THE FOURTH WATCH (63 page)

*****

I STOPPED AT
the top of the stairs and listened. To my left I could hear
someone moving around down the end of the hall. I could smell
cordite. I went down slowly and quietly, hugging the wall. At the
door I could see the broad back of Matte Genetassio as he rummaged
through a chest of drawers. To the right there was a vanity and in
the mirror I could see Samantha Whorley's body lying on the
bathroom floor. There was a gun on top of the dresser.

I extended the .22 with both hands, pointing it
at his back. "Don't move, Matte," I said, my voice sounded
shaky.

He didn't hesitate for even a second. He swept
the gun up off the dresser and spun toward me and fired at the same
time that I did. The bullet chopped into the door-jam next to my
head splinters flew into my face. I was sure I hit him, but when he
dropped to the floor he rolled, and popped up behind the bed and
shot me through the left forearm. The gun flipped out of my hands
and onto the floor. I went down to grab it, just as he fired again,
the slug going right over the top of my head and out the door,
hitting across the hallway with a thwack I left the gun and bolted.
I held my left wrist in my right hand and could feel the blood
pouring out of it. Just as I got to the top of the stairs, I saw
his frame fill the doorway at the end of the hall. He fired, and a
piece of the banister flew off in front of me. I stumbled to my
right and fell down the stairs, tumbling, head over heels. I lay at
the bottom of the stairs on my back, gasping, the wind knocked out
of me. I looked up and saw Matte lean over the railing and point
the gun at me. He pulled the trigger and it snapped dryly on an
empty cylinder. Our eyes locked for just a second, then he started
down the stairs, reaching into his jacket. There was blood on his
right pant leg, but he was coming quickly. I got my feet under me
and moved.

There was no time to cross the great room and
go up the stairs across the foyer to the front door. I went
straight to the French doors that led out to the back and kicked
them right between the door handles. They burst open, shattering
against the walls and showering me with glass. I jumped over the
railing of the veranda and ran around the hedges. The snow was deep
and heavy going. I saw the path that was only half full of snow
heading to the back of the property, and went with it, holding my
left arm against my chest as I ran.

I heard the new gun popping behind me, but I
didn't look back. I crouched down low and ran for the barn. The gun
roared again and a bullet hit me high up in my left shoulder and
knocked me down into the snow. I groaned and rolled over and got
back up. I looked behind me but couldn't see anyone on the veranda.
Then I saw Matte come around the hedge, limping and coming after me
down the path. Blood was leaking down my back inside my clothes,
and my left arm hung uselessly at my side now. I got to the barn
door and grabbed the knob. It was locked. I pulled my right hand
inside my coat sleeve and smashed out the door window. As my hand
groped around inside I looked back and saw Matte squat and aim the
gun. My hand found the knob and turned it and I fell in through the
door just as he fired. I kicked the door closed behind
me.

I lay on the floor and listened to the horses
moving in their stalls, anxious, jittery. The barn smelled of sweat
and leather. Light from the flood lamps on the house came through
the broken window and threw a square of illumination on the floor.
I looked around desperately for something I could use as a weapon.
I saw a hay fork leaning against the wall and crawled to it. I
pulled it into my hands and leaned my back against the wall just as
the door flew open and Genetassio came in out of the snow. He was
panting from his exertion. He looked at me sitting on the floor
with the pitch fork in my lap and stopped. Then he started laughing
and hobbled into the room, his gun hanging down at his side in his
hand.

The barn was warm, the smell of the straw
powerful. He circled around in front of me, his back to the stalls
where the horses were trampling around nervously, aware of us. The
wind was making a whistling sound through the broken window
pane.

"Kato, Kato, Kato," Matte said, shaking his
head, looking down at me. "Gonna stick

me?"

I looked up at him and tossed the pitch fork
aside.

"You couldn't leave well enough alone, could
ya?"

I didn't say anything.

"Had to be a hero. Well that's just too fuckin'
bad. I figured you might have given it up after you got popped.
Didn't think I'd have to take you down."

"I'm not your only problem, Matte," I said, my
voice weak.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not the only one that knows about you and
Ellie. I saw her laying in there. I guess you were finished with
her. By the way, did you still call her Helena?" The smile slipped
off of his face. He looked at me in silence for a second, his mind
working.

"Why that's very clever of you,
Kato."

"Or about your drug friend, Moltinaldo," I went
on.

He nodded to himself. "That little earthworm
DeMaris figured all this out? I should have given him more credit.
I always thought he was pathetic."

"There are others," I said, "In fact, the State
Cops know I'm out here. They're coming." He laughed at that.
"Cavalry is on the way, huh? Well, I guess I better get a move on
then. I guess I'll have to deal with that when it happens. I can
only handle one problem at a time though. And right now that's
you." He raised the gun and pointed it at me. "Goodbye,
Kato."

And then I saw the giant head flash
out of the stall behind him. The name came into my mind
unbidden.
Alfred.
The horse bit right down into the place where the neck meets
the shoulder and Matte let out a horrible scream, his face
contorted, his eyes rolling up into his head. I think I'll hear it
for the rest of my life. The gun fired up into the rafters and
filled the barn with light. The other horses spooked and whinnied
and crashed around in their stalls.

But Alfred didn't spook. He pulled up with his
huge head, his eyes gone white at the rims with fury, trying to
pull Matte up into the stall with him. A tower of blood shot up
from his neck, splashing across the horse's head. Something ripped
free and Matte's body tried to fall away, but Alfred lunged and
grabbed him in the face with his teeth and jerked him back against
the stall and peeled a slab of flesh away from his skull. The horse
tried to grab him again, but this time Genetassio's body hit the
floor with a thump. Alfred stretched his head down after him, but
couldn't reach. He snuffed loudly, then looked at me from the side
with a giant black eye and disappeared back into his stall. A slick
of black blood flooded out across the floor from the dead man's
head.

42

Rutland State Park

THE TWO SNOWMOBILES
raced along the fire roads under a canopy heavy
with new snow. The sun was high in a cloudless sky, the snow as
white and soft as talcum powder. The main trails were packed down
from sleds that had gone before them. It was late morning, the day
after the big storm.

The riders were brothers, the Simpson twins,
Evan and Shawn, fifteen years old and very competitive. Evan was in
the lead but Shawn was right there, their engines roaring down a
straightaway. Then Evan turned hard, and banked up into new snow
and onto a virgin trail and raced along under the tree branches,
his brother hot on his heels.

In front of him the trail opened into a small
clearing. Evan zipped around a mound of something in the snow and
floored it out into the meadow. He looked behind him to see if
Shawn was gaining...and plowed into the body of Walter
DeMaris.

Shawn saw his brother's sled hit something and
flip. He cut to the right to avoid the up-ended machine, and his
skis went down into a deep hole, bringing his sled to an abrupt
halt, and launching him over the handlebars. He tumbled twice,
stopping upright on his knees. Evan was up on his feet staring down
at the lump in the snow, his mouth hanging open. Shawn jumped up
and ran over and looked down.

"Holy shit!" he said.

Walter's skin was covered with frost, like he
was freezer burned. His eyes were open, but with his pupils rolled
back in his head, they looked like milky marbles. His lips were
peeled back off his teeth in a grimace. His hands were clamped
together, frozen into claws, pointing out away from his body
awkwardly.

"We better get Dad," Evan said.

They up-righted Evan's machine and got it
going. Then they noticed the other

lump they had seen coming in and drove over to
it.

"What," Shawn said.

"You gotta look," Evan told him, "it might be
another dead guy."

"Yeah, bite me. I'm not gonna look."

"Don't be a pussy," Evan said.

"Why don't you go look."

"I'm driving!"

"Oh, man." Shawn waded tentatively through the
snow to the lump and used his snowmobile mittens to brush the snow
away. Scott Madigan's face was framed in the snow with bloody ice.
There was a split in the skin on his skull. It was black around the
edges. His eyes were closed and his chin was down on his chest and
he was frowning. His hair was full of frozen blood and matted down
flat on his head. Shawn thought he looked like
Frankenstein.

"Holy shit!" he said again.

*****

THERE WERE TENTS
up over the two bodies lying in the snow. A forensic team was
working on each as independent crime scenes. They looked a little
silly in their hair nets with tweezers out in the middle of the
woods. Portable propane heaters had been set up under the tents and
they roared in the frigid air. Cops stood around the edges drinking
coffee and stamping their feet against the cold. A State Police
Hummer full of gear had been wedged up through the
trees.

Detective Jim Wilson of the Rutland police was
in charge of the scene. The forensic people were from the state.
Wilson didn't know what he had. It looked like the guy with the
cracked skull had shot the guy in the handcuffs as he ran across
the clearing. Somewhere along the way somebody had dug a damn
grave. The guy with the cracked skull was a cop and his ride was
parked down on the fire road. The guy that got shot had evidently
been brought out here to be executed and buried. Who knew why?
Jesus.

Wilson was blowing some steam off his coffee,
when he saw one of the forensic guys jump under the tent where the
handcuffed guy was being processed. He went that way “What?” he
said when he got under the tent.

The forensic guy was sitting back on his heels,
frowning down at Walter. He didn't say anything, just kept looking.
Walter looked like road kill under the harsh light of the power
heaters.

“What?” Wilson said again.

The forensic guy put his hands on his hips and
looked up into Jim Wilson's face. “I can't believe I'm sayin'
this,but this fuckin' guy right here? I think he's
alive.”

“Are you shittin' me?”

“Better be safe. Get him in the Hummer and get
him out of her right now.”

EPILOGUE Winter,
2000/2001

THE FEDS PICKED
up Sal Moltinaldo in Los Angeles. He was running. Alex
Andreason turned over information uncovered by the Sheeney Group,
linking Moltinaldo and his band to drug trafficking, police
corruption and murder. He was indited by the Justice Department,
along with Carlos and Juan and several other members of his
organization. Carlos rolled on him to save his own skin. But the
DEA wanted everything he knew about the General, and were willing
to deal. So Sal dealt. While he sat in a federal prison, waiting
for things to work themselves out, somebody got to him. He was
poisoned in his cell and died a horrific death, swallowing his
tongue and foaming at the mouth for thirty minutes, his guts
boiling, his intestines turning to water and running out of him.
The next day they found a prison cook shot-gunned to death in his
home and fifty thousand dollars in cash in a trash bag in his
garage. Attempts to trace the money proved futile.

*****

THE WORCESTER POLICE
corruption scandal ran in papers all around the
country. It was perfect tabloid fodder. A dirty high ranking cop,
drugs, money a beautiful former porn star as the femme fatal,
murder. It didn't get any better than that!

As all the dirty laundry was aired in public,
state and local politicians pointed their fingers at one other and
demanded each others scalps. The Feds, of course, called for
creation of committees to study what went wrong, and recommended
the appointment of their own political allies to chair them. The
Mayor and the Chief of Police resigned under fire, and the City
Counsel began its search for an honest, hard-nosed, law and order
type from out of town to come in as the new Chief and clean house.
The search was relentless but ineffective, and a few months later,
after the furor had died down the acting chief, a crony of the
ranking City Counselor who was the odds on favorite to become the
new Mayor, was quietly given the permanent appointment.