Authors: Jeffrey B. Burton
Thin air.
The southeastern corner of the high rise lay before him. Two short walls converged as one. The hair rising on his neck, Westlow checked his back. Between him and the building side were two industrial turbine ventilators, each nearing four feet in height and wide as a box spring. A dozen or so circular pipes shot up from the roof, but nothing even the puniest of anorexics could take cover behind. He looked left and spotted some kind of facility shed off to the west. No way the tall man had made tracks for that destination without Westlow hearing him. He crouched still and listened.
The tall man is either keeping this housing unit between us like bad Vaudeville or he’s hunkered down behind one of the industrial ventilators. If he’s playing possum, he likely has another gun and is waiting for me to saunter into view
.
Westlow cut sideways, used his left hand to vault up onto the housing unit he’d recently put three holes in, rolled across it, flattened out, and peered over the corner edge, left and right.
More thin air.
Westlow jumped off the unit, made a hell of a ruckus as he jogged in place, Beretta aimed in the direction of the two turbine ventilators. Nothing. He put a bullet through the center of each one.
More nothing.
The son of a bitch has nerves of steel or he’s not there
, Westlow thought. He crept wide, toward the building side, knowing he’d have to clear out the industrial turbine ventilators like spider holes on Iwo Jima before he could move on. Westlow concentrated on the moonlit shadows as he curved around the first one, looking for any indeterminate shapes or sizes indicating someone lying in wait.
A thought pierced Westlow’s mind. If pursued, do the unexpected. He thought about his escape route from Dennis Swann’s north-side apartment up to the roof back in Richmond. If a guy had remarkable upper-body strength and a pair of rubber-soled shoes, it wouldn’t take much more effort than climbing rope in gym class. He could hang over the side of Hartzell’s tower, focus on anything and everything but the view down, wait a minute or two for the threat to pass by, flip quietly back over and then attack from the flank—from prey to predator in a single instant.
Oh shit!
Westlow twisted about-face. What seemed a flapping of raven wings was upon him. The tall man flung sideways as Westlow aimed the Beretta, a straight-edge razor slicing down through Westlow’s forearm, cutting deep. The 9mm fell to the rooftop. Westlow lashed out with his left palm, throwing the tall man off balance, buying Westlow a moment as the shadowy figure realigned himself for the kill. Westlow leaned back on his left side, and then snapped a sidekick at the tall man’s kneecap, hoping to hobble the stealthy fucker. It missed his knee but the heel of Westlow’s cowboy boot caught the tall man’s fibula, enough to smart and put him momentarily on defense.
Westlow knew he’d been tagged bad, blood flowing freely down his right arm, and knew that time was not his ally. He couldn’t imagine the tall man being one to follow the Marquess of Queens-berry rules on this rooftop, spot him a minute to tourniquet up before they continued. In a knife fight it was best to get in close, make it hard for the opponent to maneuver, so Westlow went in like Mohammed Ali, quick uppercuts connecting with air. The tall man feigned and swiveled, somehow knowing each of Westlow’s swings ahead of time. Westlow backed up, breathing deep, and the tall man flashed forward. Westlow’s right leg went up to block and the tall man’s knife flashed again, cutting through jeans, skin, and nicking Westlow’s own fibula.
Westlow bounced back to the building corner, fists in front of him, a game face hiding the fact that his rib was broken, that his forearm was gushing blood, that his right leg felt as though it had been gnawed by a pit bull. Westlow stared into the killer’s face, the tall man’s features sinewy and focused, narrow eyes radiating an intensity seen in athletes at the top of their game, an ice-pick nose, thin lips bent in a smirk. A lethal Ichabod Crane, the tall man was going to carve Westlow up like a prize turkey at Thanksgiving dinner and love every second of it. The tall man was playing matador to Westlow’s bull—and he knew that Westlow knew it.
The tall man is familiar with my boxing skills and leg kicks
, Westlow calculated.
Suicidal to sludge forward with the same futile bag of tricks
. Westlow figured he could stomach dying, but one thing he couldn’t stomach would be losing to this sinister prick. Time to switch it up, change tactics. Westlow danced a counter-clockwise arc around the killer, circling the arena as though stalling, making the tall man pivot, his back now to the building corner. Fiorella’s assassin held the straight-edge out in front of him, shoulder level, adopting a
wait and see
posture, taking great pleasure in Westlow’s predicament, knowing that with each passing second his opponent was weakening.
Westlow peeked down as though looking for the dropped Beretta, knowing full well he’d be dead long before he could pull the trigger, but wanting to flip diversions at the tall man in real time—steer him in other directions, keep him busy processing alternate scenarios. Have him prepare for the obvious, and then attack from left field.
Westlow tossed a glance backwards, make the tall man think that he might be getting ready to turn and flee, however one-sidedly lethal that footrace would be. Westlow feigned a short step left, and then charged inside the tall man, broadcasting a right hook. Once inside, Westlow dropped to a crouch, switching from boxing to wrestling. Both arms circling inside the tall man’s right knee, Westlow shot up like a rocket launch.
The tall man slashed at empty air where his opponent had been. He realized a split second too late what move the man in the white muscle shirt had made, knew he’d committed a fatal error, and brought the straight-edge downward even as he felt himself begin to rise. The razor sliced at the back of his opponent’s neck and then deep into his shoulder blade before the tall man was spun hopelessly backwards over the edge of the high rise, airborne, and out into the midnight air.
Westlow slid to the ground, breathing heavily.
I think I’ll just sit here and rest a moment
. Westlow’s thoughts ebbed in slow motion.
Take a quick coffee break
. He stuck a palm to the back of his neck. It came back covered in blood. He felt like a fish fillet. Nothing that a couple thousand stitches and a quart of O negative couldn’t cure.
Just a little siesta before I commandeer that JetRanger and head for parts unknown
.
Just a little siesta is all I need
.
“What do you think, Marly?” Westlow didn’t know if he’d spoken aloud or simply imagined that he had. A dense fog wrapped his thoughts. “Agent Cady can take it from here, can’t he?”
It was nap time, like in elementary school, but floating through the haziness and shade, Westlow felt a familiar presence. As suddenly as the feeling appeared, it was gone. She was gone. And Westlow was left with the singular notion that Agent Cady was indeed in deep trouble.
“No, I didn’t think so, either.”
Somehow Westlow pushed himself to his feet.
Chapter 47
C
ady’s right eye was swollen shut. He’d need an ENT to determine what percentage of hearing loss he’d have to live with. Right now life sounded as though he lived in a vacuum cleaner. Worst of all, his right hand looked like something the cat had screwed. Cady couldn’t bear to look at the mangled mess and dropped a flap of his suit jacket over it as he marched the Hartzells back to the helicopter pad.
Clutching the Glock in his one good hand, Cady had identified himself as a federal agent to father and daughter Hartzell, and then tossed his last flex-cuff at Lucy. “I don’t feel safe on this building top,” Cady had informed the duo in perhaps the understatement of the decade. “You need to place these cuffs on your father or I’ll be forced to do
something else
in order to feel safe again.”
The hint of something else—possibly an impromptu kneecapping—hurried the young lady along.
Ciolino remained exactly as Cady had left him minutes earlier, tethered to the far side of the copter. Never having heard St. Nick scream before, the mobster’s jaw dropped as the realization sunk in that it was his friend who had made that horrible shrieking noise, that it was his friend who would not be joining them tonight or any other night.
There was no sign of Jake Westlow. Or the tall man in black. Cady considered digging out his cell phone to contact Agent Preston, but with only one hand, he didn’t dare put down the 9mm in case the tall man re-emerged from the shadows. He hung near the front of the JetRanger, back to the mess in the cockpit, and constantly swept the darkness on both sides of the stairwell enclosure, playing mental gymnastics as to when Agent Preston and the team from Federal Plaza would ferret their way to the rooftop. Cady had a bad feeling about prancing the Hartzells headfirst into the stairway. If the tall man had returned, that would be the perfect spot to set an ambush from a hidden corner or even pick them off from the midlevel where the final flight of steps banked upward.
He hoped he was still recognizable, as it would be a damn shame to go down in a hail of friendly fire after all he’d been through that evening. Liz Preston had not been happy with him at all—another major-league understatement. He’d dumped a ton onto her shoulders in two abbreviated phone calls, leaving Agent Preston holding the bag to roust a team of agents and consult with the AD as well as coordinate with NYPD at the scene.
“You’re not looking too hot, Agent Cady,” Drake Hartzell said. He and Lucy stood together a few feet back from Cady, adjacent to the tail of the helicopter. A certain phobia hung thick in the air as they kept enough distance between themselves and the man called Ciolino. “Are paramedics on the way?”
Cady shot him a glance, then raised his Glock at the figure now standing in the roof access doorframe.
“Agent Schommer,” Cady said, breathing a sigh of relief and lowering his weapon.
However, Special Agent Beth Schommer did not reciprocate in kind as she stepped out into the night, her weapon never wavering from Cady’s chest—and suddenly it became clear. Their first conversation flickered through his mind.
Go Bears
.
They’re not going anywhere with that quarterback
.
“So you’re Fiorella’s
man
on the inside.”
“Drop your weapon, Agent Cady,” Schommer instructed. “Don’t force me to kill you.”
Cady dropped the Glock. He noticed what Schommer gripped in her hand was far from Bureau-issue. It looked to be some kind of Saturday night special, a junk gun like a Jennings 22 or a Raven 25. Something clean that she could toss.
Cady shook his head. “Why?”
“Sticks and carrots in an insane world.” Schommer took in the Hartzells and then looked beyond Cady at Ciolino, who squirmed on the other side of the helicopter, his neck twisting as far backward as possible without snapping.
“Federal Plaza’s going to be here any second now.”
“Stop fucking around, Beth!” Ciolino shouted over his shoulder. “Blow this cocksucker’s head off and get me out of this goddamned straitjacket!”
“The
stewardess
works for Moretti,” Cady said, his eyes never leaving Schommer.
“Moretti’s in this?”
“That’s fucking bullshit!” Ciolino screamed back. “Kill this motherfucker right now!”
“If the stewardess is planning your trip, don’t blow money on a return ticket.”
As though flicking an off button, Ciolino deflated without another word. The man known to the Hartzells as the Coordinator ceased lobbying for Cady’s immediate extinction, his head slumped forward, chin to chest, adrift amongst his own private demons. Cady could not have hoped for better.
“Moretti’s been tracking them since they arrived in New York.”
“That’s not good.” Evidently, Agent Schommer was a master of understatements herself.
“It gets worse. We got tipped about a leak. Jund’s held all the cards to his chest this past week. We know about Fiorella and Hartzell.”
At that point Cady could not believe his eyes—or, his one eye not swollen shut. Westlow, steeped in the shadows as though dipped in black ink, stepped from the side of the stairwell enclosure, yards behind Agent Schommer. And if Westlow looked like hell warmed over, that had to mean that the tall man was out of the picture. Cady was momentarily grateful that his face looked like a used piñata. It helped him give nothing away to Schommer. And he prayed that any looks on the Hartzells’ mugs would follow suit.
“Turn and walk,” Cady continued, wanting to keep her attention focused solely on him as Westlow crept forward. “Badge your way out of the building and just keep walking.”
Westlow was a dozen feet behind the agent from Chicago. Now ten.
“You’ll call.”
“Take my phone.” Cady pointed at his jacket pocket. “Take all our phones and jam the door shut. That’s a hell of a head start.”
Then Cady, a lifelong student of human nature, read Special Agent Beth Schommer’s eyes. Her eyes read simply: dead men tell no tales. Four shots with the non-traceable. A couple more in the back of the head to take care of any medical marvels, wipe off, and then a quick toss under the seat in the helicopter or over the side of the building before sneaking back down to the security desk on the first floor with a bullshit story for Agent Preston. By the time Liz or Jund got suspicious, it’d be too late to test her for gunshot residue and by then she’d be wrapped tight in attorneys.
Westlow was now six feet and edging forward.
“Don’t do it, Beth,” Cady interjected, playing for time. “You run to Fiorella, you’ll have the life expectancy of a housefly.”
Westlow, a look of fierce determination on his brow, must have come to the same conclusion as Cady, that Schommer was ginning herself up for the wet work that lay in front of her. He stepped hard, planting a boot on the rooftop before him, distracting her. Schommer turned simultaneously with Westlow’s swing, a mammoth left hook to her jaw. The junk gun went off as Westlow’s blow connected, point blank, and both flew backward and down as if they were bowling pins.