Fucking kids.
They weren’t going to get him. Not like he had gotten Oskar.
How many had Cruz killed?
He wasn’t sure. He had done quite a few in his time. Beginning with those first messy jobs in and around Times Square – the blitzkrieg knife attacks, the shoot ‘em ups in welfare hotels, the guy he had gut-shot six times but who had still managed to run screaming into the street – Cruz had moved onward and upward.
And being apprenticed to Oskar? Well, that was part of what had made Cruz a pro. Oskar was the very definition of the professional – smooth, calm, utterly devastating. Oskar’s was the first death that rattled Cruz, and made him wonder about this life. All these years later, and he was still wondering.
They were doing a job out in Short Hills, New Jersey and they both knew that the time of Cruz’s apprenticeship was coming to an end. For one, Oskar had asked for, and received, permission to retire. For another, Cruz had become a polished and effective killer in their four years of working together. He had always been ruthless. But now he had verve and style. Now he could kill without emotion. He could appear, disappear, and cover his tracks with the best.
Oskar was sixty-three years old. Cruz was twenty-four. Cruz had never counted his own kills. Oskar had his own kills memorized. One hundred and ninety-nine. They had two to do in New Jersey. Oskar had suggested they each take one, and then he would finish with an even two hundred. Cruz thought that a fine idea.
They cruised along a narrow road of estate homes set back in the woods. They were driving a nearly new 1980 Alpha-Romeo Spider. It was small, fireapple red, with a black convertible roof and classic sports car looks. Although it was a sunny day, they had the roof up. The car had been a gift to a girlfriend by one of the men in the house, Mr. Eli Sharon. Eli was an Israeli who had come to the United States to enlarge his fortunes. He was fifty- eight years old and ran penny stock scams. His business partner was an American, forty-four year old Howard Brennan.
The girlfriend was young and beautiful. She was from India. That morning, she had left the house in Short Hills to go shopping. In a parking lot, she had been abducted and taken by van to a house in Brooklyn. The transfer had gone without a hitch. When the girl, shaken and tearful but not hurt, had climbed into the van, Cruz and Oskar had climbed out with her car keys.
The way Cruz understood it, she would not be harmed. Indeed, one of Cruz’s jobs today was to retrieve her passport from the top drawer of her armoire. Very soon, she would book a Tower Air flight from JFK to Delhi. She would settle in back home, maybe find a nice boyfriend her own age. That was the plan, and when they explained it to her, she agreed that it was time for a change.
They pulled up to the gate of the sprawling mansion. It was a wrought-iron gate with electric cattle wire strung along the top, which would issue a non-lethal charge to anyone who tried to climb it. It was a low-level type of security installed by a man who either felt he had few dangerous enemies, or who was confident in his ability to deal with them.
The Alpha-Romeo had an electronic device on the dashboard that sent a signal to an electronic lock box on the gate. Once the lock box recognized the device on the dashboard, the gate slid slowly open. There was no guard around of any kind.
So much for security.
Cruz was driving. It was nice car, a little tight with Oskar’s big shoulders there next to him, but nice nonetheless. He was thinking about buying one. Just from driving it around that day.
“What do you think of this car?” he said.
Oskar sat upright and alert in the passenger seat. He wore thick, round glasses. As always, he wore a suit and tie – today, a suit of light summer linen. His face was lined like that of an old, old man. Oskar wore black gloves, and had a MAC-10 submachine gun cradled on his knees. It had a huge Sionics specialty silencer installed at the end of the barrel. Oskar used to laugh about the MAC. People would get a load of it and all the fight would go out of them. They’d become like jellyfish, ready to do anything and everything he said. Oskar carried the MAC for show – he did his actual kills with the Ruger he kept strapped inside his jacket.
Cruz smiled. Oskar was a man ready for action. Even on his last assignment. Cruz respected that and always would.
“This car?” Oskar mused. “It’ll break down all the time.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s Italian. That’s a bad sign. Italians don’t make good cars. You want a good car, then spend the extra money and get a German car. The Germans, God help us, do everything well.”
“Even if you say so yourself.”
Oskar shrugged. “I don’t say it because my parents were from Germany. I say it because it’s true.” He laughed, and Cruz laughed with him.
They drove up along the tree-lined and curving avenue that passed for a driveway. If all was correct, the servants had been given the day off today. All was correct, Cruz knew. All was always correct.
He drove the car up the driveway, which ended at a circle in front of the grand entrance to the house. Next to, and attached to the house, was a four car garage. Eli was rich – there must have been good money in manipulating stock prices – but he was no Rockefeller. Cruz felt a stab of pity for him. An Italian sports car, a nice- looking exotic girlfriend, a four-car garage and a big house in Short Hills. The guy probably saw himself as a new- age sultan. Untouchable.
He was about to find out how wrong he was.
Their garage door was the second from left. The smoked windows of the car, combined with the glare of the sun, would probably thwart anyone from inside the house seeing into the car and alarming themselves. The device on the dashboard opened the garage door as well, much as the girl said it would.
Everything was normal. The girl had arrived home from shopping and had just slid into her normal position in the garage. The power garage door slid shut behind them. As it did so, the automatic overhead light came on in the garage.
Cruz checked his guns one last time. Beside him, Oskar did the same. Cruz favored a big. 44 Magnum in those days. Its silencer was huge as well. Howard was to die first, with a blast from the Magnum. This would intimidate Eli and get him to open the safe. There was a diamond in the safe that was on its way to Los Angeles tomorrow. Besides that, any easy cash lying around, Cruz could have it. This was a loot for cash job. Nothing else was to be touched except for the passport. And after all was said and done, Oskar could end his career with a bullet to Eli’s head.
“Ready?” Cruz said to Oskar.
Oskar had checked and rechecked the MAC and the Ruger. “Of course.”
They exited the car. The door to the house was locked, but of course there was a key on the girl’s ring. Cruz opened the door and it gave upon a large kitchen with an island in the middle and several workstations. Huge pots hung down from the overhead rack.
They passed through the kitchen, walking quickly.
“There you are my dear, we’re in the sitting room,” a voice called. “We have some wine for you.”
They turned a corner and here was the sitting room. Two men sat in easy chairs. Eli was the one on the left, the one with a large mole on his cheek. Cruz knew both of them from the dossier. They were fat men, and Cruz felt another pang of embarrassment for Eli. He was the fatter of the two, a corrupt middle-aged man with a lot of money. He thought he had the love of a beautiful young woman. Maybe he thought he had swept her away with his abilities as a lover, yes? Cruz wouldn’t put it past him. Rich men on the verge of violent death were prone to making such miscalculations. The girl had given them everything they needed to reach this man. She had done it in a heartbeat, to save her own life.
Eli and Howard gazed at Cruz and Oskar. Oskar held up the MAC as if it needed amplification, and Eli nodded.
“I have money,” Eli said.
“So do we,” said Oskar.
Cruz couldn’t resist. “The girl was with you for your money,” he said. “There was nothing else.”
