By Newt Livesay
I wanted out, and the Organization had offered me a way. Free and clear, without waking up some night to a hand over my mouth and a 22-caliber bullet drilled into my skull.
One more job. That was the deal. Do it, collect forty thousand dollars, and disappear. "You've earned it," my handler had told me.
I should have paid more attention to that. In all the years I had known him, he had never once said anybody had earned a goddamn thing.
But I had come up through the ranks. I had settled debts, removed problems, and kept my mouth shut. Somewhere along the way, I had started believing that counted for something. Maybe this one would be easy. South America sounded good. So did Malaysia. Vietnam had possibilities. Somewhere warm, where nobody knew my face and a few well-placed Benjamins might make an inconvenient question go away. I had money already. What I needed was permission to spend it without looking over my shoulder.
I was waiting on Paros, in a rented room above a private garage, for word about the Delivery Boy. That was what they called him in the trade. He worked as a freelance contractor, moving anything valuable enough to need an armed escort and dirty enough to stay off a manifest.
Sometimes the cargo was money. Sometimes it was a person. The distinction never seemed to bother him. He was my target, and he was a professional. I had mulled that over before taking the assignment. The Delivery Boy was good. I had a hunch I was better.
In a couple more hours, I intended to be free. I sat on the balcony with a glass of fizzy water and a twist of lime. Below me, the coastline bent away into a haze of pale stone and dark water. From my chair, I could watch the two-lane road wind in from the east. That was where he would appear.
The phone vibrated against the glass patio table and began a rattling walk toward the edge. 1 caught it with two fingers. The number was familiar. With the tip of my tongue, I shifted the slim cigarette to the corner of my mouth.
"Εμπρός?"
"Black Jaguar. Convertible. He's on the coast road."
I stood, leaving the drink untouched. "Alone?"
"You'll have everything you need."
"That wasn't what I asked."
A brief silence. Wind scraped across the microphone at his end. "Finish the job." "Okay." The connection died before I lowered the phone.
A slight smile almost cracked my lips. Almost! They were nervous. I liked that. Let them worry about something for a change.
I dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath the heel of a twenty-three-hundred-dollar alligator loafer. Back in the apartment, I took my black leather jacket off the bed and went downstairs. The BMW M3 waited in the garage, clean enough to eat off. I fitted myself behind the wheel, pulled on my Bottega Veneta driving gloves, and pressed the starter. The engine filled the concrete room with a low, impatient growl.
Another touch opened the garage door. I drove into the last of the sunlight.
Beyond the village, the road tightened against the cliffs. Low limestone walls flashed past the windows, their cracks stuffed with weeds and trailing flowers. Wind off the water carried salt and the dry, resinous smell of scrub. I let the tires warm before pushing harder into the bends.
It was beautiful country. I had worked in worse places. A few kilometers out, I backed into a shallow turnout screened by stunted cedars. The BMW's nose faced the road. Through a break in the branches, I could see the upper curve and the descending stretch beyond it.
I switched off the engine. For a moment, all I heard was the ticking exhaust and water breaking against the rocks below. Then a goat bell sounded somewhere inland, thin and irregular in the gathering dark.
I took out my silver cigarette case, opened it with one hand, and selected a Treasurer Aluminum Gold. Expensive habits were supposed to be a weakness. I considered them compensation. "Come on," I murmured, tapping the cigarette against the case.
My gold lighter caught on the second stroke. The first drag was always the best. I settled into the leather seat and watched the empty road through the smoke.
The Delivery Boy had a reputation for being careful. He also had a weakness for old cars and fast driving. That was in the briefing. So was the instruction that nothing in his possession was to reach its destination.
I had asked whether they wanted anything brought back. "Just confirmation," my handler had said.
I remembered that now, sitting under the cedars. Nothing to retrieve. Nothing to negotiate.
An engine note rose above the surf. I lowered the cigarette.
Headlights swept the upper wall. The Jaguar came through the curve with its top down, black paint catching a last dull reflection of the sky. An old XKE. Long hood, low windshield, one man behind the wheel. I watched it pass the turnout. Then I dropped the cigarette, started the BMW, and pulled out behind him. Gravel struck the underside of the car. The rear tires found pavement, and the M3 surged forward.
The Jaguar's driver noticed me before I had closed half the distance. His head shifted toward the mirror. A moment later, his brake lights flashed and he turned sharply onto the lower coast road. I followed.
He accelerated out of the turn. I could hear the Jaguar working now, the exhaust snapping against the rock face. He crossed the centerline to straighten the next bend. I stayed with him. "That's right," I said. "Keep it moving."
My headlights climbed into his mirrors. He ducked his head, one hand leaving the wheel and reaching behind his seat. I brought the machine pistol up from beside my thigh.
The road opened briefly. I drew alongside his rear quarter, felt the BMW lean as its outside tires approached the ragged shoulder, and fired through my open window. The noise inside the car struck like a hammer. Brass bounced against the console. The Jaguar's side glass burst, and its driver folded away from me. I let off the trigger and hauled the BMW back from the shoulder.
The Jaguar swerved across the road. Its front wheel struck a stone at the verge with a crack I heard over both engines. The car lurched, slewed sideways, and spun through a cloud of pale dust.
I stamped on the brake. The BMW shuddered under me. The seat belt cut into my chest. Ahead, the Jaguar came to rest facing back toward me, its rear end close to the low wall above the water. The Delivery Boy was still moving.
He dragged a compact weapon across his chest. I saw the muzzle rise above the broken door glass. A flash. Something punched through my windshield. Another strike tore the passenger headrest open. I ducked, felt the wheel pull against my left hand, and fired again.
The Jaguar's windshield whitened and broke. The man behind it jerked backward. His gun disappeared below the door. I released the trigger. For a second, I could hear nothing but a high whine inside my skull.
The BMW stopped a few feet short of his front bumper. Dust rolled through the headlights. A loose strip of windshield trim tapped against my dashboard.
I sat still, breathing through my mouth, waiting for the shape in the Jaguar to move. It didn't. "Forty thousand," I said. My voice sounded far away. "And you almost cost me a head."
I got out with the machine pistol held low. Broken glass crunched beneath my loafers. The Jaguar's engine had stalled. Steam escaped under the hood, and the front tire sat crooked against the fender. It would move, maybe. How far was another question.
The driver lay against the seat, chin down, his shirt black across the chest. His gun rested in the footwell. I moved it beyond his reach and glanced at the empty road behind us. No headlights.
No voices. Somewhere below, a wave struck the cliff with a deep, hollow report.
A leather courier's satchel had slid against the passenger door. A narrow envelope protruded from its outer pocket. I could see the edge of a photograph inside.
"Nice Jag," I said.
"Expensive to work on."
I reached across him. His hand clamped around my wrist.
It was mine.
I jerked back and brought the muzzle up under his jaw. His eyes opened. Blood glistened on his lower lip.
"Easy," he said.
"Let go."
His fingers loosened, but his eyes stayed on mine. He wasn't looking at the gun. That bothered me more than the grip.
"How much are they paying you?"
I said nothing.
He swallowed, winced, and tried again. "How much?"
"Enough."
He coughed into his chest. Blood ran down his chin and dripped onto my glove.
"Did they say one more job?"
I stopped pulling away. His mouth twisted. It might have been a smile. "One more, and you get to go live a regular life?"
I pressed the muzzle a little harder beneath his jaw. "Who told you that?"
"Same bastard who told you."
The wind lifted the corner of the envelope. My face stared up from it, taken somewhere I had thought I was alone.
"Your last job," he whispered. "Freedom from the rackets. No more killings."
"That's right."
"Twenty thousand? Thirty?" He dragged in a shallow breath. "Forty?"
"Forty."
His eyelids fluttered. "Cheap sons of bitches."
I glanced at the satchel. "What's in the bag?"
"My retirement."
"Try again."
He moved his hand toward his chest. I caught it before it reached his jacket. He looked down at my grip, then back at me. "I was supposed to make this run," he said, "and kill you before I left the island. Your picture. Your car. The place you're staying. All in that envelope."
I pulled the envelope free. Beneath the photograph was the address of my rented room. For a few seconds, I stood there reading it while his blood dried on my glove.
"They told me you'd been sent to stop the delivery," he said. "Said you'd gone into business for yourself." "And you believed them?"
He looked at the gun in my hand. "You came, didn't you?
I had nothing to say to that. He coughed again, a deep, wet convulsion that brought his shoulders off the seat. When he fell back, his breathing had changed. Shorter now. Each breath took work.
"Nobody leaves the Organization," he said. "No one."
I looked toward the road. The darkness beyond our headlights seemed crowded all of a sudden. "Who else is coming?"
"Don't know."
"Don't know that, either."
"How long?"
I caught his collar. "Then give me something I can use."
Pain tightened his face. He looked at my hand until I let go.
"There are twenty-five million dollars in bearer bonds in that satchel."
I looked down at the leather bag. Scuffed corners. Brass buckles. It could have belonged to a traveling salesman. "Bullshit."
"Open it."
I shifted toward the passenger side. His fingers caught my sleeve. "Or stand here counting while somebody comes around that bend."
I looked back up the road. "How do I get out?" I asked.
His gaze moved past me to the BMW. The torn windshield. The open door. My jacket hanging against the seat. "Give them what they expect to find."
"Me?"
"Enough of you to buy a little time."
He tried to lift his head. I leaned closer to hear him over the water. He talked in broken pieces, stopping to breathe. A dead man in my car. My belongings beside him. Confusion before certainty. A few hours, if I was lucky.
"You'll need to leave tonight," he said. "Before they start asking better questions."
"Why help me?"
He turned his face toward me. For the first time, something harder than pain showed in his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to cost them twenty-five million?"
That made sense to me. It made enough sense that I stopped looking for anything underneath
His hand slipped off my sleeve. He coughed once more and folded forward against the wheel. I waited. Then I touched his neck.
Nothing.
Getting him into the BMW was ugly work. He was heavier than he looked, and blood made everything slippery. By the time I had him slumped in the rear footwell, my shirt clung to my back and one of those expensive loafers had split along the seam.
I left my black leather jacket beside him. My Organization credentials went into his wallet. I knew none of it would survive serious examination. But serious examination took time, and I had begun to think in hours instead of years.
By the time I left the bend, the BMW was burning. I carried the satchel to the Jaguar, brushed glass from the seat, and wiped the worst of the blood off the steering wheel. The engine resisted, caught, and settled into a rough idle.
"One more trip," I told it.
The damaged front wheel pulled to the left. I kept the speed down and headed uphill. In the mirror, flames climbed through the BMW's broken windows.
At the crest, I looked back once.
An orange glow pulsed below the road. Smoke drifted across the cedars and disappeared into the dark. I was dead, and I had got away with the money. Two for two. I smiled and reached for a cigarette. My hand shook badly enough that I put it back on the wheel.
The room was a risk. I knew that. The address was in his envelope, and the man who had sent him knew it, too. But my passport and travel cash were upstairs. So were clean clothes. I needed ten minutes, and I convinced myself I had them. The Jaguar limped into the garage with something grinding inside the left front wheel. I killed the engine and sat listening.
No footsteps overhead. No car outside. Only the hot metal ticking and my own breathing. I took the satchel upstairs. The room looked exactly as I had left it. Fizzy water on the balcony table. Lime floating against the glass. A crushed cigarette beneath the balcony chair.
I locked the door, put my passport and cash on the bed, and stripped off the bloody clothes. The shower should have been quick. It wasn't. Once the hot water hit my shoulders, I stood under it, watching pink water circle the drain. My neck loosened. The shaking stopped. I had money. I had a passport. By morning, this island could belong to somebody else.
I dried off and slipped into the full-length terrycloth robe hanging behind the door. The satchel lay across the satin bedspread where I had left it.
Twenty-five million dollars. I sat on the edge of the bed and finally lit that cigarette. The first drag was almost enough to make me laugh. The Delivery Boy had been wrong about one thing. Somebody did leave the Organization.
I drew the satchel toward me. The outer pocket still held the envelope. I took out my photograph, looked at it, and laid it facedown beside the passport. "Forty grand," I said. "Cheap sons of bitches."
I unfastened the buckles and opened the bag. Inside was a thick bundle wrapped in heavy paper. There was no bank name on it. No printed value. Just a rubber band and a crease worn smooth across the top.
I closed my fingers around the bundle and pulled. Something resisted. Then a small metallic click came from inside the satchel. I stopped breathing.
For one clear instant, I saw the Delivery Boy looking at the gun beneath his jaw. I heard him telling me to open the bag on the road. Heard myself asking why he would help me. His answer came back whole. Wouldn't you like to cost them twenty-five million?
I let go.
The windows blew outward before the cigarette reached the floor. The blast tore the bed apart and punched burning debris across the room. Part of the balcony collapsed into the street below. Glass rained over the parked cars, and a rolling cloud of black smoke spread above the waterfront.
Down in the garage, the Jaguar stood cooling in the dark. The Delivery Boy's blood was still wet on the seat.
THE END
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This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents or products of the author's, imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2018-2026 Newt Livesay. All rights reserved. A short story from the feral mind of Newt Livesay.
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