Clearcut (Adrian Cervantes Book 1) by Jack Mahoney

Author:Jack Mahoney [Mahoney, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-05T22:00:00+00:00

fifteen

Payden waited until he got to the long, flat stretch outside of Cougar before reaching for his phone. The evening was turning the muted purple of heavy overcast. Storm coming, he thought as he dialed.

Gaulder picked up on the second ring. “Yes?”

“It’s done. I’m leaving—”

“Wait.” Gaulder hung up.

Payden stared at the phone. He felt that queasy uncertainty beneath his hips, that anticipation that he was about to be yelled at for reasons he couldn’t guess. Mr. Gaulder hadn’t been happy with how Payden had let Cervantes slip from the office that morning. He’d forced Payden to relive the conversation with Cervantes almost sentence for sentence, stopping him to interject questions that Payden didn’t understand.

If there was one thing Payden didn’t like about working for Mr. Gaulder—and it had been a great experience overall, really transformative, a learning opportunity few people would’ve recognized—it was all the times Payden was made to feel like he was back in school again. He had never understood the tired disappointment, or the impatient fury, of old men who expected more of him. Live up to your potential, they said. Don’t make limiting choices, they said. It had always bothered him, like a woodchip in his shoe, and it bothered him now. Why can’t they take my word for it that I’m doing the best I can?

The screen on his phone glowed in the truck’s dark interior. Unknown Number. Payden answered.

“Go ahead.” Gaulder’s voice was lower and softer, as if he’d pulled Payden into a quiet corner.

“It’s done, like I said.”

“How?”

“Had to use the gun.”

He expected a patronizing lecture or a sigh, but his boss didn’t seem bothered by it. “Where’d you leave him?”

“Bathtub, second floor.”

“Anything on him?”

“Wallet, keys, phone. Took everything but the keys.”

“You find anything?”

When Payden had entered the cabin, he found Casselman standing in the living room with a guilty look. But then the old man’s face had crumpled. He’d seen something—the apathetic lethality in Payden’s gaze, or the way his jacket hitched around the holster in his waistband—and surrendered without a word. Payden asked him a few questions, but his responses were vague and mumbled, his eyes resting on the bookshelf behind Payden all the while.

This was the second job he’d done recently that had been spoiled for him. It wasn’t any fun to kill a man if he just limped along like a sick dog. Defiance would’ve been enough. Defiance gave Payden something to step on, hard, like ants pouring out of a sandy hill. Shameless pleading was also good. He’d learned to distinguish the fiery satisfaction of thrashing a defiant man versus the mellow pleasure of tormenting a desperate one.

But Casselman had marched upstairs so obediently, shoulders rounded, that it spoiled the whole evening. He had never asked what Payden was doing there, what he wanted. It was only at the doorway to the bathroom that he hesitated, as if there were some memory replaying there that he wanted to preserve. Then Payden had prodded him with the gun barrel and on he went.

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