money. It was about the work. You will continue to fund me as per the original arrangement, and you will continue to give me more modern people to kill, because it amuses me. Do you understand me?”
There was silence, and the stink of their fear.
“You never knew me at all, did you? You never understood a thing. Too focused on your own gain.”
Westover opened his jacket.
The hunter’s hand went into his bag, finding the grips of the gun he took from Kutkha.
Westover noted the movement, inclined his head slightly, and slowed his movements down. He withdrew an envelope from the inside pocket of the jacket and extended it to the hunter. “I presume you can drive,” Westover said.
“When I have to,” said the hunter, stepping back into the shadows to disguise any possible outward sign of the revulsion the thought caused him. He felt the envelope; there was something plastic in there, along with the rustle of folded paper.
Westover lowered his voice. “The envelope contains the details you would need to recover at least some of your weapons. The names therein are…expendable.”
Turkel turned away.
“Well,” said the hunter. “I have a busy night ahead. So I’ll leave you gentlemen to the remainders of your evenings. I want to see you here tomorrow night. Just one of you will do. Choose among yourselves. Decide how we’re going to move forward. We’re all still young, and there’s much yet to achieve here on this great island. Don’t you think?”
Turkel was already walking away, his back to the hunter. Machen and Westover followed him. The hunter watched them go, moving position once a minute for five minutes until he was certain they’d all separated and were taking properly divergent routes. He then found a light source that was lonely enough for him to safely open the envelope and study its contents.
The hunter was not happy about traveling in a motor vehicle, but on this night, the speed of travel in a modern conveyance would undoubtedly be useful. He simply had to decide where Detective John Tallow fell on his to-do list tonight.
“HELP ME,” Emily Westover said.
“What is it?” said Tallow, rising from the table, putting out a palm against the questioning looks he was getting.
“Jason’s downstairs. Said he had to talk to one of the employees. He said he’s going out tonight but he’s not walking the dog.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“He goes out at ten forty-five every night with the dog, walks her around Central Park a bit. Every night. Tonight he says he’s got to go out at ten forty-five but he can’t take the dog.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about, Mrs. Westover.”
“He’s been taking calls from his two friends. I know what this is about.”
“Which friends?”
“I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Mrs. Westover, with all respect, you shouldn’t be on the phone to me either. Now, you just asked for my help. I can’t help you without knowing everything that’s going on.”
“You think I’m crazy.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, you should.” She laughed. Giggled, in fact. The sound made Tallow go cold, for some reason. “I am crazy. But not so crazy that I don’t know I’m crazy, and I think that’s an important distinction. Andy Machen and that creepy bastard Al Turkel. He’s been talking to them. Something serious is happening tonight. Jason told me that I know what it’s about. Which means it’s about what, what, what he did to get where he is. What they did. Do you understand?”
Tallow had walked into the other room. He caught his reflection in a small mirror on the wall and judged himself before speaking.
“Mrs. Westover, what are you afraid of at Werpoes?”
“Him. He lives there.”
“Werpoes is buried and built on, and no one’s hiding in that square.”
“Jason told me to stay away from there.”
Given that the cache on Pearl Street had seemed to catch everyone by surprise, did it make sense for them to believe that CTS lived elsewhere? No. They paid for the Pearl Street apartment, and Westover himself was at least an accessory to providing a security door for the place. But then, CTS could not possibly have
Tallow had missed something. His man CTS had to have more than one hideout. Possibly even several. Had anything gone wrong over the past two decades of his work, he would have needed other places to shelter. Perhaps places that his employers didn’t know about. This would make sense if he expected that one day, one of them would get caught, or get sloppy. Or, perhaps, get an attack of guilt and talk to his wife.
“Mr. Westover told you to stay away from there because he lived in the area.”
“He lives there. Jason doesn’t know exactly where, but…Werpoes. He’s there.”
“Tell me how I can help you, Mrs. Westover.”
“Save Jason. Please.”
Tallow’s words dried up in his throat.
“Please. You saved me. Save Jason. This is all too much for him. Save him. He’s raised this thing, this awful fucking manitou from the dirt of Old Manhattan, and it’s going to kill him. Please, John.”
Tallow’s mind was surging down parallel tracks. He looked for a notepad and pen. The apartment didn’t have a landline phone, so there was no table with scratch paper.
“I’m not sure how to do that, Mrs. Westover.”
He ducked into the kitchen and furiously mimed writing. Talia pulled open a kitchen drawer and produced a notebook and pencil.
“I don’t know. Talk to him. Promise him safety. Reason with him. Something. He wants out, I can see it in him.”
Talia put the pad and pencil on the kitchen table. Tallow wrote as clearly and swiftly as he could, and spun the pad to face Bat and Scarly. They nodded, visibly shifting into professional mode. Bat pulled out a smartphone, thumbed it to mute, and began typing as Scarly quietly got up and left the room.
“I can get there tonight,” Tallow said, “but not right now. Just sit tight. I promise I’ll be there. Don’t say anything to him. It would be best if he had no warning. Okay?”
“You’ll save him.”
“I promise you that I’ll do everything in my power to save him.”
“Thank you,” she said, grinding out the words, audibly wrestling with a sudden appalling need to burst into tears.
Tallow killed the call.
Scarly was already at a laptop in the other room.
“That was the wife of one of the people we believe to have hired our killer,” said Tallow to Talia, loud enough for everyone to hear him clearly. “She wants me to induce her husband to confess his involvement and save himself from the fallout. She also believes that Westover, Machen, and Turkel are meeting the killer tonight, in Central Park.”
“Great,” said Talia. “Send in the cavalry. Surround them and catch them in the act.”
“Even if we knew which part of Central Park, which is a big-ass place and lousy to operate in at night, and even if we could summon the manpower, which is doubtful—my captain doesn’t have the juice, my lieutenant doesn’t believe me, and I don’t have any friends—I don’t think that’d work.”
Tallow explained to them why he thought Emily Westover had been told to stay away from Werpoes.
