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Authors: Wallace Stroby

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“I thought I was being smart,” he said. “Heading him off. And instead I got her killed.”

Errol drained half his scotch, went back to turning the glass around.

“They'll get him,” Ray said. “And when he goes away this time, he won't ever be coming back.”

“She didn't have much in life, you know?” Harry said. “But she wanted more for her daughter. Better. She didn't deserve what happened.”

Ray didn't answer.

“But you know something?” Harry said.

“What?”

“
He
will.”

He knocked, waited. When she opened the door, he stepped in and she came into his arms. He pulled her close, buried his face in her hair.

He held her like that, in the open doorway, felt her tremble against him, her sobs as soft as a child's.

They lay atop the bed, fully clothed, her head on his chest. She'd cried herself to sleep.

Outside, sleet rattled the hotel room window. He felt her stir, looked down and saw her eyes open. He kissed the top of her head and she put a hand on his chest, feeling his heart, looked off at nothing.

“We need to call the agency,” she said. “Tell them what happened. They should know.”

“Ray's on it. He's going to make the calls first thing in the morning. Simmons first, then the D.C. people. He'll take care of it.”

“I called Jack,” she said.

“And?”

“Reggie's finally agreed. They're going to go out to the Hamptons the day after tomorrow. Jack has a friend with a house there.”

“Good. The sooner the better.”

“Will they catch him? Because of this.”

“Yes. There are other people involved now, other agencies. It's not just about you anymore. They'll catch him.”

She rested her head back on his chest.

“I wish I could believe you,” she said. “I wish I could listen to that and know it was true.”

He pulled her tighter, felt her breathing, the beat of her heart. But he didn't answer.

Johnny paid the cab driver, got out. It had been nearly an hour's ride from O' Hare and it was dark now, bitter cold. He saw the street sign that said GREEN BAY ROAD, waited on the corner until the driver pulled away, disappeared in traffic.

He was in a neighborhood of big hedge-enclosed yards, wide tree-lined streets. Outside the airport there had been snow everywhere, but here the streets were plowed clean, salted, the sidewalks cleared.

He pulled the collar of his field jacket higher, started down the street, keeping close to the hedges. It would also be a neighborhood with regular police patrols, he knew, where just the sight of a pedestrian was reason enough to stop and question him.

The wind whipped around him. He'd had the driver stop at a hardware store outside the airport, and he'd bought another folding Buck knife. If he saw a cop now he would just toss the knife away, lose it in the snow.

He passed a suburban train station, the lot carefully cleared, a pair of cabs waiting with engines running. He kept walking, watched mailbox numbers, the houses set too far back from the street to identify. When he reached 2204 he crossed the street.

Twenty-two eleven was smaller than some of the other houses on the block, two stories with a big backyard, separate garage. The front porch was strung with Christmas lights.

He walked by it, went to the next house. It was a two-level stone structure, driveway still covered with snow, no footprints or tire marks. No one home.

He pushed through bare bushes into the yard, boots crunching in the snow. There was a shoulder-high skeleton hedge separating the two properties. He followed the line of it, out of sight from the street, until he reached the stone house. He looked in a dark living room window, searched for light or movement. None.

With his back to the stone house, he looked through the gaps in the hedges at 2211.

There was a bay window in front, and through parted curtains he could see a living room, bookshelves, pictures on the walls, a Christmas tree in one corner.

A woman came into the room and he backed up a step, into the shadows of the stone house. She was in her thirties, blonde, a baby balanced on one shoulder. She looked around the room, turned to speak with someone out of view, left the room again.

He moved down the hedge to the next lighted window. He could see the short hallway that led from the living room, a brightly lit kitchen beyond, smell food cooking. There was a man at the head of the table, his back to the window. To his right sat a small boy, dark hair and glasses. Maybe seven, eight.

Matthew.

The woman set the baby down in a high chair, kissed the top of its head, began to put platters of food on the table.

He watched them, not feeling the cold anymore. The boy went for a basket of bread on the table, couldn't reach it. He laughed, strained as if hyperextending his arm, and the woman laughed too now as she ate, the father moving the basket closer so the boy could reach it.

Johnny looked beyond them for signs of movement, someone else in the house. Nothing. Just the four of them.

He backed up a step, decided to risk a cigarette, got one lit. He stood there smoking, watching them. The boy wore a green sweater with reindeer on the front. He talked as he ate, the story occasionally causing him to put his fork down, wave his hands to make a point. The woman had finished eating, was feeding the baby now from a bowl balanced on the plate of the high chair.

He sucked in the harsh smoke, let it out. He felt the warmth of the room, could almost taste the food.

He couldn't see the father's face. He imagined it was his.

When he was done with the cigarette he pinched it out, put it in his pocket. Then he walked back to the street.

He got a cab at the train station, spent the night at a motel near the airport. When he checked out the next day, he left the knife behind.

After landing at Newark, he waited outside the terminal, watching the long line of cars queuing to pick up passengers. No Firebird.

He looked at his watch, smoked a cigarette, waited. After a half hour, he went back into the terminal, used a pay phone to call the trailer. Ten rings, no answer.

He waited another half hour, then headed for the cab stand.

They rolled slowly up the main street of the trailer park.

“Which number?” the driver said.

“I'll tell you when to stop,” Johnny said.

He saw the trailer, the Firebird outside, no lights on within.

“This it?” the driver said.

“No. Keep going.”

A dark Chevy was parked up the street, two men inside drinking coffee. Cops. Johnny looked away as the cab passed them.

“Well?” the driver said.

“My mistake. Wrong place. Take me to Asbury.”

“This is going to be extra, you know.”

He fished a hundred from his jeans pocket, dropped it over the seat. He looked back at the Chevy, still parked.

“Swing around here,” he said. “It'll take you back to the entrance.”

“Anything you say, boss.”

The driver let him out two blocks from the Sea Vista. He crossed over to the boardwalk, came out behind a boarded-up
taffy store across from the motel. He stood in the shadows, watched. No lights in his room, no cars out front he hadn't seen before.

He should leave now, he knew, not even try to get back in. But the duffel was in the room, the Sig, the money. The tickets.

He waited, the wind off the ocean cutting through his jacket. Then he crossed the street.

He moved quickly, got the duffel from the hidden space in the closet ceiling. The money was all there, the Sig too. He pushed it into his belt, crossed to the sliding glass door and pushed the curtain aside, looked out. Nothing.

He called Connor's beeper, left the motel number. It rang back in two minutes.

“What the fuck is going on?” Connor said.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? There's a murder warrant out for you. Do you know that? Your brother's in custody too.”

“That's bullshit. He never did anything to anybody.”

“Who killed that woman?”

“What woman?”

“You're a bad liar, you know that, John? Don't fucking give me that. What did we talk about, about shutting your file down? You think I can get you out of this? You're wrong.”

“How should I know who killed her? They're trying to pin it on me because I've got a jacket, that's all. Because I did time. It's bullshit.”

“It better be.”

“It is.”

“I don't get you, John. This whole thing's going to hell and you seem awful fucking calm about it.”

“What am I supposed to do? Like I said, it's bullshit.”

“It changes everything.”

“Maybe not. I've got what you want.”

Silence on the line for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“The wire. I wore it to a meeting we had in Newark. I've
got Joey A., Lindell, others, all clear as day, talking about the meth lab, the trouble with Tony Acuna. That's what you wanted, isn't it?”

A pause.

“Yeah, that's what I wanted.”

“You don't sound too happy.”

“You have it with you?”

“Right here. Right now.”

“I need to hear it, see what we've got. Then we'll talk about what we're going to do.”

“You listen, you tell me.”

“When can I get it?”

“I'll be in touch,” Johnny said.

“My guess,” Harry said, “is he doesn't know anything.”

They were standing in front of a two-way mirror at the State Police barracks in Holmdel, watching Mitchell Sweeton smoke cigarettes, look at the floor and occasionally offer an answer to the two detective lieutenants sitting across the table from him. His left hand was cuffed to a D-bar on the table.

“Maybe not,” said Vic Salerno. “But he's the only connection anyone's got to Harrow right now.”

At a desk behind them, Branson was on the phone. There had been others watching at first, but it was Sweeton's second hour in the box and most of the curious had lost patience and interest. Salerno had flicked off the external speaker a few minutes previously, so the scene inside now played out in silence. Sweeton looked exhausted. Every few minutes he would rest his forehead on the table, look at the floor.

“Where's the woman?” Harry said.

“In another room, second floor. They've kept them separated the whole time. DYFS has the kid.”

“Anything from her?”

Salerno shook his head.

“She knows who Harrow is. She's seen him around. He's been by the trailer, that's it. Says she doesn't know where he is now. I'm inclined to believe her. They're threatening to take the little girl away, for good. They found some pot, paraphernalia in the trailer, and some goods that will almost certainly turn out to be stolen. It's bullshit, not enough to even go to court with. Good enough to use as a threat, though. We'll see what happens.”

Sweeton had his face in his hands now, cigarette burning unattended in the tin ashtray.

“I never got a chance to thank you,” Salerno said. “For calling me. This is the kind of break we wait for.”

“What about Alea?”

“We sent some people to his house. Nonconfrontational was the brief I gave them. Said he hasn't seen Harrow in years, didn't even know he was out.”

“You believe him?”

Salerno shrugged.

“No evidence he's lying, unfortunately. He'll be a stone wall until we get something to use against him. That's what I was hoping Sweeton would give us.”

Inside, the two detectives looked at each other. One of them, whom Harry knew by sight but not name, got up from the table. He stepped out into the hall, shut the door behind him.

“Yeah?” Salerno said. “Anything?”

“Maybe,” the detective said. “You guys ever hear of a motel called the Sea Vista?”

The SWAT team rolled into the motel lot in a pair of black vans with tinted windows. Salerno's Ford pulled in behind them, Harry in the passenger seat.

Salerno parked on the edge of the lot. They watched half of the teamâwearing black flak jackets, helmets, and carrying stubby H&K machine gunsâgo in the front door. Others raced around the back of the building to cover the other exits. Three more state police cruisers pulled into the lot, flashers and sirens off. One blocked the entrance.

Salerno looked up at the building. They could see helmeted figures on the roof now.

“What do you think?” he said. “He in there?”

“We'll find out.”

From the back of one of the vans, two SWAT members brought out a four-man battering ram. They carried it through the front door.

“Nice place,” Salerno said. “Good for the kids. You don't
have to worry about cooking dinner. They can just eat the paint chips off the walls.”

“I hear it's coming down. This whole block. The Heartbreak, Pratt's. Everything.”

“Couldn't be too soon, you ask me. Places like this, what this town's become, sometimes you just have to drop a big bomb, start over.”

As they watched, a fifth-floor balcony door opened. A curtain was pushed aside and a team member carrying an H&K came out onto the balcony. He signaled to those on the roof.

“He's gone,” Harry said.

“Looks like.”

Two SWAT men came out the front door, huddled with a pair of plainclothes detectives. One of them was Branson. Salerno powered down the window as he came over.

“Gone,” Branson said. “No luggage, no clothes. But he was there. Room 503. Bed's unmade, cigarette butts everywhere.”

“So he's in the wind,” Salerno said.

“Manager hasn't seen him since yesterday. He paid in advance for the month. Doesn't look like he's coming back, though.”

Salerno looked at Harry.

“Ideas?”

Harry shook his head.

“His brother's in custody, the trailer's being watched. So he's not going back there. He must have another hole somewhere.”

“What are you two going to do now?” Branson said.

“Rattle some cages,” Salerno said. “And wait.”