Blackjack (5 page)

“You mean the killer had—?”

“Try
listening
instead of showing me you know stuff,” the consultant cut off whatever the blond man had wanted to say. “I don’t mean some little ‘team,’ like the Hillside Stranglers, or another
folie à deux
creature like Bernardo-Homolka. Not even Nietzsche-freaks like Leopold-Loeb. I mean a game
where the players don’t even know each other. But it’s a game where they sure as hell keep score.

“And please
don’t
start babbling about some cybernonsense. That’s just the plot of a bad novel. However the players in
this
game are keeping score, they had a way to share info centuries before anyone could
spell
‘Internet.’ ”

A MAN
some know as “Cross” scaled a back-alley fence as calmly as another man would climb a flight of stairs, then gingerly began to lower himself over the far side. Halfway down, he heard the low, menacing growl of a dog he had no desire to meet. Retreating immediately, he then skirted the area, carefully circling past the dog’s continuing threats.

He’s really worked up. Sensing I’m close. So why didn’t he attack as soon as I stepped over the fence?
The question had to be answered, so Cross quickly extracted a night-vison monocular. One glance showed him that the dog—from its size and shape, a Rottweiler—was heavily chained, with sufficient play in the heavy links to allow him to protect
one
house against intruders.

Cross nodded his understanding—this was a neighborhood where the only time you’d be concerned about your neighbors was if one of them decided to pay you a visit. He turned his attention to his objective—the back of a six-story tenement.

Chicago is a city of alleys, and it didn’t take him much time to find a new approach. A quick, light jump and Cross had the bottom of the fire escape in both hands. He pulled himself up to the first floor, then moved noiselessly upward, his expression that of a commuter on his way to a boring job.

Mentally counting the stories, he located the specific window he was looking for, breathed deeply, exhaled, and
waited. After a full minute passed without incident, Cross pulled a roll of duct tape from his voluminous black coat.

He applied the tape to the window glass, smoothly creating an X-pattern until the entire pane was coated. After another careful aural scan, Cross smacked the glass with the palm of his black-gloved hand. The faint crackling sound was barely audible.

Cross picked at the tape-covered glass with his fingertips for a long minute, then carefully peeled it away in a single sheet, leaving only some small shards at the edges of the window. He gently placed the taped glass pane on the fire-escape ledge, then used an L-shaped steel bar to remove the remaining shards from the window. Those he placed on the taped glass pane. Then he stepped through the opened window.

Although the outside of the building appeared to be a landlord-neglected slum, the interior of the particular apartment Cross entered was luxurious. He pulled out a blue-light flash and slowly scanned the premises. The floors were all coated in white shag, the walls covered with “art” chosen to proclaim its cost.

Patiently, Cross moved from room to room. Within minutes he found what he’d been looking for—an electronic scale on a raised marble slab, standing like an idol on an altar.

Cross took a small, flat device from his pocket, held it against the marble base, and pushed a button. A faint light began to appear. The device was soundless, but the intensity of its light glowed in proportion to how close Cross got to his goal—a small safe set into the floor in one corner. On its face was an inset panel with an elaborate set of digital readouts: J6528815.

Cross pulled a slip of paper from an inside pocket, and read it with the aid of his flash: X7324545.

He was leaning forward to tap the digital dial when he heard a low meow and saw its source was a magnificent sealpoint Siamese. The feline made another noise deep in its throat, continuing its fearless approach. Cross picked up the cat and stroked its fur, noting that it had been declawed to preserve the furnishings, reducing it to nothing more than another visible sign of wealth.

“You don’t give a damn if I empty the joint out, do you, pal?” he said, very softly. Then he set the cat down and tapped the digital dial in accordance with the code on the paper he’d brought with him. The safe popped open. It was almost completely stuffed with cash, but a separate-slotted compartment held a thin red leather book.

Cross didn’t touch the money. He took an exact replica of the book from his coat, exchanged it for the original, and closed the safe. Then he tapped the code in reverse, which returned the dial to its original number.

Next, he covered the top and front of the safe with a thick foam pad, then slammed a small sledge over it several times. When he removed the foam, the safe looked as if some amateur had tried to hammer off the dial.

Cross performed a smash-and-grab on a few small objects in the living room, snatched loose cash from a bedroom chest of drawers, and slid an iPhone and its attached Bose headset into another pocket of his coat.

Just another half-ass junkie burglar
, he thought to himself as he retraced his steps to the window.

The cat watched, mildly interested.

Cross turned and watched the cat, obviously making some sort of decision.

After a long minute, he shrugged his shoulders and left. His exit was as silent as his entrance. And as unobserved.

CROSS SAT
in a stark, cement-walled room. Furnished in minimalist fashion, it was, nevertheless, comfortable, with everything that might be expected in an expensive apartment. Except windows.

In his hands, he held the thin red book he had liberated from the drug lord’s safe, studying its construction intently.

Finally satisfied, he delicately removed the backing from a strip of paper that exactly matched the inside back cover of the book. He then laid the strip parallel to the book’s binding, pressed it down with a latex-gloved thumb, and used a surgeon’s scalpel to trim the top and bottom. Even under an intense light, the new addition was undetectable.

Cross pocketed a transmitter small enough to fit inside a pack of cigarettes. He picked up a cell phone, tapped in a number, and patiently let it ring until it was answered with an aggressive
“¿Qué?”

“
Finito
,” Cross said, just before he cut the connection.

THE NEXT
night.

Cross merged his body with the shadows as he waited against the wall of a gas station. Long ago abandoned, the cement building was now an outpost on an urban prairie, surrounded by flatlands peppered with scraps of old cyclone fence. Rusted concertina wire trailed on the ground, derelict cars dotted the deserted street, half-starved dogs skulked in unconscious imitation of the rats they were reduced to hunting.

A black stretch limo pulled up. An over-muscled, blank-faced man with a distinctly small head climbed out of the front passenger seat. He stood by the door, arms crossed over his chest, pumping himself up. After so many years, those movements were pure habit.

Cross stepped out of the shadows.

The window in the back compartment of the limo descended. A cancerous voice floated out: “You have it?”

“Like I said,” was the only reply.

The extra-wide back door swung open, a clear invitation. Cross entered, unaware that a tiny black blob had followed him. The blob was unseen by the bodyguard, who continued his posing before the mirror that was always in his mind.

The only human occupant of the back seat was a toadish little creature. He held out a severely mangled hand, with clawed, yellowish nails. Cross dropped the book into his palm.

The toadish man immediately began skimming through the book, following the entries with a skeletal finger.

“
¡Verdad!
The real thing.
¡Dios mío!
You are as good as they say.”

Cross reacted to the praise with a question he has asked many others, many times.

“¿Dónde está mi dinero?”

“Huh!
¿Sabes español?
”

“
Suficiente para esto
.”

“¿Esto?”

“Mi dinero
,” Cross repeated, making it clear that his language skills were limited to his sole area of interest.

“
¿Su dinero?
Right here,
amigo
. Money, it means nothing. Here,” he said, handing over a slim aluminum attaché case, “count it for yourself. What I have purchased from you tonight is so much more precious. By next week, I will control all of Esteban’s territory.”

Disdaining any gesture of respect, Cross took the toadish man up on his offer to count the money, quickly but carefully.

As Cross counted, the toadish man said, “You know,
amigo
, I like you. I thought that little bit of unhappiness down south could become … perhaps a problem between
us? But now I see you understand how the world truly works. That was only business then. And this is business now. What else matters?”

Cross shrugged his shoulders, as if the statement was beyond debate.

“You are a true professional,” the cancerous voice said. “Revenge, that is for amateurs. Children who may never grow up to learn the reality of life. We are a dying breed, you and I. Dinosaurs. It is good we can still do business with each other. Now, while there are some of us still alive.”

He offered his mangled hand. Cross grasped it, the bull’s-eye tattoo on the back of his own hand clearly visible. Without another word, he stepped out of the limo, the attaché case in that same hand.

As he did so, a blotchy mass coalesced across the top of the abandoned gas station, disturbing only the molecules of air it displaced.

“Dying breed,” bubbled from the shadowy blob.

Five seconds of silence followed. Then:

“Me da una tarjeta de.”

As the limo rounded the next corner, the blotchy mass flowed down the side of the gas station. It was still moving when Cross, unaware of any other presence, took the transmitter from his coat pocket and pressed its single button.

The limo disappeared in a blast that looked low-yield nuclear in the fireball of its intensity. All that remained was a crater in the empty street. A few scraps of human flesh mingled with metallic flakes as they floated gently to the ground.

By then, Cross was already several blocks away, behind the wheel of one of the “abandoned” cars. He drove for another couple of minutes, re-“abandoned” the car, and disappeared into the dark.

He never saw the two playing cards floating down to the
crater left by the annihilated limousine. Or the total disappearance of the shadow that had followed him inside the limo.

The floating cards were a suited pair: the ace and jack of spades.