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  The Greaseball was up quickly. He stood in a protective crouch on the far side of the king-size bed. He was a short, potbellied, hirsute man in his midforties. He looked groggy and still out of it, maybe drugged up. But John Sampson wasn’t fooled by his physical appearance—this man was a stone-cold killer. And much worse.

  A pretty, naked young girl with long blond hair and fair white skin was still on the bed. She tried to cover her small breasts and shaved genital area. Sampson knew her name, Paulina Sroka, and that she was from Poland originally. Sampson had known she would be here and that Giametti was rumored to be madly in love with the blond beauty he’d imported from Europe six months ago. According to sources, the Greaseball had killed the girl’s best friend because she’d refused to have anal sex with him.

  “You don’t have to be afraid,” Sampson said to Paulina. “We’re the Washington police. You’re not in any trouble. He is.”

  “Just shut the hell up!” Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both confused and scared. “Don’t say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I’m warning you!”

  Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.

  “Don’t say a word!” Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was pressed into the shag rug. “Don’t talk to them, Paulie! I’m warning you! You hear me?”

  The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets, attempting to cover herself with a man’s shirt she’d been given by the detectives.

  She finally spoke in the softest whisper. “He make me do anything he say. He do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying—everything you could imagine. I can hardly walk . . . I am fourteen years old.”

  Sampson turned to Handler. “You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the hell out of here. I don’t want to touch the slime.”

  Chapter 38

  AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station house. Sampson wouldn’t take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it bleed. Giametti didn’t seem to notice it himself.

  Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary questioning, but Giametti didn’t have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and observed, sizing up both men.

  So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he looked. “I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed. Sleeping—just like when you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She’s a scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?”

  Sampson finally pushed himself forward in his seat. He’d heard enough bullshit for tonight. “Anybody ever tell you you could do stand-up?” he asked. And, Marion, you could be his straight man.

  “Matter of fact, yeah,” Giametti said, and smirked. “Couple of people told me that exact same thing. You know what? I think they were cops too.”

  “Paulina has already told us she saw you kill her friend Alexa. Alexa was sixteen years old when she died. The girl was garroted!”

  Giametti slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. “The crazy little bitch. Paulie is lying through her teeth. What’d you do, threaten to send her back? Deport her to Poland? That’s her biggest fear.”

  Sampson shook his head. “No, I said we’d help her stay in America if we could. Get her into school. The best. Do the right thing by her.”

  “She’s lying, and she’s nuts. I’m telling you, that pretty little girl is two kinds of crazy.”

  Sampson nodded slowly. “She’s lying? All right, then how about Roberto Gallo? Is he lying too? He saw you kill Alexa and stuff the body in the trunk of your Lincoln. He made that up?”

  “Of course he made it up. That’s total bullshit; it’s complete crap. You know it. I know it. Bobby Gallo knows it. Alexa? Who the hell is Alexa? Paulie’s imaginary friend?”

  Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders. “How would I know Gallo’s story is bullshit?”

  “Because it never happened, that’s how! Because Bobby Gallo probably made a deal with you.”

  “You mean—it didn’t happen that way? Gallo wasn’t actually an eyewitness? But Paulina was. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Giametti frowned and shook his head. “You think I’m stupid, Detective Sampson? I’m not stupid.”

  Sampson spread his hands to indicate the small, very bright interview room. “But here you are.”

  Giametti thought about it for a few seconds. Then he gestured toward Handler. “Tell Junior here to go take a nice long walk off a short pier. I want to talk to you. Just you and me, big man.”

  Sampson looked over at Marion Handler. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you take a break, Marion?”

  Handler didn’t like it, but he got up and left the interrogation room. He made a lot of noise on the way out, like a petulant high school kid who’d just been given detention.

  Sampson didn’t say anything once he and Giametti were alone. He was still observing the mobster, trying to get under the punk’s skin. The guy was a murderer—that much he knew. And Giametti also had to know that he was up shit creek right now. Paulina Sroka was fourteen years old.

  “The strong, silent type?” Giametti smirked again. “That your act, big boy?”

  Still not a word from Sampson. It went on that way for several minutes.

  Giametti finally leaned forward, and he spoke in a quiet, serious voice. “Look, you know this is bullshit, right? No murder weapon. No body. I didn’t clip any little Polack girl named Alexa. And Paulie is crazy. Trust me on that one. She’s young in years, but she’s no little girl. She was hooking in the old country. You know about that?”

  Sampson finally spoke. “Here’s what I know, and what I can prove. You were having sex with a fourteen-year-old in your own house.”

  Giametti shook his head. “She’s not fourteen. She’s a little whore. Anyway, I have something for you, something to trade. It’s about a friend of yours—Alex Cross. You listening, Detective? Hear this. I know who killed his wife. I know where he is now too.”

  Chapter 39

  JOHN SAMPSON GOT OUT of his car slowly, and he trudged along the familiar stone walkway, then up the front stairs of the Cross family house on Fifth Street.

  He hesitated at the door, trying to collect his thoughts, to calm himself down if he could. This wasn’t going to be easy, and no one would know this more than he did. He knew things about Maria Cross’s murder that even Alex didn’t.

  Finally, he reached forward and rang the bell. He must have done this a thousand times in his life, but it never felt like it did now.

  No good would come of this visit. Nothing good whatsoever. It might even end a long friendship.

  A moment later, Sampson was surprised that it was Nana Mama who came to the door. The old girl was dressed in a flowery blue robe and looked even tinier than usual, like an ancient bird that ought to be worshipped. And in this house, she surely was, even by him.

  “John, what’s the matter now? What is it? I’m almost afraid to ask. Well, come inside, come inside. You’ll scare all the neighbors.”

  “They’re already scared, Nana,” Sampson drawled, and attempted a smile. “This is Southeast, remember?”

  “Don’t try to make a joke out of this, John. Don’t you dare. What are you here for?”

  Sampson suddenly felt like he was a teenager again, caught in one of Nana’s infamous stern glares. There was something so damn familiar about this scene. It reminded him of the time he and Alex got caught stealing records at Grady’s while they were in middle school. Or the time they were smoking weed behind John Car
roll High School and got busted by an assistant principal, and Nana had to come to get them released.

  “I have to talk to Alex,” Sampson said. “It’s important, Nana. We need to wake him up.”

  “And why is that?” she tapped one extended foot and asked. “Quarter past three in the morning. Alex doesn’t work for the city of Washington anymore. Why can’t everybody just leave him be? You of all people, John Sampson. You know better than to come around here now, middle of the night, looking for his help again.”

  Sampson didn’t usually argue with Nana Mama, but this time he did. “I’m afraid it can’t wait, Nana. And I don’t need Alex’s help this time. He needs mine.”

  Then Sampson walked right past Nana and into the Cross house—uninvited.

  Chapter 40

  IT WAS ALMOST 4:00 A.M., and Sampson and I were riding back to the First District station house in his car. I was wide awake now, and wired. My nervous system felt like it was vibrating.

  Maria’s murderer? After all these years? Was it even a faint possibility that the killer could be caught so many years after my wife was shot down? The whole thing felt unreal to me. Back then, I’d been all over the case for a year, and I’d never completely given up the chase. And now we might suddenly find the killer? Was it possible?

  We arrived at the station house on Fourth Street and hurried inside, neither of us talking. A precinct house during the night shift can be a lot like an emergency room: You never know what to expect when you step inside. This time, I didn’t have a clue, but I couldn’t wait to talk to Giametti.

  It seemed unusually quiet when we walked in the front door—but that all changed in a hurry. It was obvious to both Sampson and me that something was wrong when we got down to the holding cells. Half a dozen detectives and uniforms were standing around. They looked way too alert and anxious for this time of morning. Something was definitely up.

  Sampson’s new partner, Marion Handler, spotted us and hustled over to John. Handler ignored me, and I did my best to pay him no mind, either. I’d talked to him a couple of times, and I thought the detective was a showy punk. I wondered why John put up with him the way he did.

  Maybe he saw something in Handler that I didn’t, or maybe Sampson was finally mellowing just a little.

  “You’re not gonna believe this shit. It’s off the charts,” he said to Sampson. “Somebody got to Giametti. I shit you not, Sampson. He’s over there dead in his cell. Somebody got to him in here.”

  I was feeling numb all over as Handler led us back to the last holding cell on the block. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. First we had a lead on Maria’s killer’s whereabouts, and then the man who gave us that lead was murdered? In here?

  “He even had a private room,” Handler said to Sampson. “How could they get to him in here? Right under our noses?”

  Sampson and I ignored the question as we stepped inside the last cell on the right. There were two evidence techies working around the body, but I could see all I needed to. An ice pick had been driven right up Gino Giametti’s nose. It looked like the pick had been used to gouge out his eyes first.

  “See no evil,” said Sampson in his deep, flat voice. “Has to be the mob.”

  Chapter 41

  WHEN I GOT HOME later that morning, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep very well. So what was new about that? The kids were off at school, Nana was out; the house was quiet as a tomb.

  Nana had put up another of her goofy “mistake” newspaper headlines on the fridge: JUVENILE COURT TO TRY SHOOTING VICTIM. Pretty funny, but I wasn’t in the mood for smiles, even at the expense of journalists. I played the piano on the sunporch and drank a glass of red wine, but nothing seemed to help.

  I could see Maria’s face and hear her voice inside my head. I wondered, Why do we begin to forget, then sometimes remember with such clarity people we’ve lost? Everything about Maria, about our time together, seemed to have been stirred up inside me again.

  Finally, around ten thirty, I made my way upstairs to my room. There had been too many days and nights like this. I would make my way up to bed and sleep there alone. What was that all about?

  I lay down on the bed and shut my eyes, but I didn’t really expect to sleep, just rest. I’d been thinking about Maria since I left the station house on Fourth Street. Some of the images I saw were of Maria and me when the kids were little—the good and the hard parts, too, not just selective memories of the sentimental stuff.

  I tensed up in bed thinking about her, and I finally understood something useful about the present—that I wanted my life to make sense again. Simple enough, right? But could it still happen? Could I move on?

  Well, maybe. There was somebody. Somebody I cared about enough to make some changes for. Or was I just fooling myself again? I finally drifted off into a restless, dreamless sleep, which was about as good as it got these days.

  Chapter 42

  ALL I HAD TO DO was move on, right? Make some intelligent changes in my life. I’d gotten rid of Maria’s old junker and moved onward and upward to our cross-vehicle. What could be so hard about making some other changes? And why did I keep failing at it?

  Alex has a big date, I told myself at various times during the following Friday. That’s why I’d picked the New Heights Restaurant on Calvert Street over in Woodley Park. New Heights was a big-date sort of place. Dr. Kayla Coles was meeting me there after she finished work—early, by her standards anyway—at nine.

  I took a seat at our table, partly because I was afraid they might give it away if Kayla showed up late—which she did, at around quarter after.

  Her being late didn’t matter to me. I was just happy to see her. Kayla was a pretty woman, with a radiant smile, but more important, I liked spending time with her. It seemed like we always had something to talk about. Just the opposite of a lot of couples I know.

  “Wow,” I said, and winked when I saw her gliding across the dining room. She had on flats, possibly because she’s five foot ten without them, or maybe just because she’s sane and can’t stand the discomfort of heels.

  “Wow, yourself! You look good too, Alex. And this view. I love this place.”

  I had asked to be seated at a bank of windows overlooking Rock Creek Park, and it was kind of spectacular, I had to admit. The same could be said for Kayla, who was decked out in a white silk jacket with a beige camisole, long black pants, and a pretty gold sash tied around her waist, gently falling off to the side.

  We ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir and then had a terrific meal, highlighted by a black-bean-and-goat-cheese pâté that we shared; her arctic char, my au poivre rib eye; and bittersweet chocolate praline crumble for two. Everything about the New Heights Restaurant worked great for us: the cherry trees out front, in bloom in the fall; some pretty interesting local art up on the walls; delicious cooking smells—fennel, roasted garlic—permeating the dining room; candlelight just about everywhere our eyes went. Mostly, though, my eyes were on Kayla, usually on her eyes, which were deep brown, beautiful, and intelligent.

  After dinner, she and I took a walk across the Duke Ellington Bridge toward Adams Morgan and Columbia Road. We stopped at one of my favorite stores in Washington, Crooked Beat Records, and I bought some Alex Chilton and Coltrane for her from Neil Becton, one of the owners and an old friend who once wrote for the Post. Then Kayla and I wound up in Kabani Village, just a few steps from the street. We had mojitos and watched a theater workshop for the next hour.

  On the walk back to my car we held hands and continued to talk up a storm. Then Kayla kissed me—on the cheek.

  I didn’t know what to make of that. “Thank you for the night,” she said. “It was perfect, Alex. Just like you.”

  “It was nice, wasn’t it?” I said, still reeling a little from the sisterly kiss.

  She smiled. “I’ve never seen you so relaxed.”

  I think it was the best thing she could have said, and it sort of made up for the kiss on the cheek. Sort of.

&
nbsp; Then Kayla kissed me on the mouth, and I kissed her back. That was much better, and so was the rest of the night at her apartment in Capitol Hill. For a few hours anyway, it felt like my life was starting to make some sense again.

  Chapter 43

  THE BUTCHER HAD always felt that Venice, Italy, was kind of overrated, to be honest.

  But nowadays, with the unending onslaught of tourists, especially the rush of arrogant, hopelessly naive Americans, anyone with a quarter of a brain would have to agree with him. Or maybe not, since most people he knew were complete imbeciles when you came right down to it. He’d learned that by the time he was fifteen and out on the streets of Brooklyn, after he’d run away from home for the third or fourth time as an adolescent, a troubled youth, a victim of circumstances, or maybe just a born psychopath.

  He had arrived outside Venice by car and parked in the Piazzale Roma. Then, as he hurried to catch a water taxi to his destination, he could see the excitement, or maybe even reverence for Venice, on nearly every face he passed. Dumbasses and sheep. Not one of them had ever entertained an original idea or come to a conclusion without the aid of a stupid guidebook. Still, even he had to admit that the cluster of ancient villas slowly sinking into the swamp could be visually arresting in the right light, especially at a distance.

  Once he was on board the water taxi, though, he thought of nothing but the job ahead—Martin and Marcia Harris.

  Or so their unsuspecting neighbors and friends in Madison, Wisconsin, believed. It didn’t matter who the couple really was—though Sullivan knew their identity. More important, they represented a hundred thousand dollars already deposited in his Swiss account, plus expenses, for just a couple days’ work. He was considered one of the most successful assassins in the world, and you got what you paid for, except maybe in L.A. restaurants. He’d been a little surprised when he was hired by John Maggione, but it was good to be working.