Deadly Silence (Silence Jones Action Thrillers Series) by Erik Carter (fun to read .TXT) 📗

Burton the satisfaction. He quite literally wouldn’t let Burton see him sweat.

Burton peeled the wet cocktail napkin from the bottom of his tumbler. “Joey Farone was like a father to me when I was younger, but he’s a spineless coward, even before he lost his mind.” He watched his fingers as he rolled the napkin into a ball, dropped it onto the bar. “And his son is a different kind of lunatic, a psychopath. There’s a great base of operation in the Pensacola outfit, built up for decades. It just needs leadership.”

Jake took a sip of his beer. “And you think you’re the man for the job?”

Burton shrugged. “Maybe so. But first I need to eliminate my competition. Things are changing, Hudson. I understand Glover gave you an invitation to side with me. That was before you stole a large portion of my nest egg, so naturally that invitation has been rescinded.”

“Naturally.”

Burton leaned off the bar, resumed his full height. At about six feet tall, he was a few inches shorter than Jake, but still his presence, his grinning existence, was enormous, orbital.

Something could happen.

Right now.

Jake slid his fingers off the bottle, across the polished surface of the bar, toward his holster, clipped to the back of his pants, beneath his jacket.

Burton’s eyes flicked down to Jake’s hand, the smile never leaving.

The muscles in Jake’s arm tensed.

Burton raised his glass, grinned wider. “I’ll be seeing ya, Pete.”

And it was over.

For now.

Burton drained the glass, plopped it on the bar, and gave a two-finger wave to the bartender. He stepped away, shouldering into the crowd. Someone said something to him, a woman, the same woman who’d tried to flirt with Jake moments earlier. Burton smiled at her, that oozing, natural charisma, but he continued on, meandering through the horde and ending up beside Glover.

Jake turned around and put both elbows on the bar. Exhaled.

A tapping on his shoulder. He expected to find the drunken woman, but instead it was Charlie.

“Well…?”

Jake smiled. “I’m still alive.”

He turned back around, and Charlie followed suit. Halfway across the lounge, separated by a thrashing mass of arms and dresses and sport coats and broadcloth shirts, two other men looked back at them.

Charlie spoke to Jake without taking his gaze off Burton and Glover.

“There’s a war coming.”

Chapter Eighteen

Silence escaped the memory, eyelids snapping open, back in the shadows, banana leaves brushing his neck, his hands, the smell of fertilizer and mulch.

A few of Burton’s words shimmered away, a pointed repetition from Silence’s subconscious, a dying, deconstructing reverberation.

But first I need to eliminate my competition.

Silence pulled the newspaper from his pocket. The article on the bottom half of the front page.

Hardin to Bury Hatchet with Mayor Sizemore

It was here, the connection, in this newspaper article. Silence could feel it. He remembered something from the first paragraph, scanned it.

Though Commissioner Matthew Hardin continues his harsh criticism of Mayor Ken Sizemore’s leadership during these tumultuous times…

Hardin had been making noise, expressing public distaste about how the mayor had handled the chaos created by Rupert Lowry, a criminal that Silence now knew to be in Hardin’s employ. And Hardin was going to join the mayor in a supposed act of benevolence.

…he has announced that he will join the mayor in a show of unity at tonight’s candlelight vigil…

Silence pulled out the PenPal, flipped it open. His eyes bounced over the bubbles of the mind map.

OLD ASSIGNMENT/NEW ASSIGNMENT

BOWMAN FAMILY

ADRIANA RAMIREZ

BENITO RAMIREZ

TRAITOR?

PROTECTION RACKET

His eyes lingered on the most beguiling bubble.

CONNECTION?

Hardin had hired Lowry to create chaos in the city, something to undermine Sizemore’s leadership as mayor.

That would make Sizemore an enemy, as Burton had said—Hardin’s enemy.

As Burton had said…

But first I need to eliminate my competition.

Burton’s plan had been to get rid of anyone in his way.

Silence flopped the folded newspaper on top of the notebook, looked at the lower article again.

…tonight’s candlelight vigil…

The mayor’s event.

Mayor Sizemore. Hardin’s enemy.

Tonight. 8 p.m.

Hardin, Lowry, and Adriana had just left, going somewhere together. On a schedule.

There’s nowhere safer for us than where we’re going, Hardin had said. Come on. We don’t have much time.

Silence checked his watch. 7:37.

…eliminate my competition.

That was it.

The connection.

Like Burton, Hardin was going to eliminate his competition. He was taking his thug Lowry with him to the vigil.

To assassinate the mayor.

A sharp sound broke the stillness, and Silence jolted. Something mechanical. An automatic garage door retracting.

He shoved the notebook and newspaper in his pocket, pulled the Beretta back out of its holster, then hurried along the side of the house, back to the front where the three-car garage was located.

Voices. Jingling keys. Car doors being opened.

He stopped at the corner of the garage, behind an arborvitae.

“How can you be sure?” Adriana said.

Hardin replied. “Calm down. We’ll be perfectly fine.”

Then a cruel laugh from Lowry. “Yeah, sweetheart, please don’t doubt my skills. Where’d you find this chick, Hardin?”

Car doors shutting. An engine firing up. The red glow of brake lights on the herringbone brick driveway. The light turned white—reverse lights. The crunch of tires.

Silence flattened himself tighter against the wall, farther into the shadows.

An SUV emerged, backed into a turnaround, and then rolled to the street. Silence watched until it turned and went past the edge of the property, then he sprinted out of concealment and down the drive.

Chapter Nineteen

A crappy old sailboat.

Lowry sniffed.

Damn. Smelled as bad as it looked. Like mildew, only … worse. Mold? A combination of mildew and mold?

Ugh.

A curled piece of thick, faded green paint lay inches in front of his eyes, right in his view. He took it between his fingers, tugged. It came off the board with a small snap, a full six inches in length. He dropped it, rubbed the flaky residue from his fingers.

Hardin hadn’t told Lowry where or when he’d gotten the boat, but its ramshackle condition made it clear that he’d purchased it especially for the occasion, finding something dirt cheap, knowing it would only be used once.

Fortunately Hardin hadn’t used the same philosophy on the outboard, which glistened in the