Hard Candy (22 page)

147

M
AX SAW it first. Rapped the table to get our attention. A trailer running at the bottom of one of the soap operas. HOSTAGE SITUATION IN RIVERDALE SCHOOL… ARMED TERRORISTS SEIZE ST. IGNATIUS…POLICE AND FBI ON THE SCENE…STAY TUNED.

"No way," the Prof said.

But I knew.

The soap opera played on. At two–fifteen, they broke in for a live report. Guy in a trench coat, hand–held microphone, sound truck behind him.

"We have no details yet. Apparently, an armed team of terrorists has captured the school. The doors and exits are blocked. The terrorists arrived in a rental truck and entered the school disguised in some way. The police were alerted by a phone call from inside. There was machine–gun fire. If the camera will just pan over…you can see the truck on the edge of the school yard. This is as close as the police will allow us to go. We understand there has been a telephone hookup to the terrorists, and the Hostage Negotiation Team is in place."

The anchorman from "Live at Five" cut in. I guess they told him to report to work early. Wesley would have been pleased. And the anchorman asked the right question. "Tom, you say shots were fired. Were they fired by the terrorists?"

"We just don't know. The police have a tight ring around the school."

"Tell us something about the school."

"St. Ignatius is an exclusive private school here in Riverdale. One of the oldest prep schools in the area. Grades nine through twelve. Some of the most prominent families in the city send their children here."

I clicked on the radio. They had a crew at the scene too. The reporter said something about a media demand, whatever that meant.

Back to the TV. The field reporter was on camera. "It seems that the terrorists have herded the children into the gymnasium. One of them just broke a window. We can see somebody attaching a bullhorn of some kind. I think they're going to make their demands…"

A cop's voice. "You! Inside! What do you want? You can't get out!"

The bullhorn fired back. A measured, unexcited voice. A machine talking through a machine. "I want a helicopter to take us to the airport. I want a fucking 747 to take us to Cuba. You got that, pigs?"

"Crazy bastard thinks it's 1969," the Prof said.

"Let the kids go!" the cop shouted back. "Let the kids go and we'll get you the plane."

"Dumb–ass motherfucker forgot the ransom." The Prof shook his head sadly.

The camera held steady on the school. The field reporter read from a list of famous people whose kids were inside. Tomorrow's judges, politicians, mobsters. The seeds Wesley wanted to burn out of the ground.

"You! Inside!" The cop on the bullhorn again. "We've got the plane for you! Waiting at the airport! Let the hostages go and we'll send in some police officers to take their place! Unarmed!"

The monster's voice cracked back. "Bring more cops! You need more cops! Lots of cops!"

"Oh shit!" the Prof muttered, no questions left.

Camera panned to the SWAT team. Riflemen with scopes. Cops in riot gear—helmets with faceplates, flak jackets, pump shotguns. A cauldron coming to a boil.

The announcer's professional voice came through, just the trace of a tremble inside.

"There's a man on the roof! Get the camera on him."

A man standing there in jungle fatigues, field cap hiding his eyes, gloves on his hands.

The rented truck exploded. A greenish cloud filled the screen. Bursts of machine–gun fire ripped. Screams and shouts from everywhere. The announcer held his ground.

"The unknown man on the roof has apparently detonated the explosion in the terrorists' truck here on the ground…the crowd is taking cover. A squad of policemen has gone around to the back of the school to try and gain access to the roof. The darkness you see on your screen isn't your picture…apparently some type of gas has been released from the truck…we're about five hundred yards from the scene…the gas is lifting…we don't know how many terrorists are left inside."

The camera focused on the lone madman.

"The man on the roof is lighting something. It looks like a torch. He's holding it high above his head…he…oh my God…he looks like some bizarre Statue of Liberty…he's…"

The dynamite exploded in Wesley's hand and the screen went blank.

148

W
E STAYED THERE until late that night. Flipping channels, checking the radio. Every report made a liar out of the previous one. Seventy–five kids dead. A hundred. Two hundred. School security guards machine–gunned. Grenade tossed into the administration office. One of the surviving kids said he heard explosions, gunfire. Then a voice on the PA system telling all the students to get into the gymnasium. A man was standing at the podium, dressed in military fatigues. They all filed inside. The man put some stuff around the door seams. Dropped duffel bags in all the corners. One of the kids screamed. The man raked the row with the machine gun. The kids shut up after that. The ones still alive. The man was shouting at the cops through the bullhorn. Then he ran out. Everything started to blow up. The kid talked in a mechanical voice from his hospital bed. You could hear his doctors arguing with the cops in the background.

The cops were combing through the human wreckage. So far, they hadn't found a single terrorist.

"You think Wesley's going to Hell?" I asked the Prof. He believes in that stuff.

"If he is, the Devil better be ready."

"Amen."

149

T
HE COPS HIT Train's operation. Found what they were looking for. Morehouse broke the story. Lily led the team of social workers debriefing the kids. The FBI Pedophile Task Force was in on it. Even Interpol.

I called Morehouse.

"Congratulations on your scoop."

"Yeah, man." He sounded sad, the sun gone from his voice.

"What's wrong?"

"The little girl? The one that needed to go to the psycho ward?"

"Yeah?"

"She went out a window. While the cops were breaking down the front door."

"She's on the loose?"

"It was the top floor, man."

"It's not your fault—she was gone anyway."

"Sure."

150

T
HE PACKAGE arrived a couple of weeks later. A nine–by–twelve flat envelope. Thick with paper inside. Routed from my Jersey P0 box, the one I use for mercenary stings. Max handed it to me in the warehouse.

I slit it open. A single sheet of paper. Neatly typed letters. "Put on a pair of gloves before you open the next envelope. Burn this part."

I did.

A dozen sheets of single–spaced typing. On a typewriter they'd never find. Each page numbered. Written in blood so icy it ran clear. My hands trembled. I lit a cigarette.

My name is Wesley. You never knew me. None of you did. But you know my work. I killed my first human in 1967
.

He gave the lieutenant's name. Where it happened.

Four rounds in the chest. M–16. I killed two men in that prison you put me in.

Dayton and another guy I hadn't known about.

When I got out of prison, I started killing people for money.

Names, places, dates, calibers. The dope dealer even the Marielitos and Santeria couldn't protect. A blowgun with a poisoned dart. An ice pick in the kidney in the middle of a racetrack crowd. The list went on for pages.

Marco Interdonanto. Car bomb. Carlos Santamaria Ramos. At La Guardia. A spring bomb in a coin locker
.

The one where the whole crowd died along with him.

Tommy Brown. I cracked his skull with a lead pipe and set fire to the house.

Near the end, I got to the part he left me in his will.

I killed somebody named Mortay. It was a contract from a man named Julio. He works for Don Torenelli. I shot him with a .38 Special, then I dropped a grenade on his face. I killed a man named Robert Morgan. In a playground in Chelsea. A rifle shot from the roof The same contract. Julio wouldn't pay me. He said it was the don's orders. So I hit Torenelli's daughter on Sutton Place. I cut off her head and stuffed it in her cunt. I wrote 2 on the wall. It was a message. They didn't listen.

Then he listed the other hits. Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island.

Torenelli put out a contract on me for revenge. I shot him on the Fifty–ninth Street Bridge. A .220 Remington with a night scope. Then I killed Julio. I killed a man named Train. I blew up a car on Wards Island with him in it. A man named Morrison hired me to do it. On Long Island. He tried to get out of paying me, so I killed him too. With a .357 magnum, wad cutters. Two in the chest, one in the face. He owed and he had to pay.

All my life, I worked for the same people. They had different names, but they were all the same. All bosses. Generals. I was a soldier.

I have no love in me for any of you. You have no love for me. You don't need my story. Why doesn't matter. What I did, you did it. You did it to me, I did it to you. I'm tired. I'm tired of all this. I'm not a man. I don't know what I am, but I wasn't born to be it. So I'm dying to be it. What I am.

I have no friends and I have no fear. I only stopped because I got tired. You could never have stopped me.

I worked for my money. That's what I did. They didn't pay me. So I made them pay. They didn't listen to my warnings. So I'm leaving them one last warning. I don't know where I'm going and I don't care. But they better not send anyone after me.

If you're reading this, you're a cop. Some kind of cop. I'm not leaving you this as a favor. It's my last chance to tell you how much I hate you.

Pray to your fucking gods that I'm the last one. But you know I'm not. There's more coming. You do things to us, we grow up and we do things to you.

I'm signing this with the only name you ever cared about.

His dark thumbprint was at the bottom of the last page.

151

I
READ IT through twice. He wasn't just getting me off the hook, he was warning me. For the last time. Never show them your soft spot. Everyone in the street knew mine.

Wesley checked out and took a bunch of kids with him. Seeds. Cards in a stacked deck. They dealt them—the monster played them.

I held the pages in my gloved hands. Knowing the last word Wesley never said to me.

Brother.

I waited until my hands stopped shaking. Then I called Morales.

"It's Burke. Let's play some more nine ball."

"I get off at four."

152

I
WAS AT MY TABLE when he walked in. In the middle of a rack.

"Take off your coat," I said under my breath. "Just do it, you're not the only guy in the room wearing a gun. When we're finished, go someplace private and read what you find in your pocket."

His mind wasn't on the game. I was up a yard and a half before he split.

153

W
HEN I called Mama's the next day, the message was waiting for me. I met Morales on West Seventeenth, just off Twelfth Avenue. Whore corner. We watched the girls jump into cars for a while.

"What do you want…for what you gave me?"

"To get square."

"Most of it's the dead truth.
Most
of it. We checked it out. He knows things only the killer would know. Why would he take you off the hook?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We can clear a couple of dozen unsolved homicides behind this. It means a gold shield for me."

"And for McGowan."

"He's my partner," he said, insulted.

"I'm not."

"No, you're not. But we're square. There was no paper on you anyway."

"I know. It's over."

He held out his hand. I took it.

154

I
T WASN'T OVER.

Just Wesley's killing was.

Candy let me in. Wearing a man's button–down dress shirt over toreador pants. Like a hundred years ago. "You want to play?" she asked.

"Not today, outrider."

The cat's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"It was always you and Train. From the beginning. Elvira didn't run from you—you dumped her. Into Train's net. You knew Train was on Wesley's list. You thought I killed this Mortay freak. Thought I was a killer too. You knew Wesley was coming, so you put me on the same track. Facing him."

"I had to find out. I just watch—I don't risk. I didn't know how to find Wesley, so I sent you after Elvira. I knew there was a contract on Train—I knew Wesley was holding it. I know how he works. He watches. He waits. And then he does his work. It was all a play, and I wrote the lines. Wesley sees you hanging around, he figures you're with Train. Then he comes. You get in his way, somebody goes down. Not me. Never me."

"And you fuck the winner," I said. Remembering the subway tunnel, the kitten in the basement.

"Sure. That's the way it works. But I never thought you'd win. And you didn't."

"How long have you been with Train?"

"Since I was nineteen. I was one of his first. His very first. But I'm no outrider. That's a game. For the kids. Nobody leaves. I'm a partner, not a soldier. I made him…all that mumbo–jumbo bullshit. He tell you the one about truth?"

"No."

Her voice changed the way her face could. Train's voice: "If there is no truth, saying it
is
the truth. So there is always truth."

She watched my face, smiling. "Pretty good, huh? I gave him that one. He works the place in Brooklyn, I work here."

"Your partner's gone. So's Elvira."

"I'm still here. I know how to do it. There's plenty of kids. I'll always have me. I don't need anybody else."

"You're garbage."

"Am I? You think I loved you? Even when we were kids? It was Wesley I loved. He had the power. You…you're a weak, soft man. You were never hard. Me, I
made
you hard. I can do it again. I'm the one that's hard. Like Wesley. You should see your eyes…you want to beat me to death right here. But you can't do it. You can't hurt me. I know you. We can go in the back room right now. Tie me up so I can't move. And I'll still be in control."

I didn't say anything, watching her. The love Wesley never knew he had. He was better off where he was.

"You won't go to the cops either. That's not your way. The secret is to
know
. Like I know you. You could never hurt me. Wesley won. He's out there someplace. And I'll find him. I know you. If you were really a killer, you'd kill me."

She turned her back on me, walked out of the room, leaving me alone. Giving me a choice.

I closed the door behind me.