WINNER TAKES ALL

by Robert Bidinotto

  He paused, as if to let it sink in. His eyes were green ice.

  “Dixon was the last loose end,” he said simply.

  Then stopped talking. He waited for her.

  She sat numb for a moment. “I see,” she said finally, hearing the tightness in her voice. After another moment she added: “The news story said the cops thought it was a war between rival drug gangs. They said it was a bloodbath. A couple dead, one critical, some others beaten up.” She stared at his motionless face. “But all of that . . . it was only you.”

  He gestured toward his scratched face. “That’s how this happened.”

  She looked away, out the window. She could make out ducks or geese, she wasn’t sure which, floating in the marsh. They looked adrift. Indecisive.

  “I guess I had dared to fantasize for a few weeks that—after Boggs and Conn—you were done with this vigilante stuff.”

  “Annie, I meant it when I said Dixon was a last loose end. The last remaining killer involved with the folks at that Vigilance for Victims meeting. The people I’d made my promise to.”

  He stopped, forcing her to turn back and look at him. So that she could see his eyes, and what was in them.

  “I kept my promise. So yes, Annie—I’m done.” He smiled bleakly. “The vigilante is hereby officially retired.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Until you’re provoked the next time. Until some new victim comes along needing an avenger. You’re what Grant said you are, Dylan. A ‘sheepdog.’ It’s in your DNA.”

  “Grant’s wrong. I want a normal life. A future. A future with you, Annie. I want you to believe that.”

  “And I do want to believe that, Dylan. Just as I know you really want to. But wanting to believe it . . .”

  “. . . is not the same as really believing it. I know.” He looked away, for the first time. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “I’m really not being fair to you. After all I put you through, I begged you to take my ring back. But a ring is a promise, too—a promise of a normal life. And I’ve given you no reason to believe that promise.” He faced her again. “That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have—”

  She raised her hand. “Stop. Don’t. Don’t you dare rob me of your amazing proposal.” She flashed the engagement ring. Forced a smile. “See? It’s still here. And it’s staying here.” She chuckled. “Detective Cronin warned me you carry more baggage than Amtrak. But I accepted you, baggage and all. And I still do.”

  His eyes were wide.

  “Annie Woods . . . I don’t deserve you.”

  She rose from the chair.

  “You don’t,” she said, extending her hand toward him. “But why don’t we go upstairs and you can try to make it up to me.”

  3

  “Mrrrrruugh . . . mrrrrrOWWWW!”

  “Dammit, Luna, it’s Sunday morning.”

  “Rowwwwww . . . mrrrahhhh . . .”

  He opened an eye.

  The cat sat on the bench at the foot of the bed, peering at him. The black buccaneer patch around one eye suggested she was winking at him. She held a fabric toy mouse in her teeth, its tail hanging from one side of her mouth, a long attached string dangling from the other.

  “So, you want to play, huh?”

  Annie stirred beneath the comforter beside him. “Not now,” she murmured.

  “Not you. The cat.”

  “Mmmm. What time is it?”

  “Too early for you to get up. Stay here for a while. I’ll take Cyrano for a walk and have coffee waiting when you come down.”

  He slid out from beneath the comforter and put on his bathrobe. Passing the cat, he grabbed and tugged the end of the string attached to the toy. It popped out of her mouth, and he dragged it along the floor behind him. Luna scampered after him, chasing the elusive rodent downstairs.

  He had taken care of the pup, Luna was noisily munching her crunchies, and he was scanning the Sunday Inquirer and sipping coffee when his cell chirped on the table. He frowned; this early on a Sunday, it couldn’t be good news from one of the few people who had this number.

  “Yes, Wonk?”

  “Please forgive my intrusion, Dylan. I do hope I am not awakening you.”

  “No, I’m up and having my coffee. You sound upset.”

  “I am. I need to see you, as soon as possible.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I am fine.” He stopped.

  “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “No. I do not wish to use the phone. Could you perhaps visit me?”

  It had to be serious; Wonk didn’t like visitors.

  “I’m not nearby, Wonk. And Annie and I have plans today.”

  “Dylan, it is extremely important . . . Please?”

  “All right. But would early evening—say, about six—be too late?”

  “No. No, that will be fine. Thank you. I shall see you then.”

  With that, Wonk abruptly ended the call.

  4

  “This damned hunch of yours better pan out, Ed,” Detective Paul Erskine said, pressing the elevator button for the fifth floor. “I hate coming in on Sundays. I had plans for an afternoon of beer and basketball.”

  Cronin gave his portly partner a slow once-over. “You playing forward or guard these days, Paul?”

  “Funny man,” Erskine said as the elevator door opened.

  They were greeted in a small lobby area by a graying, bespectacled black man in a tan suit.

  “Kevin Yost,” he said, offering his hand. His eyes were bloodshot, his tie askew, and he hadn’t shaved for a day or two. “I spoke to one of you on the phone this morning.”

  “That was me. Detective Sergeant Ed Cronin. And my partner, Detective Paul Erskine.”

  Above the open entranceway to a nearby office the word HOMICIDE stood out in garish black lettering, and an American flag stood sentry to one side. Yost brought them inside.

  The Baltimore P.D. Homicide Unit worked out of a large room with low tile ceilings, partitioned into cubicles. Like Yost, many of the detectives working phones and computer screens were older African-American males. Uniform jackets, suit coats, ties, and umbrellas hung from racks on partition exteriors. Interior cubicle walls bore the usual profusion of thumbtacked notes, business cards, newspaper clippings, and suspended shelves displaying framed awards and family photos. Case binders and paperwork smothered the tops of desks, lockers, and file cabinets. The occasional potted plant affirmed some homicide investigator’s stubborn commitment to life.

  “We appreciate you letting us in on this one, Sergeant,” Cronin said as Yost guided them through the maze. The detective halted beneath a large whiteboard on one of the walls, then turned to face them. With a weary chuckle he hooked a thumb at the board.

  “See that?”

  About fifteen feet wide, it displayed, in eight columns, thirty or more homicide victim names each. The names were in red or black letters, the overwhelming majority red. Topping each column, a card listed five or six detectives in the squad assigned to those cases.

  “Red are open cases, black closed.” Yost snorted. “As you can see, we ain’t keeping up. I caught the assignment on the Dixon hit when it went down Friday afternoon. You know, it just doesn’t smell like your normal gang hit. You want it, you can have it.”

  He led them to a cubicle where two other detectives hovered over a computer screen. Yost introduced the pair as Sean Moynihan and Barton McBride. In his mid-fifties, Moynihan looked like an old-fashioned Hollywood detective: white hair, handlebar mustache, charcoal suit topped by a dapper fedora. By contrast, McBride, in his forties, looked like a retired linebacker: a beefy black male with a shaved head, in a black pin-striped suit. His BPD credentials hung from his neck.

  “Detectives Cronin and Erskine are with the Vigilante Task Force. They’re checking to see if the Lawn Boyz hit is related.”

  “What makes you suspect that?” Moynihan asked.

  Erskine snorted and nodded at Cronin. “His hunch.”

/>   Cronin shot him a look. “It’s because your gang leader, Dixon, was in for raping and murdering a young girl down our way. And now he gets whacked the minute he’s freed. That roughly fits the pattern of our vigilantes. They go after killers, especially for sex crimes, who get probation or early releases.”

  “Well, we’ll share what we got, and you decide,” Yost said.

  McBride took over to explain in detail how they thought the hit had gone down. Then he pointed toward the computer.

  “We’re just going over the surveillance footage from outside the check-cashing store at the plaza. The gang used the gas station there as their H.Q., so they kept all the surveillance cameras off. But the owner of the check joint, he secretly kept his running, ’cause of the kind of clientele he gets.” He turned to the screen. “Let me show you the clip. It’s grainy, but here you see this Ford Focus pull in and park at the far end of the lot, right near the street. Notice he backs in. Driver stays inside, fiddling with what looks like a map . . . Now he’s doing something else, we can’t tell what. It goes on like this for about ten minutes. Here, let me fast-forward . . . Okay—there. Now you see him get out and cut across the lot, left to right.”

  Cronin leaned in close. The guy wore a baseball cap, dark glasses, jeans, boots, gloves. A brown jacket, maybe leather. Looked like he had blond hair and a goatee. He strode purposefully—even boldly—out of camera range, to the right.

  “Let me run it again. This time I’ll slow it down.”

  “What’s that in his hands? A cup?” Erskine asked.

  “Uh huh. Big paper soda cup. Makes him look normal and harmless, huh?”

  “Except he’s wrapped up like a mummy. You can’t make out any details of his appearance.”

  “That’s where our witnesses come in,” Yost said. “Turns out this hitter wasn’t blond after all. Two of them say it was a disguise. It came off for a minute or so during a tussle he had with one of them. The shooter lost his hat, and the blond hair was a wig that fell off, too. They saw he had dark hair.”

  A tingle crawled across the back of Cronin’s neck. “Any details?”

  “Dixon’s girlfriend was pretty hysterical, but she saw him fairly close. She said dark, curly hair.”

  Cronin worked to keep his face expressionless. “Anything else? They notice his face, eyes?”

  “He lost his shades for a few seconds, too,” said Moynihan, “but the guy fighting him couldn’t be sure about eye color or other details. He got a concussion during the fight and can’t remember squat.”

  Feeling Erskine’s eyes on him, Cronin kept his glued to the screen. “Could they identify the perp if they saw him again? Maybe in a photo lineup?”

  “We asked,” McBride said. “They aren’t sure. But I doubt it. It happened real fast, and they were all scared shitless, ducking down or running away. Here, let me fast-forward some more, to where he comes back to the car . . . Okay, here we are. Now he’s coming back, this time from the left. What he did was circle around behind the building and come out over on this other side. You see him from the rear now. Unfortunately, he’s got the wig and hat back on.”

  Cronin carefully watched the man’s stride, brisk and steady. He tried to connect it to the man he knew. But it was impossible to tell. The guy got back into the Ford, shoved the map off the dash, and immediately rolled out into the traffic. In seconds he was gone.

  “What do you have for physical evidence?”

  “Besides shell casings from a nine and the slugs in the bodies, we found the cup inside the store on the floor,” Yost said. “But it was empty, dry as a bone. No prints. The lab is checking for DNA, but it doesn’t look like he used it to drink anything.”

  “Just for camouflage, then?” Erskine asked.

  “Maybe,” McBride said. “But Sean has another idea about that.”

  Moynihan stepped in. “You notice in the tape how he carried the cup in both hands, like it was heavy? He probably wouldn’t do that if the cup was empty, right? Well, turns out our shooter used a stun grenade to force entry into the interior office where Dixon was. Just like he was SWAT or something. I think maybe he used the cup to hide and transport the grenade.”

  Erskine whistled. “Ed, you were speculating last year that these vigilantes could be ex-cops, maybe SWAT or military.”

  Cronin could only nod.

  “Well, whoever this one is, he’s a pro, all right,” Yost said. “Does a one-man hit on a gang headquarters filled with armed men. Uses a stun grenade. Pops three with a handgun. Takes down three more, hand-to-hand. Who the hell would have the balls to do that, let alone the skills?”

  “Plus, he leaves very little evidence,” McBride added. “He torched the Ford in a commuter lot a couple miles away. Incendiary device. The teams are working on all that. No security cams there, though, so we don’t know how he got away—whether in a waiting car, or somebody picking him up. Cold plates on the Focus, and the VIN came back for a used car bought two years ago, under a fake ID.”

  The tingling now went the rest of the way down Cronin’s spine.

  “You have a name for that fake ID?”

  Moynihan pawed through some papers. Found what he was looking for, squinted, then picked up and put on half-moon spectacles from his desk.

  “Let me see . . . Okay, here you go. Name given to the dealer was ‘Edmond Dantes.’”

  Moynihan peered over the top of the spectacles, first at Cronin, then Erskine.

  “What? That name mean something to you guys?”

  5

  After a half hour going over the M.E.’s reports and the witness statements, Cronin and Erskine stepped into a nearby empty cubicle and waited while Yost took care of some business with the others.

  “Well. What do you know? ‘Edmond Dantes.’ You were right, Ed. This was our vigilantes.”

  Cronin nodded.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Erskine went on. “We keep assuming this is a team doing all this shit. But here you have just one guy taking out an entire gang. And as I think back, we’ve never had a single hit where we know for a fact more than one guy was involved.”

  Cronin remained silent. He was reading a plaque hanging on the cubicle wall.

  “Maybe we have this figured all wrong, Ed. I know this sounds crazy; but do you think this could possibly be just one guy?”

  The plaque was “The Homicide Investigator’s Creed.”

  No greater honor will ever be bestowed on an officer or a more profound duty imposed on him than when he is entrusted with the investigation of the death of a human being.

  It is his duty to find the facts, regardless of color or creed, without prejudice, and to let no power on earth deter him from presenting these facts to the court, without regard for personality.

  “Just one lone vigilante? . . . What do you think, Ed?”

  NINE

  Hunter left the Metro escalator at Dupont Circle and stopped at the doughnut shop. He had them fill a box with a dozen assorted, including four glazed piping hot from their oven. Then he proceeded the short distance down 19th Street to the office building where, by special arrangement with a certain intel agency, their prize contract researcher—and his—maintained an eighth-floor apartment.

  When he reached the apartment door, he heard a commotion inside. Worried, he rang the bell—then, after a moment when there was nothing but more noise, he banged the door with his fist.

  “Wonk! Are you okay in there?”

  He heard slow, rhythmic creaking of the floorboards, then the sound of multiple locks being disengaged. The door swung open, revealing the human pyramid that was Frederick Diffendorfer.

  Wonk’s body was the approximate size and contour of a commercial blimp, stood on end. His stained, short-sleeve shirt bulged like a wind-filled sail, draping over enormous trousers that looked like twin grain silos. He had no discernible neck; instead, about an acre of flesh rose in three folded layers from his chest, the last serving as his chin. His tea-colored hair matched
his eyes, partly obscured by thick, black-framed eyeglasses. One temple of the frame clung precariously to the rest by white adhesive tape.

  The eyes exuded panic.

  “Oh, Dylan! I am so relieved that you have arrived!”

  “For God’s sake, what’s happened?”

  Wonk seized Hunter’s wrist with damp, sausage-like fingers.

  “Iggy will not come out of the closet!” he whined in his high-pitched voice.

  Hunter stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “Wonk, forgive me . . . but is that supposed to be some kind of metaphor?”

  The researcher blinked. “Dylan! I am not jesting. This is serious. I am referring to Iggy—my pet iguana!”

  “Your . . . what?”

  “My iguana! Iggy wandered into my electronics storage closet and is wreaking havoc! I can neither reach him nor coax him out. Would you please assist me?”

  “Wonk, did you have me rush all the way over here just to rescue—”

  “No! That is about an entirely different matter, which has nothing to do with Iggy.”

  He followed Wonk inside his immaculate, upscale living room, decorated with classical art prints and sculptures. They proceeded past the pristine kitchen, where Dylan left the doughnuts on the table, and went on down a hallway. The morbidly obese man rocked from side to side with each step, as if on the pitching deck of a ship.

  At the end of the corridor, they came to a closed metal door with an electronic lock above the knob. Wonk drew a card from his pocket, swiped it over the lock, then—shielding it from view with his vast bulk—keyed in a series of numbers.

  “Nice. So they set you up to work remotely in your own SCIF office. I’m impressed, Wonk.”

  “In allowing you in here, I am grossly violating procedures for a Secure Compartmentalized Facility. However, I am too embarrassed to contact the . . . relevant agency for assistance. Iggy slipped into the office when I opened the door to get a snack.” Wonk considered him for a moment. “I have come to trust you, Dylan. Still, I must insist on your complete discretion about what you see while inside.”