Blindsight (25 page)

"It means we have to get the hell out of here," Angelo said. "Come on."
Moving as quickly as they could in the semidarkness, they ran down the stairs. Rounding the bend onto the first floor, they practically ran into a housekeeper who was on her way up. The housekeeper screamed, turned, and fled back down the way she'd come. Tony fired his Bantam, but at distances greater than six feet, his gun wasn't accurate. The slug missed the housekeeper, shattering a large gold-framed mirror instead. "We have to get her," Angelo said, knowing that the woman had gotten a good look at them. He threw himself down the stairs, the flight bag bouncing its shoulder straps. Reaching the bottom, he skidded on the marble strewn with shards of mirror. Regaining his footing, he hurled himself down the first-floor hallway toward the back of the house. Ahead he could see the woman struggling to open a pair of French doors leading to the backyard. Before he could catch her, she was out the door, pulling it closed behind her. Angelo got there just seconds behind her. Tony was right behind him. They ran out after her only to trip on a pair of garden chairs they couldn't see in the dark.
Angelo peered into the darkness. The backyard could have passed for a public park. There was a rectangular reflecting pool in the center of the space. To the right was an ivy-covered gazebo that was lost in shadow. A thick oak had a swing hanging from a broad branch. Nowhere could Angelo spot the woman.
"Where did she go?" Tony whispered.
"If I knew would I be standing here?" Angelo said. "You go that way and I'll go this way." He pointed to either side of the pool.
The two men groped their way around the garden. They strained to look into the dark recesses of the ferns and shrubbery.
"There she is!" Tony said, pointing back at the house. Angelo fired two shots at the fleeing woman. The first bullet shattered the glass of the French doors. After the second, he saw the woman stumble and fall. "You got her!" Tony cried.
"Let's get out of here," Angelo said. He could hear sirens in the distance. It was hard to be sure, but they seemed to be approaching.
Not wanting to risk coming out of the front of the house, Angelo turned to the back wall of the garden. Spotting a door on the far side of the pond, he yelled, "Come on!" to Tony. Angelo reached the door first. He unbolted the dead bolt securing the door and rushed into a debris-strewn alleyway. They made their way down the darkened path, trying each garden door they passed. Tony finally found one with nearly rotten planking and broke through. The garden they found themselves in seemed as neglected as the door.

"Now what?" Tony said.
"That way," Angelo said. He pointed to a dark passageway leading toward the front of the house. At the end of the passageway they came to a bolted door, but it was bolted from the inside. Passing through it, they found themselves on Eighty-fifth Street. Angelo brushed off his clothes. Tony followed his example. "Okay," said Angelo. "Now be cool, confident, relaxed."
The pair walked slowly down the street and around the corner as if they called the neighborhood home. Slowly they made their way to Angelo's car. The sirens had indeed been heading for the brownstone they'd just left. Ahead they could see three squad cars with emergency lights flashing, blocking the street in front of the house where they'd made the hit. Angelo unlocked his car doors with a remote control and the two men climbed in. "That was awesome!" Tony said excitedly once they were a half dozen blocks away. "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen."
Angelo scowled at him. "It was a disaster," he said. "What do you mean?" Tony questioned. "We got away. No problem. And you got the housekeeper. You dropped her right in her tracks."
"But we didn't check her," Angelo said. "How do I know if I really got her or just winged her? We should have checked her. She looked directly at both of us." "She dropped quickly," Tony said. "I think you hit her real good." "This is what I mean: screw-ups happen. How would we have guessed the guy would sleep holding a panic-button alarm?" Angelo was glad he had the wheel to grip; his hands were shaking. "Okay, so we got the "bad luck' hit out of the way," Tony said. "Now you can't say that things are going too well. What's next?"
"I'm not sure," Angelo said. "Maybe we should call it a night." "What for?" Tony questioned. "The night is young. Come on! Let's at least do one more. We can't pass up this kind of money."
Angelo thought for a minute. Intuition told him to call it a night, but Tony was right. The money
was
good. Besides, hits were like riding horses: you fall off, you get back on. Otherwise you may never ride again. "All right," he said finally. "We'll do one more." "That's what I like to hear," Tony said. "Where to?" "Down in the Village. Another town house." Angelo took the Ninety-seventh Street transverse across Central Park and got on the Henry Hudson

Parkway.
For a while they didn't talk. Each was recovering from the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum: Angelo from fear and anxiety and Tony from pure exhilaration. Neither noticed the black Cadillac in the distance.
"It will be up here on the left," Angelo said once they turned onto Bleecker Street. He pointed to a three-story town house with a lion's head knocker on the front door. Tony nodded as they drove past. Angelo felt his pulse start quickening. "It's the man this time," he said. "Same plan as before. You do him, I'll cover the wife."
"Got it," Tony said, thrilled to have yet another turn. This time Angelo parked farther away than usual. They walked back in silence except for the occasional clank of tools in Angelo's flight bag. They passed a few pedestrians. The streets weren't empty as they had been uptown; the Village was always livelier than the Upper East Side.
The alarm at the targeted house was child's play for Angelo. Within minutes he and Tony were tiptoeing up the creaking stairs.
Conveniently, there was a small night-light plugged into a socket in the upstairs hall. The rosy glow it cast was just enough to see by.
The first door Angelo tried proved to be an empty guest room. Since there was only one other door on the floor, he assumed it was to the master suite. Once again the two men positioned themselves on either side of the door, holding their guns alongside their heads. Angelo turned the knob and briskly pushed open the door. Angelo managed one step into the room when a snarling dog sprang at him in the half-light. The beast's paws hit him in the chest, knocking him back through the door to the opposite wall of the hall. The dog snapped at him, biting through his jacket, shirt, and even a bit of his skin. Angelo wasn't sure, but he thought it was a Doberman. It was too long and lean for a pit bull, although it certainly had the temperament. Whatever it was, it had Angelo terrorized and effectively pinned. Tony moved quickly. He stepped to the side and shot the dog from point-blank range in the chest. He was sure he'd hit his mark, but the dog didn't flinch. With a snarl he ripped another large patch of cloth out of Angelo's jacket and spit it out. Then he lunged for another bite. Tony waited until he had a clear shot before pulling the trigger again. This time he hit the dog in the head, and the animal went instantly limp, hitting the floor with a solid thud. A woman's scream sent new chills down Angelo's spine. The woman of the house had awakened just in time to see her dog slaughtered. She was standing a few feet from the foot of her bed, her face contorted in horror.
Tony raised his gun, and again there was a hissing thump. The woman's scream was cut short. Her hand went to her chest. Pulling her hand away, she looked at the spot of blood. Her facial expression was one

of bewilderment, as if she could not believe she'd been shot.
Tony stepped over the threshold into the bedroom. Raising his gun again, he shot her at point-blank range in the center of her forehead. Like the dog, she collapsed instantly in a heap on the floor. Angelo started to speak, but before he could say anything, there was a frightful yell from the first floor as the husband charged up the stairs with a double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun. He held the gun in both hands at waist height.
Sensing what was about to happen, Angelo threw himself onto the floor just as the shotgun discharged with a powerful concussion. In the confined area the sound was horrendous, making Angelo's ears ring. The concentrated buckshot blew a hole twelve inches in diameter in the wall where Angelo had been standing.
Even Tony had to react by reflex, throwing himself to the side to avoid the open bedroom doorway. The second blast of the shotgun traveled the length of the bedroom and blew out one of the rear windows. From his position on the floor, Angelo fired his Walther twice in rapid succession, hitting the husband in the chest and the chin. The force of the bullets stopped the man's forward momentum. Then, in a kind of slow motion he tipped backward. With a terrible racket he fell down the stairs and ended up on the floor below.
Tony reappeared from the bedroom and ran down the stairs to put an additional bullet into the fallen man's head. Angelo picked himself and his flight bag off the floor. He was shaking. He'd never come so close to death. Rushing down the stairs on shaky legs, he told Tony that they had to get the hell out of there.
When they got to the front door, Angelo stood on his tiptoes to look out. What he saw he didn't like. There was a handful of people gathered in front of the building, gazing up at its facade. No doubt they'd heard glass smash when the bedroom window was blown out. Maybe they'd heard both shotgun blasts. "Out the back!" Angelo said. He knew they couldn't risk a confrontation with this crowd. They easily scaled the chain-link fence in the backyard. There wasn't even any barbed wire at the top to worry about. Once they made it over, they went through a neighboring backyard and through to another street. Angelo was glad he'd parked as far away as he had. They made it to his car without incident. Sirens started in the distance just as they were pulling away. "What the hell kind of dog was that?" Tony asked as they cruised up Sixth Avenue. "I think it was a Doberman," Angelo said. "It scared the life out of me." "You and me both," Tony agreed. "And that shotgun. That was close." "Too close. We should have called it quits after the first job." Angelo shook his head in disgust. "Maybe I'm getting too old for this stuff."
"No way," Tony said. "You're the best." "I used to think so," Angelo said. He glanced down at his tattered Brioni jacket in despair. By force of habit he glanced in the rearview mirror, but nothing he saw worried him. Of course, he was looking for cop cars, not Franco Ponti's sedan, which was pursuing them at a discreet distance.

10
6:45 a.m., Friday
Manhattan
Ordinarily Laurie would be pleased to have slept through the night. Although no one from the medical examiner's office had called her to report any more upscale overdose cases for her series, she wondered if that meant there had been no such overdoses or, as her intuition suggested, there had been and she had simply not been called. She dressed as quickly as she could and didn't even bother with coffee, so eager was she to get to work and find out.
The moment she stepped inside the medical examiner's office, she could tell that something out of the ordinary had happened. Once again there was a group of reporters huddled in the reception area. Laurie felt the knot in her stomach tighten as she wondered what their restless presence could mean. Going directly to the ID office, she helped herself to a cup of coffee before doing anything else. Vinnie, as usual, had his nose in the sports page. Apparently none of the other associate medical examiners had yet arrived. Laurie picked up the sheet at the scheduling desk to check the cases to be posted that day. As her eyes ran down the list, she saw four drug overdoses. Two were scheduled for Riva and two were scheduled for George Fontworth, a fellow who'd been with the office for four years. Laurie flipped through the folders intended for Riva and glanced at the investigator's report sheet. Judging by the Harlem addresses, Laurie figured they were the common crack-house deaths. Relieved, Laurie put the folder down. Then she picked up the two for George. Reading the first investigator's report, her pulse quickened. The deceased was Wendell Morrison, aged thirty-six, a medical doctor! With a shaky hand, Laurie opened the last folder: Julia Myerholtz, aged twenty-nine, art historian! Laurie breathed out. She hadn't been aware that she'd been holding her breath. Her intuition had been correct: there'd been two more cocaine overdose cases with similar demographics as the others. She felt a mixture of emotions including anger about not having been called as she'd requested and confirmation that her fears had come to pass. At the same time she felt sorry there had been two more potentially preventable deaths.
Laurie went straight to the forensic investigator's office and found Bart Arnold. She knocked loudly on his door and walked in before he had a chance to invite her. "Why wasn't I called? I spoke to you specifically about this. I told you I wanted to be called on cocaine overdoses that fall within certain demographic parameters. Last night there were two. I wasn't called. Why?"
"I was told you were not to be called," Bart said. "Why not?" Laurie questioned.
"I wasn't given a reason," Bart said. "But I passed the word on to the tour doctors when they came on

duty."
"Who told you this?" Laurie asked.
"Dr. Washington," Bart said. "I'm sorry, Laurie. I would have told you myself, but you had already gone for the day."
Laurie abruptly turned and walked out of Bart's office. She was more angry than hurt. Her worst fears had been confirmed: she hadn't been overlooked accidentally, there was a deliberate effort going on to keep her out of the way. Just outside the police liaison office she saw Lou Soldano. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" Lou asked. Laurie stared at him. Didn't the guy ever get any sleep? Once again he looked as if he'd been up all night. He hadn't shaved and his eyes were red-rimmed. His close-cropped hair was matted down on his forehead.
"I'm quite busy, Lieutenant," Laurie said. "Just a moment of your time," Lou repeated. "Please." "All right," Laurie relented. "What is it?" "I had a little time to think last night," Lou said. "I wanted to apologize for being such a boob yesterday afternoon. I came on a little stronger than I should have. So, I'm sorry." The last thing she'd expected from Lou was an apology. Now that it was being offered, she was gratified to hear it.
"As kind of an explanation," Lou continued, "I'm under a lot of pressure from the commissioner about these gangland-style murders. He thinks that since I'd spent time on organized crime, I should be the one to solve them. Unfortunately he's not a patient man." "I guess we're both pretty stressed," Laurie said. "But your apology is accepted." "Thank you," Lou said. "At least that's one hurdle out of the way." "So what brings you here this morning?" "You haven't heard about the homicides?" "What homicides?" Laurie asked. "We get homicides every day." "Not like these," Lou said. "More gangland stuff. Professional hits. Two couples here in Manhattan." "Floating in the river?" Laurie asked.
"Nope," Lou said. "Shot in their homes. Both of the couples were well-to-do, one in particular. And the wealthier one is also politically connected." "Uh-oh," Laurie said. "More pressure."