Cross

Chapter 84

NANA PICKED UP THE PHONE in the kitchen, where the family had gathered to fix supper that night. We all had a task for the meal, from peeling potatoes to making a Caesar salad and setting the table with the good silver. I tensed whenever the phone rang though. Now what? Had Sampson found something on the Butcher?

Nana spoke into the receiver. "Hello, sweetheart, how are you? How are you feeling? Oh, that's good, that's so good to hear. Let me get him. Alex is right here chopping vegetables like he works at Benihana. Oh, yeah, he's doing pretty good. He'll be lots better when he hears your voice."

I knew it had to be Kayla, so I took the call out in the living room. Even as I did, I wondered when we had evolved into a family with telephones in just about every room, not to mention the cell phones that Damon and Jannie carried to school these days.

"So, how are you, sweetheart?" I picked up and tried to imitate Nana's dulcet tones. "I've got it. You can hang up in the kitchen," I added for the peanut gallery listening in, cackling and giggling out there.

"Hi, Kayla! Bye, Kayla!" chorused the kids.

"Bye, Kayla," added Nana. "We love you. Get better real soon."

She and I heard a click, and then Kayla said, "I'm doing just fine. The patient is doing beautifully. Almost healed and ready to kick some butt again."

I smiled and felt the warmth flow through me just hearing her voice, even long distance like this. "Well, it's good to listen to your butt-kicking voice again."

"Yours too, Alex. And the kids and Nana. I'm sorry I didn't call last week. My father has been under the weather, but he's coming around now too. And you know me. I've been doing some pro bono work in the neighborhood. I just hate to get paid, you know."

There was a brief pause, but then I filled the space with inane questions about Kayla's folks and life in North Carolina, where both of us had been born. By this time, I had calmed down some about the unexpected call from Kayla, and I was more myself.

"So how are you?" I asked her. "You really okay? Almost recovered?"

"I am. I'm clearer on certain things than I've been in a while. Had some time to process and reflect for a change. Alex, I've been thinking that… I might not be coming back to Washington. I wanted to talk to you about it before I told anyone else."

My stomach dropped like a runaway elevator in a skyscraper. I had suspected something like this might be coming, but I still buckled from the blow.

Kayla continued to talk. "There's so much to do down here. Lots of sick people, of course. And I'd forgotten how nice, how sane, this place is. I'm sorry, I'm not putting this… saying it very well."

I snuck in a light thought. "You're not real verbal. That's a problem with you scientists."

Kayla sighed deeply. "Alex, do you think I'm wrong about this? You know what I'm saying? Of course you do."

I wanted to tell Kayla she was dead wrong, that she should rush back here to DC, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. Why was that? "All right, here's the only answer I can give, Kayla. You know what's right for yourself. I would never try to influence you at all. I know that I couldn't if I wanted to. I'm not sure that came out exactly right."

"Oh, I think it did. You're just being honest," she said. "I do have to figure out what's best for me. It's my nature, isn't it? It's both of our natures."

We went on talking for a while, but when we finally hung up I had this terrible feeling about what had just happened. I lost her, didn't I? What is wrong with me? Why didn't I tell Kayla I needed her? Why didn't I tell her to come hack to Washington as soon as she could? Why didn't I tell her I loved her?

After dinner, I went upstairs to the attic, my retreat, my escape hatch, and I tried to lose myself in the remainder of old files from the time of Maria's death. I didn't think too much about Kayla. I just kept thinking about Maria, missing her more than I had in years, wondering what our life could have been if she hadn't died.

Around one in the morning, I finally tiptoed downstairs. I slipped into Ali's room again. Quiet as a church mouse, I lay down beside my sweet, dreaming boy.

I held little Alex's hand with my pinkie, and I silently mouthed the words, Help me, pup.

Chapter 85

THINGS WERE HAPPENING FAST NOW… for better or worse. Michael Sullivan hadn't been this wired and full of tension in years, and actually he kind of liked the revved-up feeling just fine. He was back, wasn't he? Hell yes, he was in his prime, too. He'd never been angrier or more focused. The only real problem was that he was finding he needed more action, any kind would do. He couldn't sit still in that motel anymore, couldn't watch old episodes of Law Order or play any more soccer or baseball with the boys.

He needed to hunt; needed to keep moving; needed his adrenaline fixes in closer proximity.

Mistake.

So he found himself back in DC – where he shouldn't be – not even with his new short haircut and wearing a Georgetown Hoyas silver-and-blue hoodie that made him look like some kind of lame Yuppie wannabe who deserved to be punched in the face and kicked in the head while he was down.

But damn it all, he did like the women here, the tight-assed professional types best of all. He'd just finished reading John Updike's Villages and wondered if old man Updike was half as horny as some of the characters he wrote about. Hadn't that horned toad written Couples too? Plus, Updike was like seventy-something and still scribbling about sex like he was a teenager on the farm in Pennsylvania, screwing anything with two, three, or four legs. But hell, maybe he was missing the point of the book. Or maybe Updike was. Was that possible? That a writer didn't really get what he was writing about himself?

Anyway, he did fancy the fancy-pants women of Georgetown. They smelled so good, looked really good, talked good. The Women of Georgetown, now that would be a good book for somebody to write, maybe even Johnny U.

Jeez, he was amusing to himself anyway. On the car ride in from Maryland he'd been listening to U2, and Bono had been wailing about wanting to spend some time inside the head of his lover, and Sullivan wondered – all cornball Irish romanticism aside – if that was really such a capital idea. Did Caitlin need to be inside his head? Definitely not. Did he need to be inside hers? No. Because he didn't really like a lot of empty space.

So where the hell was he?

Ah, Thirty-first Street. Coming up on Blues Alley, which was fairly deserted at this time of day – as opposed to nighttime, when the clubs were open around these parts of Washington and the crowds came calling. He was listening to James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards now. He liked the CD well enough to stay in his parked car an extra few minutes.

Finally he climbed out, stretched his legs, and took a breath of moderately foul city air.

Ready or not, here I come. He decided to cut through to Wisconsin Avenue and check out the ladies there, maybe lure one back into the alley somehow. Then what? Hell, whatever he damn well felt like. He was Michael Sullivan, the Butcher of Sligo, a real crazy bastard if ever there was one on this spinning ball of gas and rock. What was that old line he liked? Three out of four voices inside my head say go for it.

The Thirty-first Street entrance to the alley was bathed in this faded yellow glow from the lights at a spaghetti joint called Ristorante Piccolo. A lot of the hot spots on M Street, which ran parallel to the alley, had their service entrances back here.

He passed the back entrance of a steakhouse, then a French bistro, and some kind of greasy burger joint spewing smoke.

He noticed another guy entering the alley – then two guys – coming his way, too.

What the hell was this?

What was going down here now?

But he thought he knew what it was, didn't he. This was the end of the road. Somebody had finally gotten a step ahead of him instead of the other way around. Leather car coats.

Squared- off, bulky types. Definitely not Georgetown students taking a shortcut to get a bite of cow at the Steak Brew.

He turned back toward Thirty-first – and saw two more guys.

Mistake.

Big one.

His.

He had underestimated John Maggione.

Chapter 86

"MR. MAGGIONE SENT US," called one of the toughs who was headed Michael Sullivan's way, walking with plenty of strut and attitude from the entrance into the alley on Wisconsin. The hoods were moving fast now, and they had him penned in. So much for mystery and intrigue, not to mention that a couple of the goons had their guns out already, hanging loosely at their sides, and the Butcher wasn't armed except for the surgeon's scalpel in his boot.

No way in hell he could take out four of them, not with a blade. Probably not even if he had a gun on him. So what could he do? Take their picture with his camera?

"He misspoke, Butcherman. Mr. Maggione doesn't want to see you," said an older guy. "He just wants you to disappear. The sooner the better. Like today. Think you could do that for Mr. Maggione? I'll bet you can. Then we'll find your wife and three kids and make them disappear too."

Michael Sullivan's brain was reeling through all the permutations and possibilities now.

Maybe he could take the one guy out, the loudmouth; then it wouldn't be a total loss anyway. Shut his ugly hole once and for all. Cut him bad, too.

But what about the other three?

Maybe he could get two of them, if he was good and lucky. If he could get them close enough to use his blade, which wouldn't happen. They were probably stupid, but not that stupid. So how could he make something happen? He didn't want to go down without a fight.

"You man enough to take me out yourself?" he called to the bigmouth. "Ay babbo?" He used the mob term for idiot, for some useless underling. He was trying to get under his skin if he could. Hell, he'd try anything right now. He was going to die in the next minute or so, and he just wasn't ready to go yet.

The killer's mouth twisted into a grim smile. "No doubt about it. I could take you out myself. But guess what, guess who's the babbo today? Give you a hint. You probably wiped his ass this morning."

The Butcher reached into the pocket of his sweatshirt, and he kept his hand there.

The bigmouthed hood immediately had second thoughts and put his free hand up. The others stopped walking. They all had their guns out, but they weren't coming any closer to the legendary Butcher.

The big talker gestured for the men behind Sullivan to move to the right, while he and the fourth man moved left. That gave everybody a clear line of fire. Smart thinking.

"You stupid Mick. Messed up this time, didn't you? Question for you: You ever think it'd end like this?"

Sullivan had to laugh at that one. "You know what? I never thought it would end. Never occurred to me. Still hasn't actually."

"Oh, it's gonna end all right. Right here, right now. Just keep watching the movie until the houselights go out for you!"

Which was obviously the truth, no doubt about it – but then the Butcher heard something that was hard for him to believe.

It came from behind, so he had to turn around to check it out, to see if it was real or some cruel joke being played on him.

Somebody was shouting at the far end of the alley – this had to be some kind of seriously messed-up miracle.

Or it was the luckiest day of his life.

Maybe both.

The cavalry had arrived!

Look who was here to save the day.

Chapter 87

"DC POLICE! Everybody put the guns down. Do it now! We're police officers. Guns down on the ground."

Sullivan saw the cops, and they looked like detectives, two buff-looking black guys in street clothes.

They were coming up behind the Mafia hoods who were standing near Thirty-first Street and trying to figure out what the hell to do next, their next move.

So was he.

What a sight the two cops were, though, and Sullivan wondered, Could they be part of the task force put into Georgetown to catch the rapist, to catch him?

Hell, he'd bet a bundle that's what they were, and if it was true, he was the only one in the alleyway who had figured it out so far.

One of the cops was already calling in for help. Then the two mob guys near Wisconsin just turned around – and they walked away.

The detectives had their guns out, but what were they going to do? Realistically, what could they do?

Sullivan almost began to laugh as he turned slowly and walked toward Wisconsin too.

Then he began to run, a full-out sprint toward the busy street. Madman that he was, he started laughing his ass off. He'd decided to brazen it out, just run. Like in the old days back in Brooklyn when he was a kid making his bones in the game.

Run, Mikey, run. Run for your life.

What could the DC metro cops do? Shoot him in the back? For what? Running? Being the potential victim of four armed men in an alleyway?

The cops were yelling, threatening him, but all they could do was watch him get away. Funniest thing he'd seen in years, maybe ever. The cavalry had come to the rescue – his.

Huge mistake.

Theirs.

Chapter 88

HALF A DOZEN UNIFORMS were moving in and out of the station house on Wisconsin when Sampson and I got there that afternoon. A detective named Michael Wright had finally made the connection that he and his partner might have just missed capturing the Georgetown rapist, that he'd maybe missed the biggest deal of his career. Still, they were holding two men in the cage who might know what was going on. They needed a closer.

Sampson and I passed inside a ten-foot-high bulletproof partition and headed for the interrogation rooms, which were beyond the detectives' cubicle area. The work space looked familiar – scarred, badly littered desks, old computers and phones from another era, overhead storage bins filled to overflowing.

Before we entered the interrogation room, Wright told us that the two men in there hadn't said a word so far, but they'd been armed with Berettas, and he was sure they were killers. "Have fun," Wright said; then John and I walked inside.

Sampson spoke up first. "I'm Detective John Sampson. This is Dr. Alex Cross. Dr. Cross is a forensic psychologist involved in the investigation of a series of rapes in the Georgetown area. I'm a detective on the case."

Neither of the men said a word, not even a wisecrack, to break the ice. Both of them looked to be in their early thirties, bodybuilder types, with permanent smirks on their faces.

Sampson asked a couple more questions; then we just sat there in silence across the table from the two men.

Eventually an administrative assistant knocked on the door and entered. She handed Sampson a couple of faxes, hot from the machine.

He read the pages – then handed them to me.

"I didn't think the Mafia was active in the DC area," Sampson said. "Guess I was wrong. You're both soldiers in the mob. Either of you have anything to say about what was going down in that alley?"

They didn't, and they were annoyingly smug about not answering our questions and pretending we weren't even there.

"Dr. Cross, maybe we can work this out without their help. What do you think?" Sampson asked me.

"We can try. It says here that John 'Digger' Antonelli and Joseph 'Blade' Lanugello work for Maggione out of New York City. That would be Maggione Jr. Maggione Sr. was the one who hired a man named Michael Sullivan, also known as the Butcher, to do a hit in DC several years back. You remember that one, John?"

"I do. Took out a Chinese drug dealer. Your wife, Maria, was also murdered right around that time. Mr. Sullivan is now a suspect in this case."

"This same Michael 'the Butcher' Sullivan is also a suspect in a series of rapes in Georgetown, and at least one murder connected to the rapes. Was Sullivan the man you had cornered in Blues Alley?" 1 asked the Mafia hitters.

Not a word came from either of them. Nothing at all. Real tough guys.

Sampson finally stood up, rubbing his chin. "So I guess we don't need Digger and Blade anymore. Well, what should we do with them? Wait, I have an idea. You'll like this one, Alex," Sampson said, and chuckled to himself.

He motioned for the Mafia soldiers to get up. "We're finished here. You can come with me, gentlemen."

"Where?" Lanugello finally broke his silence. "You ain't charged us yet."

"Let's go. Got a surprise for you." Sampson walked in front of the two of them, and I walked behind. They didn't seem to like having me at the rear. Maybe they thought I might still be harboring a grudge about what had happened to Maria. Well, maybe I was.

Sampson signaled a guard at the end of the hall, and he used his keys to open a cell door. The holding area was already filled with several prisoners awaiting arraignment. All but one of them was black. John led the way inside.

"You'll be staying here. If you change your mind and want to talk to us," Sampson said to the Mafia guys, "give a holler. That is if Dr. Cross and I are still in the building. If not, we'll check in on you in the morning. If that's the case, have a nice night."

Sampson tapped his shield a few times against the bars of the holding pen. "These two men are suspects in a series of rapes," he announced to the other prisoners. "Rapes of black women in Southeast. Be careful, though, these are tough guys. From New York."

We left, and the lockup guard slammed the cell door behind us.

Chapter 89

FOUR O'CLOCK ON A COLD, rainy morning, and his two younger boys were crying their eyes out in the backseat of the car. So was Caitlin up in front. Sullivan blamed Junior Maggione and La Cosa Nostra for everything, the huge, ugly mess that was happening now. Somehow, Maggione was going to pay for this, and he looked forward to the day of retribution.

So did his scalpel and his butcher's saw.

At two thirty in the morning he had piled his family into the car and snuck away from a house six miles outside Wheeling, West Virginia. It was their second move in as many weeks, but he had no choice in the matter. He'd promised the boys they would return to Maryland one day, but he knew that wasn't true. They wouldn't ever go back to Maryland. Sullivan already had an offer on the house there. He needed the cash for their escape plan.

So now he and the family were running for their lives. As they left their "Wild West Virginny Home," as he called it, he had a feeling that the mob would find them again – that they could be right around the next bend in the road.

But he rounded the next curve, and the curve after that, and made it out of town safe and sound and in one piece. Soon they were singing Rolling Stones and ZZ Top tunes, including about a twenty-minute version of "Legs," until his wife put her foot down about the nonstop high-testosterone noise. They stopped at Denny's for breakfast, at Micky D's for a second bathroom break, and by three in the afternoon, they were somewhere they had never been before.

Hopefully, Sullivan had left no trail to be followed by a crew of mob killers. No bread crumbs like in "Hansel and Gretel." The good thing was, neither he nor his family had ever been in this area before. It was virgin territory, with no roots or connections.

He pulled into the driveway of a shingle-style Victorian house with a steep roof, a couple of turrets, even a stained-glass window.

"I love this house!" Sullivan crowed, and he was all fake smiles and hyperenthusiasm. "Welcome to Florida, kiddos," he said.

"Very funny, Dad. Not," said Mike Jr. from the backseat, where all three boys were looking grim and depressed.

They were in Florida, Massachusetts, and Caitlin and the kids groaned at another of his dumb jokes. Florida was a small community of less than a thousand, situated high in the Berkshires. It had stunning mountain views, if nothing else. And there were no Mafia hit men waiting in the driveway. What more could they ask for?

"Just perfect. What could be better than this?" Sullivan kept telling the kids as they started to unpack again.

So why was Caitlin crying as he showed her their new living room with the sweeping views of big bad Mt. Greylock and the Hoosic River? Why was he lying to her when he said, "Everything is going to be all right, my queen, light of my life"?

Maybe because he knew it wasn't true, and probably, so did she. He and his family were going to be murdered one day, maybe in this very house.

Unless he did something dramatic to stop it. And fast. But what could that be? How could he stop the Mafia from coming after him?

How could you kill the mob?

Chapter 90

TWO NIGHTS LATER, the Butcher was on the move again. Just him. One man.

He had a plan now and was traveling south to New York City. He was uptight and nervous but singing along with Springsteen, Dylan, the Band, Pink Floyd. Nothing but Oldies and Greaties for the four-hour ride south. He didn't particularly want to leave Caitlin and the boys at the house in Massachusetts, but he figured they'd probably be safe there for now. If not, he had done the best he could for them. Better than his father ever did for him, or for his mother and brothers.

He finally pulled off the West Side Highway at around midnight; then he went straightaway to the Morningside Apartments on West 107th. He'd stayed there before and knew it was just out of the way enough to suit his purposes. Convenient too, with four different subway lines going through the two nearby stations.

No air- conditioning in the rooms, he remembered, but that didn't matter in November. He slept like a baby safe in a mother's womb. When Sullivan woke at seven, covered in a light sheen of his own sweat, his mind was focused on a single idea: payback against Junior Maggione. Or maybe an even better idea: survival of the fittest and the toughest.

Around nine that morning he took a subway ride to check out a couple of possible locations for murders he wanted to commit in the near future. He had a "wish list" with several different targets and wondered if any of these men, and two women, had an idea that they were as good as dead, that it was up to him who lived and died, and when, and where.

In the evening, around nine, he drove over to Brooklyn, his old stomping grounds. Right into Junior Maggione's neighborhood, his turf in Carroll Gardens.

He was thinking about his old buddy Jimmy Hats and missing him some, figuring that Maggione's father had probably popped Jimmy. Somebody had, and then made the body disappear, as if Jimmy had never been born. He'd always suspected it had been Maggione Sr., so that was another score for the Butcher to settle.

It was building up inside him, this terrible rage. About something. Maybe about his father – the original Butcher of Sligo, that piece of Irish scum who had ruined his life before he was ten years old.

He turned onto Maggione's street, and he had to smile to himself. The powerful don still lived like a mildly successful plumber or maybe a local electrician, in a yellow-brick two-family house. More surprising – he didn't spot any guards posted on the street.

So either Junior was seriously underestimating him, or his people were damn good at hiding themselves in plain sight. Hell, maybe somebody had a sniper rifle sight pinned on his forehead right now. Maybe he had a couple of seconds to live.

The suspense was killing him. He had to see what was going on here. So he hit his car horn once, twice, three times, and not a goddamn thing happened.

Nobody shot him through the skull. And for the first time, the Butcher let himself think, I might win this fight after all.

He'd figured out the first mystery: Junior Maggione had moved his family out of the house. Maggione was running too.

Then he stopped that train of thought with just one word – mistake.

He couldn't make any – not one misstep from now until this was all over. If he did, he was dead.

Simple as that.

End of story.

Chapter 91

IT WAS LATE, and I decided to go for a drive in the R350. I was loving the car. The kids felt the same way. Even Nana did, praise the Lord. I found myself thinking about Maria again. The long investigation into her murder I had conducted and failed at. I was messing with my own mind, trying to picture her face, trying to hear the exact sound of her voice.

Later that night, back at home, I tried to get to sleep but couldn't. It got so bad that I went downstairs and watched Diary of a Mad Black Woman again. Actually, I found myself cheering like a crazy person at the flickering TV screen. Tyler Perry's movie matched up perfectly with my frame of mind.

I called up Tony Woods at the director's office around nine the next morning. Then I swallowed my pride and asked Tony for some help on the rape and murder case. I needed to find out if the Bureau had anything on the contract killer called the Butcher, anything that might be helpful to Sampson and me – maybe something classified.

"We knew you'd call one of these days, Alex. Director Burns is eager to work with you again. You up for some consulting? Just light stuff. It's your call what and where, especially now that you're taking on cases again."

"Who said I'm taking on cases? This is a special situation," I told Tony. "The Butcher probably murdered my wife years ago. It's the one case I can't leave unsolved."

"I understand. I do understand. We'll try to help if we can. I'll get you what you need."

Tony arranged for me to use the office of an agent who was out of town, and he said it was okay if I wanted to start a dialogue with an FBI researcher-analyst named Monnie Donnelley.

"I already talked to Monnie," I told him.

"We know you did. Monnie told us. We cleared it for her now. Officially."

The next couple of days, I pretty much lived in the FBI building. Turned out, the Bureau had quite a lot on Michael Sullivan, the Butcher. His file included dozens of photographs. One problem was that the photos were five to seven years old, and there didn't seem to have been any contact with Sullivan recently. Where had he disappeared to? I did learn that Sullivan grew up in a part of Brooklyn known as the Flatlands. His father had been a real butcher there. I even got the names of some old contacts and friends of Sullivan's from his days in New York.

What I read of Sullivan's backstory was curious. He'd attended parochial schools through tenth grade, and he'd been a good student, even though he never seemed to work at it. Then Sullivan dropped out of school. He took up with the Mafia and was one of the few non-Italians to break in. He wasn't a "made man," but he was well paid. Sullivan earned in the six figures when he was in his early twenties and became Dominic Maggione's go-to hit man. His son, the current don, had never approved of Sullivan.

Then something strange and disturbing to all concerned started to happen. There were reports of Michael Sullivan torturing and mutilating the bodies of victims; murdering a priest and a layman accused of misconduct with boys at his old grade school; a couple of other vigilante hits; a rumor that Sullivan might have murdered his own father, who disappeared from his shop one night and whose body had never been found to this day.

Then Sullivan seemed to completely disappear off the Bureau's radar screen. Monnie Donnelley agreed with my assessment: that Sullivan might have become somebody's informer in the Bureau. It was possible that the FBI, or the New York police, was protecting him. Even that Sullivan might be in Witness Protection. Was that what had happened to Maria's killer?

Was he somebody's snitch?

Was the FBI protecting the Butcher?

Chapter 92

JOHN MAGGIONE WAS A PROUD MAN, too showy at times, too cocksure, but he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't usually careless. He was aware of the current situation involving the mad-dog hit man his father had used back in the day – the Butcher, an Irishman of all things. But even his crazy old man had tried to eliminate Michael Sullivan once he found out how dangerous and unpredictable he was. Now the job would be done, and it had to be done right away.

Sullivan was still on the loose, Maggione knew. As an extra safeguard against him, he'd moved his family out of the house in South Brooklyn. They were living at the compound in Mineola on Long Island. He was there with them now.

The house was a brick Colonial, waterfront, on a quiet cul-de-sac. It had its own dock on the channel and a speedboat, Cecilia Theresa, named after his first child.

Although the compound's location was well known, the gates around the place were secure, and Maggione had doubled his bodyguards. He felt good about the safety of his family. The Butcher was only one guy, after all. Realistically, how much damage could he do? How much more damage?

Junior had plans to go in to work later in the morning, then make his regular stop at the social club in Brooklyn. It was important for him to keep up appearances. Besides, he was sure he had things under control now He had assurances from his people: Sullivan would be dead soon, and so would his family.

At eleven in the morning, Maggione was swimming in the indoor pool at the compound. He'd already done thirty laps and planned to do fifty more.

His cell phone began to ring on the chaise longue.

Nobody else was around, so finally he climbed out of the pool and answered it himself. "Yeah? What?"

"Maggione." He heard a male voice on the line.

"Who the hell is this?" he asked, even though he knew who it was.

"This happens to be Michael Sullivan, chief. The nerve of the cheeky bastard, huh?"

Maggione was quietly stunned that the madman was actually calling him again. "I think we better talk," he said to the hit man.

"We are talking. Know how come? You sent killers after me. First in Italy. Then they came near my house in Maryland. They shot at my kids. Then they showed up in Washington looking for me. Because I'm supposed to be a loose cannon? You're the loose cannon, Junior! You're the one who needs to be put down!"

"Listen, Sullivan -"

"No, you listen, you asshole punk bastard. You listen to me, Junior! There's a package arriving at your fortress right about now. Check it out, chief. I'm coming after you! You can't stop me. Nothing can stop me; nobody can. I'm crazy, right? You try and remember that. I'm the craziest bastard you ever met, or even heard of. And we will meet again."

Then the Butcher hung up on him.

Junior Maggione put on a robe; then he walked out to the front of the house. He couldn't believe it – FedEx was making a delivery!

That meant that the crazy bastard Sullivan might be watching the house right now. Was that possible? Could it be happening, just like he said it would?

"Vincent! Mario! Get your asses out here!" he called to his bodyguards, who came running from the kitchen holding sandwiches.

He had one of his men open the delivery box – out in the pool house.

After a couple of nervous moments, the guy called out, "It's pictures, Mr. Maggione. Not exactly Kodak moments."

Chapter 93

"WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND HIM, SUGAR."

A woman named Emily Corro had just finished her morning therapy session with me, and she'd gone off to her teaching job, hopefully with a slightly better self-image. Now Sampson was on my cell phone. Big John didn't usually get excited, so this had to be something good.

Turned out, it was.

Late that afternoon, the Big Man and I arrived in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. We proceeded to locate a neighborhood tavern called Tommy McGoey's.

The neat- and-clean gin mill was nearly empty when we walked inside. Just a tough-looking Irish bartender and a smallish, well-built guy, probably midforties, sitting at the far end of a well-polished mahogany bar. His name was Anthony Mullino, and he was a graphic artist in Manhattan who'd once been best pals with Michael Sullivan.

We sat down on either side of Mullino, pinning him in.

"Cozy," he said, and smiled. "Hey, I'm not going to run out on you guys. I came here of my own free recollection. Try not to forget it. Hell, two of my uncles are cops here in Crooklyn. Check it out if you want."

"We already did," Sampson said. "One's retired, living in Myrtle Beach; one's on suspension."

"Hey, so I'm batting five hundred. That's not so awful. Keep you in the Big Leagues."

Sampson and I introduced ourselves, and at first Mullino was sure he knew John from somewhere, but couldn't place where it might be. He said he'd followed the case of the Russian Mafia head called the Wolf, an investigation I'd worked on while I was at the Bureau, and which had played out right here in New York.

"I read about you in some magazine too," he said. "What magazine was that?"

"I didn't read the story," I said. "In Esquire."

Mullino got the joke and laughed in a way that was like sped-up coughing. "So how did you find out about me and Sully? That's kind of a stretch nowadays. Ancient history."

Sampson told him a little bit of what we knew – that the FBI had done audio surveillance on a social club frequented by John Maggione. We knew that Maggione had ordered a hit on Sullivan, probably because of the Butcher's unorthodox methods, and that the Butcher had retaliated. "The Bureau asked around on Bay Parkway. Your name came up."

Mullino didn't even wait for Sampson to finish. I noticed that when he talked his hands were in constant motion. "Right, the social club over in Bensonhurst. You been there? Old Italian neighborhood. Mostly two-story buildings, storefronts, y'know. Seen better days, but still pretty nice. Sully and I grew up not far from there.

"So how do I fit in again? I'm a little confused about that part. I haven't seen Mike in years."

"FBI files," I said. "You're his friend, right?"

Mullino shook his head. "When we were kids, we were kind of close. That was a long time ago, guys."

"You were friends into your twenties. And he still keeps in touch," I said. "That's the information we were given."

"Aw, Christmas cards," Mullino said, and laughed. "Go figure that one out. Sully's a complicated guy, totally unpredictable. He sends a holiday card now and then. What else is going on here? Am I in trouble? I'm not, am I?"

"We know that you have no association with the mob, Mr. Mullino," Sampson said.

"That's good to hear, because I don't, never did. Actually I'm a little tired of all the bullshit slurring against us Italians. Bada bing, all that crap. Sure some guys talk like that. Know why? Because it's on the TV"

"So tell us about Michael Sullivan," I said. "We need to hear whatever you know about him. Even things from the old days."

Anthony Mullino ordered another drink – seltzer water – from Tommy McGoey himself. Then he began to talk to us, and it came easily for him, the words anyway.

"I'll tell you a funny thing, a story. I used to be Mikey's protector in grammar school. Immaculate Conception, this was. Irish Christian Brothers. In our neighborhood, you had to develop a pretty good sense of humor to keep out of fights every other day. Back then, Sullivan didn't have much of one – a sense of humor. He also had this mortal fear about having his front teeth knocked out. Thought he might be a movie star or somethin' one day. I swear to God that's true. Verdad, right? His old man and his mom both slept with their store-boughts in a glass of water by the bed."

Mullino said that Sullivan changed when they were in high school. "He got tough, and mean as a snake. But he developed a pretty good sense of humor, for an Irish guy anyway."

He leaned in close to the bar and lowered his voice. "He killed a guy in ninth grade. Name of Nick Fratello. Fratello worked at the newspaper store, with the bookies. He used to hassle Mikey all the time, break his balls strenuously. No reason. So Sully just killed him with a box cutter! That got the attention of the Mafia, of Maggione in particular. Maggione Senior I'm talking about.

"That's when Sully started to hang around the social club in Bensonhurst. Nobody knew what he was doing exactly. Not even me. But suddenly he had money in his pockets. Seventeen, maybe eighteen years old, he bought a Grand Am, a Pontiac Grand Am. Very hot wheels at that time. Maggione Jr. always hated Mike because he'd gotten the old man's respect."

Mullino looked from Sampson's face to mine, and he made a gesture like What else can I tell you? Can I go now?

"When was the last time you saw Michael Sullivan?" Sampson asked him.

"Last time?" Mullino sat back and made a big show of trying to remember. Then his hands started flapping around again. "I would say it was Kate Gargan's wedding in Bay Ridge. Six, seven years ago. That's my last recollection anyway. Of course, you guys probably have my life on audio and video, right?"

"Could be, Mr. Mullino. So where is Michael Sullivan now? The Christmas cards? Where were they sent from?"

Mullino shrugged and threw up his hands, as if he was getting a little exasperated with the conversation. "There were only a couple of cards. I think, postmarked in New York. Manhattan? No return address, guys. So you tell me – where is Sully these days?"

"He's right here in Brooklyn, Mr. Mullino," I said. "You saw him two nights ago at the Chesterfield Lounge on Flatbush Avenue." Then I showed him his picture – with Michael Sullivan.

Mullino shrugged and smiled. No big deal – we'd caught him in a lie. "He used to be my friend. He called, wanted to talk. What could I do, blow him off? Not a good idea. So why didn't you grab him then?"

"Bad luck," I said. "The agents on surveillance had no idea what he looks like now – the baldie haircut, the seventies punk look. So now I have to ask you again – where is Sully these days?"

Chapter 94

MICHAEL SULLIVAN WAS BREAKING the time-honored customs and unwritten rules of the Family, and he knew it. And he understood the consequences all too well. But they had started this foolishness, hadn't they? They'd come after him, and they'd done it in front of his kids.

Now he was going to finish it, or maybe he would die trying. Either way, it had been a helluva ride for him, helluva ride.

Ten thirty on a Saturday morning and he was driving a UPS truck that he'd hijacked less than twenty minutes earlier. First FedEx, now UPS, so at least he was an equal opportunity jacker. The driver was in back, trying his best to recover from a slit throat.

There was a picture of his girlfriend, or wife or whatever she was, on the dash, and the lady was almost as ugly as the dying driver. The Butcher couldn't have cared less about the incidental murder. He felt nothing for the stranger, and truthfully, everyone was a stranger to him, even his own family most of the time.

"Hey, you okay back there?" he called over the rumbling, rattling noise of the truck.

No answer, nothing from the back.

"I thought so, buddy. Don't worry about it – the mail and whatnot must go through. Rain, snow, sleet, death, whatever."

He pulled the big brown delivery truck up in front of a medium-size ranch house in Roslyn. Then he grabbed a couple of bulky delivery boxes off the metal shelf behind the driver's seat. He headed to the front door, walking fast, hurrying like the Boys in Brown always do on TV, even whistling a happy tune.

The Butcher pressed the doorbell. Waited. Still whistling. Playing the part perfectly, he thought.

A man's voice came over the intercom. "What? Who's there? Who is it?"

"UPS. Package."

"Just leave it."

"Need a signature, sir."

"I said, leave it, okay. Signature's not a problem. Leave the package. Bye-bye."

"Sorry, sir, I can't do that. Real sorry. Just doing my job here."

Then nothing more over the intercom. Thirty seconds went by, forty-five. Might need a plan B here.

Finally, a very large man in a black Nike sweatsuit came to the door. He was physically impressive, which made sense since he'd once played football for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.

"Are you hard of hearing?" he asked. "I told you to leave the package on the porch. Capisce?"

"No, sir, I'm Irish American actually. I just can't leave these valuable packages without a signature."

The Butcher handed over the electronic pad, and the big ex-footballer angrily scrawled a name with the marker.

The Butcher checked it – Paul Mosconi, who just happened to be a mob soldier married to John Maggione's little sister. This was so against the rules, but you know what, were there really any rules anymore? In the mob, government, churches, the whole messed-up society?

"Nothing against you personally," said the Butcher.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

"You're dead, Paul Mosconi. And the big boss is going to be really pissed at me. By the way, I used to be a Jets fan. Now I go for New England."

Then the Butcher stooped down and slashed the dead man's face over and over again with his scalpel. Then he cut his throat, crisscross, right on the Adam's apple.

A woman popped her head into the living room, dark hair still in curlers, and she started to scream. "Pauli! Pauli, oh my God! Oh, Pauli, oh, Pauli! No, no, no!"

The Butcher did his best little bow for the distraught widow.

"Say hello to your brother for me. He did this to you. Your big brother killed Pauli, not me." He started to turn away, then spun around. "Hey, sorry for your loss."

And he took another little bow.

Chapter 95

THIS COULD BE IT. The end of a long and winding road after Maria's murder.

Sampson and I took the Long Island Expressway to the Northern State, all the way out to the tip of Long Island. We followed Route 27 and finally found the village of Montauk, which until that moment was just a name I'd heard and occasionally read about. But this was where Michael Sullivan and his family were hiding out according to Anthony Mullino. Supposedly they had just moved here today.

We found the house after twenty minutes of searching unfamiliar back roads. When we arrived at the address we'd been given, two boys were tossing a bloated-looking football on a small patch of front lawn. Blond, Irish-looking kids. Pretty good athletes, especially the littlest guy. The presence of kids could make this a lot more complicated for us though.

"You think he's staying out here?" Sampson asked as he turned off the engine. We were at least a hundred yards away from the house, and pretty much out of sight now, playing it safe.

"Mullino says he's been moving around a lot. Says he's here now for sure. The kids are the right age. There's an older boy too, Michael Jr."

I squinted to see better. "Car in the driveway has Maryland plates."

"Probably not a coincidence there. Sullivan was supposed to be living somewhere in Maryland before he and his family made their latest run. Makes sense that he was close to DC. Explains the rapes there. The pieces are starting to fall together."

"His kids haven't seen us yet. Hopefully Sullivan hasn't, either. Let's keep it that way, John."

We moved, and Sampson parked two streets away; then we got shotguns and pistols out of the trunk. We hiked into the woods behind a row of modest homes, though still with a view of the ocean. The place where the Sullivans were staying was dark inside, and we hadn't spotted anybody else so far.

No Caitlin Sullivan, no Michael Sullivan, or if they were in the house, they were staying back from the windows. That made sense. Plus, I knew that Sullivan was a good shot with a rifle.

I sat down with my back against a tree, huddled against the cold with a gun in my lap. I started thinking through the problem of taking down Sullivan without harming his family.

For one thing, could it be done? After a while, I began to think about Maria again. Was I finally close to clearing her murder? I didn't know for sure, but it felt like it. Or was that just wishful thinking?

I took out my wallet and slid an old picture from a plastic sleeve. I still missed her every day. Maria would always be thirty years old in my mind, wouldn't she? Such a waste of a life.

But now she'd brought me here, hadn't she? Why else would Sampson and I have come alone to get the Butcher?

Because we didn't want anybody to know what we were going to do with him.

Chapter 96

THE BUTCHER WAS SEEING RED, and that usually wasn't good for the world's population numbers. In fact, he was getting more pissed off by the minute. Make that by the second. Damn it, he hated John Maggione.

Distractions helped some. The old neighborhood wasn't much like Sullivan remembered it. He hadn't liked it then, and he cared for it even less now. Feeling a little bit of deja vu, he followed Avenue P, then took a left onto Bay Parkway.

As far as he knew, this general area was still the main shopping hub of Bensonhurst. Block after block of redbrick buildings, with stores on the ground level: greaseball restaurants, bakeries, delis, greaseball everything. Some things never changed.

He was flashing images of his father's shop again – everything always gleaming white; the freezer with its white enameled door; inside the freezer, hooks with hanging quarters of beef; bulbs in metal cages along the ceiling; knives, cleavers, and saws everywhere. His father standing there with his hand under his apron – waiting for his son to blow him.

He made a right at Eighty-first Street. And there it was. Not the old butcher shop – something even better. Revenge, a dish best served steaming, piping hot!

He spotted Maggione's Lincoln parked in the rear lot of the social club. License – ACF3069. He was pretty sure it was Junior's car anyway.

Mistake?

But whose mistake? he wondered as he continued up Eighty-first Street. Was Junior such an arrogant bastard that he could just come and go when he liked? Was it possible that he had no fear of the Butcher? No respect? Not even now?

Or had he set a trap for him?

Maybe it was a little of both. Arrogance and deception. Hallmarks of the world we live in.

Sullivan stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts at the intersection of New Utrecht and Eighty-sixth. He had some black coffee and a sesame bagel that was too doughy and bland. Maybe this kind of shit food played somewhere in Middle America, but a half-assed bagel had no place being sold in Brooklyn. Anyway, he sat at a table, watching the car lights pass back and forth out on New Utrecht, and he was thinking that he wanted to walk into the club on Eighty-first Street and start blasting. But that wasn't any kind of plan – it was just a nice, violent fantasy for the moment.

Of course, he had a real plan in mind.

Junior Maggione was a dead man now, and probably worse than that. Sullivan smiled at the thought, then checked to make sure that nobody was watching, thinking he was a crazy person. They weren't. He was. Good deal.

He took another sip. Actually, the Dunkin' coffee wasn't half-bad. But the bagel was the worst.

Chapter 97

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, he was in position. Now here was the funny thing: He'd done this same kind of commando raid when he was just a kid. He and Jimmy Hats and Tony Mullino had climbed a rickety fire escape on Seventy-eighth, then sprinted over the tar-papered rooftops to a building near the social club. In broad daylight. No fear.

They were "dropping in" on a girl Tony knew in the building attached to the social club. The chick's name was Annette Bucci. Annette was a hot little Italian number who used to put out for her boyfriends when they were all of thirteen, fourteen years old. They'd watch Happy Days and Laverne Shirley, like the idiots they were, smoke cigarettes and weed, drink her father's vodka, screw their little brains out. Nobody had to use a rubber because Annette said she couldn't have babies, which made the three boys the luckiest bastards in the neighborhood that summer.

Anyway, this present escapade was a lot easier, since it was nighttime and the moon was almost full. Of course, he wasn't here to screw Annette Bucci, either.

No, he had very serious business with Junior Maggione, unfinished business that probably went all the way back to Maggione Sr., who had bumped off his pal Jimmy Hats. What else could have happened to Hats? So this was about revenge, which was going to be so sweet that the Butcher could almost taste it. He could see Junior Maggione dying.

If the plan worked out tonight, they'd be talking about it in the neighborhood for years.

And, of course, there were going to be pictures!

He was pumped as he hurried across the old rooftops, hoping that nobody on the top floors would hear him and maybe come up for a look, or even call the cops. Finally, he made it to the brownstone attached to the social club building.

Nobody seemed to know he was up there. So he hunkered down on the roof and caught his breath. He let his heartbeat slow down, but he didn't lose his anger. At Maggione? At his father? What the hell difference did it make?

As he sat there, Sullivan wondered if maybe he was suicidal at this point in his life. On some level anyway. He had a theory that people who smoked had to be, and assholes who drank and drove too fast, and anybody who got on a motorcycle. Or killed his own father and fed him to the fish in Sheepshead Bay. Secretly suicidal, right?

Like John Maggione. He'd been a punk all his life. He'd come after the Butcher. And now look what was going to happen to him.

If the plan worked.

Chapter 98

SURVEILLANCE. WAITING. Twiddling our thumbs. It was just like the old days again, and it only half-sucked this time.

As Sampson and I sat less than a hundred yards from the house in Montauk, along the South Fork of Long Island, I was growing more and more enthused about the possibility of taking the Butcher down soon. At the same time, I couldn't help thinking that something wasn't right.

Maybe I even knew what was wrong: This killer hadn't been caught before. As far as I knew, no one had come close. So why did I think we could bring him down now?

Because I was the Dragon Slayer and had succeeded with other killers? Because I used to be the Dragon Slayer? Because in the end life was fair, and killers ought to be caught, especially the one who had murdered my wife? Well, hell no, life wasn't fair. I'd known that from the moment Maria collapsed, then died in my arms.

"You don't think he's going to come back here?" Sampson asked. "Is that what you're thinking about, sugar? You think he's on the run again? Long gone?"

"No, that's not it exactly. This isn't about Sullivan coming here or not. I think maybe he will. I don't know exactly what's bothering me, John. I just feel… it's like we're being set up somehow."

Sampson screwed up his face.

"Set up by who? Set up why?"

"Don't know the answer, unfortunately. To either of those reasonable questions."

It was a strange gut feeling at this point. Just a feeling, though. One of my famous feelings. Which were often right, but not always, not every time.

As the sun began to go down and it got colder, I watched a couple of insane surf casters down near the ocean. We could see the water from the woods. The fishermen were dressed in neoprene waders up to their chests, and they were probably going for stripers at this time of year. Their lure bags and gaffs were attached to their waists, and one of them had a crazy-looking miner's lamp strapped on to his Red Sox ball cap. It was very windy, and the windier it got, the better the fishing – or so I've been told.

I had the idea that Sampson and I were fishing too, always fishing for whatever cockamamy evil lurked deep beneath the surface. And as I watched the seemingly innocent activity down at the shoreline, one of the fishermen slipped under a wave and then scrambled to recover some of his dignity. That water had to be damn cold.

I hoped that didn't happen to Sampson and me tonight.

We shouldn't be here like this – but we were.

And we were exposed, weren't we?

And this killer was one of the best we had ever faced. Maybe the Butcher was the best.

Chapter 99

SIMPLE STUFF REALLY, the basic ingredients of a professional murder, committed by a professional: This time out it was a jug of high-octane gasoline, propane, a stick of dynamite for ignition. Nothing too hard about the prep. But would the plan actually work? That was always the $64,000 question.

In a way, it almost seemed like a prank to the Butcher – some stunt that he and Tony Mullino and Jimmy Hats would have tried to pull off in the old days, back in the neighborhood. Get a few crazy yuks out of it. Maybe put some chump's eye out with a cherry bomb. Most of life had seemed like that to him – pranks, stunts, getting revenge for past wrongs.

That was what happened with his father, how he came to kill the sick bastard. He didn't like to think about it too much, so he didn't, just closed off the compartment. But one night, long ago in Brooklyn, he'd cut the original Butcher of Sligo into little pieces, then fed Kevin Sullivan to the fish in the bay. The rumors were all true. Jimmy Hats had been out on the boat with him, and so had Tony Mullino. The guys he trusted.

Tonight wasn't that different in one respect – it was all about getting revenge. Hell, he'd hated Junior Maggione for twenty years.

He took a fire escape down from the roof of the building next to the social club. Once he was at street level he could hear gruff men's voices coming from inside the club. A ball game was playing-Jets and Pittsburgh on ESPN. Maybe the game was why everybody was preoccupied on this cold, overcast Sunday night. Bollinger drops back! Bollinger stays in the pocket!

Well, he was in the pocket too, the Butcher was thinking to himself. Perfect protection for the play, all the time he needed to execute it. And he hated these bastards inside the club. Always had. They'd never really let him inside their little society, not to this day He'd always been on the outside.

He set his highly combustible bomb next to a wooden wall in an alleyway that looked out to the street. Through the alley, he spotted a couple of Maggione's soldiers posted across the way. They were leaning against the hood of a black Escalade.

He could see them, but they couldn't see him in the darkened alley.

He backed away into the alley and took shelter behind a Dempsey Dumpster that stunk like rotting fish.

An American Airlines jet roared overhead, heading into LaGuardia, making a noise like thunder shaking the sky. The timing was excellent for what came next.

The roar of the plane was nothing compared to the ear-splitting explosion against the rear wall of the social club; then came the screams and cursing of men inside.

And fire! Jesus! The flames were dancing out of control in a hurry.

The rear door burst open, and two soldiers, Maggione's personal bodyguards, had the boss in their grasp like he was the president of the United States and they were the Secret Service, hurrying him to safety. The bodyguards were bleeding, coughing from the smoke, but they were moving forward, heading toward the boss's Lincoln. They tried to clear smoke from their eyes with their shirtsleeves.

Sullivan stepped out from behind the Dumpster and said, "Hey there, assholes! You guys suck." He fired four shots. The bodyguards fell to the pavement, side by side, dead before they hit the cement. The checkered sports jacket of one of them was still on fire.

Then he ran up to Junior Maggione, whose face was cut and burned. He stuck his gun barrel up against Maggione's cheek.

"I remember you when you were just a little kid, Junior. Uptight, spoiled little fuck back then. Nothing's changed, huh? Get in the car or I'll shoot you dead right here in the back alley. Shoot you between the eyes, then cut them out, stick 'em in your ears. Get in the car before I lose it!"

And that's when he showed Junior Maggione the scalpel.

"Get in, before I use it."

Chapter 100

SULLIVAN DROVE THE MOB boss along the familiar streets of Brooklyn – New Utrecht Avenue, then Eighty-sixth Street – riding in the don's own car, loving every minute of this.

"Trip down memory lane for me." He gave a running commentary as he proceeded. "Who says you can't go home again? Know who said that, Junior? Ever read any books? You should have. Too late now."

He pulled into the Dunkin' Donuts on Eighty-sixth and transferred Maggione into the rented Ford Taurus, which was basically a piece of shit, but at least it wouldn't be noticed on the street. Then he put handcuffs on Junior. Tight ones, police-issue.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Maggione snarled as the cuffs bit into his wrists.

Sullivan wasn't sure what Junior meant – the changing of the cars, the fire-bombing, the next half hour or so? What?

"You came after me, remember? You started this whole thing. Tell you what, I'm here to finish it. I should have done this when we were both kids."

The don got red-faced and looked ready to have a major coronary in the car. "You're crazy! You're a lunatic!" he screamed as they pulled out of the lot.

Sullivan almost stopped the car in the middle of the street. Was Junior really screaming at him like he was hired help?

"Hey, I'm not going to argue with you about the state of my mental health. I'm a contract killer, so presumably I'm a little crazy. I'm supposed to be crazy, right? I killed fifty-eight people so far."

"You chop people up into little pieces," said Maggione. "You're a loose cannon, a madman. You killed a friend of mine. Remember that?"

"I fulfill my contracts on time, every time. Maybe I'm a little too high-profile for some tastes. But hold that thought – about chopping bodies into little pieces."

"What the hell are you talking about? You're not that crazy. Nobody's that crazy."

Amazing to see how Maggione's mind worked, or didn't work. Still, Junior was a stone-cold killer, so he had to be careful. No mistakes now.

"Just so I'm clear on this part," Michael Sullivan said, "we're headed to a pier I know on the Hudson River. Once we get there, I'm going to take some art photos for all your goombah pals to see. I'm going to give them a clear warning I hope they'll understand about leaving me and my family alone."

Then Sullivan put his finger to his lips. "Don't talk anymore," he said. "I'm almost starting to feel a little sorry for you, Junior, and I don't want to feel like that."

"What do I care what you feel like, ahhh," said Maggione, on account of Sullivan had stuck him in the belly with a switchblade knife, stuck it in to the hilt, then pulled it out slowly.

"Just for starters," he said in a weird, whispery voice. "I'm just getting warmed up."

Then the Butcher took a little half bow. "I am that crazy."

Chapter 101

SAMPSON AND I WERE BACK inside his car waiting for the Butcher to return to the house in Montauk. We were down to counting the minutes. Sooner or later he had to come back; only it hadn't happened yet, and Sampson and I were tired, cold, and, frankly, disappointed.

A pizza delivery guy from Papa John's showed up at around seven thirty. But no Sullivan, no Butcher, no relief in sight, and no pizza for us, either.

"Let's talk about something," said Sampson. "Keep our minds off food. And the cold."

"Been thinking about Maria again while I'm sitting here freezing my ass off," I said as we watched the long-haired pizza guy come and go. The thought had crossed my mind that Sullivan might use a delivery like this to get his wife a message. Had that just happened? Nothing we could do about it. But had it just happened?

"Not surprising, sugar," said Sampson.

"What happened the last couple months dredged up a lot of the past for me. I figured I'd grieved enough. Maybe not though. Therapist seems to think not."

"You had two babies to take care of back then. Maybe you were a little too busy to mourn as much as you needed. I remember I used to come over the house some nights. You never seemed to sleep. Working homicide cases. Trying to be a daddy. Remember the Bell's palsy?"

"Now that you mention it."

I'd had a disconcerting facial twitch for a while after Maria died. A neurologist at Johns Hopkins told me that it might go away or go on for years. It lasted a little more than two weeks, and it was kind of an effective tool on the job. Scared the hell out of perps I had to question in the cage.

"At the time, you wanted to catch Maria's killer so bad, Alex. Then you started obsessing over other murder cases. That's when you became a really good detective. In my opinion anyway. It's when you became focused. How you got to be the Dragon Slayer."

I felt like I was in the confessional. John Sampson was my priest. So what was new?

"I didn't want to think about her all the time, so I guess I had to throw myself into something else. There were the kids, and there was work."

"So did you grieve enough, Alex? This time? Is it over? Close to being over?"

"Honestly? I don't know, John. I'm trying to figure that out now."

"What if we don't catch Sullivan this time? What if he gets away on us? What if he already has?"

"I think I'll be better about Maria. She's been gone a long time." I stopped, took a breath. "I don't think it was my fault. I couldn't have done anything differently when she was shot."

"Ahh," said Sampson.

"Ahh," I said.

"But you're not completely sure, are you? You're still not convinced."

"Not a hundred percent." Then I laughed. "Maybe if we do catch him tonight. Maybe if I blow his brains out. Then we'll definitely be even."

"That's why we're out here, sugar? To blow his brains out?"

There was a knock against the car's side window, and I went for my gun.

Chapter 102

"WHAT THE HELL IS he doing here?" Sampson asked.

None other than Tony Mullino was standing next to the car – on my side. What the hell was he doing out here in Montauk?

I slowly lowered the window, hoping to find out, to get an answer, maybe a whole bunch of answers.

"I could have been Sully," he said, with his head cocked to one side. "You'd both be dead if I was."

"No, you'd be dead," Sampson said. He gave Mullino a slow smile and showed off his Glock. "I saw you coming up from behind about two minutes ago. So did Alex."

I hadn't, but it was good to know that Sampson still had my back, that somebody did, because maybe I was starting to lose my focus a little – and that could get you shot. Or worse.

Mullino was rubbing his hands together. "Cold as shit out here tonight." He waited, then repeated himself. "I said it's fricking frigid, freezing cold out here."

"Hop in," I told him. "C'mon inside."

"You promise not to shoot us in the back?" Sampson said.

Mullino raised both hands and looked either puzzled or alarmed. Sometimes it was hard to tell with him. "I don't even carry a weapon, fellas. Never did in my life."

"Maybe you ought to, the friends you keep," Sampson said. "Something to think about, brother."

"Okay, brother," said Mullino, with a mean little laugh that made me rethink who he was.

He opened the car door and slid down into the backseat. The question was still on the table: Why had he shown up here and what did he want?

"He's not coming?" I said, once he'd shut the rear door on the cold. "Is that right?"

"Nah, he's not coming," said Mullino. "Never was."

"You warn him?" I asked. I was watching Mullino in the rearview mirror. His eyes narrowed and showed extreme nervousness, something uncomfortable, something not right.

"I didn't have to warn him. Sully's self-reliant, takes care of himself just fine." His voice was low, almost a whisper.

"I'll bet," I said.

"So what happened, Anthony?" asked Sampson. "Where's your boy now? Why are you here?"

Mullino's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. I didn't quite catch what he said this time.

Neither did Sampson. "You have to speak up," he turned around and said. " You hear me? See how it works? You have to get your voice up to a certain volume."

"He killed John Maggione tonight," said Mullino. "Kidnapped him, then carved him up. That has been a long time coming."

There was complete silence in the car. I doubt there was anything he could have said that would have surprised me more. I'd felt earlier that maybe we'd been set up, and we had been.

"How did you hear about it?" I finally asked.

"I live in the neighborhood. Brooklyn's like being in a small town sometimes. Always been that way. Besides, Sully called me when it was done. He wanted to share."

Sampson shifted all the way around to face him. "So Sullivan's not coming here to collect his family. Isn't he afraid for them?"

I was still watching Tony Mullino in the rearview. I thought maybe I knew what he was going to say next.

"This isn't his family," he said. "He doesn't even know who they are."

"Who's in the house then?"

"I don't know who they are. Central casting. A family that might look like Sully's."

"You work for him?" I asked Mullino.

"No. But he's been a good friend. I was the one afraid of getting my face messed up in school, not him. Sully always protected me. So I helped him. I'd do it again. Hell, I helped him kill his crazy old man."

"Why'd you come out here?" I asked him next.

"That one's easy. He told me to."

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll have to ask him. Maybe because he likes to take a bow after a job well done. He does that, y'know. Takes a bow. You don't want to see it."

"I already have," I told him.

Mullino opened the back door of the car, nodded his head to us, and then he was gone into the night.

And so, I knew, was the Butcher.

Chapter 103

WHAT'S THAT OLD LINE, new line, whatever it is – life is what happens when you're busy making other plans?

I went back to Washington that night because I wanted to see the kids, and because of Nana Mama, and because I had patients who depended on me and were scheduled for the next day Nana has always preached that it's important for me to be helping people; she's calls it my curse. She's probably right.

I could clearly see Michael Sullivan's face, his little bow, and it killed me that he was still out there somewhere. According to the FBI, the mob had already put a million-dollar price tag on his head, and another million on his family. I still had a suspicion that he might be an FBI or police informant, and that one or the other was helping to protect him, but I didn't know that for sure, and maybe I never would.

On one of the nights after Sullivan escaped, a school night for the kids, I sat out on the sunporch and played rock and roll on the piano for Jannie and Damon. I played until it was almost ten. Then I talked to the kids about their mother. It was time.

Chapter 104

I'M NOT SURE why I needed to tell them about Maria now, but I wanted the kids to have some more of the truth about her. Maybe I wanted them to have the closure that I couldn't get myself. I had never lied about Maria to the kids, but I had held back, and… no, I had lied about one thing. I'd told Damon and Jannie that I wasn't with Maria when she was shot, but that I got to St. Anthony's before she died, and we'd had a few last words. The reason was that I didn't want to have to tell them details that I could never get out of my own head: the sound of the gunshots that felled Maria; the sharp intake of her breath the instant she was hit; the way she slid from my arms to the sidewalk. Then the unforgettable sight of blood pouring from Maria's chest, and my realization that the wounds were fatal. I still could remember it with nightmare clarity more than ten years later.

"I've been thinking about your mom lately," I said that night on the porch. "I've been thinking about her a lot. You guys probably know that already."

The kids were gathered around close, suspecting this wasn't one of our usual talks. "She was a special person in so many ways. So many ways, Damon and Jannie. Her eyes were alive and always honest. She was a listener. And that's usually a sign of a good person. I think it is anyway. She loved to smile and to make other people smile if she possibly could. She used to say, 'Here's a cup of sadness, and here's a cup of joy, which do you choose?' She almost always chose the cup of joy."

"Almost always?" asked Jannie.

"Almost always. Think about it, Janelle. You're smart. She chose me, didn't she? All the cute boys she could have had, she chose this puss, this dour personality."

Janelle and Damon smiled; then Damon said, "This is because the one who killed her is back? Why we're talking about our mother now?"

"That's part of it, Day. But lately I realized I had unfinished business with her. And with the two of you. That's why we're talking, okay?"

Damon and Janelle listened in silence, and I talked for a long while. Eventually, I choked up. I think it was the first time I'd let them see me cry about Maria. "I loved her so much, loved your mother like she was a physical part of me. I still do, I guess. Still do, I know."

"Because of us?" Damon asked. "It's partly our fault, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, sweetheart? I'm not sure that I follow you," I said to Damon.

"We remind you of her, don't we? We remind you of Mom every day; every morning when you see us, you remember that she's not here. Isn't that right?"

I shook my head. "Maybe there's some little bit of truth in that. But you remind me in a good way, the best way. Trust me on that. It's all good."

They waited for me to talk some more, and they didn't take their eyes off me, as if I might suddenly run away on them.

"Lots of changes are happening in our lives," I said. "We have Ali here now. Nana's getting older. I'm seeing patients again."

"You like it?" Damon asked. "Being a psychologist?"

"I do. So far."

" So far. That's so you, Daddy," said Jannie.

I snorted out a laugh, but I didn't go fishing for a compliment about what Jannie had said. Not that I was completely averse to compliments, but there was a time for everything, and this wasn't it. I remember that when I'd read Bill Clinton's autobiography, I couldn't help thinking that when he was confessing to the hurt he'd caused his wife and daughter, he couldn't seem to resist looking for forgiveness too, and even hugs from the reader. He just couldn't resist – maybe because his need for love is so great. And maybe that's where his empathy and compassion come from.

Then I finally did the hardest thing – I told Jannie and Damon what had happened to Maria. I told my children the truth as I knew it. I shared most of the details of Maria's death, her murder, and I told them that I had seen it happen, been with her when she died, felt her last breath on this earth, heard her last words.

When I was done, when I couldn't talk anymore, Jannie whispered, "Watch the river, how it flows, Daddy. The river is truth."

That had been my mantra for the kids when they were little and Maria wasn't around. I'd walk them by the Anacostia River or the Potomac and make them look at it, the water, and say, "Watch the river… the river is truth."

Or at least as close as we'll ever get to it.

Chapter 105

I WAS FEELING strangely emotional and vulnerable, and I guess, maybe, alive these days.

It was both a good and a bad thing.

I had breakfast with Nana Mama at around five thirty or so almost every morning. Then I jogged to my office, changed clothes, and started my sessions as early as six thirty.

Kim Stafford was my first patient on Mondays and Thursdays. It was always a hard thing to keep personal feelings out of the sessions, at least for me, or maybe I was just out of practice. On the other hand, some of my colleagues had always struck me as too clinical, too reserved and distant. What was any patient, any human being, supposed to make of that? Oh, it's okay if I have the affect of a turnip; I'm a therapist.

I needed to do this my way, with warmth at times, with lots of feeling and compassion rather than empathy; I needed to break the rules, to be unorthodox. Like confronting Jason Stemple at his station house and trying to punch that scum's lights out. That's what I call professional.

I had a break in my schedule until noon, so I decided to check in with Monnie Donnelley at Quantico. She was doing some research on a theory of mine about the Butcher. I hadn't said much more than hello, when Monnie interrupted. "1 have something for you, Alex. I think you're going to like this. It's your idea anyway, your theory."

Monnie then told me that she'd used my notes and tracked down news about Sullivan's wife through a mob soldier who was in the Witness Protection Program and now living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

"I followed the trail you set up, and you were right on. It led me to a guy who was at Sullivan's wedding, which was small, as you might expect. The pal from Brooklyn you told me about, Anthony Mullino, he was there. Apparently, Sullivan didn't want many people to know about his private life. His own mother wasn't invited, and his father was dead, as you know."

"Yeah, killed by his son and a couple of pals. What did you find out about Sullivan's wife?"

"Well, it's interesting stuff, not what you'd expect, either. She's originally from Colts Neck, New Jersey, and she was a first-grade teacher before she met Sullivan. How about that? Salvatore Pistelli, the Witness Protection guy, said she was a sweet girl. Said Sullivan was looking for a good mother for his kids. Touching, huh, Alex? Our psycho hit man has a soft spot. The wife's name was Caitlin Haney. Her family's still living in Colts Neck."

That same day, we had a tap set up on the phones of Caitlin Sullivan's parents' place. Also on a sister who lived in Toms River, New Jersey, and a brother who was a dentist in Ridgewood.

I had some hope again. Maybe we could close this case after all and bring down the Butcher.

Maybe I would see him again and take a little bow myself.

Chapter 106

MICHAEL SULLIVAN HAD BEEN USING the name Michael Morrissey since he'd been living in Massachusetts, Morrissey being a punk he'd more or less drawn and quartered in his early days as a hit man. Caitlin and the boys kept their first names but went under the surname Morrissey now too. The story they had learned by heart was that they had been living in Dublin for the past few years, where their father was a consultant to several Irish companies with business connections to America.

Now he was doing "consultant" work in Boston.

The latter part happened to be true, since the Butcher had just gotten a job through an old contact in South Boston. A job – a hit, a murder for hire.

He left the house overlooking the Hoosic River that morning at a very civilized nine o'clock. Then he drove west; he was headed to the Massachusetts Turnpike in his new Lexus. He had his work tools in the trunk – guns, a butcher saw, a nail gun.

He didn't play any music on the first part of the trip, preferring to travel down memory lane instead. Lately, he'd been thinking a lot about his early kills: about his father, of course; a couple of jobs for Maggione Sr.; and a Catholic priest named Francis X. Conley. Father Frank X had been messing around with boys in the parish for years. The rumors were all around the neighborhood, the stories laced with plenty of kinky, slimy detail. Sullivan couldn't believe that some of the parents knew what was going on and hadn't stepped up to do something to stop it.

When he was nineteen and already working for Maggione, he happened to spot the priest down at the docks, where Conley kept a little outboard for his fishing trips. Sometimes he would take one of the altar boys for an afternoon. A reward. A little sweet treat.

On this particular day in the spring, the good father had come down to the dock to prepare his boat for the season. He was working over the engine when Sullivan and Jimmy Hats stepped on board.

"Hey, Father Frankie," Jimmy said, and beamed a crooked smile. "How 'bout we take a little boat trip today? Do some fishin'?"

The priest squinted up at the two young hoods, frowning when he recognized who it was. "I don't think so, boys. Boat's not ready for action yet."

That brought a laugh from Hats, who repeated, " Ready for action – yeah, I get you."

Then Sullivan stepped forward. "Yeah, it is ready, Fodder. We're goin' on a sea cruise. You know that song? Frankie Ford's 'Sea Cruise'? That's where we're goin'. Just the three of us."

So they cruised on out of the boatyard, and Father Frank X was never seen or heard from again. "God rest his immoral soul in hell," Jimmy Hats joked on the way back.

And that morning, as he drove out on his latest job, Sullivan remembered the old Frankie Ford song – and he remembered how the pathetic priest had begged for his life, and then for his death, before he got cut up into shark food. But most of all, he remembered wondering whether he had just done a good deed with Father Frank, and whether or not it was possible that he could.

Could he do anything good in his life?

Or was he just all bad?

Chapter 107

HE FINALLY ARRIVED IN STOCKBRIDGE, near the Massachusetts-New York border, and used his GPS to find the right house. He was ready to do his worst, to be the Butcher again, to earn his day's wage.

To hell with good deeds and good thoughts, whatever they were supposed to prove. He located the house, which was very "country" and, he thought, very tasteful. It sat on a tranquil pond in the middle of acres of maples and elms and pines. A black Porsche Targa was parked like a modern sculpture in the driveway.

The Butcher had been told that a forty-one-year-old woman named Melinda Steiner was at the house – but that she drove a spiffy red Mercedes convertible. So who did the black Porsche belong to?

Sullivan parked off the main road behind a copse of pines, and he watched the house for about twenty minutes. One of the things he noticed was that the garage door was closed. And maybe there was a fine red Mercedes convertible in the garage.

So – once again – who owned the black Porsche?

Careful to stay under the cover of thick branches, he put a pair of German binoculars to his eyes. Then he slowly scanned the east and south windows of the house, each and every one of them.

No one seemed to be in the kitchen – which was all darkened windows, no one moving about.

Or in the living room, either, which was also dark and looked deserted.

But somebody was in the house, right?

He finally found them in a corner bedroom on the second floor. Probably the master suite.

Melinda, or Mel, Steiner was up there.

And some blond dude. Probably in his early forties, presumably the owner of the Porsche.

Too many mistakes to calculate, he was thinking to himself. A real cluster-fuck of errors.

What he could also calculate was that his seventy-five-thousand-dollar fee for this job had just doubled, because he never did two for the price of one.

The Butcher started to walk toward the country house, gun in one hand, toolbox in the other, and he was feeling pretty good about this job, this day, this life he had for himself.

Chapter 108

THERE WAS VERY LITTLE IN LIFE that could beat the feeling of having confidence in your ability to do a job well. Michael Sullivan was thinking about the truth in that statement as he neared the house.

He was conscious of the amount of land surrounding the white Colonial house, three or four acres of secluded woods and fields. Off in the back he saw a tennis court that looked like green clay. Maybe it was Har-Tru, which the tennis buffs back in Maryland seemed to favor.

But mostly he was focused on his work, on the job to be done, on its two working parts.

Kill someone named Melinda Sterner – and her lover, since he was definitely in the way now.

Don't get killed yourself.

No mistakes.

He slowly opened the wooden front door of the house, which wasn't locked. People did that a lot out in the country, didn't they? Mistake. And he was pretty sure he wasn't going to get much resistance once he got upstairs, either.

Still, you never know, so don't get cocky, don't get sloppy, don't get overly cute, Mikey.

He remembered the fiasco in Venice, Italy, what had happened there. The mess, and how he could have gotten tagged. La Cosa Nostra would be looking all over for him now, and one day they'd find him.

So why not today? Why not right here?

His contact for the job was an old friend, but the mob could have easily gotten to him. And then set the Butcher up.

He just didn't think so.

Not today.

The front door hadn't been locked. They would have locked it, especially if this was a trap and they wanted it to look good.

The couple he'd spotted in the bedroom had looked too natural, too much in the moment, and he didn't believe anybody – except maybe himself – was slick enough to create that kind of setup and honey trap. That couple was upstairs humping their brains and vital fluids out; there was very little doubt about it in his mind.

As he climbed the front stairs, he could hear the pleasing sounds of their screwing drifting down to him. Bedsprings coiling and releasing, the headboard hitting the bedroom wall.

Of course, it could be a recording.

But the Butcher doubted it, and his instincts were usually very, very good. They had certainly kept him alive so far, and they'd made a lot of other people dead.

Chapter 109

AS HE REACHED the second floor, his heart was beating a lot faster, the moans and assorted bed noises had gotten louder, and he started to smile in spite of himself.

Peculiar thought. He was remembering a scene in this movie called Sideways that had completely cracked him up at the time. The shorter character, who was basically a drunk, had to retrieve the other schmuck's wallet, and he needed to sneak into a bedroom where a couple of tubby lowlifes were rutting like pigs in a trough. The scene was pretty great – hilarious, totally unexpected too. Just like this was going to be. For him anyway.

So he turned a corner and peered into the bedroom, and he thought to himself, Surprise, you're both dead.

The man and woman were in pretty good shape. Well toned and athletic, nice tight asses. Kind of sexy together. Smiles on their faces.

They seemed to like each other, which made it good for them. Maybe they were in love. They definitely appeared to like the sex, which was a good, sweaty workout. The blond guy was going deep, and Melinda seemed to like it that way just fine. The whole thing was kind of a turn-on. Melinda had on white kneesocks, which Sullivan got a kick out of. Did she do it for him or for herself? he wondered.

After a minute or so of watching, he cleared his throat. Ahem, ahem. Order in the fuck-room.

The coupling couple jumped apart, which was no easy trick given the corkscrew position they'd been locked in a couple of milliseconds before.

"Wow – you two!" he said, and smiled pleasantly, as if he was here doing a survey on extramarital affairs or something. "Really going at it. I'm impressed."

He kind of liked the two of them actually, especially this Mel. No doubt about it, she was a looker for her age. Nice body and face – sweet face, he was thinking.

He even liked the way she didn't cover up and stared right back at him, like What the hell do you think you're doing here? This is my house, my affair, none of your goddamn business, whoever the hell you are. So get lost!

"You're Melinda Steiner, right?" he asked, pointing the gun at her, but not in a threatening way. What was the point of threats, of scaring them any worse than he had to? He didn't have it in for these two. They weren't the Mafia; they hadn't come gunning for him or his family.

"Yes. I'm Melinda Steiner. Who are you? What do you want here?"

She was definitely kind of feisty but not being totally obnoxious about it. Hell, this was her house, and she had a right to know what he was doing here.

He took a few quick strides into the room and -

Pop!

Pop!

He shot the blond male in the throat and forehead, and he dropped off the bed onto the Indian-style area rug on the floor. So much for keeping in good shape so that you live longer.

Melinda put both hands to her mouth and gasped out loud. "Oh my God." But she didn't scream, which meant this was mostly about the sex. They were screwing, but the two of them weren't in love, not even close. Watching her face now, he didn't even think she liked Blondie all that much.

"Good girl, Melinda. You're thinking on your feet. He didn't feel a thing. No pain, I promise."

"He was my architect," she said, then quickly added, "I don't know why I told you that."

"You're just nervous. Who wouldn't be? You've probably already figured out that I'm here to kill you, not your former lover."

He was standing about three feet from the woman, and his gun was pointed in the general direction of her heart. She seemed in pretty good control of herself though – very impressive to him. Sullivan's kind of girl. Maybe she should be the head of the mob. Maybe he would put her name up for the job.

He definitely liked her, and he had the sudden thought that he didn't much like her husband. He sat down on the bed with the gun still on her – well, on her left tit actually.

"Mel, here's the thing. Your husband sent me here to kill you. He paid seventy-five thousand dollars," he said. "I'm improvising here, but do you have access to your own money? Maybe we could work out some kind of a deal. Is that an option?"

"Yes," she said. "It is." That was all.

A deal was struck a couple of minutes later, and his fee quadrupled. Lot of crazy people out there in the world – no wonder Desperate Housewives was so popular, he couldn't help thinking.

Chapter 110

SAMPSON AND I HADN'T BEEN to Massachusetts in a few years, not since we'd chased a madman killer named "Mr. Smith" in a case code-named Cat and Mouse. Mr. Smith had probably been the most cunning of all the psychopaths we had tracked to that point. He almost murdered me. So not a lot of happy memories for us as we rode in Sampson's car from DC toward the Berkshires.

On the way, we stopped off for an out-of-this-world dinner and some congenial bullshit at my cousin Jimmy Parker's restaurant, the Red Hat, in Irvington, New York. Mmm, mmm good. Otherwise, this trip was all business. We went alone, with no backup. I still wasn't sure what I planned to do if I found the Butcher. If we found him; if he hadn't already fled.

We listened to some old Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu tapes on the road and didn't discuss Michael Sullivan much, not until we reached the end of the Connecticut Turnpike and crossed over into Massachusetts.

"So what are we doing here, John?" I finally broke the ice on the subject.

"Chasing the bad guy, same as always," he said. "Nothing's changed, has it? Guy's a killer, a rapist. You're the Dragon Slayer. I'm along for the ride."

"Just me and you, huh? No call to the local police? No FBI in on this? You know, we just crossed a state line."

Sampson nodded. "I figure this time it's personal. Am I wrong about that? Plus, he deserves to die, if it comes to that, which it just might. Probably will."

"It's personal all right. It's never been more personal. This has been bubbling over for a long time. It needs to end. But -"

"No b uts, Alex. We need to put an end to him."

We rode along in silence for another few miles. But I had to talk this out a little more with Sampson. We had to set some kind of rules of engagement.

"I'm not going to just take him out – if he's up here. I'm not a vigilante, John."

"I know that," said Sampson. "I know who you are, Alex. If anybody does. Let's see how it plays. Maybe he's not even here."

We arrived in the town of Florida, Massachusetts, at around two that afternoon; then we went looking for the house where we hoped to find Michael Sullivan once and for all. I could feel the tension really building inside me now. It took us another half hour to locate the place, which was built on the side of a mountain overlooking a river. We watched the house, and nobody seemed to be there. Had someone tipped off Sullivan again?

If it had happened, who would have done it? The FBI? Was he in Witness Protection after all? Was the FBI watching his back? Were they the ones who told him we might be coming for him?

We drove into the town center and had lunch at a Denny's. Sampson and I didn't talk much over our eggs and potatoes, which was unusual for us.

"You all right?" he finally asked, once the coffee had arrived.

"If we get him, I'll be better. This has to end, though. You're right about that."

"Then let's go do it."

We went back to the house, and at a little past five a station wagon turned into the drive and parked right in front of the porch. Was this him? Finally, the Butcher? Three boys piled out of the back; then a pretty, dark-haired woman got out of the driver's side. It was obvious that she and the boys got along well. They roughhoused on the front lawn; then they trooped inside the house.

I had a picture of Caitlin Sullivan with me, but I didn't need to look at it. "That's definitely her," I told Sampson. "We're in the right place this time. That's Caitlin and the Butcher's boys."

"He'll spot us if we stay here," Sampson said. "This isn't Cops, and he's no dumb crackhead waiting to be caught."

"Yeah, I'm counting on it," I said.

Chapter 111

MICHAEL SULLIVAN WASN'T ANYWHERE near the house in Western Massachusetts. At seven thirty that night, he entered a ten-bedroom home in Wellesley a wealthy suburb outside Boston.

He was a few steps behind Melinda Steiner, who had long legs and a sweet little tush to watch. Melinda knew it, too. She also understood how to be subtle and, at the same time, nicely provocative with her wiggle-walk.

A light was on in one of the rooms off the wide front hallway – which had three chandeliers in a courtly procession, courtesy of Melinda or her decorator, no doubt.

"Sweetie, I'm home!" Melinda called out as she dropped her travel bag loudly on the highly polished floor.

Not a hint of anything wrong in her voice. No alarm or warning, no edge, nothing but wifely bonhomie.

She's pretty damn good, Sullivan couldn't help thinking to himself. Glad I'm not married to her.

No greeting came back from the room where the TV was on. Not a peep.

"Honey?" she called again. "You in there? Honey? I'm home from the country. Jerry?"

This ought to surprise the bastard for sure. Honey, I'm home! Honey, I'm still alive!

A fatigued-looking man in a wrinkled pinstriped dress shirt, boxer shorts, and electric-blue flip-flops finally appeared in the doorway.

Now – he's a pretty good actor, too. Like nothing in the whole wide world could be wrong.

Until right about now, when he sees the Butcher walking stride for stride behind his beloved wife, whom he's just tried to murder at their country house.

"Hey, you. Who is this, Mel? What's going on?" Jerry asked as he saw Sullivan standing there in the hallway.

The Butcher already had his gun out, and it was pointed at the guy in his underwear, aimed at his balls, but then Sullivan moved it up to the heart, if the conniving bastard had one. Murder your wife? What kind of cold, cold shit was that?

"Change of plans," Sullivan said. "What can I tell you? It happens."

The husband, Jerry, put his hands up in the air without being asked. He was also coming wide awake – in kind of a big hurry.

"What are you talking about? What is this, Mel? Why is this man in our house? Who the hell is he?"

A classic line and a dynamite delivery.

Now it was Melinda's turn to say her piece, and she decided to shout her answer.

"He's the one who was supposed to kill me, Jerry! You paid to have me murdered, you miserable piece of shit! You are total worthless garbage, and you're a coward too. So I paid him more to have you hit. That's what this is, honey. I guess you could call him a switch-hitter," she said, and laughed at her own joke.

Nobody else did – not Jerry and not Sullivan. It was kind of funny actually, but not laugh-out-loud funny. Or maybe her delivery was wrong, a touch too harsh, a little too much of the truth in it.

The husband jumped back into the TV room and tried to pull shut the door, but it wasn't even a contest.

The Butcher was quick and had a foot, a work boot, wedged in the doorway. Then he put his shoulder to it and followed Jerry right inside.

Jerry, the original contractor, was a tall, potbellied CEO-or CFO-type dude who was balding up top. The den smelled of his body odor and a cigar smoldering in an ashtray by the couch. A two-ball putter and a couple of Titleist spheroids lay on the rug. A man's man, this guy who had paid to have his wife killed and now was practicing his putting to show he didn't have the yips.

"I'll pay you more than she can!" Jerry squealed. "Whatever that bitch paid, I'll double it! I swear to God! The money's there. It's yours."

Wow – this is getting better and better, thought Sullivan. It brought new meaning to a game like Jeopardy! – or Let's Make a Deal.

"You total piece of crap!" Melinda snarled at her husband from the doorway. Then she ran in and smacked him in the chops. Sullivan still thought that she was a cool lady in a lot of ways, though not in some others.

He looked at the husband again. Then he looked at Melinda. Interesting couple, to be sure.

"I agree with Melinda," said the Butcher. "But Jerry does have a point, Mel. Maybe we should have a little auction here. You think? Let's talk this out like adults. No more hitting or name-calling."

Chapter 112

TWO HOURS LATER, the auction was complete, and Michael Sullivan was driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike in his Lexus. The car could move reasonably well, and the ride was smooth as a baby's ass, or maybe he was just feeling good.

There were a few loose details to work out, but the job was done. Let's Make a Deal had netted him three hundred and fifty thousand, all of it wired into an account at the Union Bank of Switzerland. Truth be told, he hadn't felt this financially secure in a while, though he'd probably burned his Boston contact for the job. Maybe he'd have to move the family again too. Or maybe it was time for him to break free and set off on his own, something he'd been thinking about a lot.

It was probably worth it – three hundred fifty grand for a day's work. Jerry Steiner had been the winning bidder, but then he tapped the dumb, obnoxious bastard anyway. Melinda was a different story. He liked her, didn't want to hurt her. But what choice did he have? Leave her around to talk? So he made it painless – one to the back of Mel's head. Then a couple of pictures to memorialize her pretty face for his collection.

Anyway, he was singing a Stones ballad that he'd always liked, "Wild Horses," when he came around the bend in the road. There was his house on the hill, right where he'd left it.

And – what the hell was this?

Mistake?

But whose mistake?

He shut off his headlights around the next little crook in the road. Then he eased into a cul-de-sac, where he had a better view of his house and the grounds.

Man, he couldn't catch a break lately. Couldn't outrun his past no matter how far away he went.

He'd spotted them right away, in a dark-blue car, maybe a Dodge, with the grille pointed toward the house like a gun. Two men inside that he could see. Waiting for him, no doubt about that.

Mistake.

Theirs!

But who the hell were these two guys he had to kill now?

Chapter 113

WELL, IT DIDN'T MUCH MATTER. They were two dead men – dead over nothing, dead because they were miserable screwups at their jobs. Dead men watching his house, come to kill him and his family.

Sullivan had a three-year-old Winchester in the trunk of the car, which he kept cleaned, oiled, and ready to go. He popped the trunk, took out the long gun. Then he loaded it up with hollow-points.

He didn't quite have the skills to be an army sniper, but he was plenty good enough for this kind of bushwhacking.

He set up in the woods between a couple of tall, fluffy evergreens that provided a canopy of extra cover. Then he took a quick look through the nightscope. It had a bull's-eye rather than a sight post, which was the way he liked it. Actually, it was Jimmy Hats who had taught him to be a long-distance marksman. Jimmy had been trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, before his dishonorable discharge.

He let the bull's-eye rest right on the driver's head, and he lightly touched the trigger with his finger. This was going to be easy, not a problem for him.

Then he shifted his aim to the head of the guy in the passenger seat. Whoever these two were, they were definitely DOA.

As soon as it was over, he'd have to gather up the family and boogie on out of here. No contact again with their past. That was the mistake, wasn't it? Somebody from ancient history they had kept in contact with? Maybe Caitlin's family in New Jersey. Somebody had probably tracked a phone call. He'd bet anything that's what had happened.

Mistake, mistake, mistake.

And Caitlin would keep making them, wouldn't she? Which meant Caitlin had to go. He didn't want to think too much about it, but Caitlin was a goner too. Unless he just took off by himself.

Lots of decisions to make. Not much time to make them.

He set the bull's-eye back on the driver's head. He was ready for two shots, and both men in the car were dead. They just didn't know it yet.

He slowly let out a breath until his body was calm and still and ready to do this.

He had a sense of his own heartbeat – slow, steady, confident; slow, steady, confident.

Then he pulled the trigger – and heard a sharp, satisfying crack in the night air.

An instant later, he pulled the rifle's trigger a second time.

Then a third and a fourth time.

That should do it.

The killing was done, and he had to get the hell out of here, pronto. With or without Caitlin and the boys.

But first he needed to know who he'd just killed and maybe take some pictures of the deceased.

Chapter 114

SAMPSON AND I WATCHED the Butcher approach the car. He was being stealthy all right, but maybe he wasn't as good as he thought he was. He moved in quickly, bent low in a shooting crouch, ready for resistance if it came.

He was about to find out that he'd shot up a pile of propped-up clothes and throw pillows from the local Wal-Mart. Sampson and I were crouched in the woods less than thirty yards behind the car he'd just ambushed. So who was better at this game? The Butcher or us?

"Your call, Alex, how it goes from here," Sampson whispered out of the side of his mouth.

"Don't kill him, John," I said, and touched Sampson's arm. "Unless we have to. Just take him down."

"Your call," Sampson repeated.

Then everything went a little crazy, to put it mildly.

Suddenly the Butcher whirled around – but not in our direction! The opposite way!

What the hell was this? What was happening now?

Sullivan was facing the thick row of woods to the east – not where Sampson and I were coming from. He was paying no attention to us now.

He fired off two quick shots – and I heard somebody grunt in the distance.

A man dressed in black appeared for an instant; then he fell to the ground. Who was it? Then five more men came running out of the woods to the north. They had handguns, Bull Pups, one Uzi that I could make out.

Who were these guys?

As if to answer the question, one of them shouted, "FBI. Drop your weapon! FBI!"

I didn't buy it.

"Mob!" I said to Sampson.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Then everybody started blasting at everybody else, as if we were in the streets of Baghdad rather than somewhere in rural Massachusetts.

Chapter 115

THE MOB HITTERS, if that's who they were, fired on us too. Sampson and I shot back at them. And so did the Butcher.

I hit a guy in a leather trench coat – the one with the Uzi, my first target.

The gunman spun around and dropped to the dirt, but then he raised the Uzi to fire again. He got hit square in the chest with a round, and the force knocked him flat. I wasn't the one who shot him though. Maybe Sampson?

Or was it Sullivan who'd shot him?

The darkness was a serious hazard to everybody. Bullets were flying everywhere, slugs of lead slamming into trees, ricocheting off rocks. It was total chaos and bedlam, hair-raising, death-defying madness being played out in the dark.

The Mafia thugs were fanning out, trying to create space between themselves, which would be even more trouble for us.

Sullivan had run to his left and was using the trees and shadows for some cover.

Sampson and I tried to hide ourselves as best we could behind skinny evergreens.

I was afraid we would die here; it felt like it could happen. Too many shots were being fired in too tight an area. This was a kill zone. It was like being heavily armed but up against a firing squad.

A Mafia hitter emptied his Bull Pup at the Butcher. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think he got his target.

He didn't, because Sullivan popped right up and shot the mob guy as he scurried back toward the safety of the woods. The shooter let out a scream, and then he was quiet. I thought that three of the mob soldiers had been shot so far. Sampson and I weren't hit, but we hadn't been primary targets.

Now what? Who would make the next move? Sullivan? John or me?

Then something strange – I heard a boy's voice. A tiny voice called out, "Dad! Dad! Where are you, Dad?"

Chapter 116

I SWIVELED MY NECK HARD and peered in the direction of the house on the hill. I saw two of the Sullivan boys running down the front steps. They were dressed in their pajamas and had bare feet.

"Get back!" Sullivan screamed at them. "Get inside the house, you two! Get inside!"

Then Caitlin Sullivan rushed out of the house in a bathrobe, trying to hold back her youngest son, then picking him up in her arms. She was screaming bloody murder at the two other boys to come back inside.

Meanwhile, gunshots were happening everywhere, loud blasts that echoed in the night. Bursts of light illuminated trees, boulders, fallen bodies on the grass.

Sullivan kept yelling – "Get back in the house! Get back! Caitlin, get them inside!"

The boys didn't listen; they just kept coming across the lawn toward their father.

One of the hit men turned his gun on the running figures, and I shot him in the side of the neck. He spun around, fell, and stayed down. I thought, I just saved the lives of Sullivan's boys. What did it mean? That we were even for the time he came to my house and didn't kill anybody? Was I supposed to shoot Caitlin Sullivan now as payback for Maria?

Nothing made much sense to me on this dark, bloodstained lawn.

Another hit man zigzagged in a fast retreat until he reached the woods. Then he dove headfirst into the brush. One final hit man stood out in the open. He and Sullivan faced off and fired on each other. The soldier spun and went down, blood rushing from a gaping wound in his face. Sullivan was left standing.

He turned to Sampson and me.

Chapter 117

STALEMATE – at least for the moment. A couple of seconds? And then what happens?

I realized that Sampson's car wasn't a shield between Sullivan and me anymore. His sons had finally stopped running toward him. Caitlin Sullivan had the two smaller ones wrapped in her arms. The oldest boy stood beside her, looking protective, looking a lot like his father. I prayed the boy didn't get into this now too.

"I'm Alex Cross," I told Sullivan. "You came to my house once. Then you killed my wife. Nineteen ninety-three, Washington, DC."

"I know who you are," Sullivan called back. "I didn't kill your wife. I know who I killed."

Then the Butcher took off on a dead run for the woods. I aimed at the square of his back – this was it – but I didn't pull the trigger. I couldn't do it.

Not in the back. Not with his wife and kids here, not under any circumstances.

"Dad!" one of the boys screamed again as Sampson and I took off after his father. "Keep running! Keep running!"

"He's a killer, Alex," Sampson said as we ran over uneven ground covered with high grass, jutting rocks, tree roots. "We need to put him down. You know we do. Don't show mercy to the devil."

I didn't need a reminder; I wasn't going to get careless.

But I hadn't taken the shot when I had it. I hadn't brought down Michael Sullivan when I had the chance.

The woods were dark, but there was enough moonlight to make out shapes and some finer detail. Maybe we'd be able to see Sullivan, but he'd see us too.

The stalemate continued. But one of us was going to die tonight. I knew it and hoped it wouldn't be me. But this had to be finished now. It had been building to this for so long.

I wondered where he was running – if he had an escape plan or if an ambush was coming.

We hadn't seen Sullivan since he'd gotten to the tree line. Maybe he was fast, or maybe he'd taken a sharp turn in another direction. How well did he know the woods?

Was he watching us right now? Getting ready to fire? To spring from behind a tree?

Finally, I saw movement – someone running fast up ahead. It had to be Sullivan! Unless it was the remaining mob guy.

Whoever it was, I didn't have a shot. Too many tree trunks, branches, and limbs in the way.

My breath was coming in short, harsh gasps. I wasn't out of shape, so it had to be the stress of everything going on. 1 was chasing down the son of a bitch who had killed Maria. I'd hated him for more than ten years, and I'd wanted this day to come. I'd even prayed for it.

But I hadn't taken the shot when I had it.

"Where is he?" Sampson was there at my side. Neither of us could see the Butcher. We couldn't hear him running now, either.

Then I heard an engine roar – in the woods! An engine? What kind of engine?

Headlights shone suddenly – two blazing eyes aimed right at us.

A car was coming fast, Sullivan or somebody else crouched at the wheel, down a track the driver knew well.

"Take the shot!" Sampson yelled. "Alex, take the shot!"

Chapter 118

SULLIVAN HAD STASHED A CAR in the woods, probably for an emergency escape like this one. I held my ground, and put one, two, three shots into the driver's side of the windshield.

But the Butcher kept coming!

The car was a dark-colored sedan. Suddenly it slowed. Had I hit him?

I ran forward, stumbled over a rock, cursed loudly. I wasn't thinking about what to do, what not to do, just that this had to end.

Then I saw Sullivan sit up tall inside the car – and he saw me coming for him. I thought I could see his mouth curl into a sneer as he raised his handgun. I ducked just as he shot. He fired again, but I was out of his sight line by inches.

The car started to move again, its engine revving loudly. I quickly holstered my gun and let him slide by me; then I dove onto the car's trunk. I grabbed onto the sides and held tight, my face pressed against cold metal.

"Alex!" I heard Sampson yell behind me. "Get off!"

I wouldn't – couldn't do it.

Sullivan accelerated, but there were too many trees and boulders for him to go very fast. The car hit a rock and bucked high; both front tires left the ground. I was almost thrown off the back, but I held on somehow.

Then Sullivan braked. Hard! I looked up.

He spun around in the front seat. For a fraction of a second we stared at each other, five feet apart, no more than that. I could see blood smeared on the side of his face. He'd been hit, maybe one of my shots through the windshield.

Up came his gun again, and he fired as I jumped off the car's rear end. I landed on the hard ground and kept rolling.

I scrambled to my knees. Drew my gun and aimed it at the car.

I shot twice through the side window. I was screaming at Sullivan – at the Butcher – whoever the hell he was. I wanted him dead, and I wanted to be the one to do it.

This has to end.

Right here, right now.

Somebody dies.

Somebody lives.

Chapter 119

I FIRED AGAIN at the monster who had killed my wife and so many others, usually in unthinkable ways, with butcher hammers, saws, carving knives. Michael "the Butcher" Sullivan, die. Just die, you bastard. You deserve to die if anyone does on this earth.

He was climbing out of the car now.

What was happening? What was he doing?

He started to hobble in the direction of his wife and three sons. Blood was running down his shirt, seeping through, dripping onto his pants and shoes. Then Sullivan plopped down on the lawn beside his family. He hugged them to his sides.

Sampson and I moved forward at a slow run, puzzled by what was happening, unsure what to do next.

I could see streaks of blood on the boys, and all over Caitlin Sullivan. It was their father's blood, the Butcher's. When I got closer, I saw that he looked dazed, as if he might pass out or even die. Then he spoke to me. "She's a good person. She didn't know what I do, still doesn't. These are good boys. Get them away from here, from the Mafia."

I still wanted to kill him, and I was afraid he might live, but I lowered my gun. I couldn't point it at his wife and his kids.

Sullivan laughed, and he suddenly raised his gun to his wife's head. He yanked her up from the ground. "Put down the guns or I'll kill her, Cross. I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'll kill her. Even the boys. It's not a problem for me. That's who I am."

The look on Caitlin Sullivan's face wasn't so much surprise or shock as terrible sadness and disappointment in this man whom she probably loved, or had loved at one time anyway. The youngest boy was screaming at his father, and it was heart-wrenching. "No, Daddy, no! Don't hurt Mommy! Daddy, please!"

"Put the guns down!" Sullivan yelled.

What could I do? I had no choice. Not in my mind, not in my ethical universe. I dropped my Glock.

And Sullivan took a bow.

Then a shot exploded from his gun.

I felt a hard punch in the chest, and I was lifted halfway off the ground. For a second maybe, I was standing on my tiptoes. Dancing? Levitating? Dying?

I heard a second explosion – and then there wasn't much of anything. I knew that I was going to die, that I would never see my family again, and that I had no one to blame but myself.

I'd been warned enough times. I just didn't listen.

The Dragon Slayer no more.

Chapter 120

I WAS WRONG. I didn't die that night outside the Butcher's house, though I can't exactly say that I dodged another bullet.

I got shot up pretty bad, and I spent the next month at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Michael Sullivan took his bow, but then Sampson shot him twice in the chest. He died right there at the house.

I don't regret it. I don't have sympathy for the Butcher. And that probably means I haven't changed as much as I wanted to, that I'm still the Dragon Slayer at least.

Nearly every morning these days, after I see patients, I have a session with Adele Finaly She handles me as well as anybody could. One day, I tell her about the final shootout at the Sullivan house, and how I wanted the satisfaction of revenge, and justice, but I didn't get it. Adele says she understands, but she doesn't have any sympathy, not for Sullivan and not for me, either. We both see the obvious connections between Sullivan and me. Then one of us dies in front of his family.

"He told me that he didn't kill Maria," I tell Adele during the session.

"So what, Alex? You know he was a liar. A psychopath. Killer. Sadist. Piece of dog shit."

"Yes, all of that and more. But I think I believe him. I do. I just don't understand what it means yet. Another mystery to solve."

In another session, we talk about a road trip I made to Wake Forest, North Carolina, which is north of Raleigh. I took the new R350, the family car, the crossover vehicle. I went down there to visit Kayla Coles, to talk to her, to stare into her eyes when she talked to me.

Kayla was in great shape, mentally and physically, and said that she liked her life down there more than she'd expected. She told me that she was staying in Raleigh. "Lots of people to help down here in North Carolina, Alex," she said. "And the quality of life, for me anyway, is better than in Washington. Stay around awhile and check it out."

"Was that an invitation Kayla was giving you?" Adele asks after a silence between us.

"Could have been. An invitation she knew I wouldn't accept."

"Because?"

"Because? Because… I'm Alex Cross," I say.

"And that isn't going to change, is it? I'm just asking. Not as a therapist, Alex, as your friend."

"I don't know if it is. I want to change some things about my life. That's why I'm here. Besides the fact that I kind of enjoy shooting the breeze with you. All right, the answer is no, I'm not going to change all that much."

"Because you're Alex Cross?"

"Yes."

"Good," says Adele. "That's a start. And Alex -"

"Yeah?"

"I enjoy shooting the breeze with you too. You're one of a kind."

Chapter 121

ONE MORE MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED.

On a night in the spring, Sampson and I walked on Fifth Street, just hanging out together. Comfortable, like it's always been between the two of us. We were brown-bagging it with a couple of beers. Sampson had on Wayfarer sunglasses and an old Kangol hat I hadn't seen on his big head in years.

We passed old clapboard houses that have been here since we were kids and didn't look all that different now, though a lot of DC has changed tremendously, for good and bad, and something in between.

"I was worried about you up there in that hospital," he said.

"I was worried about myself. I was starting to get a Massachusetts accent. All those broad a's. And I was becoming politically correct."

"Something I need to talk to you about. Been on my mind a lot."

"I'm listening. Nice night for a talk."

"Little hard to get into it, to get started. This happened maybe two, three months after Maria was killed," Sampson continued. "You remember a neighborhood guy, Clyde Wills?"

"I remember Wills very well. Drug runner with lofty aspirations. Until they got him killed and dumped in a trash bin behind a Popeyes Chicken, if I recall."

"You got it right. Wills was a snitch for Rakeem Powell when Rakeem was a detective in the 103."

"Uh- huh. I'm not surprised Wills played both sides of the street. Where is this going?"

"That's what I'm going to tell you, sugar. That's what I'm trying to do. Clyde Wills found out some things about Maria – like who might have killed her," Sampson went on.

I didn't say anything, but a chill ran down my back. I kept walking forward, legs a little unsteady.

"It wasn't Michael Sullivan?" I asked. "Just like he said."

"He had a partner those days," Sampson said. "Tough guy from his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, name of James 'Hats' Galati. Galati was the one who shot Maria. Sullivan wasn't there. He may have put Galati up to it. Or maybe Galati was gunning for you."

I didn't say anything. To be honest, I couldn't. Besides, I wanted to let Sampson finish what he had come here to do. He stared straight ahead as he walked and talked, never once looking at me.

"Rakeem and I investigated. Took us a few weeks, Alex. We worked the case hard. Even went to Brooklyn. But we couldn't get any hard proof against Galati. We knew he did it, though. He'd talked about the hit to friends in New York. Galati had been trained as a sniper in the army down at Fort Bragg."

"You met Anthony Mullino back then, didn't you? That's why he remembered you?"

Sampson nodded. "So here's the thing, here's the thing I've been carrying around ever since. I have a lot of trouble just saying it now. We put the mutt down, Alex. Rakeem and I killed Jimmy Galati one night in Brooklyn. I could never tell you, 'til right now. I tried back then. I wanted to when we started looking for Sullivan again. But I couldn't."

"Sullivan was a killer, a bad one," I said. "He needed to be caught."

Sampson didn't say any more than that, and neither did I. We walked for a while more; then he trailed away and headed home, I guess, down those same streets where we grew up together. He'd taken care of Maria's killer for me. He'd done what he thought was right, but he knew that I couldn't have lived with it. So he never told me about it, not even when we were chasing after Sullivan. I didn't quite understand that last part, but you never get to understand everything. Maybe I'd ask John about it some other time.

That night at home I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't think straight. Finally, I went in and bunked with Ali again. He was sleeping like an angel, not a care in the world.

I lay there, and I thought about what Sampson had told me and how much I loved him, no matter what had happened. Then I thought about Maria and how much I'd loved her.

You helped me so much, I whispered to my memory of her. You knocked the chip off my shoulder. Taught me how to believe in love, to know there is such a thing, no matter how hard it is to come by. So help me now, Maria… I need to be over you, sweet girl. You know what I mean. I need to be over you so I can start up my life again.

Suddenly I heard a voice in the dark, and it startled me because I'd been somewhere else in my mind, far away from the present.

"Daddy, you all right?"

I hugged Ali lightly against my chest. "I'm all right now. Of course I am. Thanks for asking. I love you, buddy."

"I love you, Daddy. I'm your little man," he said.

Yeah. That's all there is to it.