Page 84 of Statler

Statler hated sharing, but his people deserved to know, especially if it impacted their operation. “I’m placing any feelings I may have for her on hold until after we put this job to bed. Then I’ll come clean with the reason we’ve been here, and hope she forgives me for all the subterfuge.”

He then recalled Eliza’s troubling assertion, which he relayed to the team.

“She says she also has some issues to deal with, and I hope that doesn’t mean she’s sticking her nose into anything that might come back to bite her.”

“That would be pretty awful.” Pipes shook his head.

An understatement.

“So what’s our plan?” Tonka finally asked.

Statler appreciated Tonk steering him back to the business-at-hand.

“Over the next two weeks,” Statler answered, “we’ll be doing nightly, covert, stake-outs at the factory; two of us per shift. We’ll record and take pictures of everything we see and hear. We’ll break into Eliza’s home,” he winced, “and have a look at Holden’s notebook. After we have solid intel, we’ll hand it all over to Dark to see how he wants us to proceed.”

“I hope he lets us execute the final takedown.” Tonka rubbed his hands together.

Statler did, too. But the team didn’t always get to see things through to the end. Sometimes, after sharing intel, Dark had a “mop-up” crew who came in and took care of the dirty work.

“I’d love to see the look of fear on Flazer’s arrogant fucking face when he gets busted,” Tonka added.

Statler completely agreed. This job had become…personal.

He ruminated. “The final approach to things will depend on the number of people we find who are involved. If it’s the dozen or so that we’ve imagined, Dark will probably let us do the entire sweep. If the number of Flazer’s worker-bees is greater than what we’ve speculated, Dark will send in another team to help. I’ve already told him that no matter what, we want to be a part of the dismantling of things, and he’s taking that into consideration.”

There were resigned nods all around.

Statler put their odds at fifty-fifty.

As they began clearing dishes on the porch, Sherbert handed Statler a small piece of paper.

“Here’s something to share with the general,” he said.

Statler glanced at the name that was written down, and felt distaste. He knew exactly who this was.

“Thanks, Sherb.” Statler put it in his pocket as they finished up.

“Okay,” Tonka finally grunted. “This looks tidy enough. We’ll put together a schedule for our nightly recon, boss, while you talk to Dark. Then I’m for bed.”

Everyone looked to be on board with that.

Statler watched them walk into Blue’s cottage where they’d hash out suitable shifts and details for their surveillance.

He, however, had a call to make.

Once he was completely alone, Statler hit the familiar number.

“Dark,” the man barked on the other end of the line. “What have you got for me?”

“We found out who Holden was,” Stat began.

“Was?” Dark clipped.

“Yeah. He’s dead. Holden Belle. Pull a file on him, he was ex-military.”

Dark grunted, which Statler took as an affirmative.

“Purportedly,’ Stat continued, “he died in a hunting accident, but I can tell that the widow is suspicious, and with good reason. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, this sounds like someone found out Holden was about to whistle-blow, and decided to erase the problem.”