“I appreciate the chance to buy an easy death. Some of us would have tortured me simply to hear me beg for death.”
“Do you have any family? I will send them most of your money.”
“Thank you… but no, I have happily been alone. Keep it… hey… now that you mention it, I had to be a homeless bum in New York City once to cap a mobster. His name was ah… Willie Fangona. Anyway… I scavenged on the streets in front of Fangona’s apartment building, trying not to get rounded up by the cops. A woman who worked the Salvation Army pot on the corner started giving me coffee and donuts when I’d walk past. She always smiled and said, ‘good morning, I have something for you’. I’d tell her I didn’t need it, and she answered the same way, ‘of course you do’. Give the Salvation Army whatever you want to, Nick. Would you do it in my name too?”
“Sure, Fen. I’ll have to wait a while though.”
“No problem. Thanks.”
Gus brought over his tablet with the schematics of Carone’s yacht, including variations of where Burt told them Carone spent most of his time. Fenric looked over everything carefully. He also named the hotel he was staying at in Monterey.
“The hotel keycard’s in my wallet. It looks like you have everything I could tell you. He likes hanging out on the bridge. The three times I have met with him in person, Fernando took the meeting on the bridge, dressed in a ridiculous white captain’s outfit like he was on the ‘Love Boat’ or something. He keeps a skeleton crew of about fifteen on board all year. They’re handpicked cartel killers, with other skills for crewing a yacht like The Tempest, and handling the Panga boats with whatever transaction’s going on.”
“Good info,” Nick said. “I’m surprised you ever met with him.”
“Yeah… not too smart. I was getting careless. I should have retired with my money but I’m a psycho. Sooner or later I would have killed someone… just for the hell of it.”
Nick chuckled. “We don’t retire well. What would you like? I have a hotshot of heroin or I can give you the usual instant mix.”
“Oh man… give me the H. That would be great. You guys really do some nice work. I saw the Ohio Isis cell video with the guy dancing around in front of the hangar before you blew it to hell and gone. The Middle East fruit-loops I was stuck with at the time thought it was fake. I knew better. Well… good to meet you, Nick. Shoot me up, brother.”
“I’ll see you soon, brother.” Nick gave him the heroin death dose.
“I hope not… ahhhhhhh…,” Fenric’s eyes closed as he smiled a final time. “It’s going to be hot where I’m…”
Nick unstrapped Ballesteros, allowing the fading assassin to lie without restraints in the final moments. “Fen went with his boots on. We’ll need to go collect his stuff before we call it a day. I think it may be a good time for Ebi Zarin and his lovely wife to get decked out in traditional cave dweller Islamic garb for confiscation of Fen’s earthly goods, at least his electronic ones.”
“Good idea, Muerto. Maybe we will be done in time to watch the sunrise at Otter’s Point,” Johnny said.
“With a bit of Irish?”
“Of course, Payaso,” Johnny answered. “We had a very good day and night. I am glad Fen decided to cooperate, even though I didn’t get to do a movie.”
Cala grasped Nick’s arm before he and Gus lifted Fen into a body-bag. “Did you think of letting him go, Muerto?”
“Not for a second,” Nick answered. “He would have killed all of us at the first opportunity. Fen wasn’t a lost puppy we were putting down at the pound. He was a top echelon killer. We don’t forgive and forget.”
“You spared Johnny.”
“I needed Johnny. Also, he didn’t kill families. Besides, I liked him.”
“I was recruited as a soldier of Allah,” Johnny added. “They wanted me to be a murderer. We were not being persecuted. A few of the believers asked me when I hid out in their mosque why I was a terrorist. They did not dare ask anyone else, but I seemed more open. I told them I served Allah to keep Islam free. They would whisper, ‘but we are free here’. The longer I stayed, the more disillusioned I became. I became angry with the quiet believers who said nothing. I asked them why if they thought what we were doing was wrong… then why did they not speak out. They were too frightened. I grew up in a small village. Sharia Law was meaningless there. I learned the true face Sharia Law shows in secret, with honor killings, female subjugation and mutilation, stonings, murders, suicidal death on a whim while Islam’s leaders live like kings.”
Johnny drew Cala into his embrace. “I will die before I allow such blasphemy here. If Cala is approached even one more time by her idiot Kader family, I will hunt them down like the jackals they are. I will do El Kabong movies of each death.”