Monument to Murder (26 page)

“I don’t know, son,” she said wearily. “What about Mr. Brixton?”

“Call and tell him to stop his investigation. Pay him whatever he’s owed but put a stop to what he’s doing. I beg it of you, Momma.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Lucas exploded, “He wants my answer by five o’clock this afternoon. I’m going to accept his offer. He’ll want to know
your
answer. What is it, Momma?”

“Tell him what you must, son. Please go now. I’m not feeling well.”

She watched him storm from the house, get in his car, and drive away. Then, she fell to her knees, clasped her hands, and prayed for an answer.

CHAPTER   40

Brixton’s days of enjoying long walks had ended with his duty-related knee injury, which eventually affected every other joint in his body. Walking any distance was painful, although that hadn’t kept him from remaining mobile. Athletes were encouraged to “play hurt”; he’d adopted that approach and “lived hurt” the best he could.

The lure of getting in some exercise was appealing. He had the rest of the day to kill before going to Annabel’s Georgetown gallery, where he was to meet Mitzi Cardell. He looked out the window and saw that the fair weather of the past few days had held, good weather for a stroll, as abbreviated as it might be.

He’d brought with him to Washington one of two small handguns he owned and was licensed to carry, a Smith & Wesson 638 Airweight revolver that held five rounds of .38 special ammunition. He loved its small size and light weight, and how snugly it fit into his Fobus ankle holster. Actually, he disliked being armed since retiring from the police force. He’d seen enough death and mayhem caused by people carrying weapons to last him a lifetime. But he was also pragmatic enough to realize that his work occasionally took him into situations that made carrying a prudent move.

With the Smith & Wesson secured on his ankle, and dressed in gray slacks, a red-and-white-striped shirt, and a blue blazer, he went through the trendy hotel’s small, tastefully appointed lobby and stood outside among six large, alabaster nude female statues, replicas of the famous
Shy Venus
from the second or third century. He looked up into the face of one of the statues and whimsically wondered whether
she
would mind if he smoked. “You should wear something,” he told her. “You’ll catch a cold.”

He lit up, and after a few minutes of watching the passing parade he extinguished the butt in a sidewalk ashtray and headed off in the direction of Dupont Circle, four blocks away. The streets were familiar to him from having been a D.C. cop, and he enjoyed touching base with what had once been his home. Maybe his more sanguine view of the city he’d once hated had to do with knowing that he wouldn’t be staying long.

He didn’t have a destination in mind. He was content to walk at his own pace, stopping now and then to peruse shop windows when his knee or back protested, and moving on when the pain had subsided.

He bought a take-out cup of coffee and sipped it on a bench while enjoying another cigarette. He was anxious for the meeting that night. At the same time, he wanted to leave D.C. and go home. Funny, he thought, how he now considered Savannah, Georgia, his home. He was thinking of Flo and what she might be doing at that moment when a man joined him on the bench. Brixton nodded.

“Hi,” Emile Silva said. He wore a lightweight tan safari jacket, jeans, and sneakers. “Nice day, huh?”

“Yeah, it is,” said Brixton.

“You from around here?” Silva asked.

“No. Savannah, Georgia. You?”

“Not from here. Just visiting.”

Brixton turned from the stranger and finished what was left of his coffee. The street was chockablock with pedestrians, men and women in a hurry to get someplace, although when compared to New York they moved in slow motion.

Silva shifted on the bench, his eyes darting left and right, his right hand clutching the switchblade in the cargo pocket of his jacket.
Too many people,
he thought.

Brixton stood. “You have a nice day,” he said.

“Yeah, you, too. Say, I’ve got a question.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m only going to be here in D.C. until tomorrow and was wondering what other sights to take in.”

Brixton laughed. “I’m the last person to ask about that, but you can’t go wrong with the museums over on The Mall, or the Kennedy Center. I’m heading there now.”

“A museum?”

“The Kennedy Center. I used to go there years ago when I lived here. Have a good day.”

Brixton skirted a knot of people waiting to cross the street, hailed a passing taxi, and told the driver to take him to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As the cab navigated traffic, Brixton smiled. He found it amusing that a stranger had asked him to suggest a tourist attraction to visit. As for himself, he’d decided while enjoying his coffee that as long as he was in D.C. he should take in a tourist attraction or two. He hadn’t done much sightseeing during his four years there on the force, aside from a few forays with Marylee and their small children. But he did remember enjoying the Kennedy Center and looked forward to revisiting it.

When his marriage was breaking up and he was recuperating from the gunshot wound to his knee, he found the center the most welcoming and comforting of all the monuments to fallen heroes scattered throughout Washington. He would have a drink ( or two or three) in the Roof Terrace Restaurant and Bar, eat dinner there, catch a free show in the Millenium Theater at the far end of the 630-foot-long Grand Foyer, and enjoy a cigarette (or two or three) on the expansive open-air rooftop terrace accessible from the foyer and offering panoramic views of the Potomac River below; the Roslyn, Virginia, skyline to the west; Washington Harbour and the infamous Watergate complex to the north; and the Lincoln Memorial and George Washington University to the east. The flight path into Reagan National Airport ran along the river and was a source of complaints from many, but Brixton liked seeing the jets scream past, wondering who was on the planes and what their lives were like.

He got out of the taxi and looked up. The pristine blue sky was now pewter, and the wind had picked up. You didn’t have to be a meteorologist to forecast that rain was on its way.

He walked the length of the Hall of States, in which flags from every state in the union were colorfully displayed, reached the Grand Foyer, and went back down the Hall of Nations, which featured flags from every country recognized by the United States. The five-hundred-foot journey wreaked havoc with his knee and he found a seat in the foyer, close to the eight-foot-tall Robert Berks bronze bust of President John Kennedy. Sitting there flooded him with memories, not all of them pleasant. He was debating leaving and going back to the hotel when he saw the man with whom he’d had the brief encounter in Dupont Circle. He seemed to be admiring artwork in the Grand Foyer, standing close to a piece, then stepping back to gain a wider perspective. Brixton considered going over to him but decided against it. Instead, he went through doors leading to the huge rooftop terrace, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and leaned on the railing. The Potomac flowed by below; a crew from one of the universities practiced its sport on the brown water while other small craft headed upstream and down. The wind had picked up in intensity, and he felt a wayward raindrop hit his cheek. No wonder the terrace was virtually empty. It wasn’t the sort of weather that enticed people outdoors.

“Well, hello there.”

Brixton turned to see the man from Dupont Circle.

“Hi. I see you decided to come here, too.”

“Thanks to your suggestion. Beautiful views, huh?” he said, joining Brixton at the railing.

“Yeah.”

A commercial jet heading for National Airport roared down the river and disappeared to their left.

“Those things are noisy,” Emile Silva said.

“That they are. I read that when they designed the Kennedy Center they made it a box within a box to soundproof the performances from the planes.”

“That so?”

“It’s what I read.”

Silva’s hand went to the switchblade in his pocket. He ran through a mental checklist. The jets were coming with regularity, their screaming engines providing the perfect cover for the sound of flicking open the blade and any sounds that might come from his victim. He glanced over at Brixton, whose exposed neck provided a vulnerable target for the blade. He’d ram it into the neck and twist, severing arteries. He looked at the jacket Brixton was wearing. It came down over the rear pockets in his slacks. Chances were that he kept his wallet in one of those pockets. He’d have to move fast to find the wallet and extract it from the pocket, pull out the cash and credit cards, run back inside, drop the wallet in the Grand Foyer, and make his escape.

The sound of an approaching aircraft using the river as its guide to the airport named after Ronald Reagan caught his attention, the deafening whine of its engines growing louder. He looked left and right. They were virtually alone. He slowly removed the knife from his jacket and fingered the button. The blade snapped into place. The plane was directly in front of them now. Perfect! He turned toward Brixton and was prepared to thrust the knife into his neck when a chorus of squeaky children’s voices erupted. Silva and Brixton turned to see a visiting class of youngsters pour through the doors to the terrace. Simultaneously, the skies opened and rain came down hard.

Brixton said, “See ya.” He sprinted painfully to the doors and joined the kids and their teachers as they scrambled inside. He looked back to see Silva still standing at the railing.
Must enjoy the rain,
he thought as he headed back down the Hall of Nations, through the doors at the opposite end of the center, and climbed into the backseat of a waiting cab. “The Hotel Rouge,” he told the driver.

CHAPTER   41

Silva cursed his soggy clothing as he walked down the Hall of States and went to where he’d parked his car. His sneakers squished as he proceeded down the long promenade, and water dripped from his hair onto his nose and mustache. He didn’t need this on his final assignment, didn’t appreciate the mob of squealing, smelly kids and their teachers dashing this perfect opportunity.

He assumed that Brixton had returned to his hotel and further assumed that he would stay there for a while. He drove home, took a hot shower, and changed clothes. The aborted attempt at the Kennedy Center had soured him on the assignment. What had happened there could be considered an omen, he mused as he sat by the window in his study, watching the rain come down. Maybe he should scrap the hit, tell Dexter that he was quitting. The extra fee for this assassination would be nice but he didn’t need it. He had enough stashed away in the Caribbean to support a nice lifestyle there for the rest of his days.

But now that he’d seen his prey up close, had actually spoken with him twice, Brixton’s face continued to run before Silva’s mind’s eye on an endless loop, taunting him, creating a challenge. He was deep into this thinking when the phone rang.

“Hello, Emile,” his mother said in her weak, singsong voice.

“Ma-ma?”

“You haven’t come to see me.”

“I—where are you?”

“I’m home, Emile. They brought me home.”

“That’s good.”

She now whispered. “I don’t like the woman who’s here, Emile. She’s not trustworthy.”

“Who—?”

“Please come as soon as you can, Emile.”

She hung up.

He waited for his anger to subside before slipping into a fresh safari jacket, securing the switchblade in one pocket, his Bersa Thunder .380 handgun in the other, and going to the garage. He’d driven the third of his three cars that morning, a nondescript white Toyota Camry, preferring its relative automotive anonymity. But now as he prepared to go to the Hotel Rouge for another crack at Robert Brixton he chose the black Porsche Cayman. Driving it, he knew, would calm him down. It always did.

He was deep in thought as he drove down the sloping driveway and turned left in the direction of The District, so immersed in it that he failed to notice a blue SUV and its driver parked across the street. Nor did he see James Brockman pull away from the curb and fall in behind him.

•  •  •

Like Emile Silva, James C. Brockman had been in the military, the marines. He’d served in Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf War and had been injured there when he lost control of a truck he was driving and plowed into a command post, injuring two fellow marines. He was brought up on charges of negligence and dereliction of duty and given a choice: face a court-martial or accept a plea deal that would lower his rank from corporal to private and sever him from the corps with a general discharge.

At first, Brockman accepted the deal under the assumption that a general discharge was as good as an honorable one. He discovered that he was wrong when he returned to civilian life and found that he was denied certain rights and benefits.

Like Silva, his anger at the military and its members festered, fostering visions of lining up the sergeant who’d instigated the charges against him, alongside others who’d reviewed his case, and blowing them away, one after the other, no blindfolds or last wishes. That dream stayed with him every day he was on a civilian firing range, practicing with a variety of weapons he now possessed.

And also like Silva, he’d been recruited in a bar by someone from Dexter’s organization, where after too many drinks he’d verbalized his fantasies to an interested, sympathetic stranger. At the time he was working as a truck driver for a contractor with a sizable government contract with whom he’d had numerous verbal run-ins, someone else to be gunned down by his imagined one-man firing squad.

Brockman had been a troubled teenager. His father, an alcoholic, frequently beat him and his sisters; his mother was a timid soul who also endured beatings at the hand of her drunken husband. Brockman’s enlistment in the marines was his means of escape. His mother died while he was in Iraq; he hadn’t had contact with his father in years. His relationships with women were characterized by sporadic bursts of violent anger toward them; none lasted more than a few months.

Dexter’s kind of guy.

Brockman hadn’t expected to hear from Dexter that quickly. He had received a call on his cell phone the afternoon before to meet with the little man at an I-Hop on the Jefferson Davis Highway in Alexandria. It was there, over plates of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, that Brockman received his first assignment.

“I think you should know, James, that the person who is your target works with us. I mention that because I do not want you to think that we’re disloyal to our employees. Far from it. This individual has recently behaved in a way that runs counter to our mission. In fact, James, he has done things that not only threaten to undermine us, his actions could potentially put at risk certain important aspects of the security of the United States.”

“What’d he do?” Brockman asked.

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that, James. Do you have any problem with this?”

Brockman shrugged and took a forkful of pancake. “No, I don’t have any problem with it. If this guy’s been causing trouble, he should be taken out. Where will I find him?”

Dexter slid an envelope across the table, saying, “Everything you need to know is in here. He’s currently on his final assignment for us and I want him to successfully conclude that before you undertake your obligation. I want you to stay close to him and be ready to strike when I give the word. I’ll call you on your cell phone when that time comes. I will simply say, ‘The sale is on.’ When you hear that, you’ll know it is time.”

“Okay. How do you want it done?”

“I leave that up to your expertise. Of course, it is vitally important that you not be linked in any way to it. If you should be, we disavow all knowledge of you. We made that clear, as you’ll recall, when we first became acquainted.”

“I understand. Anything else?”

“Not unless you have further questions.”

Brockman shook his head, wiped syrup from his mouth, and grinned. “This is just like in the movies,” he said.

Dexter frowned. “I assure you, James, that this is not a motion picture. This is real life.”

“Okay, forget I said it. Thanks for breakfast.”

“I’ll leave first. Follow in five minutes.”

Brockman watched Dexter walk from the restaurant. “What a fruitcake,” he muttered to himself as he did the same.