He scraped another plate and handed it to Marie, who put it in the dishwasher. "You hardly eat anymore," she complained. "You're getting thin. It's probably why you're getting so hard to get along with."
"Great!" he said loudly. "Now I'm hard to get along with." He picked up another plate, but it slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor.
"Shit!"
Two-year-old Billy came charging into the kitchen. "Daddy break! Daddy break!"
Chasen glared down at the child, angry and frustrated. "Would you shut up?" he yelled. "You're always underfoot, always nagging..."
Shocked by his father's tone more than by his words, the boy backed away, crying loudly.
"Leave him alone!" Marie cried, bending to hug the child to her. She looked up at Chasen in fear and horror. "What's wrong with you? What in God's name has happened?"
"Nothing's happened." He glowered at her, disgusted by the sickening show she was putting on with the baby. "I'm just sick of you. I'm sick to death of all of this!"
He picked up another plate, smashing it into the sink, then another, and another. With each crash Billy cried louder.
"Stop it!" Marie screamed. "Oh God!"
With a loud groan, Chasen charged out of the room and locked himself in the master bathroom. He leaned against the washstand on stiffened arms, looking at the red-eyed madman who stared back at him from the mirror.
Damn Marie and her foolishness! Damn her for not trying to understand him! Where the hell was Yvette? She'd know what to say, what to do. How could she just leave like that without leaving a message for him... something? And on top of everything else, he was sure that Bert Kaminsky was watching him. Nothing ever slid by that son of a bitch. Easygoing old Bert had a suspicious legal mind. He probably had the whole thing figured out.
Chasen opened the vanity cabinet doors. Way in the back of a shelf was a box of cotton swabs. He dumped out the package off white-tipped wooden sticks on the countertop, and picked up the plastic bag of coke he had stashed beneath the swabs.
The bag was weighty, reassuring. There was still plenty there, enough to last him a long time. But Yvette was his only source. What if he couldn't find her? He couldn't possibly face life without her and without cocaine.
He poured a generous amount of coke onto the countertop, then used a credit card from his wallet to divide it into two lines. Bending down, he snorted up the big lines using the cut-off plastic straw he kept in his pocket. He hadn't slept for two days now, his euphoria having taken on a harder, more demanding edge. But things were so out of control that he didn't see any way of coping other than increasing his cocaine use.
As the anesthetic calmed his brain, he heard the ring of the bedroom telephone extension just outside the bathroom. He ignored it, assuming Marie would answer the phone. The coke had gone down so well that he poured out a little more onto the countertop. He had just lined it up with the plastic card and was bending to snort it when Marie came into the bedroom.
"Ken..." she called through the locked door.
"Not now." He eased the straw up his nose and ingested half the line.
"You're wanted on the phone, Ken."
"I told you, not now!" He drew the rest of the line into his other nostril.
"She says it's urgent... someone named Yvette."
"I'll be right there," he said.
Frantically he dropped the coke back into its hiding place, awkwardly scooping the cotton swabs back into the box before tossing it to the back of the shelf where he kept it. Remembering just in time to wipe the residual powder off his nose and upper lip, he turned and opened the door.
Marie stood staring at him. "Who's Yvette?" she asked.
"Just somebody I work with." He brushed past her.
"I've never heard of..."
"Get off my back, will you?" he snapped, and hurried into his study, locking the door behind him.
The phone was inside his rolltop desk. He pulled back the accordion door and grabbed the receiver. "Don't talk yet," he warned, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. "I've got it now!" A second later he heard the other line hang up.
"Okay," he said into the phone. "It's clear."
"Oh darling, is that you?" Yvette almost sobbed. "I've been so worried, so..."
"Where are you? I've been frantic. They made us all take lie detector tests this morning at work."
"Did you take one?"
"Where are you?" he asked again. "I can't be away from you like this. I'm going nuts."
"They made me leave," she explained. "God, I didn't want to. They made me talk to them, made me tell them that you'd continue to work with them on this..."
"What do you mean, continue?" He began to feel queasy in the stomach. "You told me that it was all over, that when I gave them the paper and you gave me that tape..."
"They've got another tape, Ken. They want to make sure the job is carried out to completion. I'm so sorry. What about the lie detector test?"
"I think I got through it," he said, "but I have a feeling my supervisor suspects something. I've got to see you. I can't hold together like this."
"Are they taking any other steps?" she asked.
"I... I don't know. Please, I must see you," he begged.
"I'm in Chicago, I don't..."
"Tell them that if I don't see you alone, I'll blow the whole thing apart. I mean it, Yvette. I'm going crazy."
"Listen," she said. "Do you remember where we went that first night?"
"Sure, I..."
"Shh. Don't say it. I'll meet you there at midnight tomorrow. But you must be prepared to update my information." She sounded frightened. "It's the only way, my love."
"Okay," he promised. "I'll do it."
"Until tomorrow, then." She hung up.
He stood there, feeling the room closing in on him. After all he'd gone through they wanted more. And Yvette, poor Yvette, whose only crime was loving her brother, was caught in the middle. He'd get money, that was what he'd do. He'd find enough money to spring Yvette out of this mess and to safety.
"Ken?" Marie was knocking hesitantly on the door. "Is everything all right?"
God, she was getting on his nerves. Couldn't a man have any peace? He walked over and threw open the door. "What?" he demanded.
She had a resolute look on her face, as if she'd reached some major determination. "Something's wrong," she said. "I know it is. Please tell me about it. I'm your wife, I..."
"Wrong!" he screamed, seizing her around the neck. "You want to know what's wrong?" Still grabbing her throat, he shook her, banged her head against the wall. "You're what's wrong! You keep pushing me. Pushing... pushing..."
She was gagging, her eyes wide and frightened, her fingers trying to loosen the unrelenting pressure of his grasp. He felt nothing, but when her eyelids began fluttering, he released her. She fell to the floor, gasping for breath.
"See what you made me do?" he asked calmly. "You just don't know when to stop."
She climbed to her knees, still coughing, her face twisted in a grimace of disgust and fear that he was sure she had rehearsed just for his benefit. She staggered to her feet and ran out of the room without a word.
He stood there, shaking his head. The stupid bitch! She had pushed him to that with her prying and poking around. Yvette would never do that to him. Not Yvette.
He walked to his desk, sat in the executive chair Marie had given him for Christmas three years previously. In the top desk drawer lay the video tape that had been made of him and Yvette as they snorted coke and made passionate love. Just holding the tape aroused his desire for the woman. In some perverse way, he was proud of the tape, proud of his virility.
He heard a car in the driveway and hurried to the window. Marie had gathered up the children and put them in the car. She was backing out, going — where?
He didn't care. Good riddance. He didn't need the bitch, anyway. He stood alone... in control.
6
Carol Niven stood in the hall, watc
hing Barberi as he slowly packed his bags, talking to himself all the while. The old man was half blind. It seemed somehow incongruous to her that the government would waste time, money and personnel to protect someone like him.
Barberi had spent the past three hours telling them how in his youth he'd been the greatest wheelman in the business, recounting stories that, if they hadn't gotten better with age, should have been in the Guinness Book of World Records. He had spent most of the afternoon trying to decide whether to stay or "take it on the lam," as he liked to say, finally deciding that discretion was the better part of valor. He had even told them — five times — the story of how he'd got the nickname, Stinky. The name referred to the smell of the grease he'd used to slick down his hair when he was young — when he'd had hair. Sam Giancarlo had first called him Stinky in 1934, and the nickname had stuck ever since. For some reason, that fact was important to him.
Life had changed a lot since Stinky had been running loose on the streets. Niven's training reflected that. It was geared as much toward psychology as to self-defense. But the old man had lost none of his arrogance and selfish stupidity. Perhaps, to Stinky, it was still 1934.
She turned and walked back to the tiny kitchen, where her partner, Lomax, was peering out the window, a coffee cup in his hand.
"Looks like he's just about ready," she said.
Lomax turned abruptly, nearly spilling his coffee. "Who's nervous... not me," he joked, wiping a few drops off his wrist. "I wish to God he'd made his decision to leave three hours ago."
"Did you see something?" she asked.
He sat down at the small kitchen table. "Just dark... shadows... my mind weirding out. I don't know. This whole thing gives me the creeps. Did you find a hotel?"
"Yeah," she replied as she, too, sat. She stared at the red-checked tablecloth. "We're in at the Red Lion Sea-Tac."
"How many rooms?" Lomax wiggled his eyebrows in a Groucho Marx imitation.
"I got a suite. Plenty of room for all three of us, and no, Neal, you're not going to get lucky tonight."
"If you were as freaked out as I am," he replied, "getting lucky would be about the last thing on your mind."
She smiled at him. "Then I guess I'm as freaked out as you are."
"First real assignment?"
She nodded, her own apprehensions growing in proportion to the deepening darkness.
"Me, too," he said. "I hope it's a quiet one."
"Well, come on." Barberi stormed into the room with a pasteboard suitcase swinging in his hand. "Let's clear out of here before it gets too late."
Lomax and Niven stood, then Niven checked the load on the .45 in her purse. "I'll take a look outside first," she said as she snapped the clip back into the butt of the weapon.
"Pretty big gun for such a little lady," Barberi commented, scratching his head through the wisps of white hair. "Back in my day..."
"I know," she said. "The women only shot off their mouths."
"Yeah." The old man cackled. "Shooting was something the men did, if you know what I mean?" He leered at Niven. "If you want, I'll show you later at the hotel."
"No thanks," she told him. "I'm on duty, remember?"
She walked from the kitchen to the small living room, where she retrieved her quilted jacket from a chair back. The house was poorly furnished and had the unpleasant smell of poverty and dirt. Apparently Barberi was living completely on government subsidy, having saved nothing from his years of crime. After all, the proceeds from illegal activities were not pensionable earnings.
She turned out the living room light and moved cautiously to the front door, opening it a crack. The night was as dark as any she'd ever seen; whatever moon there was was totally obscured by the cloud cover characteristic of Seattle, where it rains 258 days a year. It was downright cold tonight, a light drizzle slicking over everything, forming the barest skim of ice on the porch steps.
There were three steps down to the tiny, fenced yard. Niven kept her purse wrapped against her chest, her right hand inside the purse, holding the automatic.
The neighborhood was one of small, tar paper or frame one-story houses, near Meadow Point. As in most working-class neighborhoods, cars were parked everywhere — some old, in various stages of renovation, repair or decay, others, incongruously, new and fancy.
She was glad they were finally getting on the road, for defense would be tough in this locale. She noticed a white Cadillac parked about a block away that she didn't remember seeing earlier, but it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary for Meadow Point.
"Okay?" Lomax called from the front door.
"It's okay," she said, turning from side to side, making one last sweep. "Bring him out."
* * *
"Who the hell's the bitch, man?" Cleavon Brown asked as he looked through the binoculars at the woman on the front lawn of the pigeon's house.
"I don't know. If I didn't know better I'd say she was doing point recon." Burnett stretched out a hand for the field glasses. "Would you glasses?"
"Just a minute," Cleavon said.
"Give me the fucking glasses!" Burnett demanded. "Whose do you think they are, anyway? Don't you be pulling any stunts with my stuff like you did with the walkie-talkie."
"Can't we turn on the heater?" Coolie asked from the back seat. "It's cold as a witch's teat back here."
"We don't want to overheat the car." Burnett finally wrested the binoculars away from Cleavon and raised them to his eyes.
"You're a fool, man," Cleavon said. "This is a goddamn Caddie. It ain't gonna overheat."
"Go to hell!" Burnett returned, staring at the woman through the glasses. It almost looked as if she had a gun in the purse. Was it possible their strike was expected? It had never occurred to him that they wouldn't have surprise on their side, that a linkage of the early victims on the hit list could warn the others to prepare for a hit. That changed things a lot. Why hadn't Jericho told him about that possibility?
"I'm cold, too," Juke chimed in from the back.
Sighing, Burnett reached down and started the car, the two men in the back cheering. "They're coming out," he said. "Get ready to roll. I think they're going off in the car."
"How many?" Coolie asked.
"Two plus the old man," Burnett answered. "And he's got a suitcase. I think the first two are armed, maybe all three."
"What kind of shit is this?" Cleavon exclaimed. "I signed on to plug a few white boys, not get involved in some war. How come you didn't tell us there'd be shooters?"
Burnett put down the glasses. "Because I didn't know, all right?"
"You some dumb son of a bitch, Burnett." Cleavon laughed. "Lordy, I don't know when I've seen nobody dumb as you."
"Shut up," Burnett rasped. "You shut up or I'll fuckin' kill you myself."
Cleavon grabbed Burnett by the shoulders, bringing their faces close together. "You just come on anytime you want, you skinheaded asshole. I'll lay your ass out like poured cement."
"They're leaving." Coolie pointed at the Barberi house. "What do we do?"
"We follow," Burnett told him, dropping the Cadillac into gear. "We'll either take them on the road, or when they hole up for the night."
"Maybe they ain't holing up," Cleavon suggested. "Maybe they gonna drive straight through for a Florida vacation."
"You don't like it, get out and move on," Burnett said.
"I would except that I wanna see how bad you can screw up before this is done," Cleavon said, testing how far he could push the other man.
Burnett just gave him a look and pulled away from the curb, following the Ford Escort wagon driven by one of the bodyguards. He kept an easy distance, the rain and darkness providing natural cover. He wasn't quite sure what to think about the turn of events. Maybe the people with the old man were always with him. Maybe their presence was routine, didn't mean anything. Anyway, with all the money Jericho was paying, it probably didn't matter. This was Burnett's big chance for a way out and up in life, and for all
the money he was being paid, he'd go after his marks even if they had an army protecting them.
As much as Burnett hated to admit it to himself, Cleavon had struck a nerve when he'd speculated on a long trip. He wasn't going to tell the others unless he had to, but he hadn't thought to fill the gas tank lately and they were sitting on less than a quarter of a tank, which, he had already discovered, didn't go very far in a Caddie. He'd have to find a way to make the hit before he ran out of gas.
The Escort rumbled through the city proper, just edging the newly renovated harbor area of Puget Sound. The piers and shops that were so bright and colorful in the daytime were just drab shapes on a night that reduced everything to slick shades of gray and black. With the Cadillac still following discreetly, the wagon turned north, climbing one of the seven large hills upon which Seattle was built.
Burnett kept a block length between his car and the Escort. He had put aside the problems that had plagued him earlier and had lapsed into daydreams as Juke hummed tunelessly in the back. He smiled at the big man's musical attempts, knowing they had to be driving Cleavon crazy but that even Cleavon had more sense than to make Juke mad.
Cleavon was Burnett's worst problem now, he realized. From the start the man had simply refused to take Burnett's leadership seriously, had criticized and scoffed at his preparations and plans. Cleavon stayed around because of the money, but the pay was only enough to buy his presence, not his loyalty. Burnett had briefly considered offering the man more, but dismissed the idea, unable to bring himself to placate an asshole like Cleavon. Besides, a man like Cleavon Brown wasn't smart enough to survive a tough firefight for too long. Burnett found that thought reassuring.
They had driven through the heart of the city, passing the entrances to the old, underground city that had been rebuilt because of plumbing problems and were moving through the outskirts when Cleavon pointed through the rain-spotted windshield.
"They's pullin' over," he said, "the lot beside that liquor store."
Burnett checked the gas gauge and breathed a sigh of relief. "We'll take them here," he said.
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