Weecho: First Shots

Chapter 14 - R.I.P. / I.O.U.

Aramis lived on the fifth floor of a fleabag building over on Avenue C. Weecho could picture Lynch bursting in, overpowering Aramis before he knew what was happening, killing him offscreen, maybe snapping his neck, and then, after he’d shut down the computer, wheeling the body over to the window and shoving it out for the long fall to the alley below, where a neighbor would find it in a broken heap and call the cops. 

When Weecho thought about it, chances were that Lynch hadn’t caught on to the Skype thing at all. Why wouldn’t a techie like Aramis have his computer turned on? Lynch could have decided to take him out just so there’d be one less risk around. Either way, Weecho would always have it in his head that he’d set up his friend. 

The autopsy would find traces of meth – Aramis was a user – and so depression leading to suicide, or something like that, would be listed as the cause of death.   

Lynch would have wiped his fingerprints off anything he’d touched in the apartment. And of course he’d have taken the money back. 

No evidence of dirty work would mean no full-blown investigation. Or even half-blown. Before they left the library, Dara used an undercover computer network to erase any trace of the Skype connection. Ditto Weecho’s cell call. 

They wouldn’t have the laptop password to use now, because Aramis never got it to them – if he was ever able to plant it in the first place, with Lynch watching him like that.   

Lynch would go on to pursue his ambitions. If things had worked out, he would have been pursuing theirs as well and never would have known it. 

Burke and Alexey would let this pass, hoping for another shot. That was the game now. 

Weecho felt like shit. 

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That evening he stood in the dark at the loft windows, staring out at the car lights coming and going on the bridge. 

“Why don’t you come to bed?” Juna over there on the mattress, them still sharing it. 

“In a minute,” he said. 

The business with Aramis was locked in his head, would be for a while, he knew. Burke and Alexey hadn’t let him go over to Aramis’s apartment – had to hold him back. 

 “Don’t ruin the work he did for us,” Alexey said, even if the work was now basically for nothing, no password. They’d sat by the fireplace in Alexey’s library after Weecho had calmed down and after Burke had left. Dara was still at the computer. 

“The best thing you can do now obviously,” Alexey said, “is help us use Lynch to work ourselves into the network, however you can.” 

The “network,” as they’d talked about before, was on that database in the laptop – arms and opium, assassins and troops, plus slave labor and forced prostitution shipped anyplace anybody wanted. 

“Most of it channeling through the Middle East and Africa,” Alexey said. “That’s why Nina Galleon was working Hasan.” The heavyweight Arab. 

Nina Galleon. And now Aramis. Weecho’s I.O.U. list. 

Weecho still seeing Lynch’s face on the Skype. “He put together that hijack for Yoon and came away with the thing that gets him in as partner.” 

“That’s how it looks.” 

“And we weasel in for the ride.” 

“And at the end of it piss on their graves,” Alexey said. “Or however we want to use them.” The man having his own thoughts about that, Weecho knew.    

Weecho thinking about it himself now, standing here at the window, remembering what Alexey said about Yoon having helped bin Laden. Thinking about what that SEAL team found in bin Laden’s files after they’d killed him, a plan that had terrorists cutting the cables of that bridge he was looking at right over there. Well, nothing like having something close to home to keep yourself pumped for.      

He walked barefoot back across the floor and sat down on the edge of the mattress. 

Juna still awake. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“Yes it was. He had no idea what I was getting him into.” 

She’d brought home a barbecue dinner that Weecho had hardly touched. He didn’t make a move to get under the cover. Wanda was sleeping in his place anyhow. 

He felt a hand on his back. 

“Want a rub?” 

“No thanks.” That sounded gruff. “But I appreciate the thought.” 

The hand went away. 

Weecho kept sitting there. Thinking back to earlier. 

Had to admit, low as he was feeling, that if it had been Dara’s hand, her asking to rub him, he would’ve said Yes. 

And felt even lower. 

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Teddy Shongut steered his skiff past the outer buoy, throttling back as he came into the narrow Broad Channel harbor. Had gotten shut out today, couldn’t get any of the birds to come to him, had even gotten skunked when he fished the late tide. Wasn’t all that bummed about it, though, still had most of the cash from that kid.  

He’d been wondering on and off how Lynch had made out with that computer guy. Man had been in a state over his laptop crapping out, snapped at him before taking the guy’s card that the kid had given him to pass along. Apparently the guy had a good phone spiel, because next thing he knew, Lynch was on his way to the guy’s place. And hey, if the guy came through, who cares? 

The kid, though, that’s the part still puzzled him. Something going on there off the radar. But the kid had those goddamn falcon pictures, could cause discomfort if he wanted, and two-thousand bucks was two-thousand bucks. So let it rest and keep your head down. 

He throttled all the way back and glided in toward the marina dock, sky dark with some threatening clouds, lights on in the village over there. He’d tie up and go have a few, buy a couple rounds while he still was flush, maybe throw some darts. 

He’d hitched the skiff where he always did and was packing up his gear when a voice called down from the dock. 

“Mr. Shongut?” 

He looked up and, Christ, saw two uniformed cops up there. “Yeah?” 

The tall one said, “We’ve been trying to find you.” 

“What’d I do now?” 

“Nothing. That’s not the reason.” 

Shongut squinted at them. “What is the reason?” 

The other cop said, “I’m afraid we have bad news.”