You never knew with Kareem.
Cursing, Kerry cut the engine and climbed out of his BMW to wait for Kareem’s arrival, which could be three minutes or four hours from now.
The weather wasn’t helping his feeling of approaching doom. The sky was the kind of heavy slate gray that was perfect for funerals and ten inches or more of wet snow. The temperature was somewhere down in freeze-your-balls-off range, and his breath hung in the air, almost turning to ice before his eyes.
Nothing good ever happened on a day like this.
The location wasn’t exactly good for morale either. If Kerry had to pick a place for, say, shooting someone in the back of the head and getting away with it, this shitty little hidden spot would be high on the list.
Overgrown with weeds, surrounded by trees, accessible only by that little groove of muddy tire tracks that would need at least a million-dollar upgrade before it could be called anything as grand as a road, this spot would never be a contender for scenic getaways.
Which was why Kareem had chosen it for meetings. The DEA couldn’t creep up on you out here, and Kerry was positive that if he pulled out his phone right now and tried to get a signal, the phone would laugh at him.
The low purr of an expensive car’s engine cut across his thoughts. With the reassuring weight of his Beretta strapped to his leg, he turned, expecting Kareem’s Land Cruiser, but it was a Lexus.
Yogi, then. One of the other lieutenants.
Good. Misery loved company and it was always good to have another body or two around to absorb Kareem’s malice once it started flowing.
Yogi parked next to the BMW and grunted a greeting as he climbed out. He looked as pissed off and vaguely anxious as Kerry felt. “The fuck is going on?”
Kerry shrugged. “No idea.”
They both leaned against the BMW and Yogi crossed his tree-trunk legs at the ankles. The would-be casual gesture didn’t fool Kerry; the man was like his brother and Kerry could tell: he was rattled.
The sound of a new car crunching on the gravel made them jump.
They both looked around and saw Kareem. In the Land Cruiser. Alone.
Usually he rolled with a couple of his boys with him, just in case. He didn’t like being alone and vulnerable and hated driving himself somewhere when one of his boys could chauffeur him around like Tony fucking Soprano.
But he was alone now.
They straightened and stood at attention, watching while he parked and climbed out with that grim, don’t mess with me face, partially hidden with his favorite black-ass wraparound sunglasses. His black topcoat flowed around him as he walked, like Darth Vader’s cape.
There was no greeting for either of them. Through his growing unease Kerry wondered where Hector, the third and final lieutenant, was. Why wasn’t he here for this little summit meeting?
“How’re you coming,” Kareem asked Yogi in a flat, other-side-of-the-grave voice, “with that little roach-killing project I gave you?”
Yogi winced and his brown skin went pasty. To his credit, though, Yogi kept his chin up and his voice steady. “It’s coming,” he said.
Right. If things were coming along as swimmingly as Yogi wanted Kareem to believe, they wouldn’t be standing out here in the muddy middle of no-fucking-where, freezing their dicks off.
“Coming?” Kareem asked. “Really?”
Yogi fidgeted.
Bad move. Kareem had shark’s blood running through his veins, and he could smell a drop of sweat from a mile out and a drop of blood from ten miles. And a man had a better chance talking a great white into showing some mercy than he did with Kareem.
“It’ll take a little more time.” There was a faint wheedle in Yogi’s voice now. “But it’s all under control.”
“Under control?” Kareem walked a couple steps away and then came back, his thoughtful face turned up to the gray sky. This was what Kareem did. He played with his victims. Terrorized them. “I’m wondering how things can be under control when the exterminator is dead.”
“What the fuck—?” Yogi’s jaw dropped, nearly hitting the ground with his shock.
“I’m wondering how things can be under control,” Kareem continued, “when I’ve had to answer questions about a dead roach exterminator I didn’t know a damn thing about.”
Yogi, whose wide eyes now showed white all around the pupils, had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. Or maybe he was too scared to speak.
An obscene smile lifted one corner of Kareem’s mouth. An open grave was warmer than that smile; a grizzly on a killing rampage was more merciful.
When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter. “And I’m wondering why your roach exterminator, the one you hired—God rest her stupid, incompetent soul—took care of the wrong damn roach before she died. You got any explanation for that, Yogi, my brother? You got any explanation for why you couldn’t handle a basic assignment? Anything to say on your own behalf?”
Yogi defended himself, but it was a pitiful sight that made Kerry want to turn away. The dignity was gone. The bravado was gone. Yogi looked sweaty, sickly and scared enough to fall over backward in a dead faint.
He looked like a terrified and terrorized brother begging not to be punished.
And make no mistake, there would be punishment. There was always punishment, and with Kareem, anything was possible.
“I’ve got other people, man.” Yogi held his hands out, palms up, but he may as well have dropped to his knees. “I can work this shit out.”
Behind those black wraparounds, Kareem’s face was expressionless. “How’re you going to do that, Yogi? When we don’t even know where the roaches have gotten off to? You got a magic wand I don’t know about?”
“I’ll get it figured out, man,” said Yogi.
“So you think I should give you another chance?”
The light of hope flipped on in Yogi’s face, a layer of brightness over the ugliness of desperation. “Hell, yeah, man.”
Kareem stared at him, trying to look puzzled when what he really looked like was a cobra poised to strike and strike hard. “But you let me down when I trusted you with something important. Don’t you need to be punished?”
Yogi took so long to answer that Kerry began to wonder if he was saying his prayers. “Naw, man,” he finally said. “Let me make this shit right.”
Kareem stared; Yogi sweated it out; Kerry tried to become invisible and backed up a step or two to facilitate the process.
And then, suddenly, Kareem smiled and shrugged in a what’s all the fuss about? gesture. There was an arrested moment during which Yogi seemed unable to believe his luck, and then he grinned.
The sudden turnaround seemed too good to be true, but then Kareem was like the weather in Cincinnati and underwent a complete reversal every fifteen minutes or so.
“We—we cool then?” Yogi asked.
Kareem held his arms open. “My man.”
Yogi walked forward and the two gripped each other, slapping backs and laughing. This went on until Kareem pulled back, patted the fleshy side of Yogi’s face, and kissed him.
“What did you think I was going to do?” Kareem put his arm around Yogi’s shoulder and steered him toward Yogi’s car. Kerry, who wasn’t sure what his role was in this love fest, stayed where he was. “I know you’ll never let me down again.”
“You had me going there for a minute.” Yogi shook that big head and laughed again. “I was a little—”
Kareem dropped his hand while Yogi kept on walking and talking. Kerry sighed, looked up at that gray sky and worked his shoulders up and down, trying to get rid of some of the kinks. He wondered why Kareem had dragged him along for this odd little crime and punishment scene. Then he wondered when they could wrap this up and head back for some lunch.
And then, out of the corner of his disbelieving eye, he saw Kareem reach into the left breast pocket of his overcoat, pull out his forty-five, and shoot Yogi in the back of the head with it.
Kerry saw Kareem’s
arm rise and saw the gun in his hand. Heard the lightning-bolt crack of the weapon’s fire. Witnessed the cloud of blood and gore and the sudden disappearance of Yogi’s head. Saw the hesitation of Yogi’s body, the slight pause while it decided whether to keep walking or collapse to the ground. Saw it crumple into a sickening heap.
He saw it all and he still didn’t believe it.
And then he did.
“Jesus,” Kerry whispered. “Oh, sweet Jesus, please, God, Kareem, no—”
Kareem stood over Yogi’s body, the picture of regret and sorrow for this unnecessary loss. He even hung his head the way Kerry had seen him do at funerals.
Kerry liked to think that he was calm in a crisis, that he knew how to handle himself and could get out of any sticky situation, but he’d never seen one of his closest buddies get his brain blown out before, and the words poured out of his mouth in an unstoppable stream.
“Jesus, God, Kareem, why did you do that to Yogi—?”
Kareem looked up at last, and damn if there wasn’t sadness in his strained face. “Do you think it’s easy being a leader, Kerry? Making the tough decisions?”
“Jesus, man—”
“Do you think I wanted to do that to Yogi?”
“Why did you do that, Kareem, why did—”
“What should I do when one of my men—one of my closest advisors, one of my lieutenants—doesn’t do his job and snitches on me? Turns me in to the feds, Kerry. Should I let that go?”
What? What? Oh, Jesus, was that what this was about? Kareem’s paranoia had focused on Yogi ?
“He didn’t do it,” Kerry cried, and he was crying now because he wasn’t going to come out of this alive; no one could have the slightest dealing with Kareem Gregory and come out of it alive. “Man, you know that. Yogi didn’t roll like that. He wasn’t smart enough to—”
Standing over Yogi’s dead body, Kareem pushed those sunglasses to the crown of his head so Kerry could see the stark loss in his face. “Everyone’s smart enough to look out for number one when the feds come knocking.”
“Kareem, man, no, Yogi didn’t—” But Kareem wasn’t looking and it was too late for Yogi anyway. Hell, Kerry was beginning to think that Yogi was the lucky one because at least he didn’t have to deal with Kareem’s reign of terror anymore.
“Good-bye, my brother,” Kareem told the mess of pulp that had been a man, their friend.
Turning, he strode off toward his car, unhurried as he put the piece back in his pocket and spoke to Kerry over his shoulder. “Check his pockets and his car. Make sure he hasn’t got anything. And then we’re going to talk about you taking over distribution for him.”
Kareem got into his car, still upset. He drove back into town to his lawyer’s office for the trial preparation meeting as planned. He accepted a cup of black coffee from the firm’s receptionist, and asked to go into the conference room ahead of Jacob Radcliffe to use the phone. His cell’s battery was low, he claimed.
The receptionist pointed him to the phone and told him to dial nine.
So he dialed nine and then dialed the other number and waited, still seething.
What was the world coming to? Why couldn’t people be trusted? No—forget trust because he knew the only thing he could trust was that people always looked out for number one. Trust wasn’t the issue. Professionalism was the issue.
Why couldn’t people do their damn jobs?
Yogi, the man he’d trained and loved and brought up through the ranks with him—for years he’d groomed that man—couldn’t handle the simple assignment of hiring someone to take care of Jackson Parker.
How hard was it? They’d found out where Parker was due to Parker’s own stupidity. They’d done everything but drawn a map to Parker. Everything but leave a trail of bread crumbs directly to Parker’s door.
And had the hit woman hit Parker? Hell no. The stupid fucking bitch had not only not hit Parker, she’d hit another federal agent and created one more goddamn thing for the authorities to come after Kareem for.
Hell, he didn’t mind being in the hot seat every now and then as long as it served some greater purpose. But what was the purpose here? Huh? He was all for as many dead DEA agents as possible, but what the hell good did some nameless Seattle fed’s death do for him or his organization? None. N-O-N-E.
And then the shooter had been shot. Not that he cared one way or the other because there was always another shooter out there, most of whom could be counted on to shoot the person they’d been hired to shoot. But this shooter, Yogi’s shooter, had to go and get shot and leave her motherfucking weapons behind. Just leave them there.
So now it was a matter of time before the feds linked Ray Wolfe’s death with the Seattle DEA agent’s death. The feds needed a map and a flashlight to find their dicks half the time, true, but they could usually be counted on to run a few simple ballistics tests. So there’d be a link between the deaths of two federal agents and from there … from there all they needed was one small link to Kareem and he’d be facing capital murder charges rather than simple money laundering.
Had Yogi seriously thought he’d forgive that mistake?
And of course, Kareem had never been able to shake the feeling that Yogi had been the snitch who’d dropped that first dime on him to the feds. The one that first pointed him out and said you might want to look at this guy. Was there any solid evidence? No. Could Kareem prove it? No. But his gut told him that there’d been a snitch within his own organization and the snitch was Yogi.
So Yogi had to go.
But still. The waste just killed him. How was Kareem supposed to run an organization that required three lieutenants when he was down to only two? How could this fly? How could Hector and Kerry handle everything for him?
Well … they’d just have to step up to the plate, wouldn’t they?
They were the best of the best, and the most trustworthy, not that anyone was trustworthy. So now Kerry could take care of distribution and Hector could get the information they needed to take care of the Jackson Parker problem for once and for all.
ASAP.
Parker wasn’t the only problem on his plate. He also needed to figure out what, if anything, Kira was up to. But first things first.
Kareem held the receiver to his ear and listened to it ring.
“Yeah,” Hector answered.
“It’s me,” Kareem told him. “I’ve got a project for you and I need it done yesterday. I need a roach killed. You know any good exterminators?”
“I’m on it.”
“And I need you to follow up on some information one of Yogi’s men was supposed to get. Check with Jerome on it, okay?”
“Whatever you say, man.”
Chapter 22
She was really going to do this.
God help her.
Marian Barber’s plan was to wait until lunchtime to sneak into her boss’s office and get the information Jerome wanted from her. The problem was, “lunchtime” was a flexible concept around here, depending on the crisis of the moment, everyone’s mood and, probably, the phases of the moon.
She only had a couple of pills left. Normally she’d’ve taken them an hour ago, but she didn’t want to take them until she knew there’d be more. And there wouldn’t be more unless she got it from Jerome because she was out of other options. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t want to test out Jerome’s threats.
Maybe he didn’t mean them, but then again—maybe he did.
No matter how she looked at it, she was screwed ten ways from Sunday. The only way things could be worse was if the powers that be chose today for a random blood test, which was one of the downsides of working for a federal law enforcement agency. Her number hadn’t come up for a while and goodness knew her luck wasn’t holding. If she was tested, what would the results say? Did they test for prescription meds? And if so, did they test the level? Would they know she had enough shit in her bloodstream to tranquilize an elephant?
The despair in Marian’s t
hroat crept a little higher and burned a little hotter.
The one thing she tried not to think about was what Jerome planned to do with the information once she gave it to him. It was probably safe to assume it was nothing good, but that didn’t have to mean it was anything terrible, did it? By acquiring this information for Jerome—she almost thought stealing but it wasn’t stealing because she wasn’t a thief—she wasn’t taking part in anything dangerous or illegal.
Was she?
The possibility of getting caught in the act, of getting fired for what she was about to do, was too horrible for words, so she didn’t think about that, either.
“You look terrible.”
“Huh?”
Rhonda was standing there. “Your tooth must really be bothering you.”
Marian belatedly remembered she’d told everyone she had a sore tooth to explain the single chipmunk cheek she’d acquired courtesy of Jerome and his lead-plate hands.
“It’s nothing.” Marian gave Rhonda’s purse, which was slung over the woman’s shoulder, a pointed look and tried to move the proceedings along. “You going to lunch?”
“Yeah. I’ll be back in forty-five.”
“Great.”
The second Rhonda disappeared into the elevator, Marian vaulted to her feet and ran into her boss’s office. Having practiced the drill a thousand times in her mind, it ran like clockwork now.
Key: get it out of the pocket of the suit jacket, which was hanging on the hook on the back of the door and thank her lucky stars her boss had mentioned that was where he kept it and left his jacket while he went to grab a sandwich.
File cabinet drawer: unlock it.
Unmarked file shoved in the back: get it.
Address printed on the paper: memorize it.
2250 Stockbridge Lane.
That was it.
Oh, God. That was it.
She raced out of the office, home free.
Until she ran smack into the broad chest of her boss and almost landed on her butt.
No. Christ, God, no—
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