“Yeah, pretty much. I’m one cold bitch, huh?”
“I don’t know what you are,” Cynthia said quietly.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll give it some thought. Seems like someone pinned a sign to my butt that says ‘Analyze Me.’ Everybody wants to get in on the head-shrinking action tonight.”
“You really think you can kill this man Pascal?”
“Or die trying.” She frowned. “You know, usually that’s just an expression.”
“I suppose there’s no hope of reasoning with him.”
“You’d have more luck reasoning with a shark. Look, dealing with scum like Pascal is my job. Why don’t you let me do it, okay?”
“I suppose we have no choice. But it seems there’ll always be more killing. It never ends. Even if you get Pascal, they’ll just send someone else, and it will start all over again.”
“Don’t think of it like that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Then try lying to yourself. Sometimes it’s all that gets me through the night.”
“You’re an unhappy person, Bonnie,” Cynthia said.
“Me? I’m Little Miss Sunshine. Okay, you guys hang out here. Stay safe. And don’t open the door for any Candygrams.”
She stepped into the hallway. Alan stopped her. “Bonnie. I just wanted you to know—I feel really stupid about the way I misled you.”
“Everybody is stupid sometimes. Just try being smart for the next few hours.”
“If we, uh, don’t hear from you, what should we do?”
“If I’m dead, you mean? Go straight to the nearest FBI field office and tell them everything. No bullshit about the G-Rocs. You’ll have to come clean and take your medicine.” She turned to go, then looked back. “Hey, what ever happened to Mariana Ortiz?”
“She died in prison. Of cancer.”
“Sorry.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”
“Not really. I can’t get too worked up about somebody I never knew.”
“Even if you know she was doing good?”
“A lot of people try to do good. It doesn’t make them immortal.”
Alan looked at her sadly. “Have you always been so angry at the world?”
“Not always. Just since I was fourteen.”
***
On the front porch she found Des in his chair, a shadow among shadows, watching the street. She didn’t have to ask what he was watching for.
“There’s no need to make yourself a target,” she said.
“I could say the same to you.”
“Yeah. Guess you could.”
She stood next to him. Rain drummed the roof in a hard, steady rhythm. Puddles glistened on the street. The trees shook, and the utility lines strung among the branches swayed ominously.
“You’re going after him, I take it,” Des said quietly. “A guy who’s a sadist and a pro. You’re heading off for some kind of showdown.”
“That’s the plan. This is between he and I ... him and me ... whatever.” She studied him. “You don’t seem too surprised.”
“I’m not entirely in the dark about what you do.”
“Yeah, I guess the thirty-eight in your air duct was kind of the giveaway.”
“I figured it out long before that.”
“And you never said anything?”
He shrugged. “None of my business.”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
“Touché.”
“It’s not like I do it for fun, Des.”
“I know that.”
“Or even for money. I mean, the money’s part of it, but ...”
“It’s about justice for you.”
“I guess.”
“That’s what makes you different from that other Bonnie Parker, you know. She wasn’t in it for justice. She was in it for kicks.”
She nodded, hoping he was right.
There was no one else she could talk to like this. No other close friend or confidant. No family. No lover. Her death, she thought, would leave an awfully small hole in the world.
She wondered if it meant anything—her life, or anybody’s. If there was any purpose to it all. She’d never considered it. Questions like that were best left to the deep thinkers, people who read books. She’d never been much of a reader, unless Guns & Ammo counted.
“I lied to you about one thing, Des,” she said slowly.
“Just one?”
She smiled. “One thing tonight.” The smile faded. “You know how I said my folks getting killed didn’t faze me?”
“I had a feeling that might not be the whole truth.”
“Yeah. The whole truth—well, I didn’t think you’d want to hear it.”
“Why not? You got upset that your parents had died. What’s so terrible about that?”
“I didn’t get upset. I got even.”
“Oh.”
“I was just a kid. But I tracked down the bastards that did it. Three of them, in Pennsylvania.”
“How could you possibly find them?”
“It’s a whole long story, and it doesn’t matter now. I’ve always been good at finding things out. It took me half a year, but I learned who’d done it and I located them. And I made sure they wouldn’t make any more orphans.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen. But I grew up fast.”
“Too fast.”
“Maybe. Anyhow, I made things right. And now I need to make things right again.”
“You don’t have to go after him. We can call the police. Or grab the Kirby clan and go on the run till this thing blows over.”
“I’m not running, and it won’t blow over. And the police can’t get involved.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll take care of this guy.”
“Or he’ll take care of you.”
“Right. That’s how the game is played. It’s what I signed up for.”
“There’s a fine line between courage and craziness, you know.”
She found a smile for him. “Oh hell, Des. I crossed that line a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 28
In the alley at the rear of the house, Bonnie found her Jeep. She stood for a moment, looking it over in the hard downpour. She loved the old girl—somehow she was sure her Jeep was female—even if the vehicle had seen better days. The door hinges and the bolts on the side mirrors might be rusted, the radio might be broken, and the rearview mirror might be Krazy-Glued in place, but the duct tape liberally applied to the cracked and split upholstery gave it a certain charm.
The Jeep reminded her of when she had started out, scraping together sofa-cushion spare change to bankroll her venture as a PI, assembling yard-sale furniture in her low-rent office. She’d chosen Brighton Cove on the theory that if she didn’t have money, the next best thing was to work for people who did. The theory proved correct. She had moved up in the world, but she’d kept the Jeep and the office, and even the furniture.
She wondered why she was feeling sentimental about her ride. Then she realized it wasn’t just her ride. It was her life. There were a lot of things she’d taken for granted. A lot of things she’d miss.
Screw that. Moping around wasn’t going to get the job done.
She needed to catch up with Pascal again, but she wasn’t exactly privy to his itinerary. The one thing she knew, because she’d overheard his phone conversation in the motel room, was that he hoped to be picked up at Millstone Airport later tonight. She was betting he would go there only after the successful completion of his assignment. As long as Alan and his family were alive, the airport was irrelevant. If it ever became relevant, it meant she had failed.
In the meantime, she had no way to find the son of a bitch. So she would just have to arrange some other approach. She had an idea about how to play it, if she could get him to go along.
She climbed into the Jeep and took out her new cell, dialing the number of her stolen phone. She had to hope Pascal still had it,
and that he’d left it on.
Two rings, three, and he picked up.
“Guess who,” she said.
“Miss Bonnie Parker.”
She sighed. “Sounds like you didn’t bleed out after all.”
“My injury was a mere scratch. I suppose it is too much to hope that you also were wounded.”
“Not a nick on me,” she lied. “You had your shot and you blew it. You’re getting old, buddy boy.”
“I may be old, Miss Parker, but the night is young.”
“That’s the spirit. Okay, here’s the pitch, hotshot. We’re getting no place fast. You zap me, I wing you. It’s a zero sum game. Time for us to go another way.”
“What other way?”
She lit a cigarette. “You and me in a cage match. Two desperadoes enter, and only one of us leaves. We pick a spot and both come packing. The winner is whoever’s still breathing when the last shot is fired. You in?”
A tick of silence. “I think not.”
“Come on, it’s right up your alley. A couple knights of the Round Table challenging each other to a duel or a joust or whatever.”
“Why would that be, as you say, up my alley?”
“I saw the book you were reading. King Arthur, Maid Marian, all that happy crap.”
“Maid Marian is from the Robin Hood stories.”
“Meh. Details. What’s the appeal of that medieval booshwah, anyway?”
“The knight errant lived by his own code. As do I.”
“You have a code? Does it involve torturing fair damsels with electric shocks?”
“It involves showing no mercy to an adversary. It is your code too, Bonnie Parker.”
“So you’re not just a hired gun. You’re Sir Lancelot.”
“Indeed I am.” He sounded pleased.
“Well, I’ll bet old Lance never turned down a challenge. The other knights would’ve made cluck-cluck noises at him. So what d’you say?”
“Your offer is tempting. But I have learned to resist temptation.”
“And here I thought you were a true romantic. I even have something you wrote. You know, the moon’s rising, kiss of death, yadda yadda. Very friggin’ poetic.”
“You took that from me?” She heard his first real emotion—an edge of anger.
“Yup.” She patted her back pocket. “It’s a little soggy, but still legible.”
“You crude, illiterate, stupid little bitch.”
“Been called worse. You want it back?”
“I will pin your scalp to it.”
“Does that mean we’re on?”
“I hold out only one condition. I choose the venue.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get this party started.”
“Won’t you assume I am leading you into a trap?”
“Sure. But I’m smart enough to improvise a workaround.”
“Very well. Your boardwalk will do.”
“The boardwalk is two miles long. Narrow it down.”
“There is a spot just across the street from a large old hotel.”
“That’s not a hotel anymore. It’s an old folks’ home. But I know the place.”
“You will find me there. Bring my poem.”
“Will do. And you bring my twenty-five hundred bucks.”
“Oh, I will pay you back, Bonnie Parker. Of that you may rest assured. I anticipate the outcome of our rendezvous with deep satisfaction.”
“Anticipate a bullet in the noggin, friend. ’Cause that’s what you’re gonna get.”
She ended the call and sat in the Jeep, finishing her cigarette. She intended to smoke it all the way down to the filter. She had a funny feeling it might be her last.
CHAPTER 29
At the corner of Ocean Drive and Beacon Avenue stood a house under construction—one of those ginormous butt-ugly McMansions put up by Wall Street arbitrageurs and hedge fund managers who liked to flex their muscles by tearing down a perfectly good old house to put up a kajillion-dollar replacement. The frame was up, but the house was otherwise unfinished and, naturally, unoccupied, which made it a good place for Bonnie to stow her Jeep.
She approached the house with her headlights off, eased past it into the backyard, and parked behind the huge hulking pile in a muddy plot. Parking on the street would be too risky; there was always the chance Pascal would double-cross her by avoiding the boardwalk and simply prowl the neighborhood until he found her ride, then lie in wait until she returned.
For all she knew, he might even have anticipated her choice of a hiding place for the Jeep. The McMansion was the only house under construction in the vicinity of the rendezvous point. He might have expected her to park behind it. He might be scoping her out right now, ready to plug her when she got out of the car.
Damn, she was being super-paranoid about this. She wished she could convince herself she was being unreasonable. But Pascal had her spooked, and she couldn’t shake it. She was on high alert as she stepped out of the Jeep.
Nobody shot at her, which was a nice change of pace.
Around her neck she carried the binoculars from the glove compartment. She found a ladder tilted against the side of the house and climbed to the roof, negotiating the slippery rungs with care. Raindrops struck at her like nails. Despite the poncho, she was quickly soaked to the skin.
On the roofline she crouched low, leaning into the rain, and tipped the binoculars to her eyes. The gusting wind threatened to whip her off her perch. The sky was a spread of blackness crisscrossed intermittently with jagged spears of lightning.
Two blocks south sat the sprawling bulk of what had once been the Victoriana Hotel, now the Victoriana Assisted Living Community, a marble-and-plaster wedding cake. Directly across the street from the Victoriana lay the town pavilion, built on the boardwalk, dating to the 1930s. It was a big old block of brick and concrete adorned with tile murals contributed by WPA artisans, with an Olympic-sized saltwater swimming pool, drained nightly, and a snack shop that served up greasy undersized hamburgers at six bucks a pop. It also offered an observation deck crowned by an ornamental tower that provided a panoramic view of the pool, boardwalk, and beach.
The tower was the perfect place to scope out the territory and spy an approaching figure. If Pascal was up there, he would see her coming a hundred yards away.
She knew he would have had no problem getting into the building. The pavilion’s main door was secured after dark with a pitifully inadequate padlock that wouldn’t stop a bicycle thief.
She zeroed in on the tower, playing with the focus. It took her three passes before she glimpsed a stir of movement.
A solitary figure, shifting his position from the northeast corner to the northwest.
Clever bastard. With a good scope and true aim, he could take her out before she even crossed the street.
She studied him a few minutes longer, until he moved to the southwest corner. Apparently he rotated his position at regular intervals. His walk was stiff, uneven, and he favored his left leg. Maybe he’d been hurt worse than she thought. Nicked in the knee and lamed. She hoped so.
Smiling, she gave him the finger.
She climbed down the ladder, considering her options. She couldn’t approach via the streets, the boardwalk, or the beach. But there was another way.
She left the binoculars in the Jeep, along with her phone and her beret; being stylish wasn’t a top priority now. She held on to the fanny pack containing the Glock and spare mags, but didn’t bother with the Osprey silencer this time. Reluctantly she left her trusty carbine behind also. The way she was going, she couldn’t afford any encumbrances.
A block north of the McMansion was the Brighton Cove Surf & Racquet Club. In common with all the exclusive private clubs in this area, it did not boast Bonnie Parker as a member. That fact didn’t stop her from scaling the low wall and dropping down into the tennis courts with a splash.
She’d played tennis once. Sucked at it. Hit the damn ball so hard she busted a string o
n the racquet. Her instructor said she had anger issues. Like she didn’t know.
A pedestrian passageway led from the club to the beach, passing underneath Ocean Drive. She made short work of the locked door, then crossed the street below ground, invisible to the watcher in the tower. It was nice to be out of the rain for a minute.
Then she emerged onto the beach, facing clouds of sand flung at her by the stinging wind. Somewhere in the wet darkness, the surf thrashed and moaned like a dying thing. She took cover behind a dune tufted with windblown dune grass, sandwort, and evergreen bushes, then adjusted her fanny pack so it rested against her hip, leaving her belly clear. On elbows and knees she wormed under the boardwalk and began crawling south, toward the pavilion.
The boardwalk straddled a series of concrete trestles ten feet apart, arches of stone mounted on pairs of thick pillars. The trestles curved low, and sand drifted up against the pillars, making for some tight spaces. Once or twice she had to stop and dig out a path, scooping up handfuls of wet sand.
She found herself wishing she’d spent more time at the gym. Or any time, really. Well, she was getting a serious workout tonight.
She kept going, yard after yard. Whenever she raised her head, she bumped into one of the crossbeams. The planks that served as the boardwalk’s surface were fake wood, some plastic compound supposedly strong enough to survive nor’easters and hurricanes, but the crossbeams were real timber, old and weatherworn, and they left splinters in her hair. Rain dripped through cracks between the boards, leaking under her hood and down her shirt collar, raising stripes of gooseflesh on her back.
Staying busy had kept her apprehension at a manageable level, but it flared up now, as she found herself in the dark, damp, claustrophobic space, inching toward a man who had nearly snuffed her a couple of times already. She told herself she had the edge on him. She knew his position, and he had no idea where she was. While he watched the terrain around the pavilion, she would creep up underneath the boardwalk, then enter the pavilion and take him by surprise.
Decent strategy. She ought to be feeling good about her chances. But he had outthought her before. He had anticipated the GPS tracker on his car. He had somehow guessed that she would rig a tripwire on the farmhouse stairs. He had waited for her on Old Road. He was always a step ahead.
That was the thought she couldn’t break free of. Every time she believed she had the advantage, he proved her wrong.
If she was wrong this time, then each yard of painful progress brought her closer to a bullet. Or to something worse. Pascal, after all, was a man who enjoyed inflicting pain.