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  Beckett reached out and made little pencil lines between each of them. “The way it sits right now, Liz Gerkin began writing letters to the Boston Globe. Those letters spawned this woman, Anne Pickard, to write an article about the story of Gerkin and her late husband. Gerkin’s late husband was estranged from his father, who saw the story and found out his son was murdered in what was believed to be a drug related shooting.

  “Being an affluent and pompous ass, this old guy starts leaning on Congressman Wilbanks to get some new legislation enacted. Wilbanks starts formulating the new initiative, even hires Dr. Ambrosia Brockler and her team at MIT to cover the science aspects of it.”

  Birchwood listened with large eyes and when Beckett was done he glanced from Beckett to the paper and back again. “Okay, so what does all that mean?”

  “What does that mean? That means every victim so far has had a connection. What I don’t know is where do you fit into all this?”

  Beckett coughed twice and wiped his brow again. “Did you treat Gerkin’s husband when he came in with the gunshot wound or something?”

  Birchwood’s eyes narrowed just a bit. “Oh, that’s not possible sir. I’m not from around here.”

  “What do you mean you’re not from around here?” Beckett asked, coughing again and taking a drink from the coffee.

  “I told you, I’m here on business. I’m from the West Coast.”

  Beckett looked at him for a moment and made a face. “Oh...”

  “Besides, I’m not that kind of doctor anyway.”

  Beckett blinked twice, the edges of Birchwood starting to blur a bit. “Not that kind of doctor?”

  “No Mr. Beckett. I am a pharmacist.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Christ, this guy was really going to make me spell it out for him.

  I thought he was supposed to be so damn good? This was the guy Mavetti was worried about and wanted me to take down?

  To catch up a bit, the room I entered with the champagne was my own. I registered under the name Dr. Aaron Birchwood, which isn’t far from my own real name.

  I took the cart from the room service waiter because that way nobody ever saw who was in the room of Dr. Aaron Birchwood. That way, nobody could ever dispute who it was that got rolled out on the gurney.

  I mixed the pills with the champagne and made the call, then waited ten minutes before drinking it. The medics got there a whopping minute and a half later, before the meds had a chance to affect me.

  Sure, I had to act a little bit for them, and it wasn’t particularly enjoyable having a tube shoved down my throat and my stomach pumped, but it was worth it.

  Any remorse I might have felt about myself or my work after dealing with Gerkin was now gone, replaced with complete satisfaction at the number I had done on the detective. He was supposed to be the best around and I flew to Boston, kept him guessing for a week, then whacked him while he watched.

  Worth every penny of the million Mavetti paid for this.

  Beckett coughed again as sweat began to pour down his face. “A pharmacist?”

  I dropped the wide-eyed and fearful act, leaning back in my chair. “Yes, Mr. Beckett, a pharmacist. One that makes a living dealing with, mixing, interacting drugs.”

  A cruel smile spread across my lips as Beckett’s eyes bulged and he stared down at his paper. “But, but how do you fit with the other victims?”

  I leaned forward so my face was just inches from his. “Mr. Beckett, I am the link between these people. I’m the one that’s been pulling the strings all along.”

  He coughed again and pointed to his mouth. “This too?”

  I held out my right thumb and peeled back a flesh colored piece from the pad of it. “I call this little invention a false thumb. Not a flashy name, but you get the idea.

  “It’s essentially a band aid, but instead of a piece of gauze in the middle there’s a small liquid center, kind of like a blister. All I have to do is hold my hands over whatever you’re consuming and puncture the pocket with my fingernail.

  “The poison drops in, a few minutes later you drop out.”

  Saliva dripped from Beckett’s mouth as he reached for the holster on his chair. I smiled as he pulled the gun and fired at me again and again.

  Each time, nothing but empty clicks.

  “I have to admit, you’ve almost taken all the fun out of it this evening for me. I brought two of these thumbs along in case you brought your partner, but you didn’t.

  “I was worried about the fact that you were carrying a gun, but you just handed it to me and let me take these from you,” I said, bringing up the ejected clip and the single bullet from my lap.

  “You even left your coffee right out there in the open for me to take, then drank it straight down without another thought.

  “I have to say, I am rather disappointed in you Mr. Beckett, this city was wrong to have thought so highly of you.”

  Beckett coughed again, starting to gag on his tongue as he desperately tried to pull his phone from his belt.

  “Mr. Beckett, we’re in a hospital. There’s no reception in here. Radiation is bad for patients.”

  He tried again to get some response from the phone, but nothing happened.

  I sat and watched a moment longer before rising from my chair and walking past him and into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

  Entering into the restroom I peeled the hooded sweatshirt off to reveal a matching blue scrub top and ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it.

  Using a wad of paper towels, I wrapped the clip and spare round in them and push everything into the garbage.

  I walked into the hallway and saw the conference room door still closed, so I called the elevator and took it down to the first floor. Right outside I flagged down a cab and took it back to the Ritz, going straight to the garage and handing the valet my ticket.

  My room was already reserved and paid for, but at a million bucks a job I could afford to eat a couple of hundred dollars.

  Besides, no point in returning to the scene of a perfect crime.

  As I drove away I called the front desk and told them to bill me for Terry Schiff’s room. Per rule three, I refused to work with anyone, but the few people I chose to use along the way at least got a little something in return.

  The least I can do.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I was feeling so good after the Beckett hit, I almost missed it. That was how it went in this business, let your guard down for one second, admire your work even one bit, and something like this jumped up on you.

  There was no way of knowing where they picked me up, though I assume it was coming out of the Ritz. It wasn’t until I was almost to Storrow that I noticed the black sedan that remained three car lengths back and one lane over from me.

  Most times when I suspected a tail I’d work in such a convoluted pattern that there was no way anybody could follow me.

  At least not without being obvious about it.

  There were only a small handful of exits along Storrow, places like Kendall Square or Boston University, places that left me very little room to operate. If somebody wanted to pin me down or work an ambush, it would be far too easy.

  Pushing the accelerator, I went on past Central and Harvard Squares, even on out past Alewife.

  The black sedan stayed with me move for move.

  I didn’t have a weapon of any kind with me, so my options were limited. The black bag was back in my hotel room and there was no way I could go back there.

  Not only would I be trapping myself, but my plane ticket home was there.

  That’d be giving up way too much information.

  I followed Storrow out to 95, took it South and exited again near Newton. I wound through the familiar streets and stopped at the first gas station I saw, a 24-hour Citgo. Parking as close to the front door as possible, I kept the engine running and jogged into the store.

  The clerk looked like he was half asleep and barely old enough
to drive as I picked up two bottles of cheap wine and a cigarette lighter with a confederate flag on it.

  What the hell that was doing all the way up here I had no idea, but at the moment it didn’t really concern me.

  I flipped the kid a twenty and told him to keep the change, grabbed up the brown paper bag and headed for the car. Keeping my head down, I slid behind the wheel and threw the gear shift into drive.

  The car lunged as I swung back onto 26, heading away from Wilbanks place. The sedan was parked just down the street and as I headed out of town, I saw its headlights fall in behind me.

  If the bastards wanted me, they could come and get me.

  I punched the gas hard and watched the speedometer climb as I flew down 26. The car fell back a little bit, just managing to keep me in sight.

  Good.

  I passed a sign welcoming me to the state park I had been to just three days before and pulled up alongside the wooden restroom facility, parking at an angle beside it.

  The goal was to give the impression I was panicking.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  Turning the car off, I grabbed the sack and jogged to the restrooms, stopping just long enough to flip the lights on. The sack pressed against my chest, I spun out and slipped into the trees behind it, using a thick oak for cover.

  Checking the road every few seconds, I pulled off my shoes and socks. I tied one of the socks around the mouth of each bottle and jammed my feet back into the shoes.

  Two full minutes passed before the sedan pulled up behind my rental. The driver killed the engine, leaving the headlights on as two men emerge. Both were carrying automatic Uzi’s in front of them and wearing dark suits.

  Walking clichés, if there ever was one.

  Guys like these two were what gave the rest of us a bad name.

  The two fanned out and approached the restrooms, guns positioned in front of them. There was a moment of silence before both riddled the entire structure with bullets.

  They fired until their clips were empty, the sound of their laughter drifting through the air. One at a time they disappeared inside, ready to inspect their handiwork.

  Using the lighter, a set both of the socks ablaze and jogged back towards them.

  Standing just off to the corner, I waited until both were outside before hurling the bottle in my right hand at the closest one.

  The cheap glass shattered on contact, the wine spreading the fire over him in less than a second.

  The sound caused the first one to spin around, his momentum turning him right back into a bottle to the chest. Fire engulfed both of them as they screamed and flailed about, slapping at themselves and each other.

  My weapons depleted, I retreated back into the trees and waited. With fire licking at their bodies, there was no chance they’d even think to look for me.

  Not that they could see me from my hiding spot anyway.

  Tucked behind the oak tree, I watched as they peeled off their jackets and continued pawing at the flames. Both disappeared into the restroom, giving me the chance to return and relieve them of their weapons.

  The clip from the first guy was still empty, a complete amateur. The second had managed to reload his weapon, which I gripped in both hands and stepped inside.

  Neither noticed me as they threw handfuls of water from the sink on to each other, smoke rising thick in the air, mingling with the smell of burnt cloth and flesh.

  Even with the burns and the disfigurement, there was no mistaking these were the two men Mavetti had with him at the Barking Crab.

  Anger welled deep within me as I placed my index finger and thumb into my mouth and whistled. The two men both turned to me, forgetting the smoldering clothes as realization sets in.

  “Look, we’re only doing what we were told,” the one on the left said, his hands raised by his side.

  “Yeah,” the other one agreed. “Look at us, you’ve won here. Just let us go back, we’ll tell him you’ve been taken care of, nobody will know the difference.”

  “Nobody will ever know,” the first one echoed. “We’ll take it to the grave.”

  I can’t help but smirk at his choice of words. “Yeah you will.”

  The gun kicked a tiny bit in my hand, bullets ripping through their bodies. They jerked from side to side, suspended in the air, before toppling to the ground.

  Blood mixed with the water, pooling around them and the piles of burnt clothing.

  I considered moving the bodies, but conceded that there was no point. The entire building was riddled with bullets and there was no way to remove the smell of charred flesh and blood in the air.

  Stepping back, I rifled through the smoldering remains of a jacket and extracted a cell phone. Flipping through it, I found a couple of phone numbers, but not much else I could use.

  Moving to their car, I did a quick scan of the backseat, finding it empty. A scan of the glove compartment resulted in a thick stack of papers, all of which got shoved in my pocket to be examined later. I left the keys on the dash and popped the trunk, not expecting to find much.

  I was wrong.

  Tucked in the rear space was a gas can and a tire iron, both of which were coming with me. Beside them was a small black bag, which I pulled over to the center and unzipped, letting the glow of the overhead security light shine down inside.

  It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  Theo Mavetti had broken rule number four.

  I was going to use his own bag of guns to punish him for it.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was only a matter of time before Mavetti figured out his boys weren’t coming back. From there it was just a matter of seconds before he realized I was the reason.

  Needless to say, time was of the essence.

  One of the papers in the glove box revealed the car was a registered to a Daniel Reed in Charlestown, just off of Boston Harbor. The good news was the area was almost entirely houses.

  The bad news was there were a lot of them.

  Knowing the clock was ticking, I cut a path straight for Reed. I laid on the gas and swung down the turnpike, pausing just long enough to throw a couple of dollars at the toll booth clerk before heading into Charlestown.

  Taking the U.S.S. Constitution/Charlestown exit, I wound down past whatever the Boston Garden’s new name was and into the Back Bay district. I found the street I was looking for easy enough, the corresponding house number just a minute later.

  Moving slow, I drove on by and parked a couple of blocks away.

  Seated behind the wheel, I shrugged off my scrub shirt, pulling on a sweatshirt from the back seat. With the pale blue t-shirt wadded in my hand, I walked around to the trunk and poured a bit of the confiscated gas into it, creating a wet circle about the size of a softball.

  Slamming the trunk shut, I rolled the shirt up tight and tucked it into the front pouch of my sweatshirt.

  Using a quarter from the ashtray, I placed it on the ground and pounded the screwdriver end of the tire iron into it a couple of times. It made a clean cut through about half of the quarter, the edges on it grated and razor sharp.

  Perfect.

  Taking the quarter up from the ground I slid the tire iron up my sleeve and gripped the end of it resting across my palm. In my left hand was the quarter as I headed back up the street towards my destination.

  Cars lined the streets, but there wasn’t a soul around as a moonless night had settled over the city. There were just a few street lamps in this residential neighborhood, allowing me easy concealment in my dark sweatshirt. I could barely be seen walking along the sidewalk, tucked up tight against the black wrought iron fencing that lined each house.

  Coming up on Reed’s house I passed through the metal gate, leaving it cracked open as I stole up the walk. I leapt up the front steps in two quick bounds and stood in the shadows of the porch, hidden by shadows.

  I waited several minutes to make sure I wasn’t seen before jumping down from the p
orch and circling around to the back door. I paused just long enough to make sure there wasn’t a dog or anyone up for a late night snack, then took the quarter and scratched a misshapen circle on the pane of glass in the door.

  Using the hex nut on the end of the tire iron, I tapped the center of it and held my breath as the glass fell to the ground.

  There was no point in stopping now. Either they had heard it or they hadn’t.

  Reaching inside the fresh hole, I flipped the lock and eased my way inside.

  Most people didn’t realize it, but home alarm systems were almost worthless on the windows. Only if someone tried to wrench them free did they ever pick up a thing. All a vandal had to do was break the glass and they were in.

  Once a door was unlocked from the inside, the alarm automatically shut off.

  Granted, most vandals lacked the required skill to do it without being heard, but I was not most vandals.

  Standing in the kitchen I listened for several seconds while bending down and unlacing my shoes. While not especially fond of going barefoot, the soles were made of rubber.

  In an old home filled with wood floors, there was too great a risk of squeaking.

  Walking in bare feet, I stepped into the hallway and peered into each room. The first floor had a bathroom, an empty bedroom, and what looked to be a den, but no signs of life.

  Using the wall as a guide I moved past the living room to the stairwell and ascended one slow step at a time. The fourteen stairs took almost two minutes, depositing me on a landing that opened to both left and right.

  Moving first to the left, I checked a bathroom, a closet, then paused at the bedroom of a sleeping child. For a moment I stood in the doorway and watched the young girl, no more than seven or eight.

  Several moments passed before I backed away from the room, pulling the door shut behind me, and set off in the other direction.

  The first door past the bathroom was the master bedroom, a man and woman asleep inside. Using my elbow I nudged the door open a bit and slid inside, going straight to the bed.