“When you work, work. When you play, play,” Graf Byrnes was fond of saying. “But goddamn it, don’t think the world is going to stop if you don’t show up for work one day. The graveyard is filled with indispensable managers.”
Gavallan took the words to heart, deciding that when this thing was over, when he had Graf Byrnes safe and sound back in his office in San Francisco, he’d do some serious playing. A month in Maui. The safari in Kenya he’d promised himself. Maybe he’d charter a yacht, do a little island-hopping near the Bahamas.
“Alone?” a cynical voice asked, and the glow of his dream vacation lost its luster.
“Come on, come on. I’m in a hurry here.”
Rapping his palm against the steering wheel, Gavallan urged the column of cars to advance. Yard by yard, the cars edged forward, past the color-coordinated strip malls painted the same gay shade of coral, the casual cafes, the brokerage offices, and the cruise ships offering two-day jaunts to the Bahamas for $99. Delray Beach had the look of a theme park for seniors, with cappuccino and conch fritters replacing cotton candy and corn dogs.
The car in front of him turned onto a side street, offering Gavallan full view of the street ahead. Four patrol cars sat behind the cruisers blocking the road. Parked at odd angles to one another, they looked as if they’d hit a patch of ice and spun to a stop. Two had their noses half to the curb, a third his rear tires on the sidewalk. The last was frozen in the center of his lane, a track of spent rubber thirty feet long attesting to the urgency of his arrival. He sniffed the air. Burnt rubber mixed uneasily with the bloom of summer gardenias and the scent of freshly cut grass.
In the blink of an eye, his curiosity turned to apprehension.
Sliding a knee onto the seat, he lifted himself up and peered over the convertible’s windshield. Emergency vehicles jammed the street: three ambulances, rear doors flung open, gurneys absent; a fire truck; a trio of identical navy Crown Vics that screamed federal law enforcement; and bringing up the rear, a TV van, horn blaring, advancing foot by foot. For all the activity, Gavallan had no way of figuring out what exactly had happened. He knew only one thing: This was no auto accident.
A swarm of uniformed men and women buzzed back and forth across the street, running into and out of a building in the center of the block. Two cops carrying spools of yellow and black tape began to walk toward the building, and the words “crime scene” flashed through his head. A gurney emerged from the building and rattled along the sidewalk, shepherded toward an ambulance by three determined paramedics. Their sober pace didn’t give Gavallan much hope for the patient. Neither did the woman following them, a middle-aged peroxide blond, hands to her face, sobbing. Another gurney rolled out, this one in a hurry. Above the din, he heard a voice. Strident. Losing its calm. “Move it. We got one alive. I need four units of…”
The words were drowned out by a chopper flying in low overhead, a Bell Ranger hovering a hundred feet in the air. Police? No. More TV.
It was then he recognized the building: the mint green plantation shutters, the barrel tile roof, the Mediterranean arches. Cornerstone Trading.
“All right, sir, let’s get a move on,” said a tan young traffic cop, patting a hand on the hood of Gavallan’s rental car. “Nothing here for you to see. Detour to your right and be on your way.”
“Any idea what happened, officer?” Beneath the tourist’s smile, Gavallan was aware of his breath coming fast and shallow. He had to fight not to wipe the sweat from his lip.
“Nothing to concern you,” answered the policeman. “Just move along. I’m sure you’ll be able to read about it tomorrow.”
“Looks bad,” Gavallan persisted. “Anyone hurt?”
“Move along, buddy. Now!”
Giving a curt wave, Gavallan activated his turn signal and drove the Mustang rental up the block. After finding a place to park two blocks up, Gavallan ran back to the crime scene. By now a sizable crowd had gathered. He threaded his way through the onlookers, stopping on the sidewalk opposite the entry to Cornerstone Trading. He’d hardly had time to gather his breath before a young man standing next to him began to fill him in.
“Guy just lost it, man. Went in and capped his crew, then did himself. Got every one of them. Ten dudes, all dead.” He was a handsome Hispanic kid, maybe fifteen, with spiked hair dyed henna, a golden nose stud, and cargo pants cut to the knee. “I heard it, man,” he went on. “I work at the Orange Julius next store. It was like this, check it out: bang, bang, bang, bang. Shit was loud, and quick, like maybe two seconds between shots.”
“You think you ought to tell that to the police?” asked Gavallan.
“The police? Heck, no. I don’t need that hassle.” Suddenly, the kid jumped back a step, his brown eyes skittish. “You ain’t the man, are you?”
“No,” said Gavallan. “I ain’t the man.” He beckoned the boy closer. “You said, ‘The guy just lost it.’ You know who did it?”
“Nah, man, no one knows. But I know one of the dudes was in there. My man, Ray. ‘Fact I made him a burger this morning—his favorite, a double chili cheese with jalapeños. Calls it his ‘victory burger.’ Dude came in real happy, see, smiling even, and that’s something. My man Ray is one serious dude.”
A victory burger, Gavallan said to himself, remembering Luca’s cocky grin, the mention of having some dirt on Kirov.
“When did it happen?” asked Gavallan.
“When did what happen?”
All at once, Gavallan’s patience left him, evaporated under the tropical heat, worn away by the endless string of setbacks, one more trading loss in Black Jet’s column, who knew? Grabbing the Hispanic youngster by the arm, he shook him once, hard enough to frighten him. “The shooting,” said Gavallan. “The murder. Whatever went on inside of that building.”
“Yo, man, chill,” the kid said, eyes bugging. “Like an hour ago.” He flicked a wrist to check his watch. “Ten, ten-fifteen. Ten-twenty. Round there. We cool now?”
“Yeah, we’re cool.” Gavallan patted the kid’s arm and moved off toward his car. A glance behind told him he’d already been forgotten. The Latino was busy offering his story to the next bystander who’d happened along.
Gavallan wiped the sweat from his forehead.
This was not how the day was supposed to have gone.
The bodies lay where they had fallen. Some sat slumped at their computers, too surprised, too frightened, to have reacted. Others had run, though none had made it more than a few feet from his or her desk. The mess was terrible and overwhelming, gore spackled onto the walls and cubicles in chaotic, Technicolor blotches. Ponds of blood stained the carpet, clotted now, hard as ice. Black Ice.
Dumdums, thought Howell Dodson as he walked slowly down the center aisle of the trading room at Cornerstone Trading. Bullets modified to flatten on impact. Small hole going in; big hole coming out. He passed a victim, his face missing below the hairline, a gaping mask of blood, bone, and gristle.
Despite himself, he gasped. He’d seen men killed, women too. He’d witnessed death many times over in all its inglorious pageantry. He’d sat at a wooden table, arms and legs bound, and watched as the pinky and ring finger of his left hand were severed with a carpet layer’s dulled blade. The smell of blood and the scent of fear were familiar companions.
But this was different, he thought, stepping carefully over another corpse. These were the innocent, the unknowing, the unsuspecting. Death didn’t belong in these stained, shabby, ordinary corridors.