Page 118 of Lone Wolf

A long-haired guy with surfer muscles swayed his focus from his cell phone to Evan. “Youtopia dude killed himself,” he said. His breath carried a tinge of bubblegum and pot. “Jumped off his balcony. Crazy shit, man. Hit like a water balloon.”

Evan nodded once and drove home.

53

Cracking the Motherfucker

The next morning, Joey shook Evan gently awake. She’d been hacking away in the Vault last night when he’d crashed and evidently had spent the night in there working. He was so tired he hadn’t alerted to her entering the bedroom. Or had he subconsciously recognized her footprints, a domestic patter he knew to be safe?

If so: weird.

“X, Melinda needs to talk to us,” she said.

He rolled off the bed, set his bare feet on the floor. He was wearing boxer briefs, so he kept the sheets wrapped around his waist. For once, Joey was not in a joking mood.

“See you in there,” she said. “Hurry.”

He threw on clothes and padded back to the Vault. It carried Dog’s warm canine smell, musk and popcorn. Only seat in the room was the solitary chair behind the L-shaped desk. The Vault was a cockpit for one, even if he trusted Joey to fly from time to time.

Slurping the last of a Big Gulp, Joey gestured for Evan to sit.

He took the chair.

Melinda was writ large over the videotelephony program. She was in the back room of her warehouse, the windows blacked out, standing in front of a desk scattered with counterfeit passport stamps. In a construction tool belt she wore an Olympos double-action airbrush, its grip padded with proprietary pink tape, and she had a war-paint streak of periwinkle below her left eye. Her hair was straight and neat, and she looked sharp and alert to the point of perfection.

“The girl’s Hungarian blockchain expert and my dark-web specialist put something together,” Melinda said.

No foreplay, no flirting—she was in full-blown work mode. As Jack might remark: La donna è mobile. Evan found her focus remarkably attractive.

He rubbed sleep from his eye. “What?”

“It wasn’t just one payment to Karissa Lopatina. Three payments routed sequentially through the same channels on the same day. Bitcoin to the Wyoming trust.”

“Friedhoff paid for three hits, not just the one.”

“That’s the working theory.”

“Date?”

“November 9.”

“Three days before Hill was murdered.”

“Correct. Which means two hits are outstanding.”

“Well,” Evan said. “Hell.”

The last thing he needed was another pair of executions out there floating.

“With Friedhoff dead,” Melinda said, “you’d better stop the Wolf now. Those contracts were paid in full and are pending.” A landline rang and she picked up the heavy black handset, barked something in Vietnamese, and hung up. “I have to go. A client found a 1933 style-A three-sheet for King Kong in a vintage trunk from the era. The gorgeous girl needs some love and patching and Nguy ễn started in with the wrong vintage paper because that’s how Nguyễn rolls.”

Evan said, “Right.”

“As for the Gendarmerie revolver and Lopatina’s other gear, my men have come up empty. As you know, weaponry isn’t our strong suit. But my dark-web expert is finishing his forensic deep dive on Lopatina’s engagement with the contract-hit site. I’ll circle back if he extracts any other useful data points.”

Evan said, “Okay.”

“And if not,” she said, “perhaps we can have another meal soon.”