Carter's Mark - Chapter 4
Chapter 4: An Old Acquaintance
It was nearing
midnight, three days after being released from the hospital. Seth had spent time gathering information
about his near fatal injuries, how he had been shot, and that no one knew who
was behind the two 6mm bullet casings that were on file at the police
station. 6mm pistols were rare nowadays,
ever since the creation of the 8mm and now 9mm pistols. There were only a handful of gun shops in the
Savannah area, and after an extensive bit of research, Seth found that only two
gun shops in a 100 mile radius carried 6mm ammunition in the last five
years. One was in the nearby town
of Hinesville, GA, and the other was a
shop named Mack’s Gun Shop, much closer than the first. Seth had planned to go to the nearby gun
store first thing the next morning, and he felt it was a pivotal step towards
finding the person or group of people responsible for his condition. If only he could remember…
As he lay in his hotel
room, staring up at the ceiling, he went over what he had learned. First, there was the encounter with the woman
in a nearby grocery store who recognized him.
She had no information about his wife’s whereabouts, but was able to
give him an address for one of his former colleagues, John Underwood, who Seth
remembered to have been in contact with the day of the shooting. Aside from the bullets, and the two gun
shops, this was his only progress, but at least it was something.
He awoke the next
morning, and after a shower and a few necessary hygienic duties, set off for
Underwood’s house. When he arrived at
the two story A-frame house in a seemingly quiet neighborhood, it started to
rain. Seth hadn’t been in rain for four
years, and though he slept through most of it, he had forgotten what it felt
like. He took a second to take it in
before walking up to the door, and giving it three knocks. A smaller, stocky man with a fat face and
balding hair greeted him; it was John Underwood for sure. He hadn’t changed at all. He was dressed in khaki slacks and a tropical
shirt, along with leather beach sandals, and after the few seconds it took for
his eyes focus, a look of amazement came to his chubby face.
“I don’t believe it,
Seth Marks?! Is this real? I thought you were dead!” The last few words he
spoke made a cold chill run down Seth’s spine.
He figured everyone believed him to be dead, but hearing someone
actually say it made it frighteningly real.
“How goes it
Underwood?”
“Life is shit! How are
you old friend?”
“I’m alive, I guess
that counts for something, eh? Do you
have a few minutes?”
“Of course, come in.
Sorry about the mess, but my wife and I split up and I’m still getting used to
doing all this shit by myself.” Seth wondered if Underwood would be receptive
to his plans, and wondered just how close he considered the two of them. Seth sat in the black leather recliner in the
center of the living room, and Underwood sat to the side, on an abused floral
sofa. Seth took a couple minutes to
explain how he had survived a coma, and how he was trying to get his life
back. He had initially wanted to seek
out his wife first, but his growing infatuation with his shooter had clouded
his mind, and he could think of nothing else.
“I am trying to track
down the guy that shot me, Underwood.
What do you remember from those days? Any info you can give me would be
helpful; my mind isn’t quite normal yet, and I seemed to have blocked out most
of it.” Seth had a look of deep concentration and determination in his eyes, a
thirst for knowledge that was brought out by the serious tone used when he
spoke. Underwood stared at him for a
moment, as though wondering where to begin.
“Well, do you remember
the guy that snuck into your house? The
one we chased out? I think the whole
gang of us were there that night. How
unfortunate that six guys couldn’t take down one man, but that’s neither here
nor there.” This particular memory only
surfaced to Seth as Underwood spoke.
“Mark, David, Olsen, Wyatt, you, and me.
We were discussing the precautions we were going to take after our screw
up of that client of yours’ money. I
mean, really though, who puts all their money into the advice of a broker? A
real nut job if you ask me. Kind of
explains the visitor we got though I guess.”
“So we agree that the
man that broke in that night worked for my client?” Another step closer.
“Well, who else would
send someone to kill you?”
After these words,
Seth asked the most important question of the visit. “Do you remember the client’s name? I should
know it from memory, but as you can guess, I’m not exactly ripe for the
picking, if you know what I mean.”
“No idea, it’s been
four years since I’ve even thought about it.
After you died,” he stopped for a second, and then corrected himself,
“err, you know what I mean, the brokerage split up, and we decided to burn all
of our documentation so that whoever came after you didn’t find out who we
were. We all sort of put it out of our
heads, you know? Kind of hard to get on with your life if you are looking over
your shoulder and living in fear.”
This came as no
surprise to Seth; if he were in Underwood’s situation, he might have done the
same thing. “Are any of the other guys still around? One of them has to
remember the guy’s name.”
“Hmm, well Mark got
married and moved to Ontario, and David got run out of town after his wife
caught him sleeping with his assistant, and I lost touch with him. Olsen was hit by a car two years ago, another
tragedy from my past. Wyatt… well Wyatt
and I sort of had an argument over some stupid ‘get rich’ scheme, and he found
someone else to dive into the project, and I haven’t spoken to him since.” With
each dead end, Seth became more and more depressed. For a while, they sat quietly in the room,
pondering past events, neither wanting to strike up more conversation, as their
thoughts swirled around their heads. After a few minutes, Seth stood up.
“Leaving so soon?” Underwood asked, as if they had always been best
friends. The truth was, they weren’t
really that close, or at least Seth didn’t think so.
“I have another place
to go. Maybe it will be a bit more
useful than the last,” Seth said, and as he looked up, he noticed that
Underwood had not picked up the hint that he was less than helpful. “You, uh, wouldn’t want to accompany me
somewhere, would you?”
“I…sure, I guess. Just let me change.” Underwood ran upstairs, and after a couple of
minutes, came back down with a shirt and tie on, and loafers. He had a look of worry on his face. “Seth, you’re not planning on going after
this hitman guy are you? I mean, you’re a stockbroker for Christ’s sake, not a
killer. You’ll just give him another
chance to finish the job.” He had barely
finished his sentence when Seth walked swiftly outside, where his cab was still
waiting for him. Choosing to ignore the
worried questioning of his former colleague, he got into the cab, ushered
Underwood to follow, and they set out.
The gun shop lie just
on the southwest outskirts of Savannah, an area Seth rarely went to. The sidewalks were lined with outdoor craft
kiosks, and a vast arrangement of people.
It had stopped raining, and there seemed to be some sort of miniature
art festival going on. A group of people
were huddled together in an alley, seemingly rolling dice and betting money,
from the conversations they were having as he and Underwood got out of the
taxi. There were bullet holes in the
windows of the gun shop, which had metal reinforcement bars encasing them. Graffiti decorated the brick of the old
building. Many sets of eyes stared at
the two men, who looked a bit out of place, wearing dress shirts, and
khakis. Gathering himself, Seth reached
for the door, and he and Underwood went inside.
Rifles, pistols, and
shotguns of all shapes and sizes decorated the place, and it had a military
barracks feel to it. An old man wearing
a white tank top and black denim jeans stood behind the counter, his arms
filled with tattoos, and he also seemed to be losing a war with male pattern
baldness. He spoke first.
“Can I interest you in
anything today? Maybe you need a hunting
license?” He was being sarcastic of
course, probably because of how the two were dressed.
“Hunting license,
no. Information, yes. How long have you worked here?” Seth was wasting no time. The vibe he was getting from the shop owner
was not the kind that liked small talk.
Not with his type, at least.
“Since I opened the
store fifteen years ago, Sonny. You guys
here to audit me or something?” He started stacking newspapers and magazines on
the counter hastily.
“We’re not here to
cause any trouble mister….”
“Mister’s fine. Are you here to buy anything or just waste
both of our time?”
“Maybe a little bit of
both.” He had planned to get some info
from the guy, and maybe pick up some backup for himself for the future. Underwood stared intently at Seth as he
spoke. “Do you have any older pistols
that take 6mm ammo?”
“Not so much anymore,
just the generic stuff,” replied the store owner. “The damn government
restricts everything nowadays. Don’t
have any of the old beauties I used to carry.
Man, those were the days.”
“But you still carry
the ammo?” The man behind the counter
nodded. “And do you have any regular
customers that buy the ammo, possibly in large quantities?”
“Listen, if it didn’t
sell, I wouldn’t carry it. Lots of
people come in here getting all sorts of things, and more than just a few
people buy 6mm ammo. Guns don’t just
vanish after a few years you know.”
“Look, there’s a good
reason why we’re here. I was assaulted
by a hitman four years ago, and he shot me with 6mm ammo. If you have ever seen anything suspicious,
please… I need to find out who he is.”
“I don’t want any
trouble sir, if you have some sort of personal vendetta, I don’t want to be a
part of it. If you‘re not here to be a
customer, please leave.” The store owner
was closing the conversation just as quickly as he started it. His sarcasm was gone, but replaced with a
stern dislike for Seth. A dead end. Seth gave up, and started shopping for a
weapon. After a few moments, he decided
to pick up a police issue Glock 9mm handgun, stocked himself with enough
bullets to kill fifty hitmen, and the two set out for Underwood’s place.
“Not much help, was
he?” Underwood stated, after they had
gotten back onto the main highway. Seth
looked out the window of the taxi, as if the passing city would give him the
answers he needed. He was deflated from
the day’s progress. He had run into
nothing but dead ends, and had now run out of leads. The taxi came to a stop at Underwood’s house,
interrupting Seth’s thoughts. Underwood
got out, and took two steps towards the door before turning, and giving one
final plea to Seth.
“Leave it alone,
friend. Please. You’re going to get yourself killed. You’re going after a trained killer, with
nothing but a pistol you probably don’t even know how to fire. It’s craziness, all of it.” After a moment of Seth’s stare, Underwood
gave up. “Listen, if you need anything,
you know where to find me. We may not be
the best of friends, but I’m there for you.
You can’t have many friends, after being away for so long. Good night, Seth.” Underwood set off up the
path to his front door, and Seth for his hotel, where his thoughts kept him up
long enough for the sun to start rising before he finally fell asleep.
. . .
“Shadow.”
“I’ve got work for
you.”
“Be right there.”
It had been almost a
week since Carter had last worked, and he felt the downtime almost
maddening. He descended from the rooftop
on Karn Street, one of his favorite places to relax, and began walking toward
his next assignment.
He approached the
house twenty minutes later, and as he got closer, noticed the house looked as
eerie as ever. The only difference was
that the shutters had a new coat of the deep red Carter had linked to the color
of blood. Taking in the air of the last
day of summer, Carter stepped inside.
All the way at the back of the house was a room with double doors, a
room Carter was most familiar with.
Before this, Carter was simply a seventeen year old boy with a trust
fund, no ambitions, and a reputation for being weird. Few liked to converse with him, in school or
otherwise, because he was the quiet type.
After graduating high school, Carter simply stayed at home; he cared
little for everyday life. For months,
including his eighteenth birthday, he spent his days locked in his room,
reading horror novels and listening to the kind of music religious families
cringe at the very thought of. It was
easy to slip into darkness, because no one bothered to teach him otherwise.
Then one day,
something happened. He found himself
having a conversation with a strange older man with burns on his face in a
bookstore about Anne Rice. The man stated that he enjoyed Rice’s focus on love,
death, immortality, and existentialism, in relation to vampires. Carter added that he enjoyed reading Rice
during her Atheist years, before she resorted back to Catholicism. This must have been what the man wanted to
hear, as he started asking questions of all kinds, much like an interview. Carter, who usually wasn’t much for conversation,
found himself deeply entertained by the context of this particular encounter.
It took about three
hours for the man to formally introduce himself. His name was Tom Vulcan, and for the years
that followed, he was Carter’s only friend.
The old man opened Carter’s eyes to all sorts of things, and before long
was mentoring him. His methods were
strategic, his motives pure. He was
training Carter to kill, and Carter did not reject his teachings. This same man was still the puppet master for
all of Carter’s work today. It was this
same man that Carter was about to see now.
When he entered the
room, he looked for his employer, and found him sitting behind a desk near the
back. Tom was tapping the ends of his
fingers together, with his elbows on the desk.
He had a look of worry on his face.
“Timothy Parker, I’d
like you to meet Shadow.” Tom never
disclosed Carter’s identity, and Carter showed him the same respect. Carter looked around the room, and found
Timothy standing near the window. He had
guessed that his random glances outside the window were keeping the man from
sitting down. “Please, tell him why
you’re here Mr. Parker,” Tom continued.
He wasted no time with this sort of thing.
“It’s my wife. She’s been cheating on me for a while, and
now she’s gone.” He glanced out of the
window as if he were expecting trouble. “Yesterday. Came home, and all her stuff was gone. She left.
No note, no goodbye, nothing. “
Seeing no change in emotion from Carter, he got aggravated. “She’s
gone!” He was screaming now.
“Mr. Parker,”
interrupted Tom. “You’re going to have
to calm down. Shadow here doesn’t much
like being yelled at. Get’s him a bit
nervous, you see. And that can be
bad. Now, please tell him the rest.”
“Sorry. I can’t believe she’s gone is all.” His face was now red, and his eyes were
beginning to glaze. “She means
everything to me, and I can’t stand the thought of her with anyone else.”
Carter waited until it
was obvious he wasn’t going to continue on before speaking, in a very monotone
voice. “So you want me to kill your
wife?”
“Lord no!” Parker
answered. “I love her. No, I want you to kill her boss, the man
she’s been seeing. With him out of the
way, she’ll be forced to come back home.
She’ll have nowhere else to go.”
He was openly sobbing now, but still had the look of a determined
man. “Yes, I think that will do the
trick. Her boss’ name is…”
“Thank you, Mr.
Parker. I can handle it from here,” Tom interrupted again. Something was different about him. “I’ll show you out. I can explain the rest of the details without
you. I’ll let you know when it’s
finished.” Two sets of footsteps
trickled away on the hardwood floor, and then moments later, one returned. Tom shut the door behind him, and sat back
down, looking equally as troubled as he was before.
“Carter, this is going
to be a difficult mission for you. Part
of me wanted to send this man off, and have nothing to do with it. I’ll leave the decision to you.” Tom hesitated, taking in Carter’s look, which
was that of a puzzled man, yet still dark as ever. “Carter…”
“Out with it,” Carter
said, sounding rather impatient.
“The man he’s asking
to be killed… it’s your father, Carter.”
Tom looked deeply now at Carter, surveying every inch of him, waiting
for a reaction. Carter, however, did not
change expression at all, but seemed to be deep in thought. A memory had come to his mind…
“James, get your ass
down here!” A man in his forties was standing
at the foot of a staircase. This was the
earliest memory Carter had of his father.
Martin Carter was an entrepreneur, starting an oil company that lead him
to vast riches and a very involved adulthood, filled with house parties,
conferences, and business trips. The
house was constantly filled with pompous, rich, money-hungry, fame-seeking
people of all ages and ethnicities, all of whom gave Carter a bad taste in his
mouth. He spent most of his childhood
hiding from these events, merely observing from a downstairs coat closet, or
the top of the stairs. He hated these
people, as they were the people that were keeping him from having a normal
life. As he grew older, he began merely
leaving such scenes. He hated the smiles
these people faked, the money they spent to make themselves happy, and the
overall vanity that filled the auras of all of his father’s friends.
“I’m leaving for a
week or so, and I want you to try to behave yourself. I don’t want you screwing up this families
reputation due to your idiotic tendencies.
If you get into any trouble while I’m gone, I will find out about it,
and there will be hell to pay, do you hear me?”
A twelve year old boy,
scared shitless, could only reply “Yes, sir.”
There were many memories like this one, and not a single positive memory
in his brain about the man.
After moments of
silent reflection, Carter spoke softly.
“I’ll do it.”
“Carter, I feel that
some anger and rage may surface with this mission, and you’re way too important
to me to have you falling into a harmful state of mind. You have to be clear headed to do what you
do, and you can’t let anything affect the task you have in front of you.”
Carter seemed
unaffected. “I said I’ll do it. I don’t question you, please show me the same
luxury.” He stared intently at Tom,
whose burn scars on his face seemed to only grow as he got older. He wore a coat, resembling a cape, which had
a collar that he kept flipped up, covering the lower half of his face. Yet, as much as he tried, he couldn’t help but look much the same as he did when
they first met.
“Okay. You of course have the address,” Tom let out a small sigh. “And I’m sure you know better than anyone
else how to get into the estate. The
only information I have for you is that Parker’s wife is supposedly living
there, and you are not to harm her while accomplishing your mission. Also, there are now four people employed by
your father to maintain the upkeep of the estate. You’re sure you want to do this?” Once again, Tom was misjudging Carter’s
feelings for his father.
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