‘Huh?’ The detective’s face twisted in the darkness. ‘Who did?’
“The Invisible Man. You want to come down here, sir? It’s a long one,’ Monroe said.
‘Don’t talk to anybody else. Not anybody, you got that?’
‘He told me that, too, sir.’
‘What is it, honey?’ Beverly Douglas asked, as awake as her detective husband now. .
It was eight months now since the death of a sad, petite girl named Helen Waters. Then Pamela Madden. Then Doris Brown. He was going to get the bastards now, Douglas told himself, incorrectly.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sandy asked the figure standing next to her car, the one he had fixed.
‘Saying goodbye for a while,’ Kelly told her quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to have to go away. I don’t know for how long.’
‘Where to?’
‘I can’t really say?’
‘Vietnam again?’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure. Honest.’
It just wasn’t the time for this, as though it ever was, Sandy thought. It was early, and she had to be at work at six-thirty, and though she wasn’t running late, there simply weren’t the minutes she needed for what had to be said.
‘Will you be back?’
‘If you want, yes.’
‘I do, John.’
‘Thank you. Sandy … I got four out,’ he told her.
‘Four?’
‘Four girls, like Pam and Doris. One’s over on the Eastern Shore, the other three are here in town at a police station. Make sure somebody takes care of them, okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘No matter what you hear, I’ll be back. Please believe that.’
‘John!’
‘No time, Sandy. I’H be back,’ he promised her, walking away.
Neither Ryan nor Douglas wore a tie. Both sipped at coffee from Styrofoam cups while the lab boys did their job again.
‘Two in the body,’ one of them was saying, ‘one in the head – always leaves the target dead. This is a professional job.’
‘The real kind,’ Ryan breathed to his partner. It was a .45. It had to be. Nothing else made that kind of mess – and besides, there were six brass cartridge cases on the hardwood floor, each circled in chalk for the photographers.
The three women were in a cell in Western District, with a uniformed officer in constant attendance. He and Douglas had spoken to them briefly, long enough to know that they had their witnesses against one Henry Tucker, murderer. Name, physical description, nothing else, but infinitely more than they’d had only hours before. They’d first check their own files for the name, then the FBI’s national register of felons, then the street. They’d check motor-vehicle records for a license in that name. The procedure was entirely straightforward, and with a name they’d get him, maybe soon, maybe not. But then there was this other little matter before them.
‘Both of them from out of town?’ Ryan asked.
‘Philadelphia. Francis Molinari and Albert d’Andino,’ Douglas confirmed, reading the names off their driver’s licenses. ‘How much you want to bet… ?’
‘No bet, Tom.’ He turned, holding up a photograph. ‘Monroe, this face look familiar?’
The patrol officer took the small ID photo from Ryan’s hand and looked at it in the poor light of the upstairs apartment. He shook his head. ‘Not really, sir.’
‘What do you mean? You were face-to-face with the guy.’
‘Longer hair, smudges on his face, mainly when we were up close I saw the front end of a Colt. Too fast, too dark.’
It was tricky and dangerous, which wasn’t unusual. There were four automobiles parked out front, and he couldn’t afford to make any noise – but it was the safest course of action as well, with those four cars parked in front. He was standing on the marginal space provided by a sill of a bricked-up window, reaching for the telephone cable. Kelly hoped nobody was using the phone as he cupped into the wires, quickly attaching leads of his own. With that done, he dropped down and started walking north along the back of the building, trailing out his own supply of commo wire, just letting it lie on the ground. He turned the corner, letting the spool dangle from his left hand like a lunch pail, crossing the little-used street, moving casually like a person who belonged here. Another hundred yards and he turned again, entering the deserted building and climbing to his perch. Once there he returned to his rented car and got out the rest of what he needed, including his trusty whiskey flask, filled with tap water, and a supply of Snickers bars. Ready, he settled down to his task.
The rifle wasn’t properly sighted in. Mad as it seemed, the most sensible course of action was to use the building as his target. He shouldered the weapon in a sitting position and searched the wall for a likely spot. There, an off-color brick. Kelly controlled his breathing, with the scope dialed to its highest magnification, and squeezed gently.
It was strange firing this rifle. The .22 rimfire is a small, inherently quiet round, and with the elaborate suppressor he’d constructed on it, for the first time in his life he heard the music-note pinggggggg of the striker hitting the firing pin, along with the muted pop of the discharge. The novelty of it almost distracted Kelly from hearing the far louder swat of the impact of the round on the target. The bullet created a puff of dust, two inches left and one inch high of his point of aim. Kelly clicked in the adjustment on the Leupold scope and fired again. Perfect. Kelly worked the bolt and then fed three rounds into the magazine, dialing the scope back to low power.
‘Did you hear something?’ Piaggi asked tiredly.
‘What’s that?’ Tucker looked up from his task. More than twelve hours now, doing the scut-work that he’d thought to be behind him forever. Not even halfway done, despite the two ‘soldiers’ that were down from Philadelphia. Tony didn’t like it either.
‘Like something falling,’ Tony said, shaking his head and getting back to it. The only good thing that could be said about this was that it would earn him respect when he related the tale to his associates up and down the coast. A serious man, Anthony Piaggi. When everything went to shit, he’d done the work himself. He makes his deliveries and meets his obligations. You can depend on Tony. It was a rep worth earning, even if this was the price. It was a resolute thought that persisted for perhaps thirty seconds.
Tony slit open another bag, noting the evil, chemical smell on it, not quite recognizing it for what it was. The fine white powder went into the bowl. Next he dumped in the milk sugar. He mixed the two elements with spoons, stirring it slowly. He was sure there must be a machine for this operation, but it was probably too large, like what they used at commercial bakeries. Mainly his mind was protesting that this was work for little people, hirelings. Still, he had to make that delivery, and there was no one else to help out.
‘What’d you say?’ Henry asked tiredly.
‘Forget it.’ Piaggi concentrated on his task. Where the hell were Albert and Frank? They were supposed to be here a couple hours ago. Thought they were special because they whacked people, like that stuff really mattered.
* * *
‘Hey, Lieutenant.’ The sergeant who ran the central evidence storage room was a former traffic officer whose three-wheel bike had run afoul of a careless driver. That had cost him one leg and relegated him to administrative duty, which suited the sergeant, who had his desk and his donuts and his paper in addition to clerkish duties that absorbed maybe three hours of real work per eight-hour shift. It was called retirement-in-place.
‘How’s the family, Harry?’
‘Fine, thanks. What can I do for you?’
‘I need to check the numbers on the drugs I brought in last week,’ Charon told him. ‘I think there might be a mixup on the tags. Anyway’ – he shrugged – I have to check it out.’
‘Okay, just give me a minute and I’ll -‘
‘Read your paper, Harry. I know where to go,’ Charon told him with a pat on the shoulder. Official policy was that nobody wandered around in this room without an official escort, but Charon was a lieutenant, and Harry was short one leg, and his prosthesis was giving him trouble, as it usually did.
‘That was a nice shoot, Mark,’ the sergeant told his back. What the hell, he thought. Mark whacked the guy who’d been carrying the stuff.
Charon looked and listened for any other person who might be here, but there was none. They’d pay him big-time for this. Talk about moving their operation, eh? Leave him out in the cold, back to chasing pushers … well, not entirely a bad thing. He had a lot of money banked away, enough to keep his former wife happy and educate the three kids he’d given her, plus a little for him. He’d probably even get a promotion soon because of the work he’d done, taking down several drug distributors … there.