This was crazy. The guy wasn’t up in a tree! Only military snipers did that kind of thing.
Yocke slipped through the standing vehicles to the south side of the road and walked along scanning the terrain which sloped steeply downward to the noise fence. The rifleman could have stood here on the edge of the road, of course, and fired through a gap in traffic. Or—Yocke stopped and looked at the cars—or he could have fired from another vehicle.
Somewhere in this area, then, the Chrysler impacted the median barrier in that curve.
Yocke took a last look around, then trudged back toward the officials around the wreck.
Milk glanced at him. Yocke thanked him, was ignored, motioned to the photographer, then vaulted the barrier.
The photographer got behind the wheel. Looking back over his shoulder, he put the car in motion as Yocke pulled his door closed.
Yocke extracted a small address book from a hip pocket, looked up a number, then dialed the cellular phone.
“Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“Bob Lassiter, please.”
“Just a moment.”
In a few moments the reporter had his man. “Hey Bob. Jack Yocke. Howzit going?”
“Just gimme the number, Jack.”
“Bob, I really appreciate your help. It’s Maryland, GY3-7097.”
Silence. Yocke knew Lassiter was working the computer terminal on his desk. Yocke got his pen ready. In about fifteen seconds Lassiter said, “Okay, plate’s on a 1987 Chrysler New Yorker registered to a Walter P. Harrington of 686 Bo Peep Drive, Laurel.”
“Bo Peep?”
“Yeah. Cutesy shit like that, probably some cheap subdivision full of fat women addicted to soap operas.”
“Spell Harrington.”
Lassiter did so.
“Thanks, Bob.”
“This is the third time this month, Jack. You promised me the Giants game.”
“I know, Bob. I’m working on it.”
“Yeah. And try to get better seats than last time. We were down so low all we could see was the asses of the Redskins standing in front of the bench.”
“Sure.” Yocke broke the connection. Lassiter wouldn’t get tickets to the Redskins-Giants game: Yocke had already promised those to a source in the mayor’s office.
The reporter made another call. He knew the number. It was The Washington Post library where researchers had access to back issues of the paper on microfilm. The indexes were computerized.
“Susan Holley.”
“Susan, Jack Yocke. Helluva accident on the beltway. Guy shot in the head. Can you see if we have anything on a Walter P. Harrington of 686 Bo Peep Drive, Laurel, Maryland.”
“Bo Peep?”
“Yep. Harrington with two r’s. Also, remember that epidemic of freeway shootings out in California a couple years ago? Can you find out if we ever had any of that around Washington?”
“Freeway snipers, you mean?”
“Well, yes, anything we have on motorists blazing away at each other on the freeway.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Thanks.”
Yocke hung up. He had a gut feeling Harrington had not been a sniper victim since the terrain offered no obvious vantage point for sniping. Sitting a long distance away and potting some driver was the whole kick for the sniping freaks, Yocke suspected.
Yet the freeway shootouts, didn’t those people usually use pistols? He tried to imagine someone using a high-powered rifle on another driver while he kept his own vehicle going straight down the road. That didn’t seem too likely, either.
So what was left? The rifleman in another vehicle with a second person driving. An assassination? Just who the hell was the dead man, anyway?
The story for tomorrow morning’s paper would be long on drama but short on facts. Getting your head shot off on the beltway was big news. But the following stories would be the tough ones. The who and the why. He was going to have to try to get hold of Mrs. Harrington, if there was a Mrs., find out where the dead guy had worked, try to sniff out a possible reason someone might have wanted him dead.
“Drugs, you think?” the photographer asked.
“I don’t know,” Jack Yocke replied. “Never heard of a killing like this one. It had to be a rifle, but there’s no vantage point for a rifleman. If it was close range, why didn’t he use a pistol or submachine gun?”
“Those heavy drug hitters like the Uzis and Mac-10s,” the photographer commented.
“If it had been one of those the car would look like Swiss cheese.” Yocke sighed. “It’s weird. I’ve seen quite a few corpses over the last three years. Who did it and why has never been a mystery. Now this.”
The photographer had the car southbound on Connecticut Avenue. Yocke was idly watching the storefronts. “In there,” he demanded, pointing. “Turn in there.”
The photographer, whose name was Harold Dorgan, complied.
“Over there, by that bookstore. I’ll be in and out like a rabbit.”
“Not again,” Dorgan groaned.
“Hey, this won’t take a minute.” When the car stopped, Yocke stepped out and strode for the door.
It was a small, neighborhood bookstore, maybe twelve hundred square feet, and just now empty of customers. The clerk behind the register was in her mid-to-late twenties, tallish, with a nice figure. She watched Yocke’s approach through a pair of large glasses that hung a half inch too far down her nose.
The reporter gave her his nicest smile. “Hi. You the manager?”
“Manager, owner, and stock clerk. May I help you?” She had a rich, clear voice.
“Jack Yocke, Washington Post.” He held out his hand and she shook it. “I was wondering if you had any copies of my book, Politics of Poverty? If you do, I’d be delighted to autograph them.”
“Oh yes. I’ve seen your byline, Mr. Yocke.” She came out from behind the counter. She was wearing flats, so she was even taller than Jack had first thought, only two or three inches shorter than he was. “Over here. I think I have three copies.”
“Only two,” she said picking them up and handing them to him. “One must have sold.”
“Hallelujah.” Jack grinned. He used his pen to write, “Best Wishes, Jack Yocke,” on the flyleaf of each book.
“Thanks, Ms. …?”
“Tish Samuels.”
He handed her the books and watched her put them back on the shelf. No wedding ring.
“How long have you lived in Washington, Mr. Yocke?”
“Little under three years. Came here from a paper in Louisville, Kentucky.”
“Like the city?”
“It’s interesting,” he told her. Actually he loved the city. His usual explanation, which he didn’t want to get into just now, was that the city resembles a research hospital containing one or more—usually a lot more—specimens of every disease that affects the body politic: avarice, ambition, selfishness and self-interest, incompetence, stupidity, duplicity, mendacity, lust, poverty, wealth—you name it, Washington has it, and has it in spades. It’s all here in its purest form, on public display for anyone with the slightest spark of interest in the human condition to muse upon or study. Washington is El Dorado for the sly and the bold, for every identifiable species of pencil thief and con artist, some in office, some out, all preying on their fellow man.
“Say, Tish,” Jack Yocke said, “I’ve got a party invitation for tomorrow night. How about going with me? I could pick you up after work, or …”
She walked back behind the register and gave him an amused half smile. “Thanks anyway, Mr. Yocke. I think not.”
Jack lounged against a display case and looked straight into her eyes. “I’ve been taking a class at Georgetown University and the instructor is throwing an end-of-semester class party. The people in the class hardly know each other, so it’s sort of a get-acquainted thing for everyone. Low key. I really would enjoy the pleasure of your company. Please.”
“What’s the class?”
“Spanish.”
Tish Samuels’ grin widened. “I close the store at five on Saturday.”
“See you then. We’ll get a bite somewhere and go party.”
Yocke actually was taking Spanish. He had hopes of breaking out of the cop beat and getting sent to Latin America by the foreign desk. This, he hoped, would be a way to leapfrog over endless, boring years on the metro staff where there were too many reporters covering too few stories—few of them worth the front page.
Out in the car Dorgan asked him, “How many books did you sign, anyway? A couple dozen?”
“Naw. She only had two.”
“If it takes that long to sign just two, you better never write a bestseller.”
By eight p.m. Jack Yocke had learned several things. The Post had never before mentioned the late Walter P. Harrington in any of its articles, and the police had brought in the victim’s wife to make an identification. She had recognized his wallet and wedding ring, so the victim’s name and address were officially released to the press.
Ruing the impulse that had made him tap his Maryland DMV source and renew the man’s claim on a pair of Redskins’ tickets, Yocke wrote as much as he knew, which wasn’t much, and padded the story with all the color he could remember. After he had pushed the right keys to send it on its electronic way to the metro editor, he spent a moment calculating just how many ducats he was in debt. Two pairs for every home game should just about cover it, he concluded. He had a source for tickets, a widow whose husband had bought season tickets years ago when the Redskins weren’t so popular. She kept renewing them to maintain the connection with her husband but almost never went to the games herself.
He was getting his assignments at the metro editor’s desk when one of the national reporters rushed in with a printout of wire service copy he had read on his computer terminal. “Listen to this, you guys. The Colombians just captured Chano Aldana, the big banana of the Medellín cartel. They’re going to extradite him tonight.”
Yocke whistled softly.
“Where are they going to hold him?” the editor asked.
“An ‘undisclosed’ place. The Air Force has a plane on the way down to Bogotá now. Going to bring them back to Miami and turn them over to U.S. marshals. After that, they’re all mum.”
“I guess the lid’s off, now,” Yocke said to no one in particular as the national reporter hurried away. “It’ll blow off,” he added, scanning the big room for Ottmar Mergenthaler, the political columnist with whom he had been having a running argument about the drug issue. Mergenthaler was nowhere in sight.
Just as well, Yocke concluded. The columnist believed, and had written ad nauseam, that traditional law enforcement methods adequately funded and vigorously applied would be sufficient to handle the illegal drug epidemic. Yocke had argued that police and courts didn’t have even a sporting chance against the drug syndicates, which he compared to a bloated, gargantuan leech sucking the blood from a dying victim.
The verbal sparring between the talented newcomer, Yocke, and the pro with thirty years of journalism experience had not prevented a friendship. They genuinely liked each other.
As Yocke marshaled his arguments yet again to fire at the man who wasn’t there, he took stock of the Post newsroom. It was populated by literate, informed, opinionated people, every one of whom subconsciously assumed that Washington was the center of the universe and the Post was the axis on which it turned.
This newspaper and The New York Times were the career zeniths that every journalist aimed for, Yocke thought, at least those with any ambition. Yocke knew. He had ambition enough for twenty men.
Jack Yocke and the photographer were headed for Laurel to interview the Harringtons’ neighbors—and, if possible, the widow herself—when Vinnie Pioche and Tony Anselmo finished their meal and strode out into the gloom of the Washington evening.
They took their time walking toward the parking garage. A lady of the evening standing on the corner watched them come toward her, took a step their way, then abruptly changed her mind after a good look at Vinnie’s face. Tony knew Vinnie pretty well, and he knew that look. It would freeze water.
Once in the car they drove to a garage in Arlington and beeped the horn once in front of the door, which began to open within seconds.
The fat gent inside was smoking a foul cigar. He handed them a pair of keys to a ten-year-old Ford sedan. Tony used one of the keys to open the trunk. Inside was a sawed-off twelve-gauge pump shotgun, a box of twenty-five buckshot cartridges, latex surgical gloves, and two nine-millimeter pistols. They pulled on the gloves before they touched the weapons or the car.
Vinnie stared at the pistols, then ignored them. Tony helped himself to one and made sure the clip was full and there was a round in the chamber while his companion carefully loaded the shotgun, then placed five more cartridges in his right jacket pocket.
Tony slid behind the wheel and started the car. The engine started on the first crank and the gas gauge read full. He let it idle while Vinnie arranged himself in the passenger seat and laid the sawed-off on his lap, the barrel pointed toward the door.
Anselmo nodded at the cigar smoker, who pushed the button for the garage door opener.
“Nice car,” Tony said to Vinnie, who didn’t reply. He had used up most of his conversational repertoire at dinner, when he had grunted and nodded to acknowledge Tony’s occasional comments on the food or the weather.
Vinnie Pioche had the personality of a warthog, Tony reflected yet again as he piloted the car across the Francis Scott Key Bridge back into Washington. Still, a more workmanlike hitter would be hard to find. Through the years, when somebody had a contract and wanted it done just right, with no repercussions, they sent for Vinnie. He was reliable. Or he used to be. These days he was getting … not goofy … but a little out of control, out there on the edge of something that sane men rarely see. Which was precisely why Tony was here. “Make sure it goes okay, Tony.”
They found a parking place a hundred feet from the row house they wanted, just a block east of Vermont, a mile or so northeast of downtown. Tony killed the lights and the engine. The two men sat silently, watching the street and the occasional car that rattled over the potholes.
Streetlights cast a pale, garish light on the parked cars and the row houses with their little stoops and their flowerpots on second-floor windowsills. This neighborhood was much like home. Here they felt comfortable in a way they never would in the sprawling suburbs with huge lawns and tree-shaded dark places and the winding little lanes that went nowhere in particular.
Tony checked his watch. Thirty minutes or so to wait. Vinnie fondled the shotgun. Tony adjusted the rearview mirror and his testicles and settled lower in his seat.
Twenty-six minutes later a yellow cab slowly passed. Tony watched in the driver’s door mirror as the brake lights came on and the cab drifted to a stop in the middle of the block.
“It’s them,” he said as he started the engine. “Remember, not the woman.”
“Yeah. I’ll remember.”
Vinnie got out of the car and eased the door closed until the latch caught. He held the shotgun low against his right leg, almost behind it, and waited.
Tony watched a man and a woman get out of the cab and the cab get under way. Vinnie started across the street.
No one else on the street. The wind was beginning to pick up and the temperature was dropping. Tony turned in the seat and watched Vinnie cross the street and stride toward the couple, now standing on the stoop, the woman digging in her purse.
Vinnie stopped on the sidewalk fifteen feet away from the couple, raised the shotgun, and as the man turned slightly toward him, fired.
The man sagged backward. Vinnie shot him again as he was falling. The victim fell to the sidewalk, beside the stoop. Vinnie stepped around the stoop and shot him three more times on the ground.
The shotgun blasts were high-pitched cracks, loud even here. The woman stood on the stoop, watching.
A pause, then one more shot, a deeper note.
Now Vinnie was walking this way, replacing the .45 in his shoulder holster, the shotgun held vertically against his left leg.
Anselmo eased the car out of its parking place and waited.
Vinnie Pioche just walked. Lights were coming on, windows opening, a few heads popping out. He didn’t look up. He opened the car door and took his seat, and Tony drove away, in no hurry at all.
Just before he turned the corner. Tony Anselmo glanced in the driver’s door mirror. The woman was unlocking the door to her town house and looking down off the stoop, down toward the dead man. Well, she had been paid enough and she knew it was coming.
CHAPTER TWO
ON the flight from Dallas-Fort Worth, Henry Charon sat in a window seat and spent most of his time watching the landscape below and the shadows cast by cumulus clouds. Sitting in the aisle seat, a young lawyer with blow-dried hair and gold cufflinks occupied himself by studying legal documents. He had glanced at Charon when he seated himself, then forgotten about him.
Most people paid little attention to Henry Charon. He liked it that way. People had been looking around and over and through him all his life. Of medium height, with slender, ropey muscles unprotected by the fat layers that encased most other forty-year-old men, Henry Charon lacked even one distinguishing physical feature to attract the eye. As a boy he had been the quiet child teachers forgot about and girls never saw, the youngster who sat and watched others play the recess games. One teacher who did notice him those many years ago had labeled him mildly retarded, an unintentional tribute to the protective shell that, even then, Henry Charon had drawn around himself.
He was not retarded. Far from it. Henry Charon was of above-average intelligence and he was a gifted observer. Most of his fellow humans, he had noted long ago, were curiously fascinated by the trivial and banal. Most people, Henry Charon had concluded years ago, were just plain boring.
Although the lawyer in the aisle seat had ignored his companion, Charon surveyed him carefully. Had he been asked, he could have described the young attorney’s attire right down to the design on his cufflinks and the fact that the end of one shoelace was missing its plastic protector.
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