She had been reluctant to get emotionally involved with someone so closely linked to one of her patients, especially a man such as Boomer Frontieri. By falling for Boomer, who openly worked outside the boundaries of the law to get what he felt was justice, Carolyn also shattered a promise she had long ago made to herself: Never date a cop, retired or not. But here she was, in less time than it took to fill out a case file, as involved with Boomer as anyone could expect to get.
Carolyn turned the water off, slid the shower curtain open, and reached for the thick white towel folded on the marble sink. She wrapped it around her body and notched it in place. She picked up the silver hairbrush her grandmother had given her on her sixth birthday and ran it through her long wet hair. She wiped a hand across the steam-drenched medicine cabinet mirror and checked her face. The stress of her work had yet to add wrinkles to her skin, but Carolyn knew those days would soon be close at hand. She smiled, remembering Boomer leaning over her and telling her she had the soft, pure face of an angel. She hoped he would always feel that way.
She walked into the living room, slid a tape of Bach into her stereo system before heading into the kitchen to check out which Lean Cuisine special she should feast on. She slipped a chicken and broccoli on a bed of white rice into her small oven and set the cooking timer to forty minutes. She was padding back, in bare feet, toward the refrigerator to pour herself a glass from a half-empty bottle of Orvietto Classico, when she saw the shadow against the living room wall.
Then Bach went silent.
Carolyn could see the telephone from where she was standing, the red message light flashing on the answering machine, and figured it to be her only move. Her mind racing, her thought processes marred by fear, she ran blindly from the kitchen toward the phone. She made it as far as the end table. A dark-gloved hand grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back. She felt hot breath on her neck and grizzled skin scratching against her face.
“He’s not at home,” Wilber Graves said to her. “He’s out. With his friends.”
“What do you want?” Carolyn asked, trying to keep a calm voice and a level breathing pattern.
“I want everything the cop calls his own,” Wilber said. “Everything.”
A few moments later Carolyn stood in front of the telephone, the towel stripped from her body and thrown to the floor. She was fully naked, her hands bound tightly behind her with chicken wire, the tip of a Spanish-made red-handled switchblade pressed against the side of her neck. Wilber rubbed Carolyn’s body with his free hand, moving gloved fingers in a slow motion up against her firm breasts, down the contours of her stomach, over the front of her thighs. Occasionally, he slipped a finger inside her vagina.
“You won’t believe this,” he said to her. “But I really wish I didn’t have to kill you.”
“Why are you waiting?” Carolyn asked. Her eyes stared straight ahead, trying to will herself to another place, a safer one, where men didn’t kill on whim or orders and where a woman could listen to Bach, read a book, and wait for someone she loved to call and tell her so. She could smell the Lean Cuisine dinner burning in the oven, too many minutes past done.
It almost made her want to smile.
The phone rang at seven minutes past eleven.
The first ring jolted her, the tip of Wilber’s knife edging in deeper, cutting into the side of her skin, drawing blood. Wilber removed his hand from Carolyn’s waist, picked up the phone, and placed it against her ear. He let her hear Boomer’s voice on the other end. Wilber smiled at her as he moved the phone away and cradled it on the side of his neck.
“Hello, Detective,” Wilber said into the receiver.
“Where’s Carolyn?” he heard Boomer say.
“She’s snug and warm right here in my arms,” Wilber said. “I have to tell you, you have excellent taste in women. That’s surprising in a police officer.”
“Anything happens to her …”
“Something is going to happen to her, Detective,” Wilber said. “We were just waiting for you to call before it does.”
“Let her go!” Boomer’s shout could be heard well beyond the range of the receiver.
“I will,” Wilber said. “I promise you that. But first, would you like to hear her say good-bye?”
Wilber pressed the receiver against Carolyn’s ear.
“Speak to him,” he told her.
Carolyn closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the knife pressing against her neck. “I love you, Boomer,” she said.
She never felt the cut. Her head turned light, the room spun around her in slow circles, the front of her body went warm with blood. Her legs weakened and sent her to the floor, a slight moan coming from her lips as her head touched down on the wooden planks.
Wilber hovered over her and watched her die, calmly ignoring Boomer’s frantic shouts into his end of the phone.
“My name is Wilber Graves,” he said into the phone once Carolyn had taken her final breath. “I’ve just killed a woman who loved you, and it was my pleasure. Goodbye, Detective.”
Wilber placed the phone back on its cradle, took one more look down at Carolyn, and closed the knife. He turned the stereo back on to Bach, went into the kitchen, and turned off the oven before he walked out of the apartment.
His work for the night at an end.
• • •
BOOMER WENT TO the wake, where the coffin was sealed, and to the funeral, held under the angry rain of a late spring day.
He had been fast on the crime scene, arriving within minutes of the precinct sector car. The two young officers hovering around the apartment had been decent enough to cover her naked body with a white sheet stripped from her bed, a sheet he and Carolyn had slept under together. Boomer pulled it back and stared down at the woman he had grown to know so well in such a short time. Her lips and nails were already starting to pale, her clear skin taking on the waxy color of the dead. The open wound still gurgled blood. Her eyes were closed, her mouth curved in a twisted smile. Boomer crunched down and leaned over to kiss Carolyn’s still-warm lips. He reached for the edge of the white sheet and slowly lifted it past her face. He zippered his jacket, stood, nodded to the two officers, and left before the meat truck arrived.
At her funeral, Boomer stood out, a stranger among family, sitting in the back row of a candlelit church, listening to the faces who had shared decades with her talk about their memories. He only half listened, his eyes staring down the curved arms of the aisles at the closed oak coffin air-locking the body of a woman who had died for no reason.
Boomer pictured Carolyn’s easy smile and allowed his mind to drift off, to conjure up images of the life they might have had together. These images—places they would visit, dinners they would share—were fleeting.
The time for romance was over.
Other images took hold.
Boomer had never met Wilber Graves, but he knew him well. Hard-edged and soulless, a gun for hire whose thrills were fed watching a human being bleed a life away. He would soon meet up with Wilber Graves and it would end as it was destined to end, with one man standing above the other.
He and the Apaches had started the war. Lucia and her crew were now making their move. People would die. Most were deserving, some might be innocent. To win, the Apaches could no longer see themselves as ex-cops out to right a wrong. They had to dig deeper, search harder, strip away their layers of weakness and humanity, and face their foes on an equal footing.
Boomer knelt in the pew, head buried in his hands, and prayed to the God in the room to give him the strength he needed.
To destroy his enemies.
The enemies who erased Carolyn Bartlett from the center of his life.
Boomer dropped two red roses in Carolyn’s open grave, then stared blankly as four workmen guided the coffin down into the open pit. The heavy rain washed over his head and down the sides of his neck, but he stayed until there was no one left by the graveside. He didn’t exchange any words with Carolyn’s family, nor did
he offer words of sympathy to the assembled women dressed in short black dresses and veils that hid reddened eyes. Boomer could think of nothing to say that would help ease their painful burden.
So he stood there quietly, head bowed, hands folded under dark and ominous clouds, letting an angry rain lash away at the guilt he carried in the caverns of his heart.
Behind him, hidden under the heavy leaves of an old tree, Nunzio and the rest of the Apaches stood in silence.
• • •
THE APACHES WERE sitting in the back room of Nunzio’s, waiting out the rain. There was an amplified energy to the room, the sense that the next hours would determine everyone’s fate.
They were all there except for Pins. His tardiness was out of character. He was usually the first to arrive. Maybe he had decided to roll a few extra games before the action kicked in. Boomer had yellow surveillance folders spread out in front of him, an illegal gift from a friend in the Washington office of the Secret Service. He had been hunting Lucia Carney for the past eight months on a money-laundering scheme.
Boomer, hands on his chin, not looking up, said, “Nunz, throw Pins another ring. This ain’t a day to call in sick.”
“I just tried him,” Nunzio said. “If he’s at the alley, he’s not pickin’ up.”
“Anybody hear from him today?” Boomer asked, scanning the faces around him.
“I talked to him last night,” Rev. Jim said. “He knew we were meeting and he knew what time.”
“It’s not like him,” Mrs. Columbo said, sipping a decaf espresso. “He’s not the kind to blow off a meeting.”
A young waiter in a white jacket and thin black tie peeked into the small, crowded room. “Excuse me,” he said, “I don’t mean to bother.”
“Whatta ya got, Freddie?” Nunzio asked.
“A phone call,” Freddie said. “Just came in. The guy didn’t stay on all that long.”
“What’d he want?” Nunzio said.
“Told me to ask if any of the guys were up for a night of bowling,” Freddie said.
“He give a name?” Boomer asked in a cold voice.
“Wilber Graves,” Freddie said.
• • •
BOOMER AND THE Apaches stood in the center of lane six, shrouded in darkness. The only light in the alley was a heavy-watt spotlight shooting down from the back of the bar, beamed on the bowling cage. Pins was tied to the cage, thick cord rope binding his arms and upper body to the iron mesh. His face was swollen, one eye puffy and closed, blood trickled out of his mouth and nose. He was on his knees, his feet tied by wire, his head held up by a rope around his neck tied to a thin steel beam. Strapped to Pins’s chest were a dozen thick sticks of dynamite, a timer in the center clicking down from an hour’s limit. Six different-colored explosive wires were entwined around his chest, legs, and arms.
The entire bowling cage was wired and set, three separate devices timed at various intervals.
Boomer and Geronimo walked over to Pins. Mrs. Columbo and Rev. Jim stood behind them. Dead-Eye was searching the rest of the alley, two guns drawn.
“I didn’t see them,” Pins said, talking through swollen lips. “They came up from behind. There were three of them. I guess I screwed up.”
“You didn’t screw up anything,” Boomer said, taking a wad of tissues from Mrs. Columbo and wiping blood off Pins’s face. “You just breathe easy and leave the rest to us.”
Geronimo stripped off his jacket and sweater, tossing them in an empty lane. He took a knife from his back pocket, got on his knees, and started to run the blade along the wire lines.
“What do you see?” Boomer asked, sweat starting to flow down the small of his back.
“Six numbers,” Geronimo said. “Each attached to different wires. Two strings of wires are dummies. The chest timer is coded to blow in eight minutes, but that could be a decoy. And there’s two separate sticks up above, latched to the rope around his neck.”
“Can you break this?” Boomer asked.
“I need somebody to go to the car and get my kit outta the trunk,” Geronimo said.
“I’ll do it,” Rev. Jim said, waiting as Boomer tossed him the keys.
“After that I figure you should all get the hell outta here,” Geronimo said, “and leave me to my work.”
“Can you break this?” Boomer asked again. “I want an answer, Geronimo.”
Geronimo stood up, turned, and faced Boomer. “Probably not,” he said. “But I’ve got a better chance than any of you.”
Rev. Jim came running back in with a heavy black satchel and handed it to Geronimo. Mrs. Columbo stood off to the side, eyes closed. Dead-Eye came up behind her, his guns holstered. He stared down at Pins, his face flush with anger.
Boomer stooped down and leaned toward his friend. “I’m sorry I got you involved in this, kid,” he said softly.
Pins managed a smile around the blood. “Not me,” he said. “You guys made me feel what it was like all over again.”
“Like what was like?” Rev. Jim asked.
“Being alive,” Pins said.
And then there was silence. Until Pins tried to speak again.
“The guy that did this …” he said, swallowing a mouthful of blood, straining to get the words out.
“Wilber Graves,” Boomer said. “I know the name.”
“What you don’t know is, I wired him.”
It took a moment to register. The Apaches stared at Pins in amazement. He managed a nod, and forced a smile. The look in his eyes acknowledged their awe and accepted it gratefully.
“While they were workin’ me over,” Pins said, “I dropped a line in his jacket pocket. You can hear him on the scanner.”
There was silence again.
It was broken by Geronimo.
“Sooner everybody leaves, sooner I can get started,” he said. “I don’t have all that much time.”
Boomer stroked the sides of Pins’s face, his fingers red with the young man’s blood. The two exchanged a long look, then Boomer stood and left, followed by the other Apaches, each of whom saluted Pins with a closed fist to their hearts.
Geronimo jumped to his feet and tapped Boomer on the shoulder. “If I don’t crack the device, I’d like you to do me a favor.”
“I don’t wanna lose two of you,” Boomer said.
“The favor,” Geronimo said. “Will you do it?”
“Name it.”
“Blow that bitch away,” Geronimo said.
• • •
SWEAT RAN DOWN the sides of Geronimo’s arms and face. He was inching along on his knees, working slowly beside Pins, scanning wires, operating as much with gut as he was with knowledge.
“I’m gonna give the blue wires a snap,” Geronimo said.
“What’s that gonna do?” Pins asked.
“If we’re lucky, not a thing,” Geronimo said. “And it’ll leave us one less device to worry about.”
“What if we ain’t so lucky?” Pins said.
“We won’t know it,” Geronimo told him.
Geronimo took a deep breath, squeezed the tip of his hand pliers over the blue wire, and snapped it apart. Beads of sweat mixed with blood flowed down Pins’s face as he gave Geronimo a knowing nod. “I woulda guessed red myself,” he said.
“It’s a good thing you’re the one that’s wired and not me.” Geronimo wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his blue Bomb Squad T-shirt.
“How much time left?” Pins asked.
“Why? Gotta be somewhere special?”
“They designed this bomb just for you,” Pins told him. “They said you were the best, but not even you could crack what they laid in here.”
“You were always the quiet one,” Geronimo said. “Wrap a little dyno around you and suddenly I can’t shut you up.”
“I don’t need you to die with me,” Pins said. “I can do this alone. I’ve done everything else that way, don’t see why dying should be any different.”
“They shoulda taped your mouth shut too.
” Geronimo was on his back, next to Pins, ready to snap down on a green wire. “Would’ve made my job easier.”
“Boomer, Dead-Eye, the others, they need your help, Geronimo,” Pins said. “A lot more than I do.”
Geronimo snapped off the green wire, shoved the clipper in his waistband, crawled back several inches farther, and started to remove the wire from Pins’s feet. He tossed the wire behind him and inched his way back to the front of the cage.
“Just so you know and it registers,” Geronimo said, wiping the sweat from Pins’s forehead with the front of his shirt. “There are two things in this life I’ve never walked away from. A device and a friend.”
“Then you’re gonna die in here,” Pins said. “With this friend and with this device.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Geronimo said. “Now, that timer is telling me we got ourselves a little less than three minutes. I could snap off a few more wires and hope we stay lucky, or, if you want, I can just kick back and we shoot the shit. Your call, Pins.”
“We never did get a chance to talk all that much,” Pins said.
“White or red,” Geronimo said. “Pick one.”
“I still like red,” Pins breathed.
“Devices love creatures of habit,” Geronimo said with a smile. Then he pulled the clipper and snapped off the white wires. “File that for the next time.”
“How many of those wires we got left?” Pins asked.
“Hard to figure. They laid on a lot of ’em. Crisscrossed ’em all on top of it. Most are dummies, only one is lit. So we got that, plus the dyno hooked to the rope around your neck, which can go off of any wire. Best I can do is try to get to the central coil and snap it down, but it would be more a guess than anything else.”
“Bottom-line it for me, Geronimo,” Pins said. “Where we goin’ with this?”
Geronimo laid the clipper down on the shiny floor of the bowling lane. He took off his shirt, wiped the sweat off his body, and sat down. He folded his legs and rested his arms on top of them. He turned and looked over at Pins, drenched in blood and sweat, his legs lifeless from having held one position for such a long time. He took several long, slow, deep breaths.
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