Free Tag Man by Archer Mayor Page B

isolated.
    “Tell them what you told me,” Lester said, not looking up because he was touching Emma’s forehead with his nose.
    “You’re pregnant,” Willy prompted.
    They all ignored him.
    “Joe’s working for me, unofficially,” Ron said.
    Even Kunkle was impressed. “You’re kidding me. On what?”
    “The Tag Man case,” Ron explained. “He walked in a while ago—I thought just to be sociable. He’s kind of at loose ends. On his way out, he volunteered to pitch in.”
    There was a moment’s silence, during which Willy said under his breath, “The old man’s really losing it.”
    “He is not,” Sammie reacted, flushing slightly.
    This time, Lester did look up. “I think it’s the reverse—he wants to get his feet wet again.”
    No one responded, each momentarily lost in his or her thoughts about what the “boss” might be up to—and how he’d fare in the process.
    *   *   *
    Leo Metelica favored a .45 caliber model 1911 semiautomatic. It looked like the one seen in all the World War II movies—big, heavy, black, and ominous—but he’d actually made it himself—in a fashion—assembling it from the best components available, custom fitting them in his kitchen-based workshop. It was beautiful to handle, a perfect fit to his hand with its checkered walnut grips, and a hair trigger and night sights that had set him back a chunk of change.
    All to good effect, though. Merely poking the thing into a man’s face was usually enough to wrap up whatever argument Leo was making.
    He practiced with it endlessly, at the range and in the woods, training himself in a variety of environments, and he stripped it, cleaned it, and reassembled it incessantly. It was the primary tool of his trade, of course, but in moments of self-contemplation, Leo saw himself physically as a part of the gun, and the gun as a reflection of him.
    This was a good thing in his eyes. The gun, or the conviction behind it, was what kept Leo employed, and it was the gun that got people to act—keep their mouths shut, pay what they owed, or, on rare occasions, to stop breathing. Leo hadn’t actually killed too many people—real life wasn’t like fiction, after all, where Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis could kill twenty people before strolling away. But he’d used this same gun on three men so far, and it had worked to perfection every time. Quietly, too, because of the silencer he’d also built in his basement. Leo was a handy man, well trained by the navy and by working for his uncle as a kid in a welding shop. Not a great thinker, perhaps—something he’d been told time and again by his betters—but good with tools, and good at getting back at those betters when they least expected it.
    He also knew about ballistics and made sure of two things while on the job: He always used frangible ammunition, to ensure that the bullet fragments were many and untraceable, and he always went for a contact head shot, to guarantee the effectiveness of his trademark single lethal shot. He was a decent marksman, but why bother aiming when such bravado was unnecessary?
    He slipped the pistol into its holster, stubbed out his cigarette, killed the motel room lights, and opened his curtains to reveal the parking lot beyond.
    Brattleboro. Totally hick town. Nothing to do, nothing to see. No strip joints, no X-rated-movie houses, no hookers as far as he could find. Even the bars sucked—filled with too much music, too much designer beer, and too many people all laughing and pretending to have a good time. Leo liked his bars quiet, dark, and cheap—designed for serious drinkers.
    He opened the door and stepped into the balmy night air. At least the weather was holding. He walked to the end of the balcony, took the metal staircase down into the parking lot, and crossed over to the anonymous rental car he’d driven up from Massachusetts. Leo didn’t own a car. He didn’t see the point. Everything he needed was either included in the