Cross

No answer, nothing from the back.

"I thought so, buddy. Don't worry about it – the mail and whatnot must go through. Rain, snow, sleet, death, whatever."

He pulled the big brown delivery truck up in front of a medium-size ranch house in Roslyn. Then he grabbed a couple of bulky delivery boxes off the metal shelf behind the driver's seat. He headed to the front door, walking fast, hurrying like the Boys in Brown always do on TV, even whistling a happy tune.

The Butcher pressed the doorbell. Waited. Still whistling. Playing the part perfectly, he thought.

A man's voice came over the intercom. "What? Who's there? Who is it?"

"UPS. Package."

"Just leave it."

"Need a signature, sir."

"I said, leave it, okay. Signature's not a problem. Leave the package. Bye-bye."

"Sorry, sir, I can't do that. Real sorry. Just doing my job here."

Then nothing more over the intercom. Thirty seconds went by, forty-five. Might need a plan B here.

Finally, a very large man in a black Nike sweatsuit came to the door. He was physically impressive, which made sense since he'd once played football for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.

"Are you hard of hearing?" he asked. "I told you to leave the package on the porch. Capisce?"

"No, sir, I'm Irish American actually. I just can't leave these valuable packages without a signature."

The Butcher handed over the electronic pad, and the big ex-footballer angrily scrawled a name with the marker.

The Butcher checked it – Paul Mosconi, who just happened to be a mob soldier married to John Maggione's little sister. This was so against the rules, but you know what, were there really any rules anymore? In the mob, government, churches, the whole messed-up society?

"Nothing against you personally," said the Butcher.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

"You're dead, Paul Mosconi. And the big boss is going to be really pissed at me. By the way, I used to be a Jets fan. Now I go for New England."

Then the Butcher stooped down and slashed the dead man's face over and over again with his scalpel. Then he cut his throat, crisscross, right on the Adam's apple.

A woman popped her head into the living room, dark hair still in curlers, and she started to scream. "Pauli! Pauli, oh my God! Oh, Pauli, oh, Pauli! No, no, no!"

The Butcher did his best little bow for the distraught widow.

"Say hello to your brother for me. He did this to you. Your big brother killed Pauli, not me." He started to turn away, then spun around. "Hey, sorry for your loss."

And he took another little bow.

Chapter 95

THIS COULD BE IT. The end of a long and winding road after Maria's murder.

Sampson and I took the Long Island Expressway to the Northern State, all the way out to the tip of Long Island. We followed Route 27 and finally found the village of Montauk, which until that moment was just a name I'd heard and occasionally read about. But this was where Michael Sullivan and his family were hiding out according to Anthony Mullino. Supposedly they had just moved here today.

We found the house after twenty minutes of searching unfamiliar back roads. When we arrived at the address we'd been given, two boys were tossing a bloated-looking football on a small patch of front lawn. Blond, Irish-looking kids. Pretty good athletes, especially the littlest guy. The presence of kids could make this a lot more complicated for us though.

"You think he's staying out here?" Sampson asked as he turned off the engine. We were at least a hundred yards away from the house, and pretty much out of sight now, playing it safe.

"Mullino says he's been moving around a lot. Says he's here now for sure. The kids are the right age. There's an older boy too, Michael Jr."

I squinted to see better. "Car in the driveway has Maryland plates."

"Probably not a coincidence there. Sullivan was supposed to be living somewhere in Maryland before he and his family made their latest run. Makes sense that he was close to DC. Explains the rapes there. The pieces are starting to fall together."

"His kids haven't seen us yet. Hopefully Sullivan hasn't, either. Let's keep it that way, John."

We moved, and Sampson parked two streets away; then we got shotguns and pistols out of the trunk. We hiked into the woods behind a row of modest homes, though still with a view of the ocean. The place where the Sullivans were staying was dark inside, and we hadn't spotted anybody else so far.

No Caitlin Sullivan, no Michael Sullivan, or if they were in the house, they were staying back from the windows. That made sense. Plus, I knew that Sullivan was a good shot with a rifle.

I sat down with my back against a tree, huddled against the cold with a gun in my lap. I started thinking through the problem of taking down Sullivan without harming his family.

For one thing, could it be done? After a while, I began to think about Maria again. Was I finally close to clearing her murder? I didn't know for sure, but it felt like it. Or was that just wishful thinking?

I took out my wallet and slid an old picture from a plastic sleeve. I still missed her every day. Maria would always be thirty years old in my mind, wouldn't she? Such a waste of a life.

But now she'd brought me here, hadn't she? Why else would Sampson and I have come alone to get the Butcher?

Because we didn't want anybody to know what we were going to do with him.

Chapter 96

THE BUTCHER WAS SEEING RED, and that usually wasn't good for the world's population numbers. In fact, he was getting more pissed off by the minute. Make that by the second. Damn it, he hated John Maggione.

Distractions helped some. The old neighborhood wasn't much like Sullivan remembered it. He hadn't liked it then, and he cared for it even less now. Feeling a little bit of deja vu, he followed Avenue P, then took a left onto Bay Parkway.

As far as he knew, this general area was still the main shopping hub of Bensonhurst. Block after block of redbrick buildings, with stores on the ground level: greaseball restaurants, bakeries, delis, greaseball everything. Some things never changed.

He was flashing images of his father's shop again – everything always gleaming white; the freezer with its white enameled door; inside the freezer, hooks with hanging quarters of beef; bulbs in metal cages along the ceiling; knives, cleavers, and saws everywhere. His father standing there with his hand under his apron – waiting for his son to blow him.

He made a right at Eighty-first Street. And there it was. Not the old butcher shop – something even better. Revenge, a dish best served steaming, piping hot!

He spotted Maggione's Lincoln parked in the rear lot of the social club. License – ACF3069. He was pretty sure it was Junior's car anyway.

Mistake?

But whose mistake? he wondered as he continued up Eighty-first Street. Was Junior such an arrogant bastard that he could just come and go when he liked? Was it possible that he had no fear of the Butcher? No respect? Not even now?

Or had he set a trap for him?

Maybe it was a little of both. Arrogance and deception. Hallmarks of the world we live in.

Sullivan stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts at the intersection of New Utrecht and Eighty-sixth. He had some black coffee and a sesame bagel that was too doughy and bland. Maybe this kind of shit food played somewhere in Middle America, but a half-assed bagel had no place being sold in Brooklyn. Anyway, he sat at a table, watching the car lights pass back and forth out on New Utrecht, and he was thinking that he wanted to walk into the club on Eighty-first Street and start blasting. But that wasn't any kind of plan – it was just a nice, violent fantasy for the moment.