He heard something move near his hiding place. Something cracked. A branch or something? Somebody come to visit?
He listened closely. Tree branches were definitely being moved, stepped on, broken. Everything sounded amplified—like SNAPPP!
His mind had slipped away and the noise startled the hell out of him, if you really wanted to know the truth. His adrenaline was kicking in like crazy. He almost swallowed his Adam’s apple.
Suddenly the top half of a face appeared, came into his view. Just the forehead and the whites of someone’s eyes.
THE WHITES OF HER EYES!
Peeking through the tree branches at him.
He saw the face of a tiny black girl. Five or six years old, really cute. She saw him, too. Fair and square.
I SEE YOU, HONEYPIE. YES I DO. I SEE YOU!
“Hi.” He said it real nice and polite, which he could be when he wanted to. He smiled, and she almost smiled back.
He spoke softly. “You want a big balloon. I’ve got plenty of extra balloons, balloons-a-plenty, balloons galore. Here’s a cherry-red balloon with your name on it.”
The little girl just stared at him. She didn’t speak a syllable. Didn’t move. She was afraid of him—imagine that. Probably confused because he’d said her name was on one of the balloons.
“Okay, no balloon then. Fine. Forget about the free balloon offer. No balloon for you, little girl. That’s okey-dokey with me. No free balloon today! No sir!”
“Yesssss please,” she suddenly said. Her brown eyes widened like blossoming flowers. Beautiful little girl, right. Beautiful, chestnut-brown eyes.
“Stop being so shy, girl. Come over here, I’ll give you a big, beautiful balloon. Let’s see, I’ve got stop-sign red, sky blue, popsicle orange, mellow yellow. Every color in the rainbow and then some.”
He mimicked somebody—maybe it was that nutcase Kevin Bacon in The River Wild, which he’d rented a week or so back. Two weeks back? Who knew? Who cared! As he was speaking his hand tightened on the handle of a miniature baseball bat, which was reinforced with electrical tape. The bat was eighteen and a half inches long, the kind the local gangbangers used to keep law and order in the projects.
He continued to speak to the little girl in a happy sing-song that was actually sarcastic and ironic as hell.
“Red one,” the girl finally chirped. Of course. She had a red ribbon in her hair. Red is the color of my true love’s love.
She lightly, very tentatively, stepped out into the clearing. He noticed her feet were so tiny. Like a size minus three. She reached toward the colorful balloons clutched tightly in his outstretched hand. She didn’t seem to notice that his hand was shaking badly.
Behind his back, he gripped the short, powerful ball-bat. Then he swung—real hard.
Happy, happy. Joy, joy.
III
Could they actually get away with murder—especially a high-level, provocative murder like this? Jack was confident that they could. It was easier than anyone knew to kill another human being, or several of them, and never get caught, never even be suspected. It happened all the time.
Jill was scared and visibly tense, though. He couldn’t blame her. In “real life,” she was a Washington careerist, well bred, bright, certainly not the typical murderous kook you read about all the time. Not a very likely Jill, and therefore perfect for her part in the game of games. Almost as perfect as he was for his.
“He’s drunk, completely out,” she whispered as they stood in the dark foyer of the apartment. “It helps that he’s such an absolutely repellent snake.”
“You know what they say about our Dannyboy. He’s a very bad senator, but a much worse date.”
A hint of a smile, a nervous smile from her. “Bad joke, but I can vouch for that. Let’s go. Jack.”
Jill turned on her bare heels, and he followed close behind. He watched the slight hitch in her step. Bewitching in its way. He watched her slender figure retreat through a tiny sitting room that was dimly lit by the hallway lamp. This was the way to the flat’s bedroom, he knew.
They walked silently through a small living room. An American flag proudly stood beside the stone fireplace. The sight of the flag turned his stomach. Color photographs on the wall of a sailing regatta somewhere, probably Cape Cod.
“Izzit you, my dear?” a gruff, whiskey-soaked voice thundered from behind the living room walls.
“Who else could it be?” Jill answered.
Jack and Jill entered the bedroom together. “Surprise party,” Jack announced. He had a Beretta semiautomatic out. It was aimed at the senator’s head.
His gun hand was steady, his head very clear now. History in the making. No chance to go back now.
Daniel Fitzpatrick bolted up in his bed, surprised and burning mad. “What the bloody hell? What the … who the frig are you? How the shit did you get in here?” He slurred his words. His face and neck were bright red.
Jack couldn’t help it—he smiled in spite of everything that was going on. The senator looked like a beached whale, or perhaps an aging walrus, in his fancy bed.
“I guess you could say I’m your despicable past, finally catching up to you, Senator,” he said. “Now shut up. Please. Let’s make this as easy as we possibly can.”
He stared at Daniel Fitzpatrick and was reminded of something he’d read somewhere recently. Upon seeing the senator at a speaking engagement, a spectator had remarked, “My God, he’s an old man now.” Indeed he was. Fitzpatrick was a white-haired, jowly, graceless, sprawlingly fat, old white man.
He was also the enemy.
Jack opened the black duffel bag and handed Jill a pair of handcuffs. “One hand to each bedpost. Please and thank you.”
“It will be my pleasure,” she said. There was a simple elegance in the way she spoke, acted, even the way she moved.
“You’re in on this?” Fitzpatrick gasped as he looked around at the blond woman he’d picked up at the bar in Los Colline. He seemed to be actually seeing her for the first time.
Jill smiled. “No, no. I was attracted by your vast, bloated belly, your alcoholic breath.”
Jack took out the camcorder and handed it over to Jill. She immediately aimed it at Senator Fitzpatrick, focused, and started to film. She was good with the camera.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” Fitzpatrick asked. His washed-out blue eyes were wide with astonishment, and then, with genuine fear. “What the hell do you want? What’s going on here? Dammit, I’m a United States Senator.”
Jill began with the shocked and surprised and hurt look on the senator’s face. She pulled out to a wider shot. Oops, a little too wide. Grabbed focus again.
Jack smiled at the inappropriate outburst of bravado. How very Fitzpatrick.
Then, voilà! It was as if the whiskey-dullness swirling in his brain suddenly stopped. Daniel Fitzpatrick finally understood. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered.
Tears unexpectedly rolled from his eyes. It was strangely affecting. “Please don’t do this. You don’t have to hurt me,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Please, I beg you. Listen to me. Will you just listen to what I have to say?”
This was incredibly important footage, Jill knew. Academy Award stuff. Perhaps the documentary film of the century. They needed this for the game of games, for one of the surprises later on.
Jack walked briskly across the bedroom. He placed the Beretta inches from the senator’s forehead.
This was it. This was where the exquisite game truly began. Rule two: This is history. What you’re doing is important. Never forget that for a single moment.
“I’m going to kill you, Senator Fitzpatrick. There’s nothing for us to talk about. There’s no way out of this. You were a Roman Catholic, so if you believe in God, say a prayer. Please say one for me, too. Say a prayer for Jack and Jill.”
This was gut-check time. He noticed that his hand was shaking a little now. Jill saw it, too.
He told himself—this is a
n execution, and it’s well deserved. And this is most definitely a horror story that I’m in.
He fired once, from a distance of no more than a few inches. Daniel Fitzpatrick’s head exploded. He fired a second time. Measure twice; cut twice as well.
History was made.
The game of games had begun.
Jack and Jill.
James Patterson, Hide and Seek
(Series: # )
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