French Pressed

Prologue

Stabbing flesh was no big deal. That was the way to think about it. The boy was just another piece of meat…

From across the dark avenue, the killer stood, expression grim. There were three stories in the redbrick building, six apartments, a roofless porch. The boy was alone on the highest floor. Through bright windows, the killer watched him pacing. He looked like an animal, like panicked game.

This wasn’t something the killer wanted, but the decision had been made. Now time was a slow freeze and the waiting was unbearable on this dank, noisy street. Pub crawlers stumbled along littered sidewalks, Latino teens clustered amid grimy subway girders, and cop cars patrolled too visibly beneath the Number 7 line’s elevated tracks.

The killer hugged shadows, tried to stay hidden, maneuver some shelter from the pitiless wind. Glacial gusts continued to whip down Roosevelt, straight off the East River a mile away. Manhattan had been warmer, the killer thought. Queens was an ice cave, its buildings too low to dull the lash.

Finally, on the street, an opportunity came: a take-out delivery for someone inside. The brown-skinned man in the bright green jacket buzzed the intercom. Behind three pizzas and a liter of soda, the killer slipped in.

Laughter exploded behind a thin door. Some kind of party. A game on TV.

Noise, thought the killer, noise was good.

There were thirty-nine steps to the third floor, thirteen to each landing. The door to the boy’s apartment was cheap, nothing more than flimsy wood. The killer loitered quietly in front of it, one minute, two…

The breathing must be even, the killer reasoned. The hand must be steady.

The killer knocked lightly, like a neighbor, like a friend. The boy answered fast, expecting someone else. Confusion set in. There’d been no buzzer. No request for entry. His brown eyes went wide. Anxiety. Dread.

“What do you want?”

“To explain,” the killer said. The smile seemed to help. “You might have gotten the wrong idea…about what you heard last night. Let me come in and talk to you.”

The killer’s right pocket was a holster now. Resting inside was the hard silver handle of the ten-inch blade, which poked through the lining. The coat was long enough to conceal the threat, old enough to be discarded after.

“I can quit my internship,” the boy pleaded. “I don’t have to go back to the restaurant. Not ever. How about that?”

“Did you tell anyone, Vinny? What you heard last night?”

“No! No one!”

“Then let’s sit down and discuss it. You don’t have to quit. I’ll just explain everything, and you won’t have to worry anymore.”

“Well…” the boy said, glancing into the empty hall. “Okay…I guess you can come in.”

“Thanks, Vinny.”

Gloved fingers slipped inside the coat pocket, grasped the silver handle. The French blade was steel, high carbon and stainless, sharp as a surgical instrument, manufactured for the utmost precision.

Precise, the killer thought, I must be precise. No flinching. No hesitation. Thrust down fast. Plunge hard and true…

Vinny turned his back, and the knife went in smoothly, past skin, through muscle, avoiding bone. The flailing was minimal, the noise a weak howl. It was done now—over. And so was Vincent Buccelli. The boy was just another piece of meat.