Mirage Man

  Acclaim for the Work of Trace Conger

  “Trace Conger is establishing himself as one of the most original voices in crime fiction.” - Gregory Petersen, author of Open Mike and The Dream Thief

  “Trace Conger’s characters are well-plumbed, original and real.” - Bookpostmortem

  “Conger’s writing is direct. It moves clearly and quickly, perfect for thrillers.” - Ronald Tierney, author of the Deets Shanahan Mysteries

  “The Prison Guard’s Son is a superbly crafted crime novel. The characters are richly drawn with a rare combination of nuance and depth... This is one of the year’s best books.” - Mysterious Reviews

  “The Mr. Finn series breathes new life into the P.I. genre… It is one of the best detective series I’ve ever read.” - Gumshoes, Gats and Gams

  “The Shadow Broker tips a handsome hat in the direction of old-fashioned pulp fiction and it does so with considerable style. The writing is fluid and the plot pumps along.” - Murder, Mayhem & More

  Contents

  1. Disappearing Act

  2. Old Habits

  3. Good News and Bad Analogies

  4. The Dead Man on the Floor

  5. Mousetrap

  6. False Alarm at the Busted Knuckle

  7. Joseph Sontag

  8. Declan Porter

  9. The Lawyer

  10. Zoe Armstrong

  11. The Whisper Network

  12. Prisoner #1053

  13. Yea or Nay

  14. Routines and Redheads

  15. Greenwich, Connecticut

  16. Brick Henry

  17. An Old Friend

  18. Coming Clean

  19. Professional Courtesy

  20. Brookville, New York

  21. Road Rage

  22. Wild Night at Hoster Hall

  23. Hotel Illness

  24. Headspace

  25. The Prodigal Son

  26. Begging and Eggs

  27. Going On the Record

  28. 215 Mercer Street

  29. The Crimson Con

  30. Plan B

  31. One Final Deal

  32. Dangerous Debts

  33. Wiser for the Time

  Follow Connor Harding

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Trace Conger

  Mirage Man

  Copyright © 2021 by Trace Conger

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, brands, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover design by Damonza.

  Interior design and formatting by the handsome devils at

  Black Mill Books

  ISBN: 13: 978-0-9968267-6-1

  ISBN-10: 0-9968267-6-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Conger, Trace

  Mirage Man (A Connor Harding Novel) — 1st edition

  To all of those who have supported me on this journey, I owe you more than I can ever repay.

  And a special thank you to my family who continue to believe in me, even when I sometimes do not.

  “There's two angels sittin on my shoulders.

  All they ever do is disagree.

  One sits on the side of rhyme and reason.

  The other on the reckless side of me.”

  “The Reckless Side of Me,” The SteelDrivers

  “Not all who wander are lost.”

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  1

  Disappearing Act

  People disappear all the time. Sometimes, they go voluntarily, and sometimes they don’t. Denise Rodriquez fell into the first category. She wanted to vanish and she wanted to take her six-year-old daughter, Lola, with her.

  Mr. Fish and I were going to make that happen, we just hadn’t expected to do it today.

  Creating a new identity for someone, surgically plucking them out of their current existence, and then dropping them into their New World isn’t some sleight of hand you conjure up over a weekend. It takes planning, and you better get it right. We’re talking a new driver’s license, birth certificates, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, and vehicle registrations, not to mention fabricated employment, credit and medical histories.

  The toughest part was Denise’s criminal record. She served six months in MCI–Framingham for drug possession and distribution, which meant her fingerprints were on file. Anyone with the right connections and bankroll can create a halfway decent identity for someone, but altering prints in the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system, the bureau’s central repository of biometric info, was something else.

  That’s what Mr. Fish and I do. We make people disappear, and we know what we’re doing. We’re as good as WITSEC, but unlike the FBI, we don’t require anyone to testify before they become invisible. As long as Denise doesn’t slip up and out herself, she’s as good as gone.

  Denise could have gone to the FBI and offered up information on Ernesto “Trinidad” Rodriquez, her husband and Lola’s father, in exchange for a life far away from Boston, but there was no guarantee they would play ball. By coming to us, she gets to disappear on her own terms.

  Ernesto was the shot caller for the Westside Assassins, a local street gang. Denise didn’t have a problem with Ernesto’s violent streak when it stayed on the street, but when it crept into their home and Lola’s room, she decided it was time to run.

  The original plan gave us another three weeks to generate all the documents, confirm her new information was in the right databases, and pressure test her new identity under a variety of scenarios, like a traffic stop or a trip to the voting booth. But that window slammed shut the moment Ernesto found out Denise wanted to flee.

  I don’t know how he found out, but Denise was able to get a text message to Mr. Fish alerting him that Ernesto was onto her. Mr. Fish told her to get Lola and drive to a nearby supermarket parking lot, where we would meet her. We arrived ten minutes after Mr. Fish sent the message.

  “I don’t like it,” I said, scanning the parking lot for Denise’s BMW.

  Mr. Fish tapped his index finger against the side of his nose. “All she had to do was buy enough time to get to her car. Let’s give her another fifteen. Then we’ll try the house.”

  Fifteen minutes seemed like an hour, but when Denise still hadn’t shown, Mr. Fish kicked the car into gear and drove the two miles to her house. He parked down the street.

  The BMW was still in the driveway. Two other cars blocked it in. The SUV belonged to Ernesto. Who drove the black pickup truck was anyone’s guess.

  “At least we know she’s still here,” said Mr. Fish.

  “Right, but is she still breathing? And who else is in there?”

  We didn’t have to wait long for the answer. A big guy wearing a white V-neck T-shirt and jeans came out of the house first. A smaller man, dressed the same, came out behind him. Denise followed, and then Ernesto emerged, dragging Lola by the arm. He didn’t bother to hide the piece in his waistband.

 
They all piled into the SUV and pulled out. Mr. Fish gave them a cushion and then pulled out behind them.

  Based on their route, we knew where they were headed. The Westside Assassins operated out of a housing complex called Lot 72 in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. If Ernesto and his crew made it inside the complex, Denise was likely not walking back out.

  We tailed them for several miles, waiting for an opportunity to intercept them. Finally, they pulled off the main highway onto a less populated two-lane road. Strip malls boasting everything from coffee shops to gas stations to fast-food restaurants littered both sides of the street.

  “We need them to pull over,” I said.

  “How do you suppose we get them to do that?”

  “Get closer, but stay on the passenger side on the car.”

  Mr. Fish closed the gap as I pulled out my .45 and screwed on the suppressor.

  “You’re going to start a shoot-out on the highway? Not smart.”

  “Not a shoot-out,” I said. “Hang back a bit and try to get in his blind spot.”

  As Mr. Fish jockeyed into position, I crawled into the back seat and rolled down the rear window on the driver’s side. Then I buried a slug in the SUV’s rear passenger tire. From a distance, an accurate shot might not even break through a steel-belted radial, but we were close enough to do some damage.

  Contrary to popular belief, tires don’t explode when shot. They puncture, producing a slow bleed like running over a nail. The driver wouldn’t even know anything had happened until the tire flattened out, then he’d have to pull off the road and change it. Even if Ernesto inspected the busted radial, it would be too flat to spot a bullet hole.

  With a .45-caliber hole in it, the tire deflated in less than a minute. The driver immediately slowed and eased over into the right lane. We passed them so they wouldn’t make the tail. Mr. Fish took the next turnoff into a clothing store parking lot and doubled back, where we found Ernesto’s SUV sitting lopsided at a gas station.

  Mr. Fish cut the engine. “Now what?”

  The bigger man in the white T-shirt opened the liftgate and removed a tire iron and jack.

  “We’ve got to separate Denise and Lola from Ernesto’s crew,” I said. “And we need to do it fast before they change that tire.”

  Mr. Fish grabbed his phone from the console and opened Denise’s last text message. He replied, instructing her to take Lola inside the store. “I hope Ernesto didn’t confiscate her phone,” he said.

  A minute later, Denise and Lola emerged from the SUV and walked toward the King Kwik convenience store. Ernesto followed.

  I removed the suppressor, slipped the .45 into my jacket pocket, and stepped out of the car. A rush of adrenaline surged through me, and I felt my heart hammering inside my chest. It had been a while since I felt that.

  “Pull around back and keep the engine running,” I said.

  Mr. Fish said something, but I was already too far away to make it out. I entered the convenience store and walked toward the back. The sixty-something-year-old cashier stood behind a two-inch-thick Plexiglas window. There were three security cameras positioned near the ceiling, covering the entire store. No blind spots.

  I passed a rubber door with a plastic window that led to a back room. Next to that was a small recessed hallway, where Ernesto stood outside the bathroom door. Denise and Lola must be inside. The toilet flushed, so I moved around a shelf of candy bars and automotive magazines with my back to Ernesto. The door opened and Denise and Lola came out. Ernesto followed on their heels.

  Once he passed me, I turned and wrapped my forearm around his neck and squeezed. Rendering someone unconscious by compressing both carotid arteries takes less than six seconds. It also only takes as much pressure as opening a can of Diet Coke. Once someone gets a solid grip on you, there isn’t much you can do to stay on your feet. When Ernesto went limp, I laid him down on the filthy blue-and-white tile floor and released the hold.

  “Out the back,” I said. “Let’s go!”

  It took Denise a moment to recognize me before she grabbed Lola by the hand. They followed me through the rubber door next to the bathroom, through a small stockroom, and out a brown dented metal door that led to the rear parking lot, where Mr. Fish waited in his humming sedan.

  Ernesto would regain consciousness within sixty seconds, but he’d have no idea why he was on the floor, a side effect caused by the momentary lack of oxygen to his brain. The four of us would be long gone by the time he made it back to his boys playing mechanic and figured out what had just happened.

  We arrived at a safe house in Worcester, Massachusetts, about an hour later. Denise and Lola would stay there until we had all the documents they needed to start over. In a few weeks, Mr. Fish would drive back to Worcester and deliver their paperwork, then take them to Bradley International Airport, where they would board a flight to Somewhere, USA, and put Ernesto’s heavy hand behind them forever.

  2

  Old Habits

  Mr. Fish was one of the first people I met when I moved to Boston two years ago. I had rented an apartment until I could find a house, and after unpacking for several hours, I made my way to a nearby watering hole. Less than a minute after I sat down at the bar, a pudgy man wearing suspenders—the only person I'd seen in suspenders in a decade or more—sidled up next to me and asked what I was drinking.

  I told him Dewar’s and he walked behind the bar and poured me two fingers of scotch liked he owned the place. I'd later find out he didn't own it, he just knew the owner well enough to have behind-the-bar privileges.

  Mr. Fish was an ex-cop turned PI. He used to work the typical PI cases, but then he carved out a niche selling new identities to anyone who could afford the twenty-grand price tag. Sometimes, he did pro bono work for those like Denise who couldn’t afford the cost of a new life, but who, according to Mr. Fish, deserved one.

  He was in his early sixties, short, balding, unassuming, and his suits never seemed to fit right. What he lacked in fashion sense, he made up for with a wicked sense of humor and familiarity with half the city of Boston. He knew everyone worth knowing. Those connections made him a damn good PI and gave him access to everything he needed to build new identities from scratch. He once told me all he needed to locate someone or help someone vanish was a fully charged cell phone and a comfortable couch.

  We were twenty minutes into the car ride back to Boston when Mr. Fish turned and stared at me. It was the kind of look you didn’t need to see. You felt it, like a grease burn. I glanced over, expecting him to say something and then turn back toward the highway in front of us, but he didn’t. He just kept glaring at me.

  “You might want to keep those eyes on the road,” I said.

  “How long have we been working together?”

  “What, maybe eighteen months?”

  He continued to stare.

  “The road,” I said.

  He returned his eyes to the asphalt and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “Eighteen months and you never pulled something like that.”

  “You know as well as I do if Ernesto got her to that complex she was done. We didn’t have time to run a plan through committee.”

  “For the most part, you’re a smart kid. But you’re capable of some stupid shit. I figure you noticed the four cameras outside the store? I assume there were at least two inside.”

  “Three.”

  “And how long do you think it’s going to take Ernesto to get ahold of that footage and identify you?”

  “He’s a street thug—“

  “And then connect you to me,” he interrupted.

  “Ernesto doesn’t have the connections to ID me. And even if he did, I’d never lead him to you.”

  Mr. Fish smirked behind the wheel. “What about my plates? Maybe they’re able to pick them up from the video feed. I’m sure they’ve got a nice clean shot of you getting out of the car and walking inside the store.”

  “I didn’t beat down some nun on the street,
Fish.”

  “No, you beat down the shot caller for a brutal street gang.”

  “Small-time thug. Nobody outside his gang gives two shits what happens to him. No cop is going to spend his overtime running down leads. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “That’s the thing. You don’t worry about it. You don’t worry about anything. And you should. You assaulted someone in broad daylight, on camera. Even if Boston PD doesn’t pursue it, it won’t take much for Ernesto to find out who you are. You’ve compromised our operation, and you’ve put me at risk.”

  “Fish, I didn’t—“

  “Bullshit. There’s no way Ernesto lets this go. Not with his wife and daughter gone. I guarantee he, or someone he works with, has connections with the PD. I bet he has your name and address, or worse, mine, in forty-eight hours.”

  “If he comes knocking, I’ll handle it. Ernesto Gonzalez isn’t the scariest person in this town.”

  “No. No, he’s not.”

  He was right to be concerned. Mr. Fish was as cautious as they come. Given what he does for a living, he has to be. Of all the adjectives to describe me though, “cautious” might not be on the list. And if it was, it’d be way down near the bottom.