Chapter Thirteen #2
As she started to rise, he reached out, put his gloved hand back on her, this time, on her wrist. His voice lowered a little, but it was not a threatening tone.
“If you go, Aida, and then the police come. Or if you go, Aida, and anyone comes. This time of night…I’m gonna have to figure it was you what sent them, yeah? ”
His voice lowered more, and now there was more than a hint of menace. “Whoever you send…they won’t get me. I’ll get them, I’ll get away…and I’ll owe you a wee visit, won’t I?”
Clutching her purse to her chest out of fear, she said, “I’ll tell no one. I swear it.”
“You have kind eyes. I believe you.”
“You…you have kind eyes, too, sir.”
“They are kind now,” he said. “But if it should happen that I have to pay you that wee visit…you won’t recognize these eyes, love. And you won’t believe what the mind that sits just behind ’em is capable of thinkin’ up.”
Tears streamed down the woman’s face, rolled onto her throat, continued into her cleavage. She tried to speak, but no words would come.
“Off you go, then, Aida Boucher.” She knew he said her full name as a reminder that he could find her whenever he wanted.
She rose and headed for the stairs without a look back at either the man on the bed or the man standing there with the knife in his hand.
—
Campbell Coyle cut the man on the bed free of his ties, then ordered him to get dressed. The Greek did so, then followed Coyle’s order to sit down in the chair the Black woman had just vacated.
Marcus Maragos had tried to speak a couple of times, but both times he was just shushed by the Irishman.
Once he was seated, Coyle stood above him and said, “Now…shall we talk?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Coyle pulled down his hood, lowered the scarf covering his face. “I done told you once, chief. I’m Charlie Coyle’s da.”
Maragos’s face registered astonishment. “The…You’re the old man. From the street today.”
“Apparently I’m not too old for what I’ve had to do tonight.”
Maragos looked around the room, then at the bedroom door. “How the fuck did you get in here?”
“Your two men downstairs. They’re dead. If you had ten men downstairs, they’d all be dead.”
“How?”
Coyle did not answer.
The Greek flashed another look to the door, so Coyle reached into his jacket.
He pulled out the Makarov pistol, the silencer already attached.
“If you’re thinking about doin’ a runner, if you’re thinking you’re faster than me…
you’re likely not. But even if you are, I get a muzzle velocity of a thousand feet per second with this pistol, and I don’t think you want to race a bullet, not after all the exertion you’ve already put yourself through tonight with that girl, yeah?
She left you knackered enough, by the looks of it. ”
“What do you want from me? I told you I’d talk to you, all’s you had to do was—”
“Make an appointment, yeh? Just call up Miss Lucy, and she’ll work me right into your busy day?”
“That’s right.”
“Bollocks. I could see it in your eyes. No, sir. I’ll be having my talk right now. I want to know about what happened to Charlie.”
Maragos stopped looking at the door, his gaze turned inwards for a moment.
He said, “That was terrible, what the American did to him.” With a look up to Coyle, he said, “But why are you here? What are you blaming me for? It wasn’t my fault what happened.
” Quickly, he added, “Wasn’t Charlie’s fault what happened, either.
Not at all. It was the American’s fault. ”
“Aye. And I’ll be having a word with the American, won’t I? Who was he?”
Maragos shook his head adamantly. “I don’t know who he was.”
“No matter. Next place I go after you, they’ll know who he was. I’ll get him sorted.”
“Where…where are you…” Maragos stopped talking, looked at Coyle for a long moment.
He said, “Seriously, mate. Who are you? How did you get through alarms, get past cameras? How did you slot my security boys?”
“I’ve been around, is all. But I’m askin’ the questions. Why did you send Charlie down to work for drug dealers in bloody Bulgaria?”
“That job in Bulgaria was a personal favor to him. I didn’t want anything more to do with your son after the last few fuckups, but he made me give him one more chance.”
“Whatcha mean by that?”
“I secured him a couple of shit gigs down there in the Balkans only after his first three protection jobs for me ended with his removal. Each time for the same reason.”
Campbell Coyle looked out the window at the quiet Notting Hill neighborhood. Softly, he spoke. “Booze.”
“Yes, booze is right.
“He got drunk in Belfast and was let go. He showed up to work hungover in Frankfurt and was sacked. And he got caught pocketing a handful of Crown Royal airplane bottles on a private jet in Canada, by the bloody protectee himself, no less, and as soon as they landed in Toronto, he was dismissed.
“You have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? The conversation I had to have? I sacked him then and there, but he did rehab, not for the first time, and he came to me and told me he had bills and he had put himself right. I told him the only job I could get him was down in Macedonia. A gambler needed a bodyguard. He took the job straightaway, did what was asked of him, but he got himself in a shoot-out during a robbery and he had to come home. He did good, saved his man, though he said his man wasn’t much worth saving. ”
Coyle knew nothing about Charlie having been in Macedonia and having been in a shoot-out. But he didn’t let on to this. Instead, he said, “And then?”
“He still had bills. I told him I could get him work in Bulgaria, but that was it.”
“If he did right in Macedonia, why couldn’t you have got him a better job after?”
“Because Charlie was still Charlie; he wasn’t drinking, but he had a bad reputation, and I’ve a reputation to uphold.”
Now Campbell Coyle’s face hardened. He said, “You’ve got shite to uphold.”
“I’m an important man, Mr. Coyle.”
“I’ve met heaps of men like you. You’re nothing.”
“You know nothing about—”
Coyle sat down, leaned close to his bound prisoner. “I’ll tell you what I know, because I’ve had time to look into you. You’re a bloody fraud.
“That Rolls-Royce you run around in? It’s twenty years old, poorly maintained, and you strong-armed it from a pal whose daddy left it to him.
“Your two bodyguards in suits? They were two years infantry, low-end grunts with no executive protection training. Not even that shit school you sent my Charlie to. They were yes-men lads, unarmed, untrained.
“They were just for show. I was going to spare them—I get no pleasure in killing cattle—but then one of them came at me with a steak knife and the other went for my legs.
“They died on the floor of your kitchen, poor blokes put in a no-win situation by Marcus Maragos, and that story sounds awfully bloody familiar to me. Does it to you?”
The Greek said nothing.
“You’re not a member of the Special Forces Club here in London, but you tell your clients you are.
Your primary residence is in Belfast, but you’ve let it out to rent this flat.
You have lunch at Souvlaki Taverna, a little Greek place near the club, as you lobby for acceptance.
You make your Zoom meetings in the car on the way, or on the street outside, being sure to show the neighborhood in the background to make it look like you’re part of a society you haven’t been accepted into.
“That Omega on your wrist. A Hong Kong knockoff. A good one. Five hundred pounds, maybe, but not the ten thousand you’d need for the real deal.
“You don’t get good contracts, but you’re trying to pass yourself off in Notting Hill society as a real player.
To that end, you send every warm body you can out into the Third World, take any job, accept any risk for your employees, earn a couple dozen pounds a day commission from the worst of them, a thousand a day for the best of them.
“You don’t run a private military corporation. You run a fucking livestock farm, and you send your cattle to the butcher to make your money.”
“Wait a minute, Coyle. I run—”
Coyle kept talking. “My Charlie probably earned you enough for a decent dinner in Soho once a week, and for you to get that, you sent him off to his death.
“You pushed Charlie off on dangerous job after dangerous job, even though you knew more than most that his head wasn’t right. He was doing everything in his power to get his mental health straightened out, but you were more interested in the commission from a fucking Bulgarian mobster.
“So don’t tell me how much you loved my son. You did fuck-all for him when he needed you.”
The Greek’s fury raged across his face. “Yeah? And what did his father do for him? I’ve known that kid seven years but never even heard he had a father till you popped up on the street this afternoon.”
“He didn’t tell you about me because of what I used to do.”
“What’s that?” Maragos looked around. The answer slowly came to him. “Kill?”
“Aye.” Coyle waited a beat, then said, “I’m going to say a word to you…I want you to tell me if that word means anything to you at all.”
“What is this? A game?”
Coyle shrugged. “Sure. It’s just a game. You ready?”
The man in the chair said, “What’s the word?”
“Whetstone.”
Silence in the room other than a truck rumbling outside. Maragos’s eyes went distant; he was thinking, and then they sharpened as something came to him.
After several seconds he spoke softly, “Ochi.” No.
Campbell Coyle nodded solemnly.
“You? You are Whetstone?”
“Was once. Thinkin’ might still be, yeah?”
“Charlie never said you—”
“Charlie did not know my code name. He knew I was an assassin for the Irish, for the Brits. He knew I became a killer for hire.”
Maragos had lost all the anger from his face; all the fear, as well. He marveled. “You…well…your reputation precedes.
“Wait.” Marcus seemed to think a moment, and then his face cleared.
“There’s something going on in America right now.
They need men. Not typical security, but the very best operators.
Willing to do hard jobs. No questions, no quarter.
I’ve heard of it. I have no one in my stable I can send, not even someone with whom I can bid the contract.
The work is now, they’re scrambling, but not accepting anyone second-tier.
But…I’m thinking…how about you? I reach out to the Americans and tell them I have Whetstone, one of the best killers for hire of the past generation…
I mean…You’re old. What? Sixty? Still…Whetstone. ”
Coyle did not respond.
Maragos shrugged. “You’ve obviously still got the goods. If others know about your reputation, others can vouch for you, well then, I can connect you. You can make so much bloody money. We both can, mate.”
“You made the last of your bloody money with my Charlie.”
“You…you need me to—”
Coyle rose, waved a hand in the air. “I didn’t expect to get answers tonight.
I only needed you to see if I can kill. I don’t believe in revenge.
I do, however, strongly believe in training.
I was worried I didn’t have what it takes, but standing right here in front of my next victim, it all feels very natural, very comfortable. ”
Coyle’s lips twitched, a half-second smile, before they relaxed again. “All’s right in my world, Marcus.”
“Think about this offer. The job could pay you millions. Literally, millions. Nothing will bring Charlie back, and I didn’t kill him, the American did.”
“You both did, and you’re both gonna pay.”
“You’re a talented man, Coyle. You’re fucking crazy if you don’t take this work I’m offering you.”
The Irishman said, “I’m beginning to think I’m the most sane man on this planet, except for the decade I kept my head down and minded my manners like I was bloody mad. But those days are over, chief. Starting now.”
He raised the long knife.
Maragos tried to stand, but Coyle just shoved him back down in the chair. The Greek said, “Please. Please. I saw how you let that girl go. I know you are a man with a heart.”
“Her name was Aida. Did you not catch it?” Coyle sniffed. “I’ve a heart for a silly girl who met the wrong bloke on the wrong night. I’ve no heart for the man who sent my son off to his death.”
Coyle swept the blade forward, an expert slash across the seated man’s throat.
The screams from the man in the chair echoed out into the street, but only for an instant.
Then they were muffled by a hand covered in a medical glove.
And soon, after a deep plunge of the knife into the man’s heart, slid expertly between the ribs, they ceased altogether.
A car pulled up out front and three young men leapt out, but by the time they made it upstairs, there was nothing for them to do but survey the horror show of blood and remains.