profits, middlemen who didn’t deliver payments on time. Small-timers. Deaths the cops would pay little attention to. Lives that wouldn’t be missed. Barely into manhood, the Ringer was a minor leaguer with all the ruthless tools to make the majors.
Once word spread of his brutal efficiency, the Ringer was given a healthy retainer to work exclusively for a single organization whose last mercenary for hire was found missing several vital organs and smeared across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. This new employer offered the Ringer his first meaningful assignment: the assassination of a rival organization’s consigliere, a power play that would have citywide ramifications.
The Ringer ambushed the man at a trendy nightclub, killing three bodyguards in a spray of gunfire and smoke and blood. But somehow in the mayhem, the target survived. And for the first time, there was a living man who could identify the Ringer.
Two days later, four armed men broke into the Ringer’s home, a fifth-floor brownstone on the lower east side. The shotgun blast that buckled the front door woke him and his wife, a struggling actress named Anne who was just a notch below gorgeous and talented enough to make the big-time.
The Ringer killed one man before the assailants fired a second shot. Realizing they had little chance of outfighting three armed men, the Ringer took his bride and ran for the fire escape. Then a bullet caught him in the lower back. The assassins grabbed him by his numb legs, pulled them back inside. One held them at gunpoint while the others doused the apartment with gasoline and ripped out the gas pipe from the stove.
The lead gunman leaned over the Ringer’s limp body and said, “This is your first and last lesson, asshole.” Then he put the barrel of the gun to Anne’s head and pulled the trigger.
The Ringer took another bullet in the chest. One of the gunmen lit a cigarette, took a puff and offered it to the Ringer, who lay dying on the bedroom floor. Before leaving, the gunman tossed the lit cig into a puddle of gasoline.
Your first and last lesson.
As flames spread through the apartment, the Ringer managed to drag himself to the window, hurling his maimed body onto the fire escape. He tumbled down a flight of steps, then the apartment erupted in a massive fireball.
Four weeks later, all of the assassins were dead, their body parts strewn throughout the city with the precision of discarded cigarette butts. All save one man. One man who’d survived the Ringer’s vengeance. One man who was never hunted down. And it was that man, the lone gunman who’d somehow escaped his rage, the man who’d sent a bullet crashing through his lover’s head, who kept the Ringer’s heart beating to this day.
The Ringer was dead to the world. Another statistic for the FBI. Another record closed. Two charred bodies were found in the smoldering wreckage. One was Anne, the other a failed assassin. The authorities assumed the Ringer had been caught in the blast. Now, years later, his name and face were a mystery to everyone but those he killed for.
But the Ringer’s soul, his lost love, was the driving force behind every murder. The picture of Anne he kept in his breast pocket.
Right before climbing onto the fire escape, cradling his wife’s body in his arms, the Ringer managed to grab an old photograph from the dresser. The photo was of Anne, sitting on a sandy beach wearing a beautiful yellow dress, an orange sun dipping over the horizon. It was taken the first night of their honeymoon. As blood leaked from his body, the Ringer put this photo into his right breast pocket. The photo was his final memory of the woman he’d loved so dearly, the only memory left of her. Anne’s photo was his second heart, and it beat with the venomous blood of a man whose thirst for vengeance could never be quenched.
He would never love again, never care for another soul, living every day only to avenge his lover’s death. And someday, everyone knew he would.
This was the man standing two feet from Blanket.
DiForio walked around the table. He held a newspaper in his hand. Blanket recognized the picture on the front. Nobody had to say a word. As soon as the Ringer accepted the job, if he accepted the job, Henry Parker’s life was over.
DiForio held the front page up for the Ringer to see, then handed it to him. The man didn’t even look at it.
“Henry Parker,” DiForio said, “has something that belongs to me. A package with some important materials that I can’t afford to lose. I need you to bring it to me. And when that’s done, I want Parker to disappear.”
The Ringer didn’t move. DiForio looked him over.
“Don’t you need a notepad or something? Jot all this down?” Michael asked. The Ringer stared straight at DiForio. His eyes showed nothing.
Michael continued. “We have one source rather close to the investigation. We know that the police haven’t found Parker yet and that they expect him to try and flee the city. Most major departure points are guarded-Port Authority, JFK, LaGuardia. They think there’s a possibility he got on the Path. You know, the train that goes to Jersey?”
“He didn’t do that,” the man said.
“Oh, no?” DiForio said, amused.
“No,” the Ringer said, his voice monotone. “If Parker’s going to run, it’s not going to be across the Hudson. It’s going to be far, far away from here.”
“How do you know that?” Michael asked.
“Because that’s what I would do.” The Ringer thought for a moment. “Parker will need clothes and money. If he tries to use a credit card, the cops will be on him in no time. Get me his credit card numbers. There are too many variables the police can control that we can’t. They have more manpower. They’ve already started looking. We’re playing catch-up.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Hopefully Parker is as smart as his pedigree suggests. He’s not going to make stupid mistakes. With any luck, he’s already fled and we’re on even footing with the Department of Justice. Have the police started running taps yet?” DiForio looked at Blanket, who gulped, then spoke.
“They, uh, yeah. They’ve got taps up and running to, let’s see…his girlfriend, this Mya Loverne broad who’s a Columbia law student and…”
“Daughter of David Loverne. Where else?”
“His parents’ house in Oregon.”
“What else?”
“Cell phone, too. Police couldn’t find one at his apartment, they assume he still has it. They’re keeping a tap in case he’s stupid enough to carry it around.”
“He won’t. If he’s smart he’ll lose the cell phone,” the Ringer said. “Is that all?
“For now, yeah.” The Ringer nodded.
“Now, your price,” DiForio said. He fixed his tie and took a glass of water from the table. He put it to his lips but didn’t drink. The room was silent, half the eyes on the Ringer, the other half on DiForio.
“I’m offering your usual fee,” Michael said. He hesitated a moment, took a small sip of water, then added, “Times two.”
The Ringer shook his head. “Ten,” he said.
DiForio whistled. “A million bucks. That’s a rich asking price to track down one hippie kid asshole.”
“You wouldn’t have contacted me if Parker wasn’t threatening the sanctity of your organization,” the Ringer said derisively. “I’d be working against the police and federal government to find a man wanted for the murder of a New York police officer. The price is one million. That or nothing.”
DiForio looked at the ceiling, as though consulting the God of asbestos, then looked back and said, “Let’s split the difference. Five hundred K.”
Without warning, the Ringer turned, opened the door and left the room.
“Don’t you walk out on me!” DiForio yelled. The Ringer ignored him and began to disappear down the corridor. “Hey, asshole, I didn’t say you could leave!”
The Ringer turned around. His eyes held no interest in anything DiForio said.
“Your time is almost up, Michael. You won’t find Henry Parker. At least not before the police do. And from the look in your eyes, I can tell you’d rather not have the police find this package.” Blanket watched as DiForio’s face reddened, his jaw muscles tightening.
