John Locke - Saving Rachel

Jimmy Squint nods. “I sure would like to drive that Audi one time.”

Jimmy used to be a getaway driver for Frank Carbonne’s crew back in Detroit. To this day, he harbors a fondness for fast cars. Along with his hands, Jimmy has fast feet that he used to tap out rhythms with the gas and brake pedals while being chased by cops or disgruntled mobsters.

“Maybe next time,” I say.

The word on Jimmy was he didn’t enjoy driving getaway unless someone was chasing him. More than once he’d angered his crew by taking unnecessary risks in order to provoke all-out chases. These acts included—but were not limited to—honking his horn, clipping the corner of a cop’s car, and even taking the occasional shot at one.

At 10:00 am sharp, fifteen men walk into the diner wearing police uniforms. One steps forward to do the talking.

“Attention, everybody,” he says. “My name’s Officer Glen Denning, and this …” He gestured toward me. “… is Donovan Creed, special agent for Homeland Security. We’ve got a situation about to go down in Seneca Park, and I’m going to ask for your cooperation, which means I’ll need you to finish up your meals and be out of here in the next ten minutes.” The owner of the diner pops his head through the order window and says, “Make sure they pay their bills, Glen!” Macie adds, “And tip me generous, in case they blow up the diner!” Everyone laughs.

Officer Denning continues, “I’d appreciate it if you stay at least a mile away from the park for the next four hours. My men will keep the area contained, but it’ll go a whole lot easier for us if you don’t tell all your friends and relatives. Last thing we need is a bunch of gawkers getting in our way.”

The patrons hadn’t panicked when I pulled my Glock on Jimmy Squint awhile ago, so I don’t figure they’ll panic over this announcement. I’m right. They busy themselves with paying their bills and leaving. “Give ’em hell, Glen!” says one guy, and some of the others chime in with similar words of encouragement.

Officer Glen Denning nods somberly and says, “We’ll do our jobs.” He pauses before adding, “You can count on that.”

After escorting the last of the diners to their cars, the cops change into civilian clothes and take up their positions along the perimeter of the park. A traffic control crew begins closing off the access streets, ensuring that Cannons Lane will be the only way in and out. Before leaving to join his team, Officer Denning looks at me and says, “How’d I do?” “That part at the end about doing your jobs,” I say. “How long you practice that?” “I know it wasn’t part of the script,” he says, “but I felt it added something, don’t you?” Jimmy Squint says, “What it’s worth, I think they all bought it.”

“Next time,” I say, “if there is a next time …”

The man playing the part of Officer Denning says, “Yes, sir?”

“Stick to the script.”

Chapter 33

Moments later, Salvatore Bonadello’s driver, Shane, calls me from the limo. “Lou’s got Sam’s keys,” he says. “The Audi should be there any minute.”

“Where are you guys?” I ask.

“We’re rolling,” Shane says. “We’re two miles from the Cannons exit. We’ll be there in about …” I imagined him checking his watch. “… four minutes.”

Sal Bonadello is crime boss for the Midwestern United States. Since this whole thing started with a phone call from Rachel to Sal, he gets a big taste (a high percentage of the take), but I’m making him work for his piece. He’s got a goon with him, a pasty muscleman with the street name Bald Eagle. Eagle’s real name is Herbert, but who’s going to take him seriously? Sal didn’t want to use either of his regular bodyguards because they’re too savvy. They might put together the size of the take and demand a lot more than Sal wants to pay. So while we wouldn’t trust Eagle in a major role (he can’t shoot for shit), he’s big and strong and should be able to handle a bit part like the one we’ve outlined for him.

Sam Case is a local computer whiz who came up with the most ingenious method of moving money I’ve ever seen. He takes your nest egg and makes it not just untraceable, but invisible. Over a killing career spanning twenty years, I’d managed to accumulate approximately three hundred million dollars, most of it stolen from my victims—a sum of money that had become increasingly hard to hide from my government bosses. In my line of work, your bosses don’t give you a gold watch when you retire. They give you a bullet and seize your assets.

Everyone who’s ever done this sort of work plans for his or her retirement. We all put money away. Problem is, when you try to get your money, you get your bullet. When you call it quits with Uncle Sugar, the only way to stay alive is to stay away from your money. If you’re resourceful, you can get away clean. But you can’t get away with your money. Sooner or later, your money will lead them directly to you.

Enter Sam Case. When I heard about Sam’s computer program, I knew I’d be able to protect my nest egg upon retiring. Protecting my life will still be up to me, but that’s something I can handle.

I do contract killing for two people: the aforementioned Sal Bonadello and an angry, quadriplegic midget bent on global conquest named Victor. Victor is diabolical, incredibly brilliant, and quite possibly a billionaire.

Victor is also a client of Sam’s. When I first heard of Sam’s idea, I contacted Victor and had his people check it out. We both ended up placing a quarter billion with Sam, and that got us thinking about Sam’s sixteen other clients. More than once, we speculated about stealing their assets, but we never put a plan to it.

Until fate stepped in.

More about that later …

With less than four minutes till showtime, I send Jimmy Squint to his post, and I remain in my seat by the diner window to watch the scene unfold.

The limo appears right on schedule. The door opens, and Sam goes tearing across the grass. Mary and her co-worker, Chuck, the guy dressed up like a policeman, are on Reece, right where they’re supposed to be, which tells me that Callie Carpenter has done her job perfectly. Callie, a gorgeous killing machine and longtime associate of mine, is currently playing the role of Sam Case’s girlfriend. Callie had also befriended Chuck (just friends), and it was Callie who made sure Mary found out about Rachel’s affair with Kevin Vaughn. Callie was the go-between for the meeting at Seneca Park.

Jimmy Squint shoots twice. One shot hits Mary’s heart dead center; the other finds a home in Chuck’s head. I’m not as casual about these killings as I might sound. In fact, I’m completely against them, which is why I refused the contract and passed it off to Jimmy instead. From the gutter grate on Reece Street, one of my marksmen shoots Chuck in the head with a paintball, in case someone happens to be watching from the wrong angle and thinks they’ve witnessed an actual shooting. Jimmy jumps into Sam’s car and my assistant, Lou Kelly, drives the Audi back to the hotel and places the keys and the famous Rachel photograph in an envelope under the driver’s seat. The photo is real, but it’s been doctored. She’s not actually tied to the floor, nor was the photo taken this morning at 8:46 am as the time and date stamp shows. The photo was taken by Kevin Vaughn several months ago. I found it, along with the bra, in the black plastic bag in Rachel’s closet where she keeps the rest of her nasty outfits and sex toys. Want to know where she hides the plastic bag? In the giant hatbox on the top shelf of her closet—not the sort of place Sam would ever think to look.

Meanwhile, the crowd of actors in the park converges on Sam, but not too quickly, making sure he gets away. The two runners pretend to cut off his escape. Now Herbert—Bald Eagle—gets out of the car and fi res two blanks in the general direction of the runners. They fall on cue, and Sam jumps over them as if he’d rehearsed the part. Sal Bonadello fucks with Sam about Rachel’s bra size for awhile—which causes the extras in the park to have to adjust their chase—and finally lets him back in the car. They drive away leaving all this in their wake: two dead bodies, two guys pretending to be dead … and eighty extras who witnessed a double homicide but are convinced the whole thing is a movie shoot.

Meanwhile, the director tells the extras to hold their positions while the film crew sets up on the far corner. The “cops” converge on the bodies from one side of Reece, the ambulance from the other, and the EMS guys load the bodies in the vehicle and drive away while the cameras roll. A cleaning crew hops out of a van and starts power washing the blood and paint off the street. When that’s done, as the movie extras mill about, waiting for the scene to be shot with a new batch of actors, the paintball guy climbs out of the gutter and tells the rubes how he makes the “killing” look so realistic.

As I think about all this from your perspective, I can see I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I should probably back up and fill in some of the gaps for you, starting with Rachel and Kevin and how this whole idea came into being.

You’ve heard quite a bit about Rachel, and maybe you’ve formed an opinion of her, and that’s fine; it’s your decision to make. But like every story, there are two sides …

Chapter 34

Two years ago, when Sam Case explained his money-moving scheme to me, I decided to stay close and make certain he wasn’t planning to scam me.

So I moved into his attic.

I’ve traveled all over the country the past two years, doing jobs for Homeland Security and various contract killings, but for the most part, I’ve been based in Sam and Rachel’s attic. During that time, I spent many hours getting to know the Cases from behind the scenes. I learned their schedules, their routines—in fact, I learned more about them than they could possibly know about each other.

When Sam and Rachel were at work, I’d climb out of the attic and make myself at home. I’m not a snoop by nature, but rather a tireless investigator. In the early days, I started with the computers, spending weeks opening up files and sending them to my headquarters in Virginia so Lou Kelly’s geek squad could decipher them. When I’d gotten what I could electronically, I went through all the medicine cabinets and e-mailed the prescriptions to Lou so he could make the proper adjustments on Sam’s and Rachel’s medical records. I looked at every piece of paper in their house, from appliance manuals to address books to business and personal files to checkbooks. Why would I care about appliance manuals?

I don’t.

But sometimes people will hide a phone number somewhere, like inside a book cover or within the pages of an appliance manual, and that phone number might lead to something important. So I opened every page of every book, searched every cabinet inch by inch, making certain there were no hidden cubbies. I scanned every photograph in the house, sent them to Lou to be indexed, and checked the frames they’d been in. I checked behind every print and painting on the walls. Over time, I sprayed every square inch of carpeting with a mixture of Luminol powder and hydrogen peroxide to check for blood. I pressed every inch of carpet checking for bulges. I moved furniture around to check those areas as well. I checked every square inch of molding and checked the baseboards and the air vents and returns. I took the filters out of the air conditioners to see if anything had been hidden behind them. I checked every square inch of every article of clothing, especially the pockets. I checked every piece of luggage, and all of Rachel’s purses. In other words, I performed an exhaustive search, one that took me six months to complete. By comparison, you put a team of cops in a house this big and give them a search warrant, and they’re done in six hours, tops. But they’re going to miss a lot.