Chapter TWENTY-NINE
It was early Thursday morning and the controller was on the phone with the only other person in the world, other than the crazy don, who absolutely terrified him, the one he thought of as the puppeteer. “If you don’t get your ass in gear,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “things are going to get complicated for you. I’m losing my patience.”
“I’m sorry,” said the controller, “but you didn’t exactly set me up with brilliant operatives. I can’t be held responsible for their f*ckups.”
“The one we put in as a lawyer is bright as hell. And he knows what happens if he fails. Maybe he needs a little object lesson.”
“What do you mean?” asked the controller.
“Think about it,” the puppeteer said, and slammed down the phone.
The controller slowly put the receiver back in its cradle. He let out a long sigh and shook his head. He didn’t like being in this position, but what could he do? He’d signed the pact with the devil a long time ago.
Maybe he had assembled the wrong crew. He’d had the man now known as Ben Flagler foisted upon him. He’d argued at the time that he needed a professional to take out the detective. The puppeteer was determined to use Flagler and the men Flagler picked. The argument was that Flagler was a ruthless killer, he was smart, and the puppeteer wanted the detective to suffer before she died. Flagler could make her life difficult, frighten her for even a few hours, and then kill her. A professional would simply take her out. Not much in the way of vengeance if the detective didn’t know exactly why she was dying.
He stared out his windows, enjoying the view of Biscayne Bay. Some sort of small boat sailing regatta was taking place just offshore. The blue water of the bay, the bright sails in a variety of colors, and the sun glinting off the fiberglass hulls gave him a sense of well-being. He would take care of this mess and get the puppeteer off his back. He just needed to come up with a plan to impress Flagler with his resolve.
His thoughts moved to taking the puppeteer out. That would solve his immediate problem, but then the crazy don might get wind of the controller’s part in any such action, and the consequences for the controller would be too horrible to contemplate. The puppeteer was too close to the don and his vengeance would be swift and brutal. Even a very small chance that the don would find out that the controller had any part in the puppeteer’s demise was simply too big a chance for the controller to take. He shrugged off the idea, and moved on, his mind sweeping through many scenarios before he landed on one that just might work and would never cause any blowback to him.
The controller smiled and his mind wandered on to the island where his new life would begin if he had to shuck himself of this one. He just needed a few more days to have everything ready. The money was already in place, hiding in secret bank accounts around the world. New identity papers, done by one of the world’s foremost forgers, were in a lockbox in a bank in Orlando, the forger now sleeping with the angels after a well-placed gunshot to the back of his head. The controller had stashed a pickup truck in a parking garage in North Miami, using a fictitious name. Not the one on the papers in the bank in Orlando, but one that would pass the cursory inspection of the people who ran that parking garage. He’d arranged for an illegal Mexican farmworker to drive the truck every other Sunday, keeping it in working order and full of gas. If he had to run, he’d drive to Orlando, retrieve his documents, and park the pickup at the airport. He’d rent a car, using yet another set of papers, drive to New Orleans, and catch a plane to Atlanta. Each leg of his trip would be with false papers, each set different from the others. Even if his pursuers somehow were able to trace him to the pickup and thus to Orlando, the trail would run cold there. Or maybe in New Orleans. He didn’t think they’d ever be able to trace him further. From Atlanta, he’d use the master forger’s documents and the credit cards that he’d set up with false identities over the past five years. They’d never find him on the island where he’d spend the rest of his life.
It was a good plan, one that he had been putting in place for a long time. He understood that nothing was completely foolproof, but this one was as close as it got. Life was full of gambles, and he only bet on almostsure things. This plan was as near perfect as he could make it. If it didn’t work, then he would die. But he had set up trip wires that would let him know if he was being closed in on. If his discovery was inevitable, he’d simply kill himself. He would maintain control of his destiny and his death would be painless, not the gruesome end orchestrated by the crazy don.
The controller chuckled to himself. No matter how good his plan was, or how long he was able to maintain his secret life, the end result would be his death. With any luck, the Grim Reaper would sneak in and take him during his ninetieth year while he was asleep in a comfortable bed in his island refuge. Maybe with a nubile native girl lying beside him, sated after a night of wild sex. Did ninety-year-old men still have sex? He didn’t know, but he smiled at the thought of someday discovering the answer.