THE INNER CIRCLE

Special Free Preview

Robert Swartwood

Author’s Note

The second book in the Man of Wax Trilogy, The Inner Circle, is coming soon. For now, please enjoy this special free preview of the first ten chapters. I hope they whet your appetite for the novel’s release later this month.

If you’ve read and enjoyed Man of Wax and haven’t yet left a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Goodreads, I encourage you to please do so.

Enjoy ...

R.S.

THE INNER CIRCLE

“It is this, it is this—” “We have had that before!”

The Bellman indignantly said.

And the Baker replied “Let me say it once more.

It is this, it is this that I dread!

“I engage with the Snark—every night after dark—

In a dreamy delirious fight:

I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,

And I use it for striking a light:

“But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,

In a moment (of this am I sure),

I shall softly and suddenly vanish away—

And the notion I cannot endure!”

—Lewis Carroll,

The Hunting of the Snark

The nightmare has changed. 

Now I stand frozen in room 7 of the Paradise Motel. In front of me lay two wooden coffins. Written on one of the coffins is WIFE OF WAX. Written on the other, DAUGHTER OF WAX. 

They are in there, Jen and Casey. I can hear them calling my name. I can hear them screaming for help. I can hear them saying please please please don’t let us die. 

I want to save them, but I cannot move. It’s not like before, where I want to move but my body will not let me. I have the power to take a step forward, I have the power to save them, but I do not. 

Because Caesar is in the room with me. He stands between the two coffins, faceless but watching me with a smile. He is carrying out what Simon has started. Making sure I go through with the game. That I make my choice. 

Save one, kill the other. 

Kill one, save the other. 

My wife and daughter continue calling my name, screaming for help. 

I want to save them, I want to save both of them, but that is impossible. Caesar won’t let me. He is more powerful and evil than Simon, and he stares back at me without a face and he tells me to choose. 

Pick one, he says. Pick one to live, pick one to die. 

But I cannot pick one. I can only stand there, frozen, listening to my wife and daughter screaming and pleading and begging me to save them. 

I stand there until I finally wake up and feel—if not for an instant—the slightest bit of relief at the knowledge that my wife and daughter are dead, and that I will never have to make that choice, that I will never have to play Simon’s game again.

Part One

SMASH AND GRAB

1

We were headed south on I-95, about forty miles outside Miami, when the Kid called. 

It was Saturday night, just past eleven o’clock. A heavy rain was coming down, the dark clouds occasionally illuminated by a scattered flicker of lightning. 

Carver reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, put it on speaker. 

“What’s up?” 

The Kid said, “We got a problem.” 

I was driving the Corolla we’d picked up the day before in Atlanta. It was a small four-cylinder thing that still reeked of cigarettes and coffee from its previous owner. I’d paid one thousand dollars for it, cash, and now here we were, Carver in the passenger seat, the radio off, neither of us saying a word. 

A quarter mile ahead of us was Ronny and Ian in the SUV. A quarter mile ahead of them was the target. The target was driving a black Crown Victoria, a camera set up in the foot well of the passenger seat so those who wanted to could see what the man looked like behind the wheel of the car, instead of getting the view of the highway from the mini-camera in his glasses. The target was listed simply as The Racist. He was a large bald man with a thick goatee and tattoos of swastikas and racial slurs all over his body. He’d only been in the game for less than forty-eight hours and had already killed someone. 

“What’s the problem?” Carver asked. 

“Another link appeared five minutes ago. I started saving it right away, and ... ah, well, you just gotta see it. I’m emailing it to you now.” 

Then the Kid was gone. 

I said, “Should we call Ronny?” 

“Not yet.” 

Carver had already replaced his phone in his pocket, was now reaching in the backseat for his bag. He pulled the MacBook from the bag, along with the wireless card. Then he had the computer on his lap, opened the lid, pressed the power button. Seconds later the Apple logo appeared and the main screen came up and then Carver was working quickly, opening the web browser, opening his email account, then opening the email the Kid had just sent. 

There was a minute or two of silence as Carver downloaded the file. When the download was complete, Carver played the video. At once the atmosphere in the car changed. Carver’s body visibly stiffened. 

“How bad is it?” 

“Bad enough,” he said, and tilted the laptop so I could see. 

Most of the screen was black except for the usual box in the middle. In that box now was a small room. The camera was positioned in one of the ceiling corners, staring down at a bed. It was the only piece of furniture in the room, besides a single lamp standing in the corner. 

And on the bed lay a small dark-skinned girl, who couldn’t have been any older than ten. She was completely naked, her arms and legs stretched toward the ends of the bed, straps tying her wrists and ankles. How long she’d been there was impossible to say, but it was clear whatever fight had been in her was long gone. She just lay there, her body jerking every couple of seconds, sobbing the sob of a child who has cried so much she has no more tears left to shed.

2

Despite the heavy rain, it was business as usual at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. 

At least that’s what it looked like as Ronny and Ian sped down 95, a quarter mile ahead of Carver and Ben, a quarter mile behind the target. They passed the airport just as a massive commercial jet began to make its descent and Ian, slouched in the passenger seat staring out the window, said, “You ever see The Twilight Zone movie?” 

Ronny glanced briefly at the landing plane before focusing his attention back on the highway. “What about it?” 

“That story at the end, the segment with John Lithgow.” 

“ ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.’ ” 

“Right. Well, I first saw it when I was, like, ten years old, and it forever scarred me. I mean, I always hated flying after that.” 

Ronny said nothing, keeping his eyes on the highway. Miami was only a half hour away, and if they were going to do the Smash and Grab—which was the plan—it would be soon. 

“I mean, okay,” Ian said, “I’ve only flown once in my life, right after high school, but it was pretty nerve-wracking. It also didn’t help that they put me near the wing, and the entire time I’m sitting there and telling myself there’s nothing out there, no monster or whatever. I even pulled the shade so I couldn’t see anything, which sort of sucked, because we were flying over the Grand Canyon and that would have been pretty cool to see.” 

Ronny still said nothing. 

“Sorry,” Ian said. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” 

“It’s okay.” 

“I don’t mean to ramble. I just get, you know, nervous.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

It wasn’t that Ronny meant to be cold to Ian, but he needed to stay focused. He too was always nervous before they did a Smash and Grab. It was how they usually intercepted players. A long stretch of highway was always best. Drive up and tap them on the rear, speed around them, swing back into their lane, and slam on your brakes. Nine times out of ten, the players slammed on their brakes too. And then the clock started ticking, doors flinging open as they hurried out and grabbed the player before the player’s escorts arrived. That was how they had rescued a handful of players—including Ben—and how they had rescued Ian Prescott less than a year ago. 

The kid was only twenty-two. He had been a Theater Arts major at a college in Indiana. His game had been listed simply as The Actor. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his single-bedroom apartment just off campus. Next he’d woken up in his old house, in his bedroom, three states away. A bloody butcher knife lay next to him, along with a cell phone. The phone rang the moment he sat up, and he’d answered it, sleepily, uncertain what was going on. The voice on the other end identified itself as Simon. Simon told Ian to put on the glasses that were sitting on his desk. Then Simon said to pick up the bloody butcher knife. Or else, Simon said, Ian’s fiancée was going to die. So he picked up the knife. Listened as Simon said Ian’s fingerprints were now on the knife—the same knife that had been used to kill his parents. Moments later Ian was downstairs in the living room, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the dead and massacred bodies of his mother and father. 

The whole thing had messed Ian up, which was to be expected. Simon’s game always messed up the players. It demoralized them. Broke their spirits. And, if they managed to escape, it forever scarred their souls. 

Ronny’s phone, placed by the gearshift, vibrated. 

“Who is it?” Ian asked. 

Ronny gave him an annoyed look, once again wishing he had more patience. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Ian, but the kid could sometimes be jumpy, especially in situations like these. Carver thought Ian was finally ready after the months of training and one previous outing, but Ronny still wasn’t so sure. 

He grabbed the phone, saw the display, said, “It’s Carver,” and put the phone on speaker. “Yeah?” 

“We’re holding off.” 

Ronny’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “His escorts?” 

“We haven’t seen them yet. But the Kid just sent a file. Apparently a new link opened up and ...” 

“What is it?” 

“Looks like the next part of the game involves a child.” 

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Exactly. So we’re going to hold off until we establish a location.” 

Ronny nodded to himself. “Got it.” 

Carver asked, “How’s Ian doing?” 

“I’m okay,” Ian said. “Just, you know, nervous.” 

“Don’t worry about it. We’re all nervous. I’ll call you guys back if anything changes. For now, just stay on the target.” 

“Got it.” 

Ronny disconnected and set the phone back by the gearshift. Beside him, Ian was slouched in his seat again, staring back out the window. Ronny glanced at him and thought about how the kid’s life had changed forever a year ago. He thought about how he himself, almost five years ago, had woken up in that shed just a few miles from the Mexican border. How his wife and two children had been taken and held captive by Simon. How he had thought just like Ian had thought—how all the players no doubt thought, even the Racist a quarter mile ahead of them—that this was just another segment in The Twilight Zone and the monster was outside right now, waiting to get his attention, waiting to show him that it wasn’t safe no matter how much he tried telling himself otherwise.

3

Actually, inside the Crown Vic that moment, the Racist wasn’t worried about monsters waiting outside. At that moment, he was worried about the monster on the other end of the cell phone. The monster whose voice he’d first heard less than two days ago, telling him that his wife and son had been taken captive and that the only way to get them back was to be a good boy and do everything Simon said or else they died. 

And Simon, at that very moment, was doing everything he could to set the Racist off. 

“Come on, Mason,” he was saying, because the Racist’s name was Mason Coulter, an ex-con who’d been working as a mechanic for the past five years. “You can admit it to me. I won’t tell anyone.” 

Mason’s entire body was shaking. Not so much out of fear or concern but rather anger. An inexorable rage coursed through his blood. This fuck face and whoever else took his family were going to pay. Of this, Mason was certain. How and when, well, that was something to worry about later. Right now, though, if he wanted to keep his family alive, he had to do everything Simon said, which included putting up with the asshole’s grating voice. 

“No,” Mason murmured. 

“Yes,” Simon said. “Tell me how much you liked the feel of that man’s mouth around your cock. I mean, you did come, didn’t you? You must have liked it. You must have loved it.” 

“Shut up!” Mason shouted, the sudden outburst surprising even him. 

Simon chuckled. “What’s wrong, Mason? Do you want to cry? Cry like a little fucking girl?” He paused. “What about fucking a little girl? Would that make you feel better? Would that make you feel more like a man? Because if it came down to it and you were given the choice, which would you do?” 

“What?” Mason said. The rain was falling harder and harder, the windshield wipers working full force. “What are you talking about?” 

“Well,” Simon said matter-of-factly, “between fucking a little girl and killing her, which would you prefer?” 

Mason’s mouth opened but then slowly closed. 

“Just think about that, Mason. Think about which would be easier for you. Or is this maybe a race issue? Like, would it be easier to kill a black girl or would it be easier to fuck a white girl? Or vice versa?” Another pause. “Are you there, Mason? I can see you, but I don’t hear you.” 

 Mason swallowed, his massive Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. His throat was dry. He wanted water, soda, beer, something, but he had nothing to drink. He had nothing at all except the money in the wallet that had been given to him very early in the game. That and the cell phone now seemingly glued to his ear. 

“Yes,” he finally managed. “I’m here.” 

“Good,” Simon said. “It’s very good that you’re still with me. Because the longer you’re with me, the longer Gloria and Anthony stay alive. Say, you want them to stay alive, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Mason breathed. His body still shook. “God, yes I do.” 

“That’s great, Mason. That’s fantastic. So just do yourself a favor and play the game and maybe both your wife and son will make it out of this in one piece. Got it?”

4

Eventually the Racist turned off 95 onto the Julia Tuttle Causeway, taking him over Biscayne Bay and into Miami Beach. 

Now that our target had gone deeper into the city, we had closed the gap. Ronny and Ian stayed only six car lengths behind, while Carver and I stayed five car lengths behind them. Traffic was everywhere, making it impossible for the Racist to know we were following him. Besides, it wasn’t him we were worried so much about but rather his escorts, who we usually spotted by now. 

Despite the heavy rain, people were still out and about, hurrying from one restaurant or bar or club to the next. Palm trees danced to the music of the rain and wind. Lightning continued to streak the sky like a strobe. 

The Crown Vic slowed in front of a place called The Spur. Then it sped up again, drove for another two blocks, and pulled into a parking lot. 

Carver checked his gun as he called Ronny. 

“Head down another couple of blocks and park where you can. We’ll keep an eye on him.” 

The SUV continued down the street, lost with the constant rush of traffic. I slowed as we neared the parking lot. The sodium-arc lamps illuminating the lot were dim, but they were just strong enough to see the Racist’s massive bulk as he climbed out of the car. 

We passed the lot and came to a red light. 

Carver put in his earpiece and said, “Go around the block, find a place to park,” and then he was outside, getting drenched by the rain, slamming the door behind him.

•    •    •

FINDING A PLACE to park in Miami Beach on a Saturday night, even if it is past midnight and raining like hell, is not an easy task. Eventually I did find a space, but it was four blocks away from the spot I’d dropped off Carver, even further from the spot where Carver had trailed the Racist. That place the target had slowed down in front of, The Spur, was where Carver had tracked him, which was seven blocks away. 

Before getting out of the car, I put in my earpiece. Then I checked my gun, a Sig Sauer SP2022. I shoved it in the back waistband of my jeans, placed a baseball cap on my head, locked the car and hurried back down the street. I was completely drenched by the time I made it to the main strip. 

In my ear Carver asked where I was. 

“I’m almost there,” I said, my hands in my pockets, my head tilted down but still aware of every person I passed. 

I spotted The Spur forty seconds later. There was a small line outside. They were illuminated by a yellow and red neon sign of a cowboy boot hanging above their heads, its spur flashing blue. 

Carver and Ronny were waiting on the opposite side of the street, half a block down. Carver was talking on his cell phone. 

I nodded to Ronny. “Where’s Ian?” 

“Keeping an eye on the back,” he said. Then, his face all at once somber, “This is messed up.” 

I nodded, thinking he meant the little girl strapped to the bed. 

Then Carver finished his call and said, “Ben, give Ronny your piece.” 

“What?” 

“Lose the gun.” 

It’s important to note that in the past two years I’d never once questioned Carver. In many ways, he saved my life, and I owed him a great deal. So when he gave me an order I never faltered or asked why. But now, with the rain coming down hard, with lightning streaking the sky, with us so close to our latest target, I couldn’t help myself. 

“Why?” 

He had turned to say something to Ronny but now paused, looked back at me, and said, his voice hard, “They’ll wand us at the door.” 

I understood then why Ronny had said this was messed up. Not the little girl strapped to the bed—which was indeed messed up, just on an entirely different level—but the fact that Carver and I were apparently going inside The Spur, just the two of us, without any weapons. 

The first rule about trailing a target—the most important rule Carver always stressed—was never get yourself trapped. That’s why we most often did the Smash and Grab. Because then we were out in the open, with limitless exits. But inside a store, inside a house, inside a club, the exits become limited. It gets to the point that if there was a trap and Caesar’s men surrounded us, it would be a hell of a time trying to get out alive. And now, going inside The Spur, where they were bound to wave a metal detecting wand over us, which meant of course we couldn’t take our guns inside, I realized just how messed up—how fucked up—this had become. 

“Why can’t we just wait for him to come out?” 

“The girl might be in there.” 

“She’s not.” 

“She might be,” Carver said. “We can’t take that chance. We need eyes on the inside, and we need them now.” 

Carver stared at me hard and I knew there was no point trying to argue. I reached behind my back, pulled the Sig out, handed it to Ronny. He made it disappear into his rain parka almost instantly. 

“Who was on the phone?” 

“The Kid,” Carver said. “I had him look up what he could about The Spur.” 

“And?” 

“There’s going to be trouble inside.” 

“How can you be so sure?” 

“Because The Spur,” Carver said, “is a gay bar.”

5

Mason Coulter had the words DEATH TO FAGS tattooed across his chest. Below this, on the left side of his stomach, was a swastika. Beside the swastika, on the right side of his stomach, were two crossed hammers. 

These tattoos had not been on his skin three days ago. Before then he had only had two, both prison ink. One was his son’s name, the other a crossed out AB. The AB stood for the Aryan Brotherhood, which he had briefly been a member of when he was inside. But he had had no choice in the matter, not if he wanted to survive, and so he had become a skinhead for his wife’s and son’s sake—at least that was what he told himself at the time—but after he had gotten out one of the first things he had done was had it crossed out. The thought had occurred to him to try to get rid of it completely, but he wanted it there as a reminder, a constant accusatory memento of the life he had once led and the life he had almost once lost. 

But now there were others. 

On his chest. 

On his arms. 

On his back and on his legs. 

His entire body was covered in these tattoos that had appeared on his swollen and raw skin when he woke up two days ago in Alma, Georgia. 

He had been in a bathtub, completely naked. A cell phone was on the bathtub’s rim. It rang the moment Mason sat up. And who had been on the other end? A voice calling itself Simon. Simon saying good morning, Mason, how are you doing? Simon then asking what Mason thought about his new ink. Simon telling Mason that if he ever wanted to see his wife and son again, he would do exactly what Simon said. 

Mason had lurched out of the tub, knowing at once that this wasn’t his bathroom. He opened the door and stepped into a bedroom that wasn’t his either. 

On the bed lay two naked black men. They were both dead, their throats slit. One even had his eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. 

“My, my, my,” Simon said softly in Mason’s ear. “Would you look at that? Two deceased homosexual African Americans.” A chuckle. “That’s quite a mouthful. Though I guess you’d call them dead queer niggers, wouldn’t you, Mason? I mean, that is what a racist would say, isn’t it?” 

Mason was a tall man, standing six-five, weighing close to three hundred and fifty pounds. He had a lazy face, somewhat resembling a bloodhound, but he was the type of man who demanded respect wherever he went, taking no shit from anyone. But now here, standing completely naked in this strange place, talking to this strange man, something broke inside him. An internal dam that he had been building most of his life broke and, though he did not cry, tears welled up in his eyes. 

In his ear, Simon said, “Oh no, Mason, don’t do that. At least not yet. Right now ... well, compared to what’s in store for you, this is nothing to cry about. Now, see those glasses on the nightstand? Put them on.” 

“But I”—he swallowed—“I don’t wear glasses.” 

“Mason, Mason, Mason,” the voice said tiredly. “Do you want your family to die?” 

“No.” 

“Then when Simon says do something, you better fucking do it and don’t ask questions.” 

Later that night, after making him snatch a pack of gum from a local convenience store, Simon had Mason drive to a nearby apartment. In that apartment was a male prostitute. The prostitute introduced himself as Izzy. He was a deeply tanned man, maybe twenty-five years old, who had bleached blond hair with black roots. Izzy had welcomed Mason, stroking his arm as he led Mason deeper into his apartment, the place decked out in some retro seventies motif, and it took everything Mason had at that moment not to punch Izzy’s lights out. But Simon had said that Mason needed to go through with this, that if he ever wanted to see his wife and son alive again, he would follow through and not back out. 

And the first thing Simon wanted Mason to do? 

Let Izzy suck his cock. 

Which he had no choice but to go through with. Sitting there on a velvet couch, his pants and boxers down around his ankles, Izzy on his knees before him while a fucking lava lamp changed colors in the corner. Mason’s entire body was shaking and he wanted to push this man away, he wanted to at least look away, but he couldn’t. Simon said he had to watch, that he needed to watch, or else one of Gloria’s body parts would be shipped to him. 

And so he watched. 

He sat there and he watched the young man’s head bob up and down, his lips around the shaft of his penis. At one point Izzy even looked up at him, and there was a smile in his eyes, a pleasure that nearly drove Mason insane. And right as he came he couldn’t take it anymore—he reached forward and grabbed the prostitute’s head, twisted it back and forth, again and again, until he’d severed the spinal column and left Izzy on the ground, paralyzed. 

Thirty seconds later the cell phone rang. 

“Wow,” Simon said. “That’s all I can say, Mason. Just ... wow.” 

Now here he was, in a gay club called The Spur. Dance music pounding from speakers all over the place. Neon flashing lights everywhere. Mostly men in tight shirts and jeans moving around the club, talking to each other, flirting, buying each other drinks, but it looked like there were a handful of transvestites too. 

He walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. 

“Honey,” the bartender said, a tall skinny man with a red mohawk, “I never saw you around here before. You new?” 

With much effort, Mason nodded. 

“Well,” the bartender said, smiling at Mason as he pulled a beer up from under the bar and set it on top, “the first one’s always on me.” 

And so Mason stood there and waited. Thinking about what Simon had said to him. How he was to come to this place, The Spur. How he was supposed to order a beer and then just stand around, wait for someone to come up and ask him to dance. And when that happened, when someone came up and tapped him on the shoulder, he was supposed to dance. 

“Or else your wife’s heart?” Simon had said. “I’ll send it to you in a box.”

6

We spotted the Racist almost immediately. He wasn’t that hard to find. There were a lot of big men flitting between the bar and dance floor and lounge, but the Racist was recognizable by just how uncomfortable he appeared. Plus, he wore the telltale pair of glasses that didn’t seem to go right with his face. 

Some things never changed. I remembered the first time I put on a similar pair of glasses in a motel room in northern California. They’d been on the bathroom sink, and when I’d put them on they were heavy and thick and pinched my nose. But the lenses had been my prescription, and when I turned around I found the message that had been painted on the back of the bathroom door in blood. 

For the Racist, the game had been going on now for two days. I knew pretty much everything that had happened to him so far. The waking up in a strange place. The special surprise that helped grab the new player’s attention. This was all followed by the first part of the game, something simple, like stealing a candy bar or a pack of gum, or going to a diner, eating a meal, and then walking out without paying the check. Something that wasn’t difficult at all when it came right down to it. Something that helped prepare the player for the later parts of the game. Start small, work your way up. 

The Racist’s game had started at least two hours before the Kid called us. We’d been at the house, our own special base, just hanging out, more or less waiting for the Kid to call. And then when he did he forwarded an email with everything he had downloaded so far. 

The camera positioned in the ceiling corner of the bathroom, staring down at the latest player lying naked in the tub. Another camera positioned in the bedroom just outside of the bathroom, where two men lay dead on a king size bed. Even from the distance of the ceiling to the bed the bloody slits on their necks had been evident. 

It wasn’t my turn to go this time, it was Jesse’s, but Jesse had gone with Maya into town for groceries, and when a game started like this, there was no time to waste. So Carver came to me, told me to come along, and we headed to the airport, where Fred was waiting to fly us to Atlanta. From there I’d managed to secure the Corolla, no questions asked, and then Carver and I were headed south, because all the Kid knew at that point was that the Racist was somewhere in southern Georgia. Meanwhile, Ronny and Ian had gotten into the SUV and started south too, planning to meet up with us whenever they got the chance. Driving nonstop, switching off when the other one got tired. It was the way our missions always went, one team heading out first to see what they could, then a second team—the pick up team—coming in behind for backup. 

We’d almost had a chance to catch the Racist in Jacksonville this afternoon, but it just didn’t work out. So we’d followed him down 95, just as it was starting to rain, hoping for a simple Smash and Grab to end this once and for all. But that didn’t happen. Instead the Kid had called, telling us about the girl strapped to the bed, and now here we were, surrounded by pumping music and flashing lights. 

Carver went to the bar. He came back with two beers and handed me one. I sipped it just for show, keeping my focus on the Racist as he moved awkwardly on the dance floor, directly beneath a disco ball. He had a beer in hand and looked like he was being tortured, his face flushed and his jaw clenched, as a transvestite in a yellow and pink polka dotted dress grinded up against his crotch.

•    •    •

OUR EARPIECES WERE useless, not with the loud pumping music, so we took them out and placed them in our pockets. Carver and I split up and drifted around the club, keeping an eye on the Racist while also keeping an eye out for his escorts. 

After about ten minutes, Simon called. 

At least we had to assume it was Simon calling, because the Racist pulled the standard black cell phone from his pocket, looked at the screen, then quickly turned away from the transvestite and strode off the dance floor. He ended up in the lounge, surrounded by fake cacti, a finger to his ear while he strained to listen to the phone. He stood that way for several minutes, occasionally nodding, occasionally shaking his head. Finally he took the phone away from his ear, stared down at the screen, then jabbed a button with his thumb. Stuffed it back into his pocket, glanced once more at the people around him, and started moving. 

By this point Carver and I had reconvened on the other side of the club. 

I leaned into Carver, shouted into his ear, “What do you think?” 

Carver shook his head. 

The Racist had returned to the bar. In seconds a red mohawked bartender was pouring the Racist a shot of Jameson, reminding me of being in the Sundown Saloon back in Reno, ordering two shots of Southern Comfort before Simon made me do something I didn’t want to do. 

Both of us whiskey drinkers, apparently. As if that bonded us somehow. 

“This is it,” I shouted. 

Carver nodded. He shouted back, “Get the car. I’ll call you when I’m headed out. Let Ronny and Ian know what’s up.” 

I headed for the exit. As I stepped outside, passing a bouncer decked in a cowboy hat and chaps, I took the earpiece out of my pocket and replaced it in my ear. 

“You guys there?” 

Ronny said, “Where have you been?” 

Ian said, “Yeah, man, we were getting worried.”

“Sorry,” I said. “The Village People were having a reunion inside.” 

“Seriously?” Ian asked. 

“Look, the target’s on his way out. Ian, get the SUV.” 

“I don’t have the keys.” 

Ronny said, “I’m headed there now.” 

“Then meet up with him, Ian. We’re going to have a very small window to maintain visual.” 

I was headed away from the club. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Traffic was still heavy, tires hissing on the pavement. And above this constant noise came the sudden high-pitched whine of a motorcycle as it approached from down the street. The light at the intersection was turning yellow, then red, and the motorcycle stopped more or less directly in front of me. It was a Ducati sport bike. For some reason my eyes focused on the rider, completely dressed in black, wearing a full helmet. The helmet was also black—everything about the bike and rider was black—and when the dark faceplate tilted in my direction, I had the distinct impression the rider was staring at me. 

I just stood there on the sidewalk, staring back at the rider, at once wishing I hadn’t given Ronny my gun. 

The red light turned green, the glow reflected off the black faceplate. 

Traffic started moving forward. 

The high-pitched whine cried out again as the rider gunned the Ducati and then was gone. 

All at once, shouting came from inside The Spur. The walkie-talkie clipped to the bouncer’s belt screeched with static, and an urgent voice said: “Micah, we need you in here now.” 

The bouncer was already moving, turning away from his post and dashing inside. I found myself starting forward too. Reaching back into my waistband where I usually kept my gun, but of course I didn’t have my gun. I didn’t have anything. 

I stepped back inside, my eyes darting everywhere, expecting the worst. What I wasn’t expecting to find was the Racist charging toward the exit. The bouncer tried stepping in his way, placing a hand on the Racist’s massive chest. But the Racist grabbed the bouncer’s arm and twisted it behind the man’s back, shoved him face first into the wall, and continued on. 

Coming right at me. 

Behind him, back near the bar, the transvestite in the yellow and pink polka dotted dress was being helped up by two helpful patrons. The transvestite was holding her—his?—jaw, shoulders hitching, trying to fight back tears. It was quite clear what had happened, or at least somewhat clear, but I had no time to speculate, because at that moment the Racist was walking right past me, close enough for me to reach out and touch. 

And what, I’d later wonder to myself, if I had? What if I’d stepped in front of him like the bouncer had done and told him I knew exactly what was happening. That I too had once been trapped in Simon’s game, thinking there was still a chance to save my family. But that instead I quickly learned there was no outlet, absolutely nothing that could be done to save my family or myself other than walking away. 

But I didn’t do that. 

I just stood there, watching him walk past me, hearing him mumbling under his breath. In the next moment he was gone, stepping out into the drizzle, and it took me a couple seconds before I realized I should be out there too, that I should already have returned to the Corolla to bring it around. 

Carver appeared in the space the Racist had occupied only seconds before, pulling his own earpiece out of his pocket. 

“What happened?” I asked, but Carver just shook his head and hurried past me out into the street.

7

After leaving The Spur, the Racist went straight for where he had parked the Crown Victoria. 

Ian watched him the entire time, while Ronny fetched the SUV. Ian stood on the other side of the street, a half block down, his hands in his jacket pockets, his head covered with a Red Sox cap, and watched as the Racist started the car, backed out of its space, and left the lot. Seconds later Ronny pulled up in the SUV, Ian jumped in, and then they were off, maintaining a five car-length buffer. 

By that point Carver and I had returned to the Corolla. Ronny kept us in the loop the entire time, informing us that currently the target was headed north on Collins Avenue. Carver pulled up a map of our current location on his phone and directed me on a shortcut to catch up with them. 

“We don’t have our guns,” I said. 

Carver’s dark face was illuminated by his phone’s small screen. “We’ll be fine.” 

There was a silence. 

I asked, “Just what the fuck happened in there anyhow?” 

Carver didn’t look like he was going to answer at first. He just sat there, staring at his phone. Something was different about his face, about his entire body language. I’d been working with Carver for two years now and we had been paired up many times tracking a new target. I’d begun to get a good sense of Carver’s moods, and his different kinds of silences. But this was a new silence. 

“Well?” I prompted. 

He blinked and looked out his window and took a deep breath. “The guy just ... flipped out. He’s a loose cannon. That transvestite went up to him, barely said a word, and he just hit her. Smacked her right in the face, then kneed her in the groin. I know it’s hard to believe, but I think Simon’s already broken this one. I think”—he swallowed—“I think we might have another Christian Kane on our hands.” 

There was another silence. 

Then, in our earpieces, Ronny muttered, “Jesus Christ.” 

Carver, nodding slowly, staring back down at the map on his phone, said, “Exactly.”

•    •    •

FIVE MINUTES LATER, the rain still drizzling, Ronny said, “He just pulled into a hotel parking lot.” 

“What hotel?” Carver asked. 

“The Beachside. We’re going up to the second entrance to park.” 

Carver closed the map on his phone and called the Kid, putting him again on speakerphone. He said, “Find out everything you can about the Beachside Hotel. That looks to be our target’s next location.” 

“You think the girl’s in there?” 

“Possibly. Has the page changed?” 

“Nope. I keep checking it every thirty seconds but it’s still the same. Wish I didn’t have to, though. I feel like a fucking perv with this thing on my screen.” 

“You’ve seen worse.” 

“Don’t remind me.” 

“Listen,” Carver said, “find out everything you can about the place and get back to me. But do it fast. We’re pulling in now.” 

He clicked off just as we passed the hotel’s first entrance, the same one the Racist had used. 

Compared to the rest of the hotels along Collins Avenue, the Beachside wasn’t overly impressive. The building was mostly white stucco, no more than twenty stories high. The parking lot was moderately full. 

“Ronny,” I said, “we’re pulling into the second entrance now.” 

Ronny said, “Take the first left and come the whole way back.” 

I followed his directions and seconds later parked the Corolla two spaces away from the SUV. Then Carver and I got out and hurried over and climbed into the SUV’s backseat. 

Ronny had our guns and handed them back to us. “What’s the plan?” 

“The plan,” Carver said, hefting his Glock 30, “is we take him as soon as possible. But first he has to get his room number. Once he has that, we’re set.” 

“And, um—” Ronny paused, clearly not sure how to continue. He sat there in the driver’s seat, a large man with a full beard who had once been a trucker hauling food orders for restaurants across the country. His St. Christopher’s medallion hung limp from the rearview mirror. “And what about the girl?” 

“At this moment,” Carver said, making sure to look at each of us in the eye, “the girl is the main objective.” 

We were silent, waiting for him to say more. 

He didn’t. Instead he pulled out his phone and dialed the Kid, put him on speakerphone. 

“Any info on this place yet?” 

“It’s been like twenty seconds.” 

“Any info?” 

“No.” 

“Then forget it. We’re headed in now.” He disconnected and shoved the phone in his pocket. He checked the Glock’s magazine, reinserted it, racked the slide, reached for the door handle. Looked back at us and said, “Let’s do this.”

8

Yes, it was true—he had lost his cool. Mason would be the first to admit it. That fucking thing had come up to him in the bar, placed a hand on his arm, and started talking to him, asking what he was doing later, if maybe Mason would like to come back to its place. So what was Mason supposed to do, standing there with a he/she/it touching his arm? Probably not clock it in the face and then knee it in the crotch—where it used to have balls, or maybe still did—but that’s what happened. 

That was something Mason, at that moment, needed to have happen. 

What he didn’t need was Simon calling him once he’d left the bar, once he’d gotten in the car and started it up. He didn’t need Simon’s fucking voice berating him for acting like an asshole in public. 

“I mean, goddamn it, Mason, do you want your family to suffer?” Simon had never sounded this worked up, this agitated. “Do you want me to go to Gloria and little Anthony and tear their fingernails off? Do you want me to break their fingers, their hands, and just work my way up their arms? Is that what you want?” 

Mason hadn’t responded as he sat there in the car, listening to the rain, to his own thoughts. 

Simon sighed. “Okay, I get it, Mason. You’re tough. Nobody messes with you. But that’s the thing I don’t think you quite understand yet. Nobody messing with you? That’s the way it used to be. Now you have no choice. Got it? Unless you really do want your wife and son to die. Is that what you want, Mason? Say it is and I’ll make sure it happens right now. I’ll even let you listen.” 

Mason closed his eyes. “No.” 

“What was that? I’m sorry, Mason, I don’t think I heard you.” 

“No,” Mason repeated, this time with more emphasis. 

“Now that’s more like it,” Simon said. “So have you decided about that ... other thing we discussed?” 

Mason said, “What other thing?” Knowing very well what Simon meant. 

But of course Simon didn’t answer him. He just gave Mason directions, to a hotel further up Miami Beach. He told him go inside and introduce himself as William Simmons. He told him to accept the key given to him and go up to his room, and that once he got there ... well, now that was going to be the interesting part, wasn’t it? 

So that Friday evening, about a quarter past two in the morning, Mason Coulter entered the Beachside Hotel. He stepped out from under the light rain to find a marble-tiled lobby with potted plants everywhere. A restaurant called The Cove sat to his right. It was closed, completely dark. A gift shop called The Sand Castle sat to his left. It too was closed, also completely dark. 

A man stood behind the check-in counter. He was the only person in the lobby. He was about Mason’s age, roughly forty, and wore horn-rimmed glasses. For some reason the glasses didn’t look right on him, this pale man with a mop of brown hair staring down at a computer screen. The incongruousness of the glasses reminded Mason of his own glasses, the ones he’d been told to wear. He had never worn glasses a day in his life, and the feel of them on his nose and around his ears was very uncomfortable. 

Mason walked up to the counter, taking his time as he went. He remembered what Simon had told him, about the choice he would have to make, and he figured the longer he took to check in, the more of a reprieve he had. 

The man looked up at him, smiled a fake smile. His nametag said KEVIN. 

“Welcome to the Beachside Hotel, sir,” the clerk said, his voice almost as fake as his smile. “How can I help you?” 

“I have a room reserved for me.” 

“Of course, sir,” Kevin said, typing something onto a keyboard. “What’s the name?” 

“William Simmons,” Mason said, and at once, like a slap, he realized the importance of that name, why Simon had used it among a million others. 

The former preacher William Simmons. Colonel William Simmons. The man who, in 1915, helped organize the new society of the original Klan. 

Simon’s little inside joke. 

“Thank you, sir,” Kevin said, his focus on the computer screen, typing again. It was the only noise, that incessant clicking of the keys. 

Something didn’t feel right. 

Of course, many things didn’t feel right to Mason, not in the past forty-eight hours, but at that moment, standing in the lobby of the Beachside Hotel, with just him and Kevin, something felt wrong. 

He looked to his right, at the glass doors he had just used to enter and the side parking lot beyond. Then to his left, at an identical pair of glass doors leading to the parking lot on the other side of the building. Nothing moved in either direction. 

“Busy night?” 

“Yes,” Kevin said, nodding as he typed, “it’s been very busy indeed.” 

But the thing was, the hotel didn’t feel like it had been very busy. There were cars in the parking lot, sure, a lot of cars, but that sense of other people being in one closely confided space at the same time was missing. 

Or at least Mason just couldn’t feel it. 

Kevin held up a black plastic keycard, still flashing that fake smile. “You’ll be in room three-thirty-nine. It’s on the third floor.” 

Mason took the key without a word. He saw, just as he took the proffered card, that his hand was trembling. His stomach was churning too, like he had eaten something his stomach disagreed with, but the truth was he hadn’t eaten anything in the last twelve hours. 

“Have a great stay, sir,” Kevin said. 

Mason turned away, his stomach still doing somersaults. His gaze swept the empty lobby—the potted plants, the couches and chairs, the overlarge fake sand castle in the corner—before stopping on the one pair of glass entrance doors. There were people out there, the first signs of life in this place besides Kevin and himself. 

The glass doors slid apart. Three men walked in. 

“Um, Mason?” Kevin said behind him. 

Mason instantly froze. He slowly started to turn back to the check-in counter—thinking, How does he know my name?—when the Uzi in the clerk’s hands stopped him. 

Kevin said, “You might want to duck.” 

And then started shooting.

9

The first thing we saw when we entered the lobby was the Racist. He was just standing there, a plastic keycard in his hand, watching as the glass doors parted in front of us. Then the clerk behind the counter said something, and the Racist glanced back. 

Just as the man brought up an Uzi submachine gun. 

Carver said, “Shit,” and immediately grabbed for his gun. Ian and I grabbed our guns too, and then we were diving for cover right as the clerk opened fire—Carver toward the right, me and Ian toward the left. I fell to the floor behind a couch. I waited a moment, flat on the ground, before jumping back up. 

The things I noticed in the half second before I started shooting: the Racist on the floor, his hands covering his head; the clerk gritting his teeth as the Uzi in his hands kicked with each shot. 

Then that half-second was over and I opened fire. I was aiming for the clerk, right at his head. Three shots later he went down. 

“Carver!” I could almost see him on the peripheral, a dark shape wedged in behind a small jungle of potted plants. 

“I’m okay,” he said. The fake leaves rustled and he emerged, his gun in his hands, slowly approaching the desk. 

Without even knowing it I was moving too, my arms bent just so that I was cradling the Sig, keeping it aimed right at the spot the clerk had been standing. Ian got up from where he had taken cover and followed. 

On the floor the Racist slowly moved. He raised his head, squinting up at us. 

Carver approached him. He reached down and tore the glasses off the Racist’s face, snapped them in two. 

“Hey,” the Racist said in a strangled voice. 

“What room is she in?” 

“Huh?” 

Before Carver could repeat his question, the doors to the restaurant burst open and two men appeared. They too had Uzis and immediately started firing. 

Carver sprinted toward the check-in counter and dove over it just as a spray of bullets tore up the tiled floor in his wake. 

Ian and I dove back toward the closest pillars to take cover. 

The two men split up as they fired, one heading my direction, the other heading toward the counter. Both managed to shield themselves with the pillars near the restaurant as Ian and I both stepped back out and returned fire. 

Out on the floor, the Racist once more lay flat with his hands over his head. 

At once Carver appeared behind the counter, the Uzi in hand. He opened up, his finger on the trigger, the gun spitting out nonstop rounds, taking off chips of the marble pillars the men were hiding behind. 

Both Ian and I saw this as an opportunity. 

We started firing too, stepping around our pillars, moving closer. 

The men didn’t know which way to fire. 

They panicked. 

As if on cue they started backpedaling toward the restaurant, their only form of retreat. They moved back-to-back and continued firing, but it did them no good. 

Our bullets took them down almost at once. 

Again, silence. Except for the ringing in our ears. 

Carver vaulted over the counter. He nodded at me and Ian and the three of us made a quick circuit of the lobby, checking the restaurant and gift shop and anywhere else someone might be hiding with a semi-automatic weapon. Once we established the place was clear—at least for the time being—Carver approached the Racist, who once again had his head raised, looking around to make sure all was safe. 

“Where is she?” Carver repeated. 

“Please,” the Racist said. “I don’t know what’s happening. I just—” 

“What room did Simon tell you to go to?” 

And like that, a kind of understanding filled the Racist’s face. He was in the process of standing up, getting first to his knees, then placing one foot on the ground. This was where he stopped, looking like a man about to propose to the love of his life. 

“What ... what did you say?” 

The barrel of Carver’s gun must have looked pretty intimidating aimed right at the man’s face. 

Carver said, “What room?” 

For the longest moment the Racist didn’t say anything. Then, his voice trembling, “Room three-thirty-nine. Third floor.” His gaze skipped around at our faces. “Who are you people?”

10

After a sudden volley of gunfire in the lobby of a hotel in Miami Beach, you’d expect there to be some people around. Employees, guests, a random vagrant—anyone to poke their heads out from doors, to maybe scream out loud at the insanity of it all. But there were no doors opening partway to reveal frightened faces. No screams or even murmurs floating down the hallway. Nothing.

The Racist climbed to his feet. Both Ian and I kept our guns on him. The man stood there, clearly confused. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” 

“We’re here to help you,” Carver said. “Now go with them. They’re going to take you to safety.” 

“But what about Gloria and Anthony? What’s gonna happen to them? What about—” 

“They’re already dead. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that, but this is how Simon works. You never even had a chance to save them in the first place.” 

Ian and I maintained close proximity to the Racist. He still hadn’t looked at us. He was still staring at Carver, anger and fury in his eyes. 

A soft noise suddenly filled the silence. A noise that was almost impossible to hear over the ringing in my ears. But it was a noise I recognized, a noise I understood, and I wasn’t surprised at all when the Racist glanced down at the right front pocket of his jeans, at the bulge of a cell phone there. 

“Give me that,” Carver said. He held out his hand. Kept it there, his palm up, until the Racist slowly pulled the black phone from his pocket and placed it in Carver’s hand. Carver answered, “Go ahead, Simon.” A pause, then a small grin. Carver said, “Yeah, fuck you too,” and dropped the phone to the floor where he stomped on it once, twice, three times. 

Maybe a minute had passed since the initial shootout. The astringent odor of burnt cordite was still thick in the air. The ringing in my ears had begun to fade. And still no one had entered the lobby. 

“Now,” Carver said to the Racist, “go with them.” 

“But—” the Racist started to say, then glanced at Ian and me for the first time. Saw the guns in our hands. 

“Let’s go,” I said. 

For some reason I expected more protest from this man. I expected some real trouble, especially after what had happened earlier at The Spur. A loose cannon, Carver had said about our latest target, how we might have another Christian Kane on our hands, and he was right. So right now, I figured this man was at the end of his rope and was apt to do anything unreasonable. 

But he glanced once again around the lobby, at the plaster and the bits of foam from the couches and chairs. At the two dead bodies lying near the restaurant. 

And without a word he started walking. 

Heading right toward the lobby exit. 

Ian pulled out a plastic zip tie. “Do us a favor and let us put these on you.” 

The Racist stopped walking, stared directly down at the black plastic binding. “For what?” 

I said, “For our safety.” 

The man shook his head. “No. No fucking way I’m letting you touch me with that fucking stuff.” 

Carver was behind the Racist an instant later. Kicking the back of his knees, forcing him to floor. Then Carver grabbed the man’s arm, yanked it behind his back, then did the same to his other arm. 

The whole process took less than five seconds. 

The Racist fought this of course, kicking and rocking his body, trying to get Carver off of him. But at the moment Carver had the advantage, his knee right in the small of the Racist’s back, grasping both of the Racist’s wrists together so Ian could bend down and wrap the plastic zip ties around them, squeeze them tight. 

Once it was done, Carver stood up. He yanked the Racist back to his feet. It was surprising to watch this happen, because the Racist was at least one hundred and fifty pounds heavier than Carver. 

“We don’t have time to deal with this bullshit,” Carver said to the Racist, who wasn’t even looking at Carver, was instead facing the glass doors. Carver pushed him forward. The man stumbled a little. Ian and I immediately came up behind him, taking one elbow each and leading him across the marble tiles toward the exit. 

The electric eye sensed us and the doors slid apart. The SUV was parked at the end of the walkway, Ronny having been in radio communication the entire time, knowing we were headed out with the target. He stood beside the opened side door, a gun held at his side. 

“You guys all right?” he asked. 

I nodded. “So far.” 

We were less than ten yards away from the SUV when Ian let go of the Racist. I watched it happen from the corner of my eye. It took only a second, Ian releasing his grip on the target’s elbow so he could switch hands. But it was all the Racist needed. He was in motion at once. His arms were behind his back, sure, but that didn’t stop him as he swung around, trying to get at us. His teeth gritted, his face flushed, he growled as he kicked out first at me, then at Ian. 

Ronny didn’t hesitate. He rushed forward, withdrawing an EpiPen from his pocket. Instead of containing epinephrine, this pen was filled with a special form of methohexital—a barbiturate—we had cooked up for situations such as these. In one smooth motion, Ronny stabbed the Racist in the side of the neck. 

The effect wasn’t instantaneous. It would take nearly a minute to knock the Racist out. But it slowed him, and gave us the extra time to hurry him over to the SUV and shove him inside. 

Then Ronny turned to me and said, “Go.”

•    •    •

CARVER WAS WAITING for me in the lobby, his gun in hand. In his other hand was the black plastic keycard. 

“Nothing yet?” I asked. 

He shook his head. 

We started toward the stairs. Both with our guns out, neither saying a word. Now that the ringing had completely left my ears, the silence surrounding us was just too palpable. 

Through the fire door then and up the stairs. 

First one flight, the second flight, the third. 

Carver and I paused in front of the fire door, our guns at the ready. I placed my hand on the latch. Carver nodded once. I pushed the door open, just a little, giving Carver enough space to aim his weapon. 

Keeping his gun aimed and his focus through the space looking onto the third floor, he nodded again. 

I pushed the door open further, enough so Carver could slip through. I followed. Here there were four elevators, a potted plant in the corner, a polished oak table standing against the wall with a lamp and telephone on top. The carpet silenced our footsteps as we approached a T-intersection of the hallway. There were signs on the wall, pointing which rooms were to the left, which were to the right. The ice machine directly across from us hummed quietly, working its hardest to produce its required one-ice-cube-per-hour quota. 

The direction we wanted to go—where room 339 was located—was to the left. 

The silence seemed even more oppressive up here. In our ears we could hear Ronny and Ian situating the Racist in the SUV. The noise was low but still too much of a distraction that we took out our earpieces, put them in our pockets. 

Carver placed his back against the wall, peeked around the corner. He raised a fist—clear. 

We started down the hall, Carver covering the front while I covered the back. The hallway was carpeted in a design of seashells. Doors lined both sides. A red fire extinguisher hung on the wall down by the window at the end of the hall. 

Besides the humming ice machine, the silence thickened. 

We were only five rooms away from room 339 when a door suddenly opened. A man stepped out. He had a rifle in his hands, aimed directly at Carver.