” I raised my chin defiantly.

“Yes, it did. But it wasn’t my gang, or my plan. I’m a contractor, not a kidnapper or blackmailer.” He sounded sincerely outraged.

“Contractor. You mean hit man .”

Thomas glanced away as if I’d said something distasteful. “Are you a gumshoe , or a private dick ?”

“I prefer independent investigator .”

“And I prefer contractor . A hit man is a thug for hire, a mercenary. I tidy up certain specific problems. I won’t do just anything, or anyone. I have a code.”

“A code. How nice. And you get paid well, I suppose.”

“You just took a five-thousand-dollar check from a distraught mother. You’re not going to cash it?”

I reddened and my eyes dropped, though the set of my shoulders remained defiant. “Point taken. But that doesn’t make us the same. I wouldn’t have killed those people.”

“Unless you had to. You have two righteous shoots under your belt.”

“Most big-city cops have a couple by the time they retire, at least in this country. Goes with the territory. But there’s a difference between self defense and murder.”

“I’m not going to debate terminology. That little girl is alive and safe because of me, mostly, and a bit of you. They were about to kill her and run when I took care of them. They heard the sirens, and they saw you chase me into the warehouse. You put her at risk by calling the police, not me.”

I slammed my mug down, slopping coffee, and sat forward. “You didn’t have to bring me there . You could have gone anywhere else. You could have driven up the freeway and tried to lose me a long ways from there, but instead you led me right to them, and the cops too.”

Thomas spread his hands. “Poor planning on my part, I suppose.” He sipped again, but did not seem in the least contrite.

I shook my head. “No. I think it was perfect planning. You used me and the cops to distract them, then popped them just like you wanted to. Somehow this heist went wrong. Maybe they didn’t get the drugs after all, and maybe they were going to kill the girl, I’ll give you that. I’ll never know, I suppose. Did your mutual bosses send you to, how do you English say, ‘sort them’? Tie up the loose ends? The girl goes home, the dead guys turn out to be dangerous felons with records as long as your arm, the case is solved and the incident gets featured on next season’s America’s Dumbest Criminals.”

“You’re forgetting something, dear. I’m a professional, and they weren’t. I could have popped them at any time, with no fuss or mess. I could have set the place on fire and dropped the girl off on her own corner none the wiser.”

Nonplussed, I stared at Thomas, running left-hand fingers around my ear to push my straight dark hair back, angling my head as I usually did to minimize view of the right side. “Okay.” I stared some more, and he gazed back calmly. “Okay, well. I don’t get it, then.”