“What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t you think I’d keep an eye on you?” Jacklin asked, smiling scornfully. “Once that building went up, I knew who was responsible.”
“They have it on tape,” said David Bernstein. “A surveillance camera got it all.”
Jacklin took a step toward Bobby. “Don’t make it hard on yourself, sweetheart. Police are on the way now. You can give them your excuses.”
An alarm bell sounded in her mind. This isn’t right, she thought. Why is J. J. waiting for the police to come?
“What are we standing around for?” she said to David, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go. Now. Let’s get out of here.”
She turned for the stairs. Two of Jacklin’s goons waited at the upper landing. Broad shoulders, short haircuts, closed faces. She knew the type.
“I’m sorry, Bobby,” said Jacklin, flashing their airline tickets in his fist. “I came to settle this misunderstanding once and for all.”
“Misunderstanding? I thought it was a felony.”
“Call it whatever you like.”
“There’s nothing to settle,” said Bobby. “You’re a fascist. You want to spy on everyone to make sure no one’s doing anything you don’t like. You think you’re Big Brother, even if your feet can’t touch the kitchen floor. Just because you’re out of the government doesn’t mean you’re not still in cahoots with them.” She spun to face the men on the stairs. “Who are these gorillas? Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum? Why’d you bring them? Can’t handle things by yourself? I thought you were a hero.” She went on goading him, her anger at the boiling point, her temper shot. “J. J., you always were just a clown in a cowboy suit, trying to be the man your mother wanted you to be.”
“That’s enough, Bobby.”
It was then that she saw the pistol in his hand.
“We just bought the company,” he said, giving it a waggle. “Fanning Firearms. Figured I ought to get something out of it.”
“Oh, Christ, J. J., this is too much. A gun? Did you think we were going to fight back? Two lawyers? The Constitution’s gunslingers? That there’s Bernstein the Kid, fastest Jew in the West. And I’m…” She stopped midsentence and turned to her lover. “Would you look at him, David?”
“Be quiet, Bobby,” said David Bernstein in a sober voice.
He knew, Bobby Stillman chided herself, twenty-five years later. He’d grown up the son of a police officer. He knew the cardinal rule about guns. You never drew one unless you were going to use it. And she, for her part, had done everything humanly possible to make sure his premonition came true.
“Oh, put it down, J. J.,” she went on. “The police are coming. Good!” She thrust her wrists in front of her, as if welcoming the cuffs. “Let them arrest us. The courts will be the forum we need to shine a bright fucking light on your crappy little company. You really expect everyone to believe that those devices Guardian’s making will only be used by the military? I bet the FBI has a big order in already. Who else? Customs? Treasury? DEA? Everyone on the block will want one. They’ll be installing them in every phone switching center within a year. All courtesy of James Jacklin and Guardian Microsystems.”
“As usual, Bobby, you’re a little too smart for your own good,” said Jacklin.
He gave her a last supremely pissed-off look, then turned and fired a bullet into David Bernstein’s head. He collapsed to the floor without so much as a grunt. She would never forget how his knees buckled, his entire body going limp, as if someone had unplugged him from the wall and all the current had instantly gone out of him. And then lying there, he did a terrible thing. He kicked. One leg bucked the air. One heel of one leather shoe clomped onto the wooden floor. And then he was still.
Jacklin walked over to look at him. “No one is going to testify in any court about Guardian, sweetheart,” he said. “National security.”
Bobby froze. Then she began to shake her head. Tears came. She didn’t want to cry, but she was overwhelmed. “You monster,” she sobbed. “You killed him. But you called the police? They’re coming.”
“I surely hope so.”
Just then, a police car pulled to the curb in front of the house. Two officers climbed out, slipping their batons into their belts. A scream rose in her throat. She ran to the window. One of Jacklin’s men stopped her, sweeping her into his arms and clamping a hand over her mouth. The doorbell rang a minute later.
Jacklin opened the door. Before either could see David Bernstein, he shot them. Once through the heart, so close that the cloth of their shirts briefly caught fire.
He pointed the gun at her. “Go outside,” he said.
Shaking, she stepped over the bodies onto the wraparound porch. He stood with the gun aimed at her for a minute. Neither moved.
“And Jacky Jo?” she said.
And so, Jacklin had created the myth of Bobby Stillman, cop killer. He had made her a permanent fugitive. It was a brilliant move. It robbed her of everything. Her freedom. Her credibility. And her son.
Bobby stepped back from the Scanlon operative. With one hand, she yanked his boxer shorts to the floor. She allowed him a moment to savor his vulnerability. Just a second or two to feel the wind blow.
She took a firm hold of his penis.
“What is Crown?” she asked, placing the carpet layer’s knife under his manhood. She flicked the blade upward, drawing blood. “Last chance.”
“D.C… Senator McCoy,” he said in dry gulps.
“More.”
“A sanction.”
“When?”
“The inauguration… tomorrow.”
59
Delta flight 1967, New York LaGuardia to Washington Reagan National Airport, touched down at 8:33 P.M., thirty minutes behind schedule. Detective First Grade John Franciscus was the second passenger off the plane, held up only by a purple-haired matron in a wheelchair. Checking the overhead signs, he found his way to the car-rental desk. He had two or three friends on the D.C. Metro force he might have asked to pick him up, even a couple of Maryland state troopers. They were all good guys, but he didn’t want to bring anyone else in on this. It wasn’t the time to figure out who was his friend and who wasn’t. A flash of the badge got him the last four-wheel drive. Keys in hand, he walked to the sidewalk to wait for the shuttle bus to take him to his car. If anything, the snow was falling heavier here than in New York. It came down in great fat feathers, an ocean of goose down suspended in the air. The bus arrived. Beneath the harsh sodium lights, he caught his reflection in its window. Gray he looked, and gray he felt.
At some point on the flight down, someplace between Trenton and Gettysburg, Franciscus had decided to go ahead and have the procedure. Twenty years with a zipper on his chest was better than twenty years without one. He’d even come up with the harebrained notion of moving out to L.A., wrangling himself an advisor’s job on one of the cop shows. They needed someone to straighten them out. He, personally, was sick of the crime-scene stuff. He wanted to see things done the old-fashioned way. His way. Bracing a guy at two in the morning in the stairway of the Jackson Projects until he gave up the doer. Or traipsing up to Albany on a hunch and coming back with a set of fingerprints that tied a man to a murder twenty-five years after the fact. Maybe he’d even ask Vicki Vasquez to come with him. He’d done crazier things.
Franciscus lifted his eyes and stared into the sky. It boiled down to this: Even if he got the collar, his time was up. You didn’t spit in the chief’s face and live to talk about it. Esposito was a vindictive son of a bitch. He wouldn’t forget. Franciscus would make sure the city paid for his procedure. His buddies in the union would back him. The lieutenant was right. Thirty-four years on the job was a career. Who said sixty-two wasn’t a good time to start over?