All he heard was screaming.
The screaming wasn’t coming from the two Mexicans, who were dead within minutes after the assassins entered the conference room. Instead, they were coming from Charmaine the receptionist, and Betty Alweiss from the Art Department. Karen Andersen wasn’t screaming. She was learning how to be as cold-bloodedly unemotional as her boss and sometime lover.
“There’s a third one,” Halloway said.
By that time, Wiggy was down the fire stairs and out of the building.
THE WEIRD SISTERS unashamedly stripped the Mexicans naked and wrapped them in tarpaulin. Their two black associates carried the bodies down the fire stairs, hoisted them into the back of a white ML320 Mercedes- Benz, and transported them to a garbage dump on Sands Spit, not far from the airport. It was Halloway’s surmise that the Mexicans would never be identified and therefore would never be missed.
At about four-thirty that afternoon—just as Carella was leaving the squadroom—Anna and Mary Jo went up to Diamondback to look for Walter Wiggins. This time, their orders were to kill him.
CARELLA GOT TO his mother’s house in Riverhead at a little past six that evening. He recognized his sister’s car in the driveway outside the house, and parked just behind it. His mother’s Christmas tree glowed behind the windows fronting the house. At least a foot of snow covered the walk to the front door, and it was still coming down. He climbed the low flat steps, pressed the button set in the door jamb, and heard familiar chimes sounding inside the house. He waited. Falling flakes covered his hair and the shoulders of his overcoat. He was about to ring again when the door opened.
“Hey,” his mother said, and hugged him. “You should wear a hat.”
“I know,” he said. “You told me.”
“From when you were six,” she said.
“Three,” he corrected.
“Come in. Angela’s already here.”
“I saw her car.”
“Come in.”
He followed his mother into the house. This was where he’d grown up. This was what he’d called home during his childhood, his adolescence, and his early manhood. Home. It seemed strange to him now, smaller, somehow cheerless. He wondered if that was because his father no longer lived here. Angela was sitting at the big dining room table, drinking a glass of red wine. Another glass of wine was on the table, just opposite her. He remembered when they were kids and used to hide together under this very table. He remembered Sunday afternoons here in his parents’ house, the pennyante poker games, he and Angela hiding under the dining room table. He remembered his sister once breaking his head with the clasp on a pocketbook she’d swung at him in anger. He couldn’t remember now what had so enraged her. Something he’d said jokingly. He’d loved her to death when they were kids. He still did. She kissed him on the cheek in greeting.
“How’s the traffic?” she asked.
“Pretty bad. The roads are getting slick.”
“Steve, some wine?” his mother asked. “Something stronger?”
“A little wine, yes,” he said. “Thanks.”
He sat alongside Angela. Outside the window, the snow was coming down heavily. He didn’t live very far from here, but the roads were already bad. He was beginning to regret not having gone straight home from the office. His mother brought him his glass of wine, and went to sit opposite him and Angela at the table. They all lifted their glasses.
“Salute,”his mother said in Italian.
“Cheers,” Carella said.
“Health,” Angela said.
They drank.
“So,” Angela said.
“So,” his mother said.
They were both smiling.
Carella looked across the table at his mother. He turned to look at his sister.
“What?” he said.
“We’re getting married together,” Angela said.
“A double wedding,” his mother said.
“Me and Henry, Mama and …”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Carella said.
He was already standing, surprised to find himself on his feet, wondering when he’d got up. Was it when they’d both started smiling? Was it then that the feeling of impending dread had lurched from his heart into his throat?
“Sit down,” his mother said.
“No, Mom. I’m sorry, but …”
“Sit down, Steve.”
