no pain, as though my nervous system had shut down. Oh, God…
Please let it get here before they do. Just give me more time.
Glancing at the turnstiles, my heart sank as I saw the two cops run onto the platform, their eyes darting back and forth. I plastered my body against a grimy pillar, trying to slow down my breathing. I couldn’t hear any footsteps; the train was too close, the screeching of metal drowning out all other noise.
The first car of the giant metal snake rushed past, the air around me shattered in an instant, damp hair plastered against my forehead.
Come on!
Then the train began to slow down. Brakes grinding against the tracks, the wind subsiding.
When the train came to a halt and the doors slid open, I waited for the passengers to exit then slid inside the last car. I took a seat next to a young woman in a navy pinstripe suit wearing headphones, her head bobbing to a silent rhythm. A man across the aisle was reading a folded newspaper. Neither of them looked at me. I took slow breaths, my heart rate mercifully dropping.
I exhaled as the doors began to close. I knew exactly where to go next. It would only be a short few minutes before I got there.
Then right before the doors sealed shut, they sputtered open. Someone was trying to enter the train at the last second. Nobody in my car was holding the doors, so I stood up and peered through the windowpane into the adjacent car.
No.
Two pairs of arms were prying the door open like spiders caught in a Venus flytrap. I recognized the glint of a badge, then saw the faces through the window. The cops were coming inside.
Trying to act casual, I stood up and inched toward the opposite end of the car.
The conductor’s scratchy voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Let’s go, people! There’s another train right behind us!”
I had no time to think. When the doors opened again, right as the cops entered the train, I bolted back out onto the platform. I sprinted toward the subway entrance, noticed a gun barrel jammed between another set of doors. The cops had seen me leave and were trying to pry their way back out into the station. The conductor’s irritated voice echoed once more as the subway doors again flung open, the cops spilling back out onto the platform. Less than twenty feet away from me.
Run.
I followed the exodus of people who’d gotten off the train at 116th, ducking between two men, then sidestepping a woman lifting a baby carriage. I ran up a flight of steps to the upper platform. The musty smell of spilled coffee and extinguished cigarettes coated my nostrils with every sharp breath. The entrance to the street loomed just past the turnstiles, but I wouldn’t make it outside. The cops had surely called for help. Any minute now they’d be circling the station like sharks aching for blood. In this situation, evasion was better than confrontation.
I ducked into a newspaper kiosk and grabbed the nearest magazine. Penthouse.
Whatever.
I splayed the pages open, standing just behind the soda cooler so I was out of sight. Peering over a picture of breasts the size of beach balls, I watched the cops scamper up to the platform. They spoke in staccato bursts, gesturing wildly around the station, then the younger one pointed to a mass of people walking up the stairs to the street. They ran toward the exit, shouting and elbowing past frightened commuters. When they disappeared from view, I collected myself and slowly walked back down to the lower platform. Another train was just pulling into the station.
I stepped behind a pillar-just in case-and waited.
The train stopped, the doors opened and I stepped inside. When the doors closed behind me and the car began to move, I knew I was alone. I took a deep breath and sat down.
An elderly woman seated across the aisle eyed me with contempt, shaking her head with disdain. Could she know?
Then I looked down and noticed the Penthouse still in my hands. I smiled, shrugged my shoulders and held the mag up for her to see.
“Sorry,” I said. “Thought it was Newsweek. ”
13
It took everything Blanket and Charlie had not to turn around, to simply stare at the man following them. Blanket looked to his right, saw Charlie biting his lower lip, and knew they were thinking the exact same thing. Mere steps behind them was the most brutal and cold-hearted killer they had ever known, and for men in their profession they’d known every cutthroat, backstabbing, soulless bastard to walk the earth. But he was different. He scared the life out of two men who’d grown up frightened of nothing.
The musty smell of the basement had grown all too familiar this morning. Blanket listened to the footsteps behind him, the enigma nearly silent. He’d only seen the man briefly-opening the front door to let him in-and was now doing his very best to hide his quickening heart rate and sweaty palms.
“Almost there,” Charlie’s voice rang out. A pointless statement, Blanket thought, said just to see if the man would respond.
“Watch your head,” said Blanket, ducking under a swinging bulb. He eyed Charlie again. They shared a smile.
At the large door in the building’s sub-basement, Blanket rapped the code. The metal slot opened. A pair of eyes looked out at Blanket and Charlie, unimpressed. Then they caught sight of the man behind them. The eyes widened. The man behind the door whispered.
“Is that…him?”
Blanket nodded solemnly.
The door swung inward. The three men entered. This ghost, whom powerful men like Michael DiForio called when they needed odds tipped in their favor, a man whom the shroud of death hovered over permanently, was mere inches behind them. That Michael had summoned him only underlined the severity of last night’s incident.
As they entered the large conference room, a dozen men, none of whom had ever bowed to any man save Michael DiForio, stood, craning their necks for a better look. With no empty chairs available, Blanket and Charlie stood on either side of the door as it slammed shut. After a tense few moments, the men all sat down. Except Michael DiForio.
“Welcome,” Michael said. “Glad you could make it on such short notice. Hope I didn’t interrupt your morning tennis game.”
The man said nothing. For the first time Blanket was able to see him clearly.
He stood a shade over six-four and looked slightly north of two hundred pounds. His brown hair was done in a Caesar cut, short bangs dripping over his forehead. He wore a black leather jacket-not frayed, but worn-and dark pants. Blanket estimated the man’s age in the early thirties. But his dark eyes were reminiscent of policemen who’d been on the beat far too long, men who’d seen the depths of hell and had sunk too far to ever return.
“Michael,” the Ringer said. He bowed his head slightly, more a formality than out of respect. “I don’t imagine you called to talk trivialities.”
DiForio grinned and said, “No, I didn’t. So let’s get right to business. You know, that’s what I’ve always liked about you. No bullshit. Cut right to the chase.”
Blanket noticed Charlie fidgeting, his fingers clenching and unclenching. They were in the presence of a ghost of the New York underworld, a man whose past was well-documented, revered like a disturbing bedtime story, and feared to the point of paralysis.
The Ringer had cut his teeth as a professional assassin at the tender age of fifteen. He worked as a contract man for low-level hoods, men who didn’t care if the job was a little sloppy, a little too bloody to keep under wraps. The Ringer killed with a vicious disregard for cleanliness or subtlety. His targets were drug dealers who skimmed
