Chapter 10
JIANG WAS TALL and looked almost emaciated. He had a scraggly black goatee that hung a good six inches below his chinny-chin-chin.
The drug lord had a reputation for being shrewd, competitive, and vicious, often unnecessarily so, as if this was all a big, dangerous game to him. He'd grown up on the streets of Shanghai, then moved to Hong Kong, then Baghdad, and finally to Washington, where he ruled several neighborhoods like a new-world Chinese warlord.
My eyes shifted around M Street, searching for signs of trouble. Jiang's two bodyguards seemed on the alert, and I wondered if he'd been warned – and if so, by whom? Someone on his payroll in the police department? It was definitely possible.
I was also wondering how good this Irish killer was.
'Bodyguards spot us yet?' Sampson said.
'I expect they have, John. We're here as a deterrent more than anything else.'
'Hit man spot us too?'
'If he's here. If he's any good. If there is a hit man, he's probably seen us too.'
When Jiang An-Lo was about halfway to a shiny black Mercedes parked on the street, another car, a Buick LeSabre, turned on to M. It accelerated, the engine roaring, tires squealing as they burned against the pavement.
Jiang's bodyguards spun around toward the speeding car. They both had their guns out. Sampson and I shoved open the side doors of our car. 'Deterrent my ass,' he grumbled.
Jiang hesitated, but only for an instant. Then he took long, gangly strides, almost as if he was trying to run wearing a full-length skirt, heading back toward the row house he'd just come out of. He would have correctly figured he'd still be in danger if he kept going and reached the Mercedes.
Everybody had it wrong though. Jiang, the bodyguards, Sampson and I.
The shots came from behind the drug dealer, from the opposite direction on the street.
Three loud cracks from a long gun.
Jiang went down and stayed there on the sidewalk, not moving at all. Blood poured from the side of his head as if there were a spout there. I doubted he was alive.
I spun around and looked toward the rooftop of a brown-stone connected to more roofs lining the other side of M.
I saw a blond man, and he did the strangest thing: He bowed in our direction. I couldn't believe what he'd just done. Taken a bow?
Then he ducked behind a brick parapet and completely disappeared from sight.
Sampson and I sprinted across M and entered the building. We raced upstairs, four flights in a hurry. When we got to the roof, the shooter was gone. No one in sight anywhere.
Had it been the Irish hitter? The Butcher? The mob hit man sent from New York?
Who the hell else could it have been?
I still couldn't believe what I'd seen. Not just that he'd gotten Jiang An-Lo so easily. But that he'd taken a bow after his performance.
Chapter 11
THE BUTCHER FOUND IT EASY to blend in with the hot-shit college students on the campus of George Washington University. He was dressed in jeans and a gray, rumpled tee that said 'Athletic Department,' and he carried around a beat-up Isaac Asimov novel. He spent the morning reading Foundation on various benches, checking out the coeds, but mostly tracking Marianne, Marianne. Okay, he was a little obsessive. Least of his problems.
He did like the girl and had been watching her for twenty-four hours now, which was how she came to break his heart. She'd gone and shot her mouth off. He knew it for sure because he'd heard her talking to her best friend, Cindi, about a 'counselor' she'd spoken to a few days before. Then she'd gone back for a second 'counseling' session, against his explicit order and warning.
Mistake, Marianne.
After her noon class in hoity-toity eighteenth-century British literature, Marianne, Marianne left the campus, and he followed her in a group of at least twenty students. He could tell right away that she was headed to her apartment. Good deal.
Maybe she was done for the day, or maybe she had a long break between classes. Didn't matter either way. She'd broken the rules, and she had to be dealt with.
Once he knew where she was going, he decided to beat her there. As a senior, she was allowed to live off campus, and she shared a small two-bedroom off of Thirty-ninth Street on Davis with young Cindi. The place was a fourth-floor walk-up, and he had no trouble getting inside. The front door had a key lock. What a joke that was.
He decided to get comfortable while he waited, so he stripped down, took off his shoes and all his clothes. Truth was, he didn't want to get blood on his duds.
Then he waited for the girl, read some more of his book, hung out. As soon as Marianne walked inside her bedroom, the Butcher wrapped both arms around her and placed the scalpel under her chin.
'Hello, Marianne, Marianne,' he whispered. 'Didn't I tell you not to talk?'
'1 didn't tell anyone,' she said. 'Please.'
'You're lying. I told you what was going to happen. Hell, I even showed you.'
'I didn't tell. I promise.'
'I made a promise too, Marianne. Made it on my mother's eyes.'
Suddenly he sliced left to right across the college girl's throat. Then he cut her again, going the other way.
While she writhed on the floor, choking to death, he took some photos.
Prizewinners, no doubt about it. He didn't ever want to forget Marianne, Marianne.
Chapter 12
THE NEXT NIGHT the Butcher was still in DC. He knew exactly what Jimmy Hats was thinking, but Jimmy was too much of a coward and a survivor to ask, Do you have any idea what the hell you're doing now? Or why we're still in Washington?
Well, as a matter of fact, he did. He was driving a stolen Chevy Caprice with tinted windows through the section of DC known as Southeast, searching out a particular house, getting ready to kill again, and it was all because of Marianne, Marianne and her big mouth.
He had the address in his head and figured he was getting close now. He had one more hit to take care of, then he and Jimmy could finally blow out of Washington. Case closed.
'Streets around here remind me of back home,' Jimmy Hats piped up from the passenger seat. He was trying to sound casual and unconcerned about their hanging around DC so long after the shooting of the Chinaman.
'Why's that?' asked the Butcher, his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. He knew what Jimmy was going to say. He almost always did. Truth be told, Jimmy Hats's predictability was a comfort to him most of the time.
'Everything's fallin' to shit, y'know, right before our eyes. Just like in Brooklyn. And there's your reason why. See the shines hanging out on every other street corner? Who the hell else is gonna live here? Live like that?'
Michael Sullivan smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. Hats could be moronic and irritating at times. 'Politicians wanted to, they could fix this whole mess. Wouldn't be so hard, Jimmy.'
