I got out and locked the car — I left the MP-5 in the trunk— and stood looking and listening. There wasn’t a soul in sight, just a sea of cars under lights mounted on poles. The stark scene was relieved somewhat by scraggly young trees in the ribbon-thin borders.
No security patrol, no early risers or late partygoers that I could see. I walked toward the nearest apartment building, then around it, keeping in the shadows. Once around the building, I angled across the parking lot toward Pulzelli’s tower.
I was hoping the FBI wasn’t watching everyone I knew, waiting for me to break cover. Of course, if a watcher was sitting in one of these cars, I was dead meat. It was a serious risk, but a necessary one. I needed Pulzelli’s help.
The lobby of Pulzelli’s hive was empty. Security cameras were mounted high in every corner. A computer sat on a small podium where perhaps a security guard had once stood vigil. It looked as if the owners had bought a computer and fired the guard. I typed Pulzelli’s name into the computer.. voila! Apartment 310.
I called him on the telephone, which rang and rang. After ten rings I gave up.
Seventeen minutes after 4:00 A.M. Don’t tell me he’s out partying! Pulzelli?
The elevator required a card to activate it. I walked around the elevator shaft to the door to the fire stairs. This door would be fitted with a push bar on the inside so that anyone coming down the stairs could exit through the door, yet there would be a conventional lock securing the door from this side. That lock I could pick.
When I saw the door a cold chill ran up my spine. The door had been forced with a crowbar, which bent the metal so that the lock no longer latched. It had taken a strong man to do that.
The door came open with a groan — the hinges hadn’t seen oil since the building went up. Once inside the stairwell, I removed the pistol from my belt and checked the safety. I went up the stairs making as little noise as possible, which meant anyone but a deaf man could have heard me. Sound reverberated around inside that concrete staircase as if it were a kettledrum.
At the door to the third floor, I paused, checked the pistol again, then eased the door open with my left hand. No one in the hallway.
Pulzelli’s apartment was four doors away from the elevator. The lock appeared intact.
I knocked. Waited … no sound.
Finally put my ear to the door.
The lock wasn’t any big deal. I hoped he didn’t have the chain on, though.
Took me about two minutes to pick the lock and open the door. No chain.
I went in with the gun in my hand.
Salvatore Pulzelli was lying naked on the living room floor. Apparently he had been strangled with a wire garrote. His arms, chest, and crotch were smeared with blood, which hadn’t completely dried. His pajamas were on the floor near him, so I used the top to swab at one arm. Lots of little cuts.
He must have opened the door for them. They tortured him, then killed him.
The apartment wasn’t large. In addition to the living room, which doubled as a home office, there was a kitchen, a bath, and two bedrooms, one of which was obviously for guests. I checked the rooms to see that they were empty — anything was better than looking at Pulzelli.
Standing in the living room with my back to the body, I managed to get my stomach under control and tried to get my brain in gear. Did the killers ask him about me? Was it me they were trying to find?
The killers hadn’t been gone long. Pulzelli’s blood hadn’t dried to a crust.
I used a kitchen towel to keep from leaving fingerprints on the telephone in the kitchen. Willie Varner’s telephone rang and rang. He didn’t answer.
Oh, man!
I remembered to pull the apartment door shut behind me and checked to ensure that the lock engaged.
CHAPTER NINE
I couldn’t get Pulzelli’s face out of my mind. God, he looked bad, the muscles in his face contracted, baring every tooth, his eyes bulged out and staring at infinity. The poor guy … he didn’t want much out of life, just a comfortable job, decent clothes, and a pension to look forward to. He had planned to travel when he retired in three years — I recall him mentioning that one time when I caught him perusing travel brochures at his desk. He envied me, he said, because I got to travel a lot. I told him that I would gladly trade: He could travel while I put in forty hours a week behind his desk and got seriously involved with three or four hot women.
Maybe Pulzelli liked women, too.
I couldn’t help him now. That was a fact.
Willie Varner lived in a second-story flat on a dumpy street in northwest Washington. The assassins I saw at the Greenbrier safe house were white, and Willie’s neighborhood wasn’t. Maybe that mattered — I didn’t know.
Washington was a seedy town. Outside of monumental Washington one found endless miles of row houses in various states of 8:15 PM 2/26/2009disrepair. Most would have collapsed long ago if they weren’t all jammed together, holding each other up. Undereducated, unemployed black males lined the sidewalks selling drugs. The inner city was one giant drug bazaar. I had made that observation to Willie the Wire one day, and he got all huffy. He had lived here all his life, except when he was in prison, and was sorta proud of the town, although he would never admit it. He growled at me and gave me the outsider stare. I knew what it meant: “You ain’t black.”
I spotted an empty parking space two blocks from Willie’s place, said a word of thanks to whoever was running the universe this week, and wheeled the car in. Believe me, I locked the doors and tugged on both the driver’s and passenger’s doors, just to make sure.
Even at that hour of the morning there were people out and about, all black. A couple of winos sat on a curb, one was sleeping in a doorway, and a young man in baggy trousers and a shirt three sizes too large was striding along toward me, arms going, eyes moving ceaselessly from side to side like a predatory animal. He looked me over as he approached and didn’t slacken his pace. Yet when he was ten feet away he looked elsewhere, pretended I wasn’t there as he walked on by.
There was a car double-parked in front of Willie’s.
Staying on the sidewalk, I eyeballed everything as I walked up. Man behind the wheel. White man. No other white guys around.
I left the sidewalk in a bound, passed behind his car, and drew the pistol as I walked up on the driver’s side. Stuck it right in his ear.
“Freeze, asshole. Hands on the wheel.”
He froze all right, wide-eyed and rigid as a frozen steak. He was maybe thirty-five, white, balding on top, with medium-length dark hair, wearing an earring.
“Turn off the ignition and hand me the keys.”
As he started to move I jabbed him with the piece. “I’ll blow your brains out if you twitch.” He did as ordered, slowly extracted the keys, and held them out with his right hand. I took them with my left and pocketed them.
“Hands where I can see them, out of the car.”
He came, slowly and steadily.
He had a pistol in a belt holster on the left side, an old five-shot.38 revolver with a two-inch barrel. I took it, shoved it in my pocket. Standing behind him, I patted him down. He had a wallet. I helped myself.
“If this is a stickup, better think twice,” he said. “I’m a federal officer.”
“Yeah, right. Got a badge?”
“Not on me. I …”
No knife … if he had had a knife, I would have drilled him then and there. Maybe. Well, I sure would have been tempted. He did have a cell phone, which I liberated since he didn’t need it anymore.
“I’m going to count to five,” I said, “then start shooting. You can run like hell or die right where you stand. One… two..” He glanced over his shoulder at me, then began running. I raised my pistol and aimed it. He ran faster.
After he rounded the corner and disappeared, I surveyed the street — this was a “mind your own damn
