Dirty Deeds (2 page)

“I know exactly why you’re in Philadelphia,” Keane said.

“I thought I was selling a Mike Schmidt rookie card.” I turned to the two cops. “You guys get to go to Phillies games? I imagine with how bad the team is they let you in for free, right?”

Both cops tried their best not to snicker.

Keane opened a folder he’d had his hands on as if it would make for a dramatic move and I’d tremble in my seat.

He pulled the top page from it and smiled. “You know what this is?”

“All the cases you never solved because you’re too busy with me?”

“No,” Keane said and his voice cracked. I had him. “This is a thread we pulled off a message board three days ago. Mr. Caruso was talking to a Mr. Aaron, who set terms to kill his daughter at quarter of a million dollars. Does this ring a bell?”

“I know who Caruso is. The lawyer who flaked out when he saw how gem mint the Schmidt card was. I have no idea who Aaron is. Maybe another lawyer in his firm?”

I made a mental note to have Marisa wipe the message board clean. It was no longer safe. If Keane was smart he wouldn’t have tipped his hand he had finally cracked the outdated means of communication between me and the evil in the world.

At the halfway point between forty and fifty, I wasn’t tech savvy. I despised computers and only had a cell phone because I needed it for my life. It was an online world we lived in.

Back in the last part of the previous century I thought I had a firm grasp on technology. As I got older and the computers got smaller and smarter, I got lost. It was the same with music and TV and everything else. I freely admitted it. Marisa, who was still technically a teenager, spent most of her day wired on coffee and wired to the internet, making my job that much easier.

I needed to give the kid a raise.

“I’m not sure what you’re insinuating. Should I get a lawyer?” I asked, knowing as soon as you mention a lawyer, the Feds and cops shut up.

Keane grinned. “I know a good lawyer. John Caruso. You just met him. He wants his daughter dead. Remember?”

Ahh. This wasn’t a sting to catch me specifically. They’d been watching this idiot as he tried unsuccessfully to get his daughter killed. It probably hadn’t been a trap until Keane got his mitts on the operation. He’d swooped in when he thought he’d finally get me. Instead of Caruso hiring a couple of undercover cops, who would simply arrest him, Keane had wired him for sound and given him a deal: help the FBI and they’d help you.

“Killing kids is a horrible thing. Hiring someone to do it is even worse,” I said.

“How do you mean?” Keane asked, flipping through the papers in the folder.

“If you want someone dead, especially a family member, step up and do it yourself. You’re an asshole for wanting to have someone dead to begin with, but your own kid? And you don’t have the balls to do it yourself? I don’t know what I just walked into in that law office but if you need me as a witness I’d be happy to help the FBI. He asked me point-blank if I wanted to kill his daughter for him. I thought I misunderstood,” I said.

Keane stood and closed his file without showing me another page and more of his weak hand. He aimed a finger in my direction and I grinned when both cops took a step forward. This wasn’t practiced or planned. Keane was going off-script and I’d gotten under his skin. Again.

“Don’t think for a second you’re fooling anyone. I know all of your aliases: Jones, Smoltz, Cox, Murphy, Spahn, Maddux, Niekro, Maddux, Glavine, Robinson and now Aaron. I don’t know if they’re random names or what, but I’m going to find out and take you down,” Keane said.

“Uh, sir. . .” one of the police officers, a guy in his late twenties, put up his hand like he was in school. When Keane didn’t bother asking him why he was interrupting but looked at the man, he got the hint to keep talking. “I know all those names. Baseball names, sir. If I’m not mistaken, they all played for the Atlanta Braves.”

The cop looked at me, expecting me to answer.

“Not only are they all Braves, but I believe they are all players that had their numbers retired by the great franchise,” I said. I looked at Keane and grinned. “I grew up in Atlanta, which I’m sure you knew. A simple Google search of the names would’ve gotten you this far.”

Keane smiled. “I got you.”

“I fail to see how me knowing about my favorite team makes me a criminal. If knowing sports is a crime, I’m guessing the cop here should go to prison for figuring out a bunch of names.” I stood up. “Unless you’re arresting me for something, I need to catch a flight. I’m not staying for coffee. If you ask me another question I’m going to lawyer up and not say another word.”

“I know your name is James Gaffney. Your home address is listed in Atlanta. You do pay all your taxes on time and your side business of sports cards is rather lucrative. Hell, if you went legit and stuck to selling baseball cards you’d be a rich man,” Keane said.

“I am a rich man because I sell baseball cards and nothing else,” I said.

“Why have you killed all of these children?” Keane asked, dumping his folder on the table. Pictures of crime scenes spilled to the floor, but not one of them contained an actual body.

Like I said, I help these kids.

“I need to see my lawyer,” I said and sat down. “I also need a cup of horrible Philadelphia coffee. Any chance Geno’s is still open for a cheese steak sandwich?”

Marisa met me at the sports card show while I was setting up. She was nineteen but looked much older, and already I was getting annoyed at the old men setting up their displays around me and eyeing her like a piece of meat.

I knew she could take care of herself, though. She’d been in and out of foster care since running away from the first family I helped put her with.

She often asked who her real parents were, knowing I’d never tell or leave a paper trail for her to find. It didn’t work like that.

Right now she was pissed at me.

“I’m seriously going to do the setup without you from now on. Give you an address and a target and tell you to get it done. You’re taking risks you don’t need to take, old man,” Marisa said.

We had our philosophical differences over the way I handled my business. I learned to do it in person, to meet the man or woman who wanted to kill a child and commit them to memory. Someday I’d do something about each and every one of them.

Marisa was new school, where you did it all anonymously online. You couldn’t be traced and the only way you got caught was by physically doing the dirty deed and something going wrong. Her argument was valid: why take so many risks when you no longer had to? But I’d been doing this long enough to know I had to do it this way for my own moral compass, as skewed as it was. I wanted to see these people in person, or at least as close as they’d let me. Someone responsible for these supposed deaths was going to be etched in my mind forever.

I knew if I ever decided to hang it up and pass along the knowledge and business to anyone it would be Marisa, and I knew she’d make quite a few drastic changes.

Hell, I reminded myself about all the changes I’d made as a cocky twenty-something in the 1990’s. I’d updated the 1960’s mentality for this work, and Marisa would update it to the 2020’s. Every thirty years or so there’d be an improvement or two. As long as we saved children, who cared?

“I saw your buddy, Keane, outside. I had no idea he was such a memorabilia collector,” Marisa said and helped me to put my table together. She was way more organized than I’d ever be. She kept begging me to let her inventory everything I owned but I wanted it to be a pleasant mystery. I still remembered opening packs of baseball cards in the mid-1970’s and searching for the handful of cards I needed to make the complete set or add to my growing Atlanta Braves collection.

“He surprises me at times. I know he didn’t follow me, and after I stopped his interrogation last night and asked for a lawyer, he let me go within an hour. A new record,” I said. “Is he getting better in his old age?”

“He got lucky. What’s the stupid saying you always use? Sometimes even a blind horse can find water?” Marisa smirked. Her long blonde hair was up in a ponytail and she wore no makeup, but she was still attractive. Don’t get me wrong, I was no pervert. I was more than twice her age and she truly felt like my daughter. But I needed to protect her from a room filled with dudes who would hit on her. I could only imagine what would happen if she went to a nerd convention.

“He knows about Chicago and how to get in touch with me now, too,” I said.

“I have Irwin selling the Chicago place this week. You might lose a few bucks but it will be a loose thread neatly tied up. I’ve destroyed the server for the message board and will start up a Facebook page for it soon,” Marisa said.

“You’re going to post on the biggest social media outlet I’ll take your money and kill your kid?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

“Hide in plain sight. Remember that gem of a saying you used to hit me with all the time when you caught me trying to run away? We’re still mostly word of mouth for rich depraved people who know what to look for online when they want to do something vile. Unfortunately, returning customers have now moved up to about twenty percent of our clientele. I guess once you’ve paid to have your kid killed, you want to kill them all,” Marisa said.

“I hope Keane doesn’t make a scene. It’ll be bad for business.” These big card shows would attract a ton of buyers as well as guys trying to unload a few things, but today I was in the mood to sell as much product as possible and fly out without having to worry about packing any of it.

The money didn’t matter to me. It hadn’t in a long time. This was more of a hobby than a way to pay the bills. Unfortunately, sick bastards who wanted me to harm their children paid for the multiple houses and my own card collections.

I was born in 1969 and became an Atlanta Braves fan at seven years old. I’ve been on the lookout for gem mint 1969 Topps cards and anything Braves I can get my hands on. Everything else gets sold.

I owned over a million non-baseball cards, stored in two warehouses, one on either side of the country: football, hockey, basketball, and miscellaneous stuff. I’d gladly trade it for every ’69 Topps and/or Braves card in the world, although it was fun to build the sets one card at a time.

Marisa casually nodded her chin past me and I looked and caught the eye of the redhead setting up at the table next to me. She was pretty. About my age. Definitely staring at me. I’d seen her before at a few shows and I turned back to Marisa and told her to stop.

“Stop what?” she asked, trying to sound innocent and failing. “This is the third show in a row she set up next to or near you. It’s not a coincidence. The last time she tried to talk to you and you blew her off.”

“No way.” I remembered, and she and I talked business for awhile. Her husband had died and left her with his collection, which she’d managed to build and begin selling at shows. She had some nice cards and I made a mental note to check out her Braves and 1969 offerings.

“Go talk to her. Ask a few questions. Live a little,” Marisa said.

“I’m busy. This is work.” I glanced over and the redhead smiled at me again as she continued to set up for the show.

I focused on the job at hand. I needed to concentrate on this card show and my near miss with Keane and why he was here today. I bumped into Marisa, who was trying to set a speed record for setting up my tables.

Marisa seemed antsy today.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she lied. I could always tell like she could with me, when something was bothering the other.

“Out with it.”

Marisa stopped moving product onto the table and smiled. “I had a date last night. It went great. He wanted to see me again right away but I told him I had work and would be out of town.”

“First date?” I asked, trying not to act like a father but failing as bad thoughts raced through my head about this guy. “How old is he? Where did you meet?”

Marisa laughed. “Yes, our first face to face date. He’s a couple of years older than me. Very mature. We met on a hacker message board about six months ago.” She grinned. “He was a perfect gentleman.”

“Good,” I said.

“As for me. . . well. . .”

“Not funny,” I said.

When we were done Marisa asked if I’d eaten. I hadn’t. Despite really wanting an authentic cheese steak from Philly last night, I’d gone to McDonalds and crashed. This morning breakfast consisted of two cups of coffee made in my hotel room.

“I’m going to get you something delicious,” Marisa said.

“Your idea of delicious is not even close to mine. I want meat.”

“Meat is murder,” Marisa said. Before I could finish she smiled. “Tasty, tasty murder. I know you too well.”

“You can’t throw my own lines back at me. Not fair. Seriously, I don’t want a salad or tofu or anything natural. I want a greasy burger and some fries. I’ll eat better when I get home,” I said. She knew it was a lie and so did I. It was the game we played.

Marisa stared at my growing belly and sighed. “How old are you again?”

I shook my head and took out two twenty dollar bills from my pocket. “Here. Use this. I need some small bills.”

“You do remember we’re in New York City, right? What do you think I can buy with this?”

True. I handed her two hundred dollar bills. “Break these. I want the change back, and the two twenties.”

“What twenties?” Marisa asked with a smile. I paid her quite well but she still treated me like I was her dad and made out of money. While I preferred to wear shorts and faded t-shirts, she wanted the nicer things in life. I wanted to eat greasy burgers and pass out watching the game.

Before we go any further, there are a couple of points I need to clear up.

Morally I do nothing wrong. No, I’m not a saint by any stretch. In my personal life I might’ve stolen a candy bar when I was a kid or lied to people or done typical kid stuff. I grew up in a bad part of Atlanta, where you did what you had to do. In my personal life I’d done worse things but that’s for another time.

I’m talking about my job. The job where bad people pay me to do one of the worst things imaginable, and they don’t care. I often wonder what it takes to set something like this in motion in their heads, but I don’t want to stare too closely into this abyss.