Justin glanced to his left, took the man in—the dirty blond hair in a near buzz cut; the thin, wiry nature of his body; the fact that he was probably in his late forties or early fifties; that he was in good shape; looked confidently strong. Justin also saw the gun that was sitting in the man’s shoulder holster, tucked neatly under the lightweight suit. He heard Bruno’s warning in his head: You might want to think about watchin’ your back—so he nodded; took one more step in compliance with the man’s wishes; and as he did so his left elbow came up hard, very hard, and connected with the man’s jaw. Justin saw an ugly, thin stream of blood fly out from the man’s mouth and he saw the man already reaching inside his suit as he began to topple over, but Justin’s hand was there first. When it emerged, Justin’s right hand was holding the pistol that had been holstered. With a quick motion, he slashed the gun across the side of the man’s head, sending him sprawling. The man in the suit tumbled two or three steps, used one hand to stop himself from falling any farther. As the man lay there, Justin turned the gun on him, told him not to move. And that’s when Justin heard the shouts. Men screaming: “Drop the weapon! Drop the fucking gun!” Justin could see maybe a dozen cops—all of whom had been coming in or out of the station, catching a quick smoke, buying a coffee or a hot dog from a street vendor—dotting the entire plaza in front of the building. Guns were drawn, pointing at Justin, who was now yelling back at them, “I’m a cop! Don’t shoot, I’m a cop!” And the man in the suit, still stunned and sprawled on the steps, was also screaming: “I’m a federal agent! Put your fucking gun down!”
Justin considered his options, saw the dozen or more guns pointing straight at him, threw his left hand high in the air and with his right tossed the gun a few feet away, watched it skitter down the cement steps. He raised his right hand high in the air to match his left. He was swarmed upon by the surrounding cops, two of whom were helping the man in the gray suit up to a standing position. The man in the suit stepped over to Justin, said, “You asshole,” but he didn’t say it very well because his jaw was out of whack and already swelling up, and then he swung at Justin, punched him hard on the side of his head. Justin went down, stunned. And he offered very little resistance after that as he was escorted down the steps by two cops and the man in the gray suit. In less than a minute, he was sitting in the front seat of a beat-up Honda. Sitting beside him was Wanda Chinkle, the head of the New England branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose first words to him were, “Jesus, Jay, can’t you do anything without screwing it up totally?”
Justin sipped from a small bottle of warm Fiji water. Wanda kept a supply in the backseat of her car. After his first sip, Justin asked her if she’d ever heard of a cooler. He offered to give her ten bucks so she could buy a nice Styrofoam one. Wanda didn’t answer or even acknowledge his offer.
They were alone, parked on a small street around the corner from the station. The man in the gray suit, who was indeed one of Wanda’s agents, Norman Korkes, had been taken to the nearest hospital. At the very least, his jaw was sprained and he’d lost one tooth. The jaw probably wasn’t broken, although Justin decided he wouldn’t be overly sorry if it was.
“You make friends wherever you go, don’t you?” Wanda said.
Jay took another sip of water. His head was still not completely clear after the punch he’d taken. “Just a little quirk of mine—I’m not crazy about people with guns who try to force me into cars.” After another sip, he said, “What the hell were you thinking? You have my cell number. Why didn’t you just call up and go, ‘Hey, can we meet?’ What is it with you people? Everything has to be cloak-and-dagger. Well, that’s how people get hurt. If you’re looking for me to say I’m sorry, I won’t. ’Cause I’m not. Next time I’ll drive the son of a bitch’s jaw into his brain. If he has one.”
“You done with the macho spiel?” Wanda asked. She didn’t take his bait. She showed very little emotion. Mostly she sounded exhausted.
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “More or less.”
“I’m not looking for an apology, Jay.”
“So what are you looking for, Wanda?”
Wanda Chinkle was not a particularly appealing-looking woman. Her features were fairly plain, even harsh. And she didn’t have one of those smiles that covered for her plainness. She rarely smiled, in fact, and when she did, it was more of a grimace than anything that revealed pleasure. Wanda was not someone who experienced a lot of pleasure. Nor did she think she deserved much. She worked, that’s what she did. She worked and she thought about work and she slept. That was pretty much her life. At the moment, her life was revealed on her features, making her look even harsher than usual. She appeared not to have had much sleep lately, and tension lines were drawn deep into her forehead and under her eyes.
“I don’t think I have to explain myself,” Wanda said, “but there is a reason for the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Pretty minor cloak-and-dagger, considering your excessive response.” He said nothing, just waited, so she went on. “It’s not the smartest thing for me to do, to be seen with you. You come with a lot of baggage, as far as the Bureau is concerned.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Justin said. “Crazy me. Of course I do. I mean, let’s see, first there was the agent who tried to kill me and then put the entire law enforcement community on my tail as if I were a wanted criminal. And then wasn’t it you guys who planted an agent on me, who set me up to be killed? And wait, wasn’t there an agent who actually let me get sent to Guantanamo where I had the shit tortured out of me . . . Oh, sorry, wait again, no, that wasn’t just some agent, I believe that was you.” This time it was Wanda who stayed silent. “I come with baggage?” Jay said. “Go to hell, Wanda. You owe me.”
Her voice was quiet when she said, “Yes, I know I do.”
“So what are we doing in your car?” he asked. “You want to shoot me just for fun?”
“I’ve heard worse ideas. But, no, I’m trying to do you a favor.”
“Because we’re such close friends?”
“I don’t know how close we are anymore. But I like to think we’re still friends.”
“What’s the favor?”
“You should leave these cases alone.”
He was genuinely puzzled. “What cases?”
“The murders.”
“Ron LaSalle and Evan Harmon?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“I can’t get into specifics, Jay. But you have to trust me. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with. I’m just beginning to see what’s under the surface here.”
Now he was more than puzzled. He was shocked. “Are these murders connected?”
“I’m not here to give you information, Jay. I’m trying to help you out.”
“Why the hell are you involved in either one of them? What makes them federal cases?”
“Look . . . I’ve been keeping track of Harmon for a while . . .”
“For what?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re better off staying out of it.”
“Better off how?”
“Better off by not ruining what I’ve got going. And better off for your own safety.”
“Now you’re concerned about my safety?”
“Yes, goddammit, I am.”
Justin snorted in disbelief. “Is this coming from Silverbush?”
She looked disgusted. “Give me a break. Larry Silverbush doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. But I’m telling you, you should listen to me on this one, Jay. Nothing good is going to come out of it if you force your way in.”
“What have you got going? Tell me how the two murders are connected.”
“I’m not telling you any such thing. I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, not drag you in.”
“This is bullshit, Wanda.”
“It’s anything but.”
“Prove it.”
“I
don’t have to prove it. But I’ll prove that I know a lot more than you give me credit for.”
“Let’s hear.”
“You should stay away from Bruno Pecozzi, too.”
He thought about what Bruno had said to him, that he had to watch his back. “Have you been tailing me?”
Wanda didn’t answer.
“Is Bruno connected to all this?”
Again, not a word from the FBI agent. The silence hung in the car like a cloud of cigarette smoke, thick and unpleasant. Justin knew better than to try to pry more information out of her. And she had to know him well enough to know her words weren’t going to keep him from doing what he wanted to do. So the question was: Why was she saying all this to him? What was her goal? What was her angle?
“I hope you don’t think this is payback” is what he finally said.
“What I’m telling you just might keep you alive,” she said. “So, yes, I think this counts as payback.”
“A warning to mind my own business? That’s not good enough.”
“If you listen to me, you’ll thank me.”
Justin shook his head. “You’re a long way from payback,” he told her, “and you know it.”
“The only thing I know is that you’re a stubborn damn idiot. Which I knew all along, so I can’t say I thought you’d really pay attention to me. But you can’t say I didn’t try,” she said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Then you’re on your own now, Jay.”
“It always does seem to come down to that, doesn’t it?” he said. Then he opened the door to her car and stepped out into the Rhode Island sunshine. Half a block away, he saw the first thing he’d seen in a while that brightened up his day. An absolutely stunning woman walking toward him. She was tall and moved like a dancer. There was something overwhelmingly sensual about her. Her dark, straight hair rustled in the slight breeze. Her bare shoulders rose and then sloped perfectly, and her arms were muscular and beautifully tapered. Her legs were long and, like the rest of her, perfect. But it was her eyes that grabbed him the most. He caught only a glimpse of them as they passed each other in the street. She had perfect eyes: the color, the shape, the way they seemed to devour her surroundings. She was Asian. Chinese, he thought. The light brown of her eyes seemed to glow against the polished, darker color of her skin. He smiled at her, couldn’t help himself, and she turned her head in his direction. Just the slightest of turns. Not really welcoming his silent greeting but not ignoring it, either. Just accepting it as if it were her due. Neither of them slowed down as they passed each other, going in opposite directions, and Justin forced himself not to look back at her. As he kept walking, he felt as if he were leaving a little part of himself behind. And when he knew she would be out of sight, this heavenly creature, he realized that the temperature had turned colder than it was supposed to be. And the sky was grayer. The summer weather had stopped making sense.
Like everything else, Justin thought. Just like everything else. And he headed back to his car.
17
At first she thought, Shit, I did it again, thinking she’d twisted her knee and torn her cartilage. She’d done it two years before, just walking down the street. The operation wasn’t bad, but the recovery was a bitch. Then she realized, No, this is worse. This pain is much, much worse. What the hell did I do? And then she saw the Asian woman—a beautiful woman, breathtaking really—and she wondered why the woman looked so happy, how could someone be so happy when she was in so much pain, and it wasn’t just her leg now, it was her back, and then her neck—and then she didn’t see the Asian woman anymore or anything else. Her eyes closed and she felt herself falling, and then the pain was gone.
For the moment.
Li Ling wondered what it must be like to go through life being as unattractive as this woman. Her body was toned but had no real shape. Her legs were thick from ankle to thigh. Her hair was thin; there was no pleasure in touching this hair. This woman’s hips were wide and her breasts were small. Her skin was dry and colorless and cracked, not soft and touchable like Ling’s own lustrous skin. Li Ling looked down at the naked woman and all she felt was curiosity. Did this woman have lovers? Did men stare at her and lust after her and want to fuck her? Did women?
Ling was alone with the woman now. Togo had gone to get the transportation. They no longer needed the woman; they had gotten the information they’d needed from her. It hadn’t been easy. She’d been tougher than the man. Stronger. It had taken Togo’s best effort to get what they’d needed. But of course they’d gotten it. They always got what they needed. The naked woman had given them more names. And more information. She had put them one step closer to their ultimate goal.
Ling admired this woman. She was impressed by her strength. As physically unappealing as she was, that strength made Ling want to touch her, to caress her, to have some physical contact other than the pain she’d helped inflict.
The woman wasn’t moving, but Ling knew she was still alive. She bent down, put her hand on the woman’s forehead. She ran her fingers down the woman’s neck, gently stroking it. The hand moved farther down her chest, to her left breast. Ling let her hand rest there, rubbing the breast softly. She bent farther down, put her mouth on the woman’s nipple. Ling’s tongue snaked out and she tasted the nipple. It was salty from the woman’s sweat. It tasted good.
She put her mouth up against the woman’s mouth, put her lips against her lips. She could feel the soft breaths coming in and going out. She kissed the woman, very slowly, then she pressed harder and harder still. She could feel the woman stir ever so slightly.
Ling thought that perhaps she was making the woman happy. She deserved happiness.
Li Ling believed that all people deserved happiness before they died.
She was aware that someone was touching her. It was as if she were dreaming. And perhaps she was. The touch didn’t feel real, but it felt comforting. A caring touch amid the terrible pain. Perhaps she was at a doctor’s. Perhaps the miracle she’d been praying for had occurred. Perhaps someone had saved her.
She felt movement on her cheek and then the gentle touch slid downward. She felt warmth on her breast. And she wasn’t sure, but she thought the same warmth was somewhere near her mouth. Then the warmth and the light pressure of the touch stopped. And she felt as if she were being transported. For a moment she thought, I’m on a stretcher, yes, I have been saved. But that flash of happiness didn’t last long. Because something else occurred to her. What if she wasn’t on a stretcher? Maybe it was something else. Maybe this was what death was, she thought. It was hands picking you up and moving you to the afterlife.
She felt nothing for some time after that. No hands, no warmth, no movement.
She did hear a steady drone, though. So she was still alive. Maybe this was what you heard when you were flying toward heaven. It was the noise generated by the world of the living, slowly fading as you went to a quieter place. Quiet was appealing. Quiet sounded nice. But suddenly she was overcome by a yearning for noise.
The drone stopped—she had no idea how long it had been going on; the line between conscious and unconscious was way too blurry for her to conceptualize the passage of time—and then she felt hands on her again. And more movement. Yes, she was being carried once more. She had a brief moment of panic as she began to suspect that she was not being lifted toward heaven. She was not going upward; she felt herself falling now.
She began to realize that she was far, far from heaven. And even enveloped by the pain and the darkness and the jumble that her senses had become, she understood that heaven was not a reality for her. Not now. Now she was being dropped straight down into hell.
Li Ling knew what her instructions were. And she had no real problem carrying them out. Togo had left the killing to her, knowing how much pleasure it usually gave her. But this time she did not feel the glow that normally accompanied a kill. She felt a touch of sadness that such a strong woman was disappearing. Ling could tell
the woman was struggling to live. She had no chance, of course—it was a battle she could not win; one that Ling could not let her win—but still Ling felt she deserved the chance to fight and to die on her own terms. She put her two fingers on the pulse that was beating ever so faintly in the woman’s neck, but she didn’t press down and still the pulse. She kept her fingers there until she felt the pulse begin to slow naturally. Then she turned and walked away.
There was no need to make the kill.
The unattractive woman with the will of steel would be dead in seconds anyway.
There was no noise at all now, nothing at all really, no sense of movement around her, no warmth or even cold. She couldn’t tell for sure, but she felt as if she were alone. As if she were the only person left in whatever world she was in.
She didn’t know if she was able to move, but she thought that perhaps she could. She felt some connection to her arm and to her fingers. She tried moving her hand, and it seemed to work.
It also brought the pain back.
It was so strong, so overwhelming, that she almost willed herself to die on the spot. She understood where she was now. It made perfect sense. And she understood, too, that she did not have long to remain on earth and that it seemed so much easier to die without all the pain.
But she knew there was something she could do before she died.
No, not could do. Had to do.
She had to make things right. That was what was important to her. Finishing her job. And making things right.
This thing especially.
Her hand moved enough to touch her own chest. She almost passed out from the sharp stabs that seemed to plunge themselves into her arm. But the pain didn’t matter; she understood that now. Living was important. Dying was important. Pain was something in between that ended and was forgotten. She knew that her pain was very close to being over. So she forced her arm and her hand to move and that’s when she realized she was naked. That was okay, she thought. It didn’t matter. She could make things right using her nakedness. Her eyes opened now, just a slit of an opening—it was all she could manage. It wasn’t really relevant anyway; she couldn’t really see. The pain was already disappearing; she could feel it fading the way she could feel the life fading from inside her. Her hand moved to the ground again, felt around. She needed something. Something sharp. She didn’t know if she could even tell the sensation of sharp anymore. Then she felt it. Something with an edge. She pressed her finger against it and there was a different warmth than she’d felt from whatever had been touching her body. This warmth was not as pleasant. But it made her happy, happy enough to move her lips into a simple and glorious smile.
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