Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

eight tonight. How do you want to play it?’

Slater said, ‘How hard did you sucker him?’

‘He’s already in love with me.’

Slater said, ‘You got his number?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you don’t show. He’ll call again and again. Send him a text saying you reconsidered and you don’t like his vibe. That’ll make him angry, and he’ll drink. I can almost guarantee he’ll go overboard. We’ll take him when he comes out, and give him a stern talking-to about his future life choices. After that he’ll never even think about touching what the Walcotts left behind.’

King said, ‘You’ll take him.’

Alexis looked at King. ‘Cold feet?’

Slater said, ‘And here we are. Full circle. Back to what you walked in on.’

Her green eyes shone as she computed everything she’d heard, then her internal processor spat out an explanation.

She said, ‘You both want out until the baby’s here?’

She’s prescient, Slater thought.

Violetta smiled. ‘You know us better than Will does.’

‘Not true,’ Slater said. ‘I suspected the same thing. I’m just not happy about it.’

King said, ‘Doesn’t sound like Mickey’s the sharpest tool in the shed. Slater, you can handle this just fine on your own.’

‘Maybe,’ Slater said. ‘But since when has that been our modus operandi? Since when do we do the bare minimum? The odds are a lot better if you’re there alongside me.’

King opened his mouth to speak but Slater shook his head.

‘You’re in a Catch-22,’ he said. ‘If this is no big deal and I can take care of it myself, then there’s no risk. Which means you can come along.’

King cut his retort off.

Slater said, ‘He’s a small-time crook who’s got his wandering eye on the big leagues. All we need to do is intimidate him. Either you come along, or we let him do whatever he’s going to do. And what if it works? What if he’s powerful enough to have more men than we thought? Then he’ll be in power within a week and this problem will be a whole lot worse.’

King said, ‘I’m not making exceptions.’

‘Come for the ride along,’ Slater said. ‘There’s no harm in that. I’ll do all the heavy lifting.’

King shook his head and turned away.

But Violetta nodded to him.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘If anything it’ll prove he can do it on his own. Indulge him.’

‘Indulge me,’ Slater said, winking when King turned back.

King mulled it over.

Slater said, ‘This is part of the Walcott job. An epilogue to it. We keep the wolves at bay for long enough and Walcott’s operation will fizzle out all on its own. Loans will go unpaid, contracts won’t be met, and his empire will slowly be forgotten. Then you can take your hiatus.’

King looked at Violetta. ‘If something goes wrong, don’t even think about coming after me.’

She stared back.

He said, ‘Better the kid has one parent than none.’

She didn’t respond.

He said, ‘Promise me that, and I’ll go.’

‘You have my word,’ she said.

He knew she meant it.

The four of them didn’t make promises lightly.

You couldn’t, doing what they did.

4

Night fell on Nassau.

King and Slater drove their rented Ford Explorer away from their villa on Montagu Bay. The view of Paradise Island shrank in the rear view mirror. The island off the coast had a golf course to the east and the towering hotel/casino complex named Atlantis to the west. The silhouette of the enormous complex faded from sight as they took Bay Street west, passing the ferry terminal and bridges connecting the island to the mainland. From this angle, the sun set under the bridge connecting two of the towers, lending beauty to the gambling powerhouse, sucking tourists into its web.

‘We didn’t change a thing,’ Slater ruminated. ‘Business booms, no matter what we do.’

King looked over. ‘What are you on about?’

Slater said, ‘Dylan Walcott owned a handful of low-tier casinos, and look what he was able to accomplish. You think the big enterprises are any different? We might as well go after it all.’

‘But we can’t go after it all,’ King said. ‘That’s impractical. What we can do is target that low tier you mentioned. Mickey Ream might make it to the upper tier, and then he’ll be a problem. We give him a talking to, and he’ll never become a problem.’

‘Or we get rid of him. That solves things fast. You can get back to Violetta. You can start your hiatus.’

King shot him a look as the sun melted into the horizon behind them. ‘Don’t start.’

‘Don’t start what?’

‘You know.’

‘You expect to carry on living with us, watch me go out to war, and sit back and be okay with it?’

King said, ‘I never said I was okay with any of it. But I know where my priorities lie.’

Slater said, ‘Right now, they lie with Mickey Ream. He gets into power, he starts loaning whatever Walcott’s got left to all the same people. You know you don’t want that to happen.’

King’s face hardened to steel. ‘Then let’s get this done.’

They crossed the north face of Nassau, sticking to Bay Street the whole way, and arrived at Holt’s Saloon at seven p.m., an hour before Mickey’s scheduled rendezvous with Alexis.

They parked in the public lot across the street, facing the building and Cable Beach beyond. Out at sea, they saw the outline of Balmoral Island, rapidly disappearing in the gloom.

Holt’s was a speakeasy, designed to look like it belonged in the Prohibition Era, with faux-Wild-West decor and an old-school façade. It mirrored the most popular bars and eateries on the island by taking a certain region’s culture and ratcheting the cheesiness up to eleven. But it was busy enough. Customers flowed in and out through the swinging saloon doors, and the murmur of a packed house floated through the open windows. It was a perfect night — the air was hot and the purple remnants of the sunset were brilliant in the sky overhead.

Slater called Alexis. ‘Break his heart.’

She said, ‘I’ll send the text now.’

They waited.

Not long, because trouble presented itself almost immediately.

It turned out Mickey Ream brought a few fellow Aussies along