The Punisher

ever.

Castle saw it all happen again: saw his mother fall to the ground, saw his father shotgunned from behind, watched Tommy and Rachel, Dom and Donal, and all the others slaughtered like animals; worst of all, he saw Maria and Will lying still on the pier, limp and lifeless, never to laugh or cry or kiss or love again. For a final, futile second, anger surged through his body.

What he wouldn’t do for one more chance at those bastards. God, he thought. Somebody. Anybody.

His vision blurred and darkened around the edges.

And at that second, the current shifted, and Castle saw something glinting in the water ahead of him. Metal. Round. A cylinder of some kind.

With the last of his strength, with his one good arm, he dragged himself forward to get a closer look.

SIXTEEN

“Come on, move it, get that hunka junk outta here.”

Micky Duka rapped on the passenger window of the black Lexus till it rolled down. An ungodly beautiful black woman stared daggers at him.

Christ, he thought. It’s Charmaine what’s-her-name. Some French name, he couldn’t pronounce it, she was on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue this year.

In the driver’s seat next to her, an equally good-looking black man—this guy was a model, too, Micky knew that, though he couldn’t place him at all—smiled over at Duka, a very fake smile, and said: “We’re waiting for a friend.”

“Yes,” Charmaine said. “So, if you would please stop banging on my window—”

“Sorry,” Duka said. “But you gotta move.”

The driver kept smiling.

“As I said, we’re waiting on a friend. It’ll only be a minute. She was coming right out.”

“Yeah. You can wait for her over there, okay. Right now, you gotta move. Right now,” Duka repeated, casting a nervous glance past the Lexus to the Bentley waiting behind it. Dante, in the driver’s seat of the Bentley, was starting to frown.

“Do you know who I am?” the woman asked. “Who this is?” She pointed to the driver.

“You’re somebody, yeah. That’s great. But I’m somebody, too. I’m the valet captain. That means I’m in charge of keeping the way clear here. And you are blocking the way, capisce?”

Charmaine, clearly, didn’t capisce.

“What’s your name, little man?”

“Micky Duka.”

“Well, Micky, I’m a personal friend of John Saint’s—” The way she said that, Micky had no doubt that Howard’s kid had banged her, good for him “—and he’s certainly going to hear about this from me.”

“Wonderful. You can tell him in a minute, ’cause I see he’s waiting right there. In the Cobra, behind the Bentley. His dad’s Bentley. Howard Saint’s Bentley, which you are blocking at this very minute.”

The driver turned, saw the waiting cars, and his face changed.

Not ten seconds later, the Bentley was at the curb and Micky was opening the passenger door.

Howard Saint was the first one out. He took in the scene in front of the club, smiled at Micky, and then offered a hand to Mrs. Saint.

“Big crowd tonight, Mr. Saint,” Micky said. “You look beautiful, Mrs. Saint. If I may say so.”

Which she did, in a tight black dress that left nothing to the imagination—Christ, if his mom had looked like that, Micky would have had some serious issues, which he did anyway with Livia Saint, on account of the fact that every time she saw him she made a face like she just ate bad clams or something. Like she was about to get sick.

Micky guessed it had something to do with Bobby, even though Mr. Saint had apparently forgiven him for being there when Bobby died, as he’d given Micky this job here. Though sometimes he wondered if Saint hadn’t made him valet captain just to keep him close, keep an eye on him, make sure that he hadn’t really known anything at all about Otto Krieg being a Fed. Saint had certainly watched him carefully the other night when he’d given Micky that little piece of info, and it had been all Micky could do not to shit a brick right then and there, the way that Quentin Glass kept asking, Are you sure, Micky? Are you sure? Take your time. Guy made his skin crawl, Glass did.

The Saints entered the club, arm in arm. The Bentley pulled away from the curb. John Saint pulled in.

“Hey, Micky Duka, Micky Duka, Micky Duka.” Saint tossed him his keys. “How’s it going, my friend?”

John slapped him on the back.

“Good, John. It’s going good. You stayin’ awhile?”

Saint nodded. “Yeah. I am. Gotta little celebration happenin’ tonight, me and the folks.”

Like always, Micky felt weird every time he talked to the guy. The whole twin thing, it was like talkin’ to Bobby all over again, except that John Saint was a raving asshole. He and Glass had been gone for two days now, and Micky hadn’t missed either one of them in the slightest.

“Check out the news, by the way,” John said, slapping a newspaper into his chest.

“News?”

Micky flipped the paper open. Tomorrow morning’s Tampa Times . Howard knew somebody, of course—they always got it early.

Duka saw the headline above the fold, and his mouth dropped open. “Holy . . .”

MASSACRE IN PUERTO RICO: U.S. FAMILY GUNNED DOWN IN TERROR ATTACK. He didn’t need to read a word of it to know whose family got massacred, because there were pictures to go along with the article, a half dozen of them. An older man and woman, a couple kids, a good-lookin’ young girl . . .

And Otto Krieg, aka Frank Castle.

The paper slipped from his hands and fell to the ground.

Right at that second, Micky felt as if he’d just eaten some bad clams himself.

Howard Saint raised his glass.

“To Bobby.”

“To Bobby.” Livia, sitting across from him, echoed the toast, as Quentin and John did a split second later.

“To a score settled,” his wife said then, a light burning in her eyes.

Saint clinked glasses with her. Livia looked extraordinary tonight. Micky Duka had practically drooled all over himself helping her out of the car—his wife had, of course, noticed.

“Do you really need that filthy little man anymore?” she’d said as they entered the club. “Can’t you—” She waved a hand. “—make him vanish?”

Saint had only smiled at that—he’d thought about making Duka vanish himself, thought about it more than once over the last couple days, but the man was harmless, after all, not worth killing. Right at this moment, in fact, Saint had had enough of killing.

Puerto Rico had more than sated his thirst for blood.

It was time to turn to other things, things he’d let slide during this last week. Business, for one. Pleasure, for another.

He started to pour himself another glass of champagne and frowned. Empty. He held the bottle up in the air.

Quentin turned in his seat and snapped his fingers. One of the bartenders nodded, and not more than ten seconds later, he was at their table with a fresh magnum. The young man filled glasses all around, bowed, and left.

“John.” Saint leaned forward. “I’m going to want you to spend some time tomorrow with Rebecca. There are some public relations opportunities coming up over the next few weeks, and we need to . . . work on your image.”

He braced himself for the inevitable explosion—there was nothing John Saint hated more than working on his “image”—but to his surprise, his son only smiled.

“Yeah. Sure, Pop. Whatever you say.”

“Good.” Saint nodded. “I’ll have her call and set up a time.”