“Why should I—?”
“Oh, man—that’s an expression, not some spy-crap. But try this one on: Those two, Blondie and Wanda, I never met them. But they were the ones who set it up for my wife and my children to die. Just to smoke me out. Smoke out any of us.
“So I’m going to make them dead. Or at least see them dead. Not about revenge, like you probably thinking. But with you after them, they know you never gonna quit. So until I see bodies, my family can’t come back home. To their home. Understand? Killing them, it don’t mean no more than shoveling the walk and throwing down the rock salt, so my family can get to the door without slipping on the ice.”
“Blondie’s done.”
“Heard that. Heard that happen, I’m saying. That fancy machine gun of yours don’t make a lot of noise, but down an alley, buildings on both sides, I figured one of them was finished.”
“How could you tell which—?”
“—Blondie’s probably faster than that bitch. Probably carries, too. But she’s smarter. Man like you, you’d always take the harder shot first.”
“Didn’t look harder. That blond punk took her wrist and spun her into the wall. I’m no sprinter. Figured she’d still be there. But she wasn’t.”
“Don’t surprise me none. Blondie might hate…some of us, sure. But Wanda, that foul bitch wanted us all. Don’t know why. Don’t care. And once I saw that it was you who was moving after them, I knew they couldn’t run to the G.
“So, yeah, we teamed up good,” the indigo-black assassin finished. “But that partnership’s over now.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“Look, chump, you in way too deep. Wanda ain’t anywhere close to this side of town. It was a smooth trick, but it’s already been played. Only thing left to do now is get you the hell out of here. What you think? The G’s gonna do some kind of liftoff for you? Or drop in some more ammo for your last stand?”
“I have to—”
“I know,” Ace told Percy, with something almost like sympathy in his deceptively soft brown eyes. “But, like I said, I’m a man who pays his debts. You come with me; I’ll get you across. Not just some damn border in this town, get you to O’Hare, okay? You tap your phone, you get a ticket to…wherever, right?”
“I’m not—”
“Man, rest it! You tell the G the job is done. We got Wanda hooked, hooked deep. All we gotta do is reel her in. Not gonna be long—probably before you even land wherever you’re going. But you got to go, understand?”
“Wanda—”
“If you gonna say she’d sell everything she knows to the highest bidder, you right. She’s not gonna get that chance. I give you my word.”
Percy was as still as a statue for thirty seconds. Then he extended his hand, sealing the last bargain the two men would ever make.
“YOU PROMISED,” Rhino said.
“Cross wouldn’t lie to you,” Princess said, absolutely sure of his own words.
“We got the idea to watch, same way we watch Mural Girl’s wall,” Cross said quietly. “Tracker’s got an infrared planted. Not as close, but it’s got a little zoom to it. We’ll see her coming. She’ll get down to wherever she thinks that thalidomide man is, and—”
“He’s got a name,” Rhino interrupted.
“Not one he ever knew,” Cross said. “You want me to call him something else, I will, but it won’t make any difference to him. Wanda, she has to die. What she wants is not to die alone. That’s the promise. The promise they made to each other. The promise that’s gonna get kept. Once Wanda gets underground, it’ll be what he wanted. She won’t get that far, but she’ll get to him. I can’t say where, but they’ll be together, okay?”
The behemoth nodded.
THE CREW slept in shifts—never less than two on the monitor at any time.
It was nearing seventy-two hours when Tiger whispered, “Got her!”
Everyone was instantly alert.
“How can you be so—?”
“Because she’s a tiny thing wrapped in a quilted jacket with a hood pulled up. Who else would be walking this time of night?”
“You think she walked all the way from—?”
“Buddha, my daggers against your .177?”
The pudgy man lapsed into silence, as the walking figure never hesitated, never picked up speed…just proceeded directly to the cracked foundation, where she pulled a thin tube from inside her long jacket.
They all watched as a small woman emerged from the jacket, raised her hands high above her head, the palms touching…
“I wonder how long…?” Rhino started a sentence that was never finished.
A geyser of fire erupted from underneath the foundation, climbing so high into the dark sky that the camera couldn’t follow it.
“Damn!” Cross said, vehemently.
“What?” Tiger asked.
“The…brand. Their mark. It’s burning, now. On fire! Burning like all hell….”
“Amen,” Ace said, solemnly.
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Drawing Dead Page 24