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  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 déjà 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 wi
ndier 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 earsplitting 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 gu
y 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.”