“Hey, batta, batta, batta,” Sullivan heard, and it brought him hurtling back to the present—to the ballfield near where he lived in Maryland.
Then he heard, “This guy can’t hit worth spit! This guy’s nothin’! You own this mutt!”
Seamus and Jimmy were the trash-talkers for the family baseball games. Michael Jr. was as focused as ever. Sullivan saw it in his oldest son’s bright-blue eyes—a need to strike out the old man once and for all.
His son wound up and let fly. A sharp-breaking curveball, or maybe a hard slider. Sullivan exhaled as he swung—then heard the smack of the ball as it hit Jimmy’s catcher’s mitt behind him. Son of a bitch had brought some heat!
Something like pandemonium broke out on the otherwise deserted American Legion field where they practiced. Jimmy, the catcher, ran a circle around his father, holding the ball in the air.
Only Michael Jr. stayed calm and cool. He allowed himself a slight grin but didn’t leave the pitching mound, didn’t celebrate with his brothers.
He just bad-eyed his old man, whom he had never struck out before.
He ducked his chin, ready to go into the windup—but then stopped.
“What’s that?” he asked, looking at his father.
Sullivan looked down and saw something move onto his chest. The red pinpoint of a laser sight.
He dropped to the dirt beside home plate.
Chapter 65
THE VINTAGE LOUISVILLE SLUGGER, still in his hand, splintered apart before it hit the ground. A loud metal ping sounded as a bullet ricocheted off the backstop. Someone was shooting at him! Maggione’s people? Who else?
“Boys! Dugout—now! Run! Run!” he yelled.
The boys didn’t have to be told twice. Michael Jr. grabbed his youngest brother’s arm. All three of them sprinted for cover, fast little bastards, running like they just stole somebody’s wallet.
The Butcher ran for all he was worth in the opposite direction; he wanted to draw fire off of his boys.
And he needed the gun in his car!
The Humvee was parked at least sixty yards away, and he ran as straight a line as he dared to get there. Another shot came so close that he heard it whiz by his chin.
The gunshots were coming from the woods to the left of the ballfield, away from the road. That much he knew. He didn’t bother looking around though. Not yet.
When he got to the Humvee, he threw open the passenger-side door and dove inside. An explosion of glass followed.
The Butcher stayed low, face pressed against the floor mat, and reached under the driver’s seat.
The Beretta clipped there represented a broken promise to Caitlin. He pulled the loaded weapon loose and finally took a look up top.
There were two of them, coming out of the woods now—two of Maggione’s wiseguys for sure. They were here to put him down, weren’t they? And maybe his kids too.
He unlatched the driver’s door, then rolled outside onto gravel and dirt. Chancing a look under the car, he saw a pair of legs headed his way in a shuffling run.
No time for deep thought or any kind of planning. He fired twice under the chassis. Maggione’s man yelped as a blossom of red opened above his ankle.
He went down hard, and the Butcher fired again, right into the hood’s twice-shocked face. The bastard never got off another shot, word, or thought. But that was the least of his worries now.
“Dad! Dad! Dad, help!”
It was Mike’s voice—coming from all the way across the park, and it was hoarse with panic.
Sullivan jumped up and saw the other hit man headed for the dugout, maybe seventy-five yards away. He raised his gun but knew he’d be firing toward his boys, too.
He jumped in and slammed the Humvee into Drive.
Chapter 66
HE FLOORED IT, as if his boys’ lives depended on it. Probably they did. Maggione was the kind of coward who would kill your family. Then he held the Beretta out the window, looking for one clear shot. This was going to be close. No way to tell the outcome, either. Suspense city!
The hit man was sprinting across the infield, really moving now. Sullivan guessed the guy had been a decent athlete when he’d been younger. Not too long ago, either.
Michael Jr. watched from the dugout steps. The kid was a cool head, but that wasn’t necessarily helpful now. Sullivan screamed at him. “Get down! Michael, down! Right now!”
The hit man knew Sullivan was coming up behind him. Finally, he stopped and turned to make a shot of his own.
Mistake!
Possibly fatal.
His eyes went wide just before the Humvee’s grille caught him in the chest, moving at fifty miles an hour plus. The vehicle didn’t slow down until it had given the hitter a swift ride, then rammed him into the chain link of the backstop.
“You boys all right?” Sullivan yelled, keeping his eyes on the hit man, who wasn’t moving and looked like he’d have to be peeled off the fence.
“We’re okay,” Michael Jr. said, sounding shaky but still in control of his emotions.
Sullivan walked around to look at the punk, what was left of him anyway. The only thing keeping him on his feet was the steel sandwich he was trapped in. His head lolled lazily to one side. He seemed to be looking around through the one eye not totally obscured with blood.
Sullivan went and picked up the remains of the Louisville Slugger from the dirt.
He swung once, twice, again, and again, punctuating each blow with a shout.
“Don’t.
“Fuck.
“With.
“My.
“Family!
“Ever!
“Ever!
“Ever!”
The last swing went wild and missed; Sullivan put a huge crater in his hood. But it helped him remember where he was.
He got in the car and backed up to where his boys were watching like a crowd of zombies at somebody’s funeral. When they climbed inside, none of them spoke, but nobody cried, either.
“It’s okay now,” he told them. “It’s over, boys. I’m going to take care of this. Do you hear me? I promise. I promise you on my dead mother’s eyes!”
And he would keep his word. They had come after him and his family, and the Butcher would come after them.
The mob.
John Maggione.
Chapter 67
I HAD ANOTHER SESSION with Kim Stafford, and when she came in, she was wearing dark sunglasses and looked like someone on the run. My stomach just about dropped to the ground floor of the brownstone. It struck me that my professional worlds were colliding on this case.
Now that I knew who Kim’s fiancé was, it was harder for me to respect her wish to keep him out of this. I wanted to confront this piece of crap in the worst way.
“Kim,” I said at one point, not too far into the session, “does Sam keep any weapons in the apartment?” Sam was the name we had agreed to use in our sessions; Sam was also the name of a bulldog that had bitten Kim when she was a little girl.
“A pistol in the nightstand,” she said.
I tried not to show the concern I was feeling, the alarm sounding loudly inside my head. “Has he ever pointed the gun at you? Threatened to use it?”
“Just once,” she said, and picked at the fabric of her skirt. “It was a while ago. If I’d thought he was serious, I would have left him.”
“Kim, I’d like to talk to you about a safety plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“Identifying some precautionary measures,” I said. “Setting aside money; keeping a packed suitcase somewhere; finding somewhere you could go—if you needed to leave quickly.”
I’m not sure why she took off her sunglasses at that moment, but this is when she chose to show me her black eye. “I can’t, Dr. Cross,” she said. “If I make a plan, I’ll use it. And then I think he truly would kill me.”
After my last session that day, I dialed into my voice mail before heading out. There was only one message. It was from Kay
la.
“Hey, it’s me. Well, hang on to your hat because Nana is letting me cook dinner for all of us tonight. In her kitchen! If I weren’t scared silly, I’d say I can’t wait. So, I’ve got a couple of house calls to make, and then I’m stopping at the store. Then I might shoot myself in the parking lot. If not, I’ll see you at home around six. That’s your house.”
It was already six when I got the message. I tried to put the troubling session with Kim Stafford out of my mind, but only partly succeeded. I hoped she was going to be okay, and I wasn’t sure if I should try to interfere just yet. By the time I got to Fifth Street and hurried inside, Kayla was ensconced in the kitchen. She was wearing Nana’s favorite apron and sliding a rib roast into the oven.
Nana sat erect at the kitchen table with an untouched glass of white wine in front of her. Now this was interesting stuff.
The kids were flitting around in the kitchen too, probably waiting to see how long Nana could sit still.
“How was your day, Daddy?” Jannie asked. “What’s the best thing that happened?” she said.
That brought a big smile from both of us. It was a question we liked to throw around the dinner table sometimes. We’d been doing it for years.
I thought about Kim Stafford, and then I thought about the Georgetown rape case and Nana’s reaction to my working on it. Thinking about Nana brought me right back to the present, to my answer to Jannie’s question.
“So far?” I said. “This is it. Being here with you guys is the best thing.”
Chapter 68
THINGS WERE HEATING UP NOW.
The Butcher hated the beach; he hated the sand, the smell of briny water, the bottlenecked traffic, everything about a visit to the crummy seashore. Caitlin and the boys, with their summertime trips to Cape May—they could have it, keep it, shove it.
So it was business, and business only, that brought him to the shore, much less all the way to South Jersey. It was revenge against John Maggione. The two of them had hated each other since Maggione’s father had permitted this “Irish crazy” to become his killer of choice. Then Sullivan had been ordered to take out one of Junior’s buddies, and the Butcher had done the job with his usual enthusiasm. He’d cut Rico Marinacci into pieces.
John Maggione had been making himself scarce lately—no surprise there—so the Butcher’s plan had changed a little, for now. If he couldn’t cut off the head just yet, he’d start with some other body part.
The part, in this case, was named Dante Ricci. Dante was the youngest made man in the Maggione syndicate, a personal favorite of the don’s. Like a son to him. The inside joke was that John Maggione didn’t let an associate wipe his ass without checking with Dante.
Sullivan got to the shore town of Mantoloking, New Jersey, just before dusk. As he drove across Barnegat Bay, the ocean in the distance looked almost purple—beautiful, if you liked that kind of picture-postcard, Kodak-moment thing. Sullivan rolled up his windows against the salt air. He couldn’t wait to do his business, then get the hell out of here.
The town itself lay on an expensive strip of land less than a mile across. Ricci’s house, on Ocean Avenue, wasn’t real hard to find. He drove past the front gate, parked up the road, and walked back about a fifth of a mile.
It looked like Ricci was doing pretty well for himself. The main house was a big honking Colonial: three stories, brown cedar shakes, all perfectly maintained, and right on the water. Four-bay garage, a guesthouse, hot tub up on the dune. Six million, easy. Just the kind of shiny object modern-day wiseguys dangled in front of their wives to distract them from the day-to-day stealing and killing they did for a living.
And Dante Ricci was a killer; that was what he did best. Hell, he was the new-and-improved Butcher.
Sullivan couldn’t see too much of the layout from the front. He imagined most of the house was oriented to the water view in back. But the beach would offer no good cover for him. He’d have to settle in where he was, and take his time.
That wasn’t a problem for him. He had whatever it took to do the job, including patience. A snatch of Gaelic ran through his head, something his grandfather James used to say. Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde, or some shit like that. Beware the anger of a patient man.
Just so, Michael Sullivan thought as he waited, perfectly still in the gathering dusk. Just so.
Chapter 69
IT TOOK A WHILE for him to get a sense of the beach house and its immediate surroundings. There wasn’t much movement inside, but enough to see that the family was home: Dante, two small kids, and—at least from this distance—what looked to be the hot young wife, a nice Italian blonde.
But no visitors, and no bodyguards out in plain sight. Specifically, no capital F: Family. That meant any firepower in the house would be limited to whatever Dante Ricci kept on hand. Whatever he had, it probably wasn’t going to stack up against the 9mm machine gun pistol Sullivan had holstered at his side. Or his scalpel.
Despite the chill in the air, he was perspiring under his jacket, and a patch of sweat had soaked through his T-shirt where the piece hugged his body. The ocean breeze did nothing to cool him down, either. Only his patience held him in check. His professionalism, he liked to think. Traits he had no doubt inherited from his father, the original Butcher, who, if nothing else, had been a patient bastard.
Finally, he moved in toward the beach house. He walked past a shiny black Jaguar sitting on the blond brick parking pad and entered into one of the open garage bays, where a white Jag made bookends with the black one.
Gee, Dante, ostentatious much?
It didn’t take long to find something useful in the garage. The Butcher picked up a short-handled sledgehammer from the workbench in the back. He hoisted it and felt its weight. Just about right. Very nice. Jeez, he liked tools. Just like his old man.
He’d have to swing lefty if he wanted to stay gun-ready, but his strike zone was as big as, well, a Jaguar’s windshield.
He shouldered the hammer, paralleled his feet, and went all Mark McGwire on the glass.
A high-pitched car alarm started screaming at the first impact, just like he wanted it to.
Sullivan immediately hoofed it out to the front yard, about halfway back to the main road. He stepped just out of sight behind a mature red oak that seemed out of place here—like him. His finger was at the pistol’s trigger, but no. No shooting yet. Let Dante think he was some shitbag Jersey Shore burglar. That should bring him running and cursing.
The front screen door flew open seconds later, smacked hard against the wall of the house. Two sets of floodlights flared.
Sullivan squinted against the light. But he could see ol’ Dante on the porch—with a pistol in his hand. In swim shorts no less—and flip-flops. Well muscled and in good shape, but so what. What a cocky bastard this guy was.
Mistake.
“Who the hell’s there?” the tough guy shouted into the darkness. “I said, who’s out there? You better start running!”
Sullivan smiled. This was Junior’s enforcer? The new Butcher? This buffed punk at his beach house? In bathing trunks and plastic shoes?
“Hey, it’s just Mike Sullivan!” he called back.
The Butcher stepped into plain view, took a little bow, then sprayed the front porch before Dante saw it coming. In truth, why would he? Who would have the balls to come after a made man at his house? Who could be that crazy?
“That’s just for starters!” the Butcher roared as half a dozen shots struck Dante Ricci in the stomach and chest. The mobster dropped to his knees, glared out at Sullivan, then fell over face-first.
Sullivan kept his finger on the trigger and swept the two Jaguars in the garage and driveway. More glass shattered. Neat lines of holes opened along the expensive chassis. That felt pretty good.
When he stopped shooting, he could hear screams coming from inside the beach house. Women, children. He took out the porch floodlights with two quick, controlled bursts.
Then he approached
the house, fingering the scalpel. As soon as he got to the body he knew that Dante Ricci was dead as some bloated mackerel washed up on the beach. Still, he rolled the body and slashed the dead man’s face a dozen times or so with the sharp blade. “Nothing personal, Dante. But you’re not the new me.”
Then he turned to go. Dante Ricci had gotten the message, and very, very soon, so would Junior Maggione.
Then he heard a voice coming from outside the house. A female.
“You killed him! You bastard! You killed my Dante!”
Sullivan turned back and saw Dante’s wife standing there with a gun in her hand. The woman was petite, a pretty bleached blonde, no more than five feet tall.
The wife fired blindly into the dark. She didn’t know how to shoot, couldn’t even hold a gun right. But she had some hot Maggione blood in her.
“Get back in the house, Cecilia!” Sullivan shouted. “Or I’ll blow your head off!”
“You killed him! You scumbag! You dirty son of a bitch!” She stepped off the porch, moving into the yard.
The woman was crying, blubbering, but coming to get him, the dumb bunny. “I’m going to kill you, you fucker.” Her next shot exploded a concrete birdbath, only a yard or so to Sullivan’s right.
Her crying had turned to a high-pitched wail. It sounded more like an injured animal than anything human.
Then something inside her snapped, and she charged across the driveway. She fired off one more shot before Sullivan put two into her chest. She dropped like she’d run into a wall, then lay there quivering pathetically. He cut her up too.
Once he got inside his car, he felt better, satisfied with himself. He even welcomed the long drive back. Riding along the turnpike, he opened the windows and cranked up the music, singing Bono’s words at the top of his lungs as if they were his own.