Blackjack

by Andrew Vachss

  Cross was directed to a corner table. He waited patiently until an inmate walked over to him. The man was tall, slender, handsome to the verge of “pretty,” with a pencil mustache highlighted against his café-au-lait skin.

  The two men’s heads moved very close together; they spoke in barely audible whispers.

  “Just get him out to the South Yard anytime after two-thirty tomorrow afternoon,” Cross said.

  “Man, I don’t know if I can do that. It ain’t like we tight or nothing—I don’t hardly know the dude.”

  “Save it, Maurice. One, you owe me. Two, talking people into things is your game. And, three, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Look here, bro.…”

  “Wait. There’s still a number four.”

  “Which is …?”

  “You remember your old pal Ace? He told me to give you a message: You don’t get this guy out into that South Yard tomorrow afternoon, you better lock up. For the whole rest of your bit, understand? You can’t do that here, so you’ll need a transfer. And you’d better tell the Parole Board you’d rather do more time, too. The longer you stay Inside, the safer you’ll be.”

  Maurice nodded, not happy about it, but resigned to the realities of his life … one of which was men like Cross.

  CROSS WAS in full camo gear, which covered not just his body but his head and hands as well. He worked his way through the hills surrounding the institution he had visited the day before. A quick glance at his watch—13:56—confirmed he still had plenty of time.

  Methodically, he set up a sniper’s roost. Next, he removed a rifle from its case, found a comfortable prone position, and dropped the heavy barrel’s bipod to steady the scope.

  A thin smile cracked his masklike face when he saw Maurice on the yard. The pimp was talking earnestly to a white male, gesturing wildly with his hands to emphasize whatever he was saying.

  Cross dialed in the man’s face, then slowed his breathing. When certain he could get off a round between heartbeats, he slowly squeezed the trigger.

  The target’s head exploded, followed immediately by the cccccrack! of a high-power cartridge.

  Cross carefully disassembled his sniper’s rig and repacked everything, working quickly but unhurriedly.

  Then he made a careful retreat through the wooded hills. He stopped near a big tree marked by a freshly dug trench in the ground, lined with some sort of metallic cloth.

  His camo gear came off first. By the numbers. When everything was stowed away, including the sniper rifle, Cross dressed himself in conventional hiker’s clothing.

  A piece of polished steel confirmed his restored appearance. Cross then removed a pair of large glass-stoppered bottles from behind the tree. As he poured the contents of each bottle into the trench, they formed a new substance, which immediately went to work. Cross watched as everything inside began to liquefy, then carefully resealed the metallic cloth with his gloved hands.

  It only took minutes for Cross to replace the divot, check the scene to make certain he’d left no trace of his presence, and move out.

  “I CAN’T believe it,” the young cop said. “I mean, how could a sniper pick him off at that distance? That’s almost half a mile.”

  “I guess when they say ‘low security’ that about covers it,” McNamara replied.

  “That man you sent—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” McNamara answered, using the cold voice he saved for special occasions. Professional occasions. “And neither do you.”

  “Okay,” the young cop replied, his eyes wet. “But I’ll never forget it, anyway. And if he ever—”

  The young cop stopped himself from saying anything more. The man he had been talking to was already gone.

  “ALL I can do is give you a stack of rule-outs, partner.” The consultant’s voice came through the van’s multi-speaker system.

  “I’ll take whatever you have, Doctor,” the blond man said. “For one, he’s no sociopath.”

  “But he makes a living—”

  “No offense, my friend. But if you keep sticking your two cents in, this conversation’s going to take a long time. I get paid by the hour. And a lot more than two cents.”

  Tiger giggled. Percy threw his thousand-yard stare. Both aimed at the same target.

  “The sociopath diagnosis was ruled out because I couldn’t find even a trace of narcissism. And no question but the man has some real loyalty to others. But the absolute tell was when you were able to link him with that car bomb. The target was head of a cartel operating out of Guatemala—the first one to use MS-13 soldiers in America, in fact.

  “You don’t know who paid him, but no question that Cross brought a whole team down there years ago. The mission had something to do with a diplomat’s daughter. Remember, I’m looking at papers with the usual spook blackouts of key data, so that’s the best I can do.

  “Anyway, Cross lost at least two men in that operation. A narcissistic sociopath might seek revenge because of some ‘Nobody messes with me and gets away with it’ need to maintain his personal reputation, sure. But Cross seems to have been acting based on what the dead men would have expected of him. That’s the kind of leader professional soldiers would want to follow.”

  “Anything else?”

  “From what I can determine, there isn’t much to him,” the expensive consultant answered. “His personal relationships—male-female, I’m talking about here—seem to be limited to … professionals. Strippers. Or, if you like, ‘dancers.’ That kind of thing.”

  “He pays for sex? That could—”

  “I said ‘relationships.’ He’s not paying for sex. What you’d call a series of ‘girlfriends’ are all drawn from that same world.”

  “Doesn’t that mean something?”

  “Yeah, it actually does. It means Cross only understands people who work for their money, and do that work on his side of the law. Interestingly enough, his original partner—this ‘Ace’ individual—goes the opposite way. He’s had the same relationship with the same woman for a good twenty years. Children, too.”

  “Does she know what he does?” Tiger asked.

  “Probably not exactly, but she knows he works nights and never gets a W-2.”

  “That doesn’t really help,” the blond man reminded the team.

  “Not for what you want, no,” the consultant acknowledged. “Oh, Cross can do a lot of things, but now he seems to be following some script I can’t get at. His whole crew is like a band of guerrillas operating in hostile territory, but I can’t see any objective. They seem to hate the government, but they lack any desire to overthrow it.”

  “Money?” Percy guessed.

  “No,” Tracker responded instantly.

  “He’s right,” the consultant echoed. “The money’s almost secondary to some of the things this crew has done. Taken individually, all might have their individual reasons. But what you have collectively is a gestalt of outcasts.”

  “A gestalt?” Tiger asked.

  “Easiest way to put it is like this,” the consultant answered. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

  “Could you be a little more—?”

  “Remember, I’m theorizing from what you supplied,” he cautioned. “All right. Of them all, the only one who seems fully centered is Rhino. Why he’s taken it on himself to protect Princess, I couldn’t even guess at. There’s no question that Princess on his own would be as dangerous as a horde of pit bulls on angel dust. Or that he doesn’t have a malicious bone in that huge body. He’s like a child … unless some button gets pushed.”

  “Who can—?”

  “Push his button inside the crew? Probably any of them, but only Cross does so deliberately. Once Princess shifts, he’s utterly without limits. You really need me to tell you that, after sending me those crime-scene shots? Like the one that shows he harpooned a man to a wall?”

  “You said you wanted everything,” the blond man answered.

&
nbsp; “So I did. Okay. Ace is a contract killer. But he and Cross go so far back that how they maintain that relationship is a puzzle. Buddha seems to be the most money-oriented of them all. And even Buddha has something else going on. He’s that rare individual who likes the chase better than the capture.”

  “Meaning what?” Percy sneered.

  “Meaning, if you put a million dollars on the table as a gift, he’d probably say something like ‘Thanks, but I’d rather steal it.’ ”

  “That doesn’t provide us with much insight,” the blond man said, earning him another round of venomous looks from Tiger and Percy. Even Wanda slid her chair a few inches away.

  “Let’s try it this way, then,” the consultant’s voice came through the speakers with a little more of his natural tone, thanks to Wanda’s adjustments. “Ace kills for money; that’s his profession. Buddha would kill for money, but he’s got no real interest in killing. Rhino has no hesitancy about homicide, provided it’s in furtherance of a specific mission. Princess, however, turns lethal only when he believes someone else ‘started it.’ That phrase is the one characteristic of his supposedly ‘unprovoked’ attacks.”

  “His war cry,” Tracker ventured.

  “That’s about right. As for Cross, there’s no question that he’ll kill—individuals or groups—without hesitation. But he’s not a pure contract man like Ace. In fact, the motivation for a number of homicides attributed to him is unknown.”

  “Could he operate on his own?” the blond man asked.

  “Can’t tell you. There’s no case that it appears he could have pulled off without assistance of some kind. But Cross is a man who collects obligations. And he’d call in markers anytime he needed them.”

  “You understand, for our plan to work, we have to send him in there alone?”

  “Sure, I understand. But I’m not sure you do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what I just said. A lot of people seem obligated to him, in one way or another. And they all have people obligated to them. Cross might walk in there alone, but I’d put my money on him not staying that way long.”

  LATE THE next evening, the blond man and Wanda entered the War Room. They noted that Cross was already in a whispered conversation with Tracker.

  “You tell him yet?” the blond man asked Percy.

  “No.”

  “Tell me what?” Cross said.

  “You’re going to jail, pal.”

  Something flashed across Cross’s face, less quickly than his left hand disappeared inside his coat. “You got a good sense of humor, Blondie.”

  “Listen!” the blond man urged. “You saw the news. They hit again. Right inside the Isolation Wing of the federal lockup. The same wing where they were holding that freak who was trying to take credit for the Canyon Killings.”

  “That suicide?”

  “Suicide, my ass. That’s just for the media. Towers was one of their signature kills. Here, take a look for yourself.”

  The blond man tossed several color photographs on the table. Each showed the serial killer who had tried to persuade the authorities he had bodies buried all over the country in an attempt to stave off his own execution. But the man was not hanging as a suicide would be—what remained of his torn-apart body was dangling from some sort of metal hook, both the skull and spine missing.

  “Damn!” Cross said, realizing that the complex arrangements he had set in motion with the Corsican had all been for nothing—had he waited another day, he would have been paid anyway. Just like Viktor’s crew, he thought to himself.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Whoever did this, that’s who we want. They’ve got to be locked up right inside that exact same place. That was as up-close-and-personal a kill as I’ve ever seen.”

  “Where were they holding him?”

  “I told you, in the high-power tank of the federal holding facility. He had his own cell, of course, but all you need to get yourself locked in high-power is be notorious. It actually makes up a large part of the entire institution. Some are in there awaiting trial, others awaiting transfer. So it could be anyone. And there’s no reason to think the place was as sealed off as it’s claimed, either.”

  “What makes you think they’re still inside? They did their work, why wouldn’t they move on?” Tracker asked.

  “There’s been two more since,” Wanda answered. “Inside that same place. Two more killings. Reported as inmate gang violence—stab wounds, lead pipes, like that. But we’ve seen photos of the bodies. They’re in there, all right.”

  “If you want to hunt hunters, there’s no better place …” Cross mused aloud.

  “Numbers,” Tracker added.

  “What’s that mean?” Percy demanded.

  “You kill a killer, all his kills belong to you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Remember what that doctor guy told us? About this being a game? That means someone’s keeping score.”

  “Ah, that was just—”

  “How did they manage to get it done? There are cameras everywhere inside that place,” Wanda interrupted.

  “And that’s how we know there’s been an insane race war going on in there for weeks,” the blond man added. “The body count’s already over a dozen.”

  “You said three—”

  “I know, Percy. But only the last two match the signature. And they were both whites. Rumors are flying that there’s a special squad of black hunter-killers running wild in there. Keys to the tiers, everything. That joint is a pure terror zone. Way too many guards calling in sick. And they were understaffed to begin with.

  “The Aryan shot-caller is a man named Banner. Triple-lifer, knows he’s never going to see the outside world. Only reason he’s in there is that he’s awaiting another transfer. Been moved a dozen times. Worthless waste of time—he’ll link up in an hour, no matter where they put him.

  “The blacks are in a single unit. At least the warriors are. Call themselves the Urban Black Guerrillas. An informant told us that this comes out of their conviction that all prisons are ‘cities,’ and failure to control their own ‘neighborhood’ would be a mortal sin.

  “There’s a loose group of Latinos. And I do mean loose. Mexicans and Marielitos aren’t ever going to get along, never mind those maniacs from Central America, or local Puerto Ricans. The only good thing is that there’s not that many of those. The bad thing is, that’s what caused them to band together.

  “Even the Asians seem to have called a cease-fire between themselves while all this is going on.

  “But we know we’re not looking at some convict race war. It’s their work, for sure. It’s like Tracker just said. With all those great targets just waiting—kill a killer, you take all his kills—I think they’re going to be around for a while. No point leaving crops to rot in the field.”

  Cross locked eyes with the speaker. The others watched, expressionless.

  “So you see,” the blond man finally said.

  Cross lit another smoke. “I get it now. Okay, I’ll go with it. But there’s things you need to do first. And I need a couple of days to take care of some other stuff.”

  “WHAT DO you want for a legend?” Percy asked Cross.

  “If I’m gonna hook up fast, I’ll need something racial. You got any old Unsolved in there?” Cross asked pointing at the giant computer.

  “What do you need an Unsolved for?” the blond man asked. “Those are all cold-cased. Why not just take an open one? A fresh one where they haven’t made an arrest? Until you, of course.”

  Cross gave him a look. “Blondie, you want to go in there, do it any way you like. Only it’s not you going in, is it?”

  Cross deliberately turned to Wanda, making it clear who he believed was the brains of this outfit.

  “If you make it a fresh case, especially a race killing, the shot-caller for the gang I have to connect with, he’ll probably already know who did it. So, if I’m going to claim, then I need an old case, and I need one f
rom out of town—the farther away from that joint the better. Let the feds be holding me for extradition, understand? That way, it’ll take anyone trying to check out the crime that much longer. And it’ll give you an excuse to pull me out if things get ugly.”

  Wanda was already at her keyboard. “I’ve got half a dozen good possibilities,” she said. Tiger peered over her shoulder, feigning interest. Wanda’s body language clearly indicated she resented Tiger’s presence. And Tiger clearly indicated she was well aware of that, deliberately pressing her left breast against Wanda’s cheek.

  “Okay,” the blond man said, confidently. “We’ll have this whole thing set up in another twenty-four hours. Anything else you need?”

  “Yeah,” Cross told him. “A wife.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “You ever get held waiting trial? Here’s how it works: I can get unlimited visits from a lawyer, but they’d get suspicious if any lawyer I could afford would come see me every other day or so. Only gangsters can afford that level of representation. The White Power boys might have a local guy, but, remember, I’m on the run, from someplace far away, so I wouldn’t know about that.

  “Besides, lawyers are way too easy to check out. The only other visits I can get regularly are from a spouse or parent, see? So I need a wife. Someone to come in and visit, carry messages, bring me some stuff I might need, like that.…”

  “We can’t let anyone from outside our group in on this, Cross.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  “Forget it!” Tiger and Wanda spoke as one.

  The blond man turned to Tiger. “If you really want these guys as bad as you say …”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Tiger wanted to know, jerking her thumb at Wanda.

  “I can’t spare Wanda” was the blond man’s immediate answer. “I need her with me … on the machines.”

  “And I’m going in as White Power,” Cross added. “I can’t have a non-white wife.”

  Tiger mock-sighed. “They don’t have conjugal visits in there, do they?” she asked Cross.