Chapter 4
Chapter Four
B eep. Beep. Beep. John Esposito rolled over on the couch and punched the button to silence the alarm. Yes, fuck you very much, it was five to midnight. He got it.
The big guy was about to check in. He’d set the alarm in advance, to be sure he was sufficiently alert. He had to be razor sharp to deal with Haupt.
Truth was, he slept very little when he was on the job.
Didn’t miss it, either. Stalkings, interrogations, punishments, executions, they stoked him like petroleum fuel.
He loved his work. When the gig was over and the fee was safely tucked into his offshore account, he’d sleep for two weeks straight and make up for lost time.
He peered out the window, across the street.
A glance at the monitors of the vidcams he’d installed while the Contessa lay dead on her living room floor confirmed that nothing interesting was happening in the empty house.
Eight vidcams. Living room, kitchen, bathrooms, basement, and the three upstairs bedrooms.
He stood up and stretched out his shoulders.
Any second, Haupt would call. John knew very little about the man personally, only that he paid well and that job failure would be dangerous for John’s health.
John was fine with that. He held himself to very high professional standards.
That was why he charged the big bucks. The element of risk even gave the proceeding an extra zing. A plus, in his book.
The terms of this job were complicated, not a cut-and-dried hit.
John preferred to get half up front, but Haupt had only given him a third, plus expenses.
The rest of his fee was contingent on a successful outcome, but the promised sum was so egregiously large, he’d decided it was worth it.
He hadn’t factored in what a pain in the ass Haupt was going to be, though.
It was worse than dealing with his own mother.
His employer had been unimpressed when John let the Contessa slip away, but was it his fault the old bitch croaked before he could question her?
He wasn’t even the one who killed her, so how was that a reflection on his professionalism?
In his line of work, he’d never bothered to learn CPR.
Sneaky old hag. He particularly hated that she’d put herself beyond punishment.
He did not like to be thwarted by a woman. Not ever.
His only consolation was the delightful discovery of the Contessa’s three fuckable daughters.
He couldn’t decide which one he liked best. Looked like he’d have to sample them all.
They might try to resist him, too, during the course of this job, if he was lucky.
And if they did? Ahhh yes. He was oh so ready for them.
He’d video-streamed a segment of last night’s drunken henfest in the kitchen to Haupt, but the humorless prick had been unamused. All that had interested the boss last night had been the jeweled pendants.
The three identical letters that John had taken from the Contessa’s house made cryptic references to necklaces but had offered no clear explanation.
John had studied every piece of jewelry he’d taken from Lucia D’Onofrio’s bureau, to no avail.
None of it seemed relevant to those fucking letters.
He’d had the stuff delivered by courier to Haupt, but the old bastard hadn’t made any more sense of the jewelry than he had.
It seemed logical that this new delivery of pendants was significant.
That goddamn letter was full of coy, cryptic clues designed to annoy the shit out of a straightforward professional.
“Music will open the door. ” What the fuck did that mean?
“It’s up to you three to decipher the key together,” the stupid hag had written.
“Consider beauty, faith, knowledge, and above all, love—the keys to all secrets worth knowing.”
Fucking drivel. Beauty, faith, knowledge, and love? Not his field of expertise. He’d faxed the thing to his employer, who had been unable to make anything of it, either.
But John hadn’t exhausted all possibilities yet. Given the proper incentive, the daughters could probably figure out their batty old adoptive mother’s letter. And he had all the incentive necessary in the black plastic case he kept under the bed.
The old bitch was fucking with him. From the grave. He flexed his knuckles. He wanted to wrap them around her stringy old neck and squeeze. But her daughters’ necks were velvety soft and smooth. He could punish Lucia through them.
He took his phone in hand. His internal stopwatch warned him the time had come. Five seconds to midnight—four ... three ... two ... one …
Beeep. Right on cue. John opened the call. “Yes?”
“What do you have to report?” came the soft, faintly accented voice. “Something more interesting than weeping, bingeing females?”
John meditated for a second on how many zeros that would be on his final bank draft. “There’s a carpenter crew coming tomorrow morning to start renovating the place.”
“Renovating? Now?” The usually soft, dead-calm voice on the other end of the line rose to a squeak of outrage. “Did you search again?”
“As requested. I went through the place after the carpenters?—”
“Carpenters? You mean they have already begun?”
“They unloaded their supplies,” John said. “They start tomorrow.”
“Did you get the paperwork on the pendants, at least?”
At least? What was this “at least” shit? As if he’d failed? Asshole. “Of course,” John said. “I found the delivery slip with the jeweler’s store address. I also found his home address.”
“And?” The old guy waited.
“And what? It’s past business hours, and the guy was probably eating dinner or fucking his mistress, so I figured I’d wait to?—”
“Wait? For the carpenter’s crew to rip the house apart and find what you are unable to find? And what then, John? What then?”
John’s mouth worked. The dickhead went on before he could reply.
“Assume that the pendants are part of the Contessa’s puzzle,” Haupt said. “The daughters know nothing. The Contessa is dead, thanks to you?—”
“I did not kill her!”
“The only person who could conceivably know more about this situation is the jeweler himself,” Haupt said. “And? So? Do I really need to say it, John?”
John blew a breath through flared nostrils. “All right. Tomorrow I’ll?—”
“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
“You mean right now? But it’s past midnight, and I?—”
“I know what time it is. Past midnight is an ideal time for an interrogation. It’s an ideal time for many things.”
John reordered his mind around this new imperative. “You are implying an ultimate solution for the jeweler, I take it?”
The man let out a low growling sound of frustration. “When you were recommended to me, I was told that I would not have to micromanage.”
John ground his teeth. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I do not want that crew in that house until we know more.”
A muscle twitched in John’s cheek. “I can’t stop it from going forward without making a big mess,” he said. “Should I arrange an accident for the carpenter?”
“No. No more bodies in that house, not unless it is strictly necessary. A break-in, some vandalism. Delay the work. Search everything again, from the ground up. Not that I hold up much hope, after your failure so far.”
“Yes,” John said, after a brief pause. “I will search the place. Exhaustively.”
“Good. Very well, then. Until tomorrow.”
John laid the phone down and dragged his black plastic box out from under the bed.
It was full of curiosities that he’d acquired over the years, devices he’d made and adapted himself, even some antique originals with a dark and storied past. He pulled out a few of his old favorite standbys and loaded his kit bag.
The thought of the job ahead was getting him revved up. Knives and picks in hand, the jeweler screaming, begging. But first, the bitch Contessa’s house.
He selected the lock drill. Even if the contents of the house were inanimate, smashing them to bits was going to feel good.
It was a tantalizing precursor of softer, juicier things to come.