Nick agreed with his usual payment up front anonymously, and full access to Costiga’s shipments and personal relationships. Nick didn’t like acting as his own detective agency then. As he explained to Costiga only someone near to him could be doing it. Nick suspected Fayers immediately. He arranged for Costiga to allow Fayers to plainly obtain information on the next large shipment by truck coming in that night. Nick tailed the shipment from point of origin.
Fayers’ crew used a rigged cop car to stop the eighteen wheeler, also carrying a cover shipment of furniture. Nick had been following the rig with lights out. He drove to the passenger side of the rig, parked and ran for the front with a Colt SMG 635 submachine gun. Nick executed Fayers’ crew as they stood near the fake police car with short 9mm bursts. With precision, he had then shot them each again where they fell. Without pausing, Nick ran to the driver’s window, shouting at the ducking driver to smash a hole and continue on course. The driver did as told, pulping two of the bodies as he smashed through the left rear quarter panel. Nick took pictures, DNA samples, and left. Nick created his first and favorite assassin’s line from the time crossing the country with Rachel and Jean with their lives in his hands in relation to the Fayers’ sanctions. Shortly after killing her gang, Nick dealt with the last Costiga target: Fayers.
Remembering the night Rachel began to suspect Nick’s reality changed everything in their dangerous co-dependency at the time. Nick remained silent as Floyd Samson became more annoyed by the moment, not caring what the detective thought of his pause in discussion. Nick had gone after Brenda Fayers the morning after he ruined her hijacking plan. Knowing she walked her dog Boo every morning at seven, Nick walked toward her in a yellow jogging suit the next morning. He smiled and stopped to pet Boo, drawing his silenced 9mm and shooting Fayers through the head twice, once as she lie twitching in her death throes. He delivered the dog, his pictures, and confirming DNA samples later to Costiga’s residence along with a note to take very good care of Boo. Then on that special night of deadly recognition when deciding to go on the run with Rachel, Jean and Deke, he admitted to Rachel he had killed a woman while petting her dog. Rachel had asked, ‘if she was bad’, Nick answered, ‘she was to someone’.
Nick recognized he had changed a bit during the fugitive flight with Rachel and Jean, but not enough that he wouldn’t put a bullet through both Floyd and Tony if they became a threat over this small plan alteration to help them. The more he thought of Lisa and Brenda, the more he saw them as formed from the same clay. He wanted to take a whack at Lisa. A thought struck Nick’s eerie sense of humor in regard to the similarities between the women, at least in their ability to mold witless petty crooks into kill crews doing their bidding.
“Sorry, Floyd. I remembered a lot of details in the other case I mentioned similar to Monroe’s.”
Samson relaxed from his impatient stance. “How did you nail the perps in the other case?”
“I didn’t legally,” Nick told Floyd a partial truth. “They crossed a mob boss in New York during their escapades. The mob boss, Salvatore Costiga, hired a hitter to take them out. I wasn’t consulting with anyone at the time, but I was writing assassin novels. I researched everything having to do with high ranking criminals and assassins. Rumors were all that ever surfaced in the case. Costiga was never charged. You can get through to Lisa with fear. She doesn’t care innocent people were hurt and robbed in the prior crimes. Lisa mentioned Lou first in rattling off her crew’s names. I’m betting he’s the one she was boinking. He’s dead, and she’s facing felony convictions even her idiot lawyer parents know they can’t get her out of. We can fish around first, get her to admit to the ‘smash and grabs’, then go after a bigger score. That is, if you want to.”
Floyd smiled. “You think you can do all that, hotshot?”
“Let me write the deal quickly on some official paper and I’ll show you.”
“Would I ever love to shut those two slime ball parents up. As you stated, we have a felony case nearly airtight on her, not to mention threatening the life of a federal agent. We haven’t sprung any of that on the parents yet. Lisa doesn’t know the parents are here yet.”
“Good. We’ll do this in sequence right to the payoff. Get me to a desk with a computer. Bring me some District Attorney type letterhead paper, and I’ll write the deal we’ll need. Then I’ll go in and sell the con to Lisa before she begins howling for a lawyer.”
“Okay, but let me handle Tony. You can work from my desk. I’ll handle my partner.”
“Works for me.” The comic book Muerto mentality began surging within Nick as he followed Floyd out of interrogation. He quickly texted Rachel he was helping and would be a while longer. Rachel’s aggravation face appeared on his next instant message with a warning text in all caps – ‘YOU ARE ENTERING THE DANGER ZONE OF MY LAST NERVE’.
Nick laughed and replied in text, ‘been there, done that’.
*