Chapter 14
Clint left work a little early. Cook hadn’t argued.
Maybe he was impressed with the cleanup job Clint had done the evening before or maybe he just didn’t want to cross him.
Clint would bet his left nut the guy didn’t have an alibi for the night Heather Baker was murdered.
Just one of many things he intended to learn about the good citizens of Pine Bluff.
That Emily Wallace wasn’t waiting outside to follow him home surprised Clint. Since he had an appointment, one only he knew about, he was glad. If she’d followed him he would have had to lose her.
He took a moment to check his vehicle, the hood, the trunk, and then the pavement beneath it.
Clear. Then he settled behind the wheel and started her up.
Considering the way people felt about him around here, he’d taken certain precautions.
Like stretching a strip of cheap transparent tape across the gap between his hood and the fender on each side.
He’d done the same at the trunk. If either were raised, the seal of the tape would be broken.
Checking the pavement beneath his car for drained fluids would let him know if a brake line had been damaged and left to leak its essential contents.
He’d used his lunch hour today to renew his driver’s license and to get the necessary insurance.
He’d get around to visiting that lawyer about his mother’s estate eventually.
For now, he drove, enjoying the feel of the engine’s power and the wind whipping through the open windows.
One neighborhood flowed into another until he slowed and made the right turn that would take him to the dead end of Red Bird Lane.
The two acres of rolling green landscape with its fortress like residence backed up to the forested land trust that surrounded the lake.
Prime real estate owned by the biggest snake in the grass in the whole state, if not in the Southeast.
Six hundred and twelve Red Bird Lane, the home of Sylvester Fairgate.
Old man Fairgate was dead now. He’d died two years ago. Whatever the ailment that launched him to hell, it was no doubt prompted by the evil bastard’s rotten deeds. Despite his name, fair had never been a part of Sly’s way of doing business.
Sly had been a banker. Not your typical First National or City Trust. Sly Fairgate had lent money to those desperate enough to pay 200 percent interest, compounded weekly. He never carried a balance for more than thirty days. Anyone who couldn’t pay in cash in that time frame paid in other ways.
An eight-foot decorative iron fence bordered the property.
A couple of Dobermans paced near the gate and barked at Clint’s Firebird.
It would take one glance for Sylvester’s only son, Sidney, Psycho Sid to those who knew him, to identify who was at his gate.
The red Firebird was Clint’s calling card.
Sid was a different kind of bird, not cut from the same cloth as his father. Where Sly had been a balls-to-the-wall businessman, Sid preferred his games. The sadistic little prick liked nothing better than watching people squirm. Well, it was about time someone gave Sid something to squirm about.
Clint idled up to the ornate lamppost where the keypad and speaker box hung within easy reach.
If he was privy to the right code as he used to be, he would simply enter it and the gate would open, but since he wasn’t he pressed the call button and waited for a response.
He made sure he smiled for the camera strategically located on the massive pillar on the left side of the gate.
A full minute passed before the speaker crackled to life. “What the hell do you want?”
Psycho Sid. Clint’s lips tilted in satisfaction. He would know that voice anywhere. That the man sounded on edge made Clint all the happier.
“I have a bone to pick with your daddy.” Clint tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for a reaction.
Another fifteen seconds expired before, “My father is dead,” vibrated from the box. The words weren’t uttered like the guy cared much that his daddy was dead. Sid sounded more pissed off at the intrusion than anything.
“I guess that means my beef is with you then.” No use beating around the bush.
Another half minute or so passed before the metal scrape of the lock disengaging sounded and the gate slowly slid aside.
Clint applied just enough pressure to the accelerator to have the car roll up the paved drive. He parked in front of the house and got out, a little surprised that there was no welcoming party. Sly Fairgate had always kept at least four bodyguards on duty at any given time.
Maybe business was slow for Sid. Or maybe he was just too stupid to be afraid. Too bad for him. The kind of desperation that fueled his primary business, assuming it was the same as his daddy’s, made for unstable customers.
Not that Clint gave one shit if the lowlife got himself killed; he just preferred that it not be for a few days, since he had unfinished business with Sid and his dead daddy.
The one thing that could be counted on with men like the Fairgates was that they understood the value of information.
All sorts of information. And none, no matter how damning to themselves, would ever be taken for granted.
Whatever secrets old Sly had known he’d most assuredly passed along to his evil offspring before he died.
Knowledge was power. It was a rule of survival for their kind.
Clint was counting on that solid practice.
The front door opened and bodyguard number one appeared.
The big guy gestured to one of the towering columns that flanked the front of the grandiose house.
“Spread ’em,” he ordered. He sported the traditional uniform, black suit, black tie, communication earpiece making him look a little like a Secret Service agent.
Clint figured the costuming provided Fairgate with a sense of importance.
He propped both hands against the column and spread his feet wide apart. He knew the drill. He’d watched others do it enough. The jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers he wore didn’t provide for any clever places of concealment, but that didn’t spare him a thorough search from his neck to his ankles.
“Let’s go.”
Clint straightened and walked through the front door with number one right on his heels. Two more goons waited in the entry hall. Both huge. Pumped-up bulk achieved at a gym, not lean fighting muscle culminated from basic survival.
“Mr. Fairgate is waiting for you in his office.” This goon grinned, his lips curling away from his teeth the way a dog did right before he attacked. “He says you’ll remember the way.”
Clint walked straight to the spacious staircase in the center of the hall and started up.
Sly hadn’t chosen a first-floor room for his office.
He preferred another layer of security between him and the outside world.
He’d had the second floor renovated so that his office sat in the precise middle of the couple thousand square feet on that level.
His office included his bedroom suite. The rooms where his bodyguards slept fanned out all the way around him, a barrier between him and any exterior wall.
If a threat entered the house, they would literally have to go through his bodyguards to get to him, no matter the time of day or night.
Sly had rarely left his compound. Clint doubted that his son did any differently.
More bodyguards waited on either side of the double doors that led into the office.
Neither spoke as Clint walked past them.
A wave of déjà vu slammed him as he surveyed the room with its posh velvet chairs facing the wide mahogany desk positioned in the very center.
Sid, wearing the predictable business suit and looking just like his daddy, sat in the same Italian leather chair his father had once occupied.
Sly had always said you couldn’t put an adequate value on good quality property, but every human being on the globe, no matter how God-fearing, had his price.
Sid stared at Clint a moment with those beady black eyes, the fingers of his right hand busily twisting the ring on his left.
Big, platinum, hosting a shiny rock embellished with the Fairgate family crest. Sly had worn one just like it.
Thin brown hair, thinner face. Blade of a nose.
The Fairgates weren’t much to look at, but no one who wanted to keep breathing would risk saying so.
Sid’s fingers stilled, the glare from those black eyes intensified.
“How dare you come here like this,” he rebuked.
“You rise up out of that hole you were sentenced to and you think you can come to my home and threaten me. I could kill you and nobody would care. The whole shitty community would celebrate.”
He was probably right about that.
“Your daddy was a lot of things, Sid, but he wasn’t a coward.”
Sid stood so fast his chair flew backward and banked off the credenza behind him. He rounded his desk and walked straight up to Clint. “You still a tough guy, Austin?” Sid reached beneath his tailored jacket and pulled out a big black pistol to wave. “Funny, you don’t look so tough anymore.”
Clint let him talk.
“Tell me, how did a young, pretty boy like you survive inside those prison walls with all those hard-ass motherfuckers who hadn’t seen a woman in a couple of decades?”
Clint didn’t let the bastard see the fury spiraling inside him. He maintained a perfectly calm exterior, even smiled. “I’m sure you’re not really interested in my recent social life.” He made it a point to tilt his head down to maintain eye contact with the shorter man.
“Don’t waste my time, Austin. What do you want?”
Funny how no one had cared when almost eleven years of Clint’s time was being stolen from him and wasted.
“I want my life back, Sid,” he said bluntly. “Your daddy stole it from me and I’ve come to collect.”
Red’s most violet shade rose up Sid’s neck from the collar of his white designer shirt.
His closed mouth twitched two, three times before he managed to spit out the words trapped behind his clenched teeth.
“Do you have a death wish, Austin?” The red darkened to the purple of rage.
“You show up here and degrade the memory of my father! You must have a desperate desire to meet your maker!”
Clint chuckled. “Get real, Sid; you hated him just as much as everybody else. I’ll bet you had a party the night you buried him to celebrate your good fortune.”
The muzzle of the weapon bored into Clint’s ribs. “Shut up! Or I will kill your ass where you stand.”
“Go ahead.” Clint nailed him with a look that let the rage and determination building inside him make an unholy appearance.
“I spent ten years in that shithole they call a prison. I’ve been beaten unconscious so many times I don’t feel pain anymore.
I’ve been used in ways you don’t even want to imagine.
So if you think the idea of being shot by a prick like you scares me, get a grip; nothing scares me. ”
The color slowly seeped from Sid’s face, leaving a pallor that announced just how nervous he was. “Make your point, Austin. I have things to do.”
And people to rob, Clint tacked on silently. “Your daddy gave me a job that turned out to be my last one for him. I’m sure you recall the one.”
Sid simply stared at him, without the vaguest reaction.
“He lied when the police asked him about my alibi.”
Sid’s mouth twitched again. “The old man was a compulsive liar, Austin; you of all people should recall that. I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.” His lips compressed back into that line that screamed of his impatience.
“Here’s the thing, Sid.” Clint leaned closer. “Your daddy fucked me big time and I want you to make it right.”
Those thin, flat lips pursed with the rage building all over again. “And if I don’t . . .”
Now that was exactly what Clint had wanted the sawed-off little coward to say. “Then we have a problem.”
Clint turned his back on the man and walked out of his office. Down the stairs and out the front entrance. Not one of Sid’s goons attempted to stop him, and since no bullets ripped into his back, Clint had to assume he’d made his point.
He checked the Firebird before dropping behind the wheel. As he started the engine he stared up at the second floor of the Fairgate mansion. Sid would be ranting and raving about how he didn’t have any protection and that no one appreciated the service he provided.
Clint roared down the drive, only slowing for the gate to open far enough for him to glide through.
He barreled out onto Red Bird Lane the way he used to whenever he left the Fairgate place.
Always with a new assignment to rattle somebody’s cage.
Sly Fairgate had never waited for a client to be late to start laying on the pressure.
He firmly believed in heading off trouble before it happened.
Clint would provide the needed reminders.
Occasionally he would round up a little leverage for the boss to use until the debt was paid.
That had been Clint’s job that night ten years ago.
Take the car of a customer who failed to meet his obligations to Fairgate.
Easy as taking candy from a baby. Clint had hot-wired dozens of cars.
He knew the easiest way to disengage the locking mechanism in the steering column.
He knew all the tricks. The car would be held hostage until the debt was paid.
The job should have been a piece of cake. Slide the slim jim into the door, pop the lock, do his magic inside, and drive away. Simple.
But nothing about that night had been simple.
The anger and bitterness he worked to keep in check rumbled.
Clint shoved the gearshift into high, floored the accelerator, and lunged well beyond the posted speed as he exited the Pine Bluff city limits.
It would take some time on the open road to work through this simmering rage and to clear his head.
For two years before that night, he’d worked for Sylvester Fairgate.
Clint had done his share of customer motivation, but his primary position had been as a collector.
He’d never failed to get the job done. Not once.
He’d walked a fine line with the law, but that never kept him from doing the right thing when the situation called for it.
That was his one mistake that night.
He’d gone out of his way to do the right thing, to play the hero. But he’d been left high and dry for his trouble. His boss had refused to confirm Clint’s alibi, in order to protect his own ass.
Now someone had to own that deceit.