The Beasts of Juarez by R.B. Schow (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

pulled the small faraday case from his pocket—the one he kept his cell phone in when he wasn’t using it or expecting a call—and then he slid his phone inside, making it undetectable from the cell phone towers and the ever-prying eyes of the NSA.

From the liquor mart, he drove the last mile to Gill Franklin’s home. He had already memorized directions from the liquor store so finding the place was easy.

Slowing down to drive by the house, he took in as many details as he could. The house looked weathered, the lawn was dead, and his front door was two different colors, red and green. Frowning, it was almost as if someone had replaced a broken section with the same door of another color and just didn’t paint it to match.

“Have some pride in your place, dumb-ass,” he mumbled.

The Audi was definitely too nice for the neighborhood so they parked it around the corner and walked along the side of the fence that belonged to their target. Gill Franklin was a single, overweight man with no priors but he did have a rather long job and residence history. According to Codrin, this latest house was a rental with his mother as a co-signer.

Looking around, the neighborhood was quiet, save for a few barking dogs and some lady in her backyard on her phone reading someone the riot act.

“Bottoms up,” he said to Kiera as he hopped the fence.

She was over the fence and in Gill’s backyard before he’d even hauled himself over, which made him feel two very specific things. One, he felt confident that when it was go time, Kiera was a loaded gun with the safety off and two, he felt slow and inadequate. He was a businessman who was relatively active while she was a ruthless, heartless, highly-skilled assassin. Was he in over his head here?

Kiera met him at the back door. He tried the knob; it was locked. He wiped the metal surface with his shirt, then turned to Kiera and said, “Any ideas?”

She pushed her elbow against the small pane of glass, applying more and more force but slowly and methodically. The four-inch by six-inch surface of glass finally made a small popping sound as it spider-webbed. Kiera then narrowed the point of pressure, breaking out a small triangle of glass. When the glass hit the floor inside, it was a small enough piece that it didn’t make much noise.

She reached in through the opening in the small windowpane and began pulling the other triangles of glass out of the frame, laying them side by side on the dead grass behind them. When she was done and the window was clear, she wiped each panel where her fingerprints showed, then stomped on them, breaking them into a hundred little pieces.

Without comment, or even a look, she reached inside, opened the door then waited for the sounds of an alarm or a dog. Other than the stuffy, offensive gust of pot-smoke-tinged air, there were only the faint sounds of snoring.

The two of them crept inside checking the nearby walls for the keypad to an alarm system. There was none. He wasn’t ruling out a silent alarm. Kiera, on the other hand, seemed to be checking for some sort of booby-trap system. Guys like Gill Franklin, sometimes they Jimmy-rigged a home security system or set a homemade trap for people like Kiera.

Fortunately for them, Gill was neither smart nor worried.

They made their way into the back of the house where Gill lay in bed over the sheets in a pair of old boxers and a dirty tee-shirt. He was like a beached whale in boxers and a wife-beater. Next to him on the comforter, Leopold saw a half-eaten package of Keebler shortbread cookies. Sitting on his dirty white tank top and in an explosion of curly black chest hair were a handful of tiny cookie crumbs.

“See, this is how it starts,” he said to Kiera. “Eating cookies in bed.”

She looked at him and it wasn’t a pleasant look.

“Have some pride,” he whispered.

Going back to work, he compared the man to the photo Codrin had sent him. He felt confident they were the same person. When he turned to give Kiera the thumbs up, she was nowhere to be found. Then he heard her in the kitchen running the faucet. A moment later, she returned with a metal saucepan full of water.

She looked at Leopold; he gave her a confident nod of approval. She tossed the water at Gill’s face, waking him instantly. The second he shot up in bed, Kiera spun the saucepan around and struck him on the forehead with the flat, copper bottom.

The loud clang of metal striking bone was a satisfying sound to everyone but Gill who was now wiping water out of his eyes and holding a bleeding head.

“What the hell?” he asked, still half-asleep and unable to sit up past his belly.

“Yesterday, you helped a van cross the border illegally, Mr. Franklin,” Leopold said. “I’d like to know who arranged this and who paid you.”

“If you guys are from ICE or border patrol, I already told my supervisor what I did. That’s why I’m still in bed. I’m on indefinite leave pending an investigation.”

“We’re not with any authorities,” Leopold said. “Just answer the question.”

“I don’t know his name,” he said, pulling his hand away and seeing a spot of blood. “The money was in my mailbox when I got home. Five hundred, cash. A courier delivered it I think.”

“Who did you speak with to set this up?”

“An old guy with a scratchy voice, that’s all I know. He was a short-tempered prick, but five hundo is five hundo.”

Kiera took a snow globe off the nightstand next to him and smashed Gill in the face