WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (76 - 80)

76

Perry Winters checked the lat/long coordinates and determined that Sheriff Bridges was outside of Messerton, Illinois. Something had obviously gone wrong. The sheriff would fill him in when he got there. Or not. Sometimes it was better not to know, and he trusted Mike Bridges’ judgment on that.

77

After nearly two hours, Larry Brown and his cousin Leon crossed the Wabash River and the Illinois state line. Larry looked over at Leon, his face pressed against the window, fast asleep. Leon was twice as big as Larry, and maybe half as bright. Not management material, but a loyal employee nonetheless. That’s all Leon was to Larry, an employee, and a cousin, although Leon thought they were friends. He would do anything Larry asked of him.

Larry pressed the window control for the passenger side. The glass rubbed against Leon’s face, waking him as it lowered.

“Huh? What’s going on?” Leon said, groggy and confused.

“What’s wrong, Leon?” Larry said. “You havin’ a dream?”

“My window came down.”

“You must’ve pushed down on the button while you were leaning against the door,” Larry said. “Hey, how’s your nose doing?”

“It hurts, Larry. I still think I should go see a doctor at the emergency room.”

“Can’t do that. Remember, I told you, they find out a honey badger bit you, and then it gets out of control. They have to call it in. Fish and Wildlife, and who knows what other government agencies will be crawling up my ass before it’s all said and done. No doctors, Leon.”

“Okay.”

Larry laughed. “You got any idea how ridiculous you look, with your nose all bandaged up like that?”

“I can’t help it, Larry.”

“All because you wanted to pet a honey badger.”

“I just thought—“

“What, Leon? What’d you think?” Larry said. “Oh looky at the purdy aminal. I will hug him and hold him and love him and squeeze him. And he will be my very own!” Larry laughed.

“Stop it, Larry,” Leon said.

“You’re lucky that sumbitch didn’t take your nose clean off.”

“Where is it we’re goin’, Larry?”

“A place called Messerton, Leon,” Larry said. Like Perry Winters, he had gotten the lat/long coordinates. Apparently, whatever kind of mess Sheriff Bridges had gotten himself into, it wasn’t anywhere that would have an address. “That’s in Illinois. Not much further.”

“Good,” Leon said, “On accounta I gotta pee.”

78

Ty Hamilton

The key worked. First thing I did inside the house was strip out of my dirty clothes and clean up. Standing in the shower, I assessed my gunshot wounds. It looked to me like I’d taken two pellets. They had ripped through the flesh of my tricep, but had not lodged.

It hurt to do it, but I could still move the arm. I cleaned it as best I could, using soap and water. It took forever to get all the mud out of the wounds. Probably not such a smart thing, doing that, but I’d seen it once on TV.

I didn’t see any bandages that would be large enough, so I rummaged through Mulligan’s chest of drawers and found a T-shirt. I ripped it into four pieces and wrapped one around the arm, tying it securely but not enough so as to cut off circulation. It would have to do.

Mulligan had a desktop computer. Come on. Seriously, who has a desktop computer these days? It kind of pissed me off, because I had wanted to just grab his laptop and get out of there. Look at it later. I sat at his desk and powered it up, ready to use the knowledge that I had at my disposal.

As long as I was going to be staying for a while, I decided to throw my clothes in the wash. Make good use of my time. Multi-task. I found a pair of shorts and another T-shirt to wear while mine were in the laundry.

An image of the Marine Corps logo appeared on the screen. Below was a prompt for a password. Could it really be so easy? I typed in “Semper Fidelis” and hit the ENTER key. The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor wiggled back and forth, sort of like someone shaking their head ‘No’. “Hmmm,” I said. I took a swig of water and tried “Semper Fi”, with the same result. Okay, so it wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped.

Not ready to give up just yet, I tried “Do or die.” Again, nothing. Heavy sigh. “I really thought it would be Semper Fidelis,” I said. Then, I wondered, ‘What does that mean, anyway?’ I leaned into the computer and

typed “Always faithful”. With a sly grin, I hit ENTER. And yet again, no luck.

“Aw, Come On!” I yelled. I slammed my fist on the counter. “Son of a bitch!”

79

I was in over my head with trying to guess the password, so I decided to examine the copies I’d run off at the library. Some of the suggestions included street address, birthday, interests and hobbies, and so on. With time, I could probably crack it, but damn, that eagle, globe and anchor logo just wouldn’t let go. Then, I returned to the keyboard and typed “Always Loyal,” and just like that, I was in.

I remembered my clothes in the washer and took a break from the computer to transfer them to the dryer. I was tempted to call it a night, but I’m not one to quit when I’m on a roll, so I went back to the computer and began perusing files. It was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There were bank accounts – both domestic and offshore – and passwords. Stored, ironically, under a file named accounts. Everything I needed.

The mail, the plaques on the wall, the checking and savings accounts at the local bank accounts were all in the name of Michael Welch. It became obvious to me that Jared Mulligan was not the real name of the man I had killed on the island. Which begged the questions, who was Michael Welch, and why did he carry fake ID?

He had accumulated a great deal of wealth, at least by my standards. The big accounts, all in the name of Jared Mulligan, added up to something to the tune of about three million and change. Maybe more, if I kept digging. I bit my lower lip lightly, stared blankly at the computer screen. I was about to take another step that, once taken, I could not retrace.

Mulligan had spread his assets in numbered accounts around the world. He had substantial accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Caymans, and Singapore and smaller deposits in Barbados and Belize. Maybe the purpose was to diversify, spread it around so that all the eggs weren’t in one basket. Or, in one country. I now realized that Jared Mulligan was not your average Joe. He had money, yet lived modestly, by all indications, as Michael Welch.

I wanted to know how to access the money without drawing unwanted attention. Which is to say, I wanted to do it without drawing any attention at all.

“And how did you come into all this money, Mr. Welch?” I asked aloud in the empty room. “Or Mr. Mulligan? . . .  Whoever you are.”

I noticed a trend. When he travelled, he was Mulligan. In Messerton, he was Welch.

80

Ty Hamilton

Jared Mulligan had booked a cruise, according to a confirmation e-mail I was looking at. Not just any cruise. A thirty-six day cruise, leaving Tampa on the last Saturday of August. I suppose even a hit man needs a vacation now and then. Ports of call – Panama Canal; Los Angeles; Tahiti; Fiji and eventually ending up in Sydney, Australia on a repositioning cruise. Once there, the ship and crew would serve the Down Under market with cruises to places like New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji, as well as other Australian ports.

I’d had a full day, and I was ready to sleep, but the thought of lying in Mulligan’s, or rather, Welch’s bed, was something I was not yet ready to embrace, so I sat in the recliner, sipping on a beer that I’d taken from the refrigerator. I doubted Mulligan would mind, him being dead and all. I kept turning it over in my mind how I could have better handled the incident with the sheriff. There was no way I could have anticipated what happened. And if he hadn’t been hiding something himself, if he’d been a good cop instead of a dirty cop, none of it would have happened. It was all on him. Still, I felt a sense of failure for not having taken control of the situation.

A two-hour documentary on World War II was running on the television. Somebody should tell the folks at the History Channel that we all know by now who won that war, and we’d like to move on and learn about something else now. But, there is no better sedative than a two-hour documentary on World War II. I closed my eyes and thought of Dianna as I fell asleep in the recliner.

When I awoke early the next morning, I thought about trying to go back to sleep, but I resisted the urge. I was ready to start my new life. Jared Mulligan had given me a gift, and I was not going to let it go to waste. I’d already squandered one life. I had a lot to do. Choices to make. But first, coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.

I had just poured the coffee when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock on the microwave as I shuffled to the front door – 7:41 was a little early for visitors, wasn’t it? Maybe not in the Midwest. Farm country, even in town.