Black Market

“You brought me a present, I hope? Christmas present?” As Laurence Hadford slid closer, Hudson could smell the man's citric cologne.

“Yes. Exactly as we agreed the last time.”

David Hudson looked sideways for the first time. He stared into the pale blue eyes and mocking half smile of Laurence Hadford. He didn't like what he saw. Never had. Not now and not back in Vietnam, either, when Hadford had been a smug young officer.

Laurence Hadford was impassive, cool. The well-shaved face might have been a door closed on private rooms. Hudson had a sudden impression of icy places locked away inside the man. Hadford was already a partner at one of the larger Wall Street investment firms and was said to be climbing to even higher rungs on the corporate ladder.

Reaching deep inside his coat, Hudson handed over a thick, overstuffed manila business envelope. The package bore no external marking, nothing to identify it in case there was any problem, an unlikely slipup on board the subway.

The envelope disappeared inside the rich softness of cashmere.

“There's one small hitch. A tiny problem has come up. The amount here isn't enough.” Hadford smiled so easily. “Not considering what's happened. What you've gone and done now. You've made this a very dangerous business arrangement for me. If you'd told me what you actually pla

“You wouldn't have helped us. You would have had too many doubts. You would have been scared shitless.”

“My friend, I am scared shitless.”

The subway train buckled slightly but only slowed minimally as it charged into the 110th Street station.

Angry graffiti was scrawled on all the walls. It shouted at anyone who cared to look up from his early-bird edition of the Daily News. Most didn't look up.

“We agreed on a figure before you did any work for us on Wall Street. Your fee, half a million dollars, has now been paid in full.” Hudson felt a familiar alarm sounding inside him. His control was slipping away. “Any information you've supplied us, any personal risks you took, were infinitesimal, considering your enormous financial gain.”

Hadford's perfectly capped white teeth gritted very slightly. “Please. Don't tell me how well I've been paid. I know what you're all about now. You've got so much money, you couldn't possibly know what to do with it. Another half million is virtually meaningless. What's another million, for that matter? Don't be so uptight.”

Colonel David Hudson finally managed a smile. “You know, perhaps you're right. Under the circumstances-what is another half million?… Especially if you're willing to do a little more investigation for us. We still need your help on Wall Street.”

“I suppose for the right price I could be convinced, Colonel.”

The next station David Hudson noticed was 157th Street. Between 110th and there, he and Laurence Hadford talked of the next steps to be taken on Wall Street, the kinds of additional information needed for Green Band.

Stenciled numbers a

The last few passengers exited at the 157th Street stop. The black face didn't get on board. The subway doors slammed shut. They were completely alone. David Hudson felt himself tense. The blood coursed rapidly through his veins. All his senses were suddenly alert, and his perceptions had an astonishing clarity. Everything around him on the train stood out as if illuminated by a harsh arc light.

“I'm sorry, Hadford.”

“Excuse… Oh, God, no!”

As the train rumbled loudly out of the station, the flashing knife appeared from nowhere. What made David Hudson's parlor trick completely unexpected was that the blade was so very long, six inches, at least, and the handle perhaps another four.

The sharp blade jabbed hard and disappeared into Hadford's underbelly. It shredded the cashmere coat, tearing fibrous material and parting soft flesh and clenched muscle with virtually no effort. Almost instantly the long blade reappeared, dripping red.

As Laurence Hadford was sliding face up off the subway bench, Colonel Hudson relieved him of the weighty envelope. Hadford's rolling eyes were now staring sightlessly at the ceiling. His body underwent a series of racking convulsions, then went completely limp. He died somewhere between the 157th and 168th Street stations.

Hudson quietly slipped off at the next stop. He was shaking now. His mind was filled with tiny white explosions, with dark flowing streaks much like Hadford's blood. It was the first time in his career that he had ever harmed a fellow officer. But Hadford's greed had represented a weakness in the Green Band plan. And when you encountered greed, Hudson understood, instinctively, you ran into the likelihood, somewhere down the line, of betrayal. He could take no chances now, because there was no margin for error or for human weakness later.

Once he was out on Broadway, David Hudson struggled onto a city bus headed south. The Lizard Man screeched at him like a jungle monkey as the bus lurched forward. The Lizard Man screamed so loudly, Hudson had to grit his teeth. The Lizard Man laughed and laughed as David Hudson escaped into the awakening daytime city. Revenge!

A little more than an hour later, his composure intact once again, David Hudson climbed off the grunting, growling bus at the last stop-Columbus Circle and the New York Coliseum. Bundled inside his plain brown greatcoat, he walked farther south. He was almost sure people were staring, and that worried him.

Anonymity, he thought. He needed the cover of beautiful anonymity. He craved it. Especially now, he had to hold on to his New York cabdriver image. He had to be consistent. He also had to keep firmly in mind that he had been one of the very best Special Forces commanders in the world.

He reached the Washington-Jefferson Hotel, where he had a room at the far end of a depressingly drab second-floor hallway. He'd had this particular room for almost five weeks, and that was pushing his luck, perhaps. But the northern Times Square district was so perfectly anonymous, uncaring, and so convenient for the specialized work he still had to do. He specifically hadn't wanted a place too close to either the Vets garage or the Wall Street financial district.

Hudson sat on the edge of his hotel room bed for a moment. His thoughts turned idly back to Laurence Hadford, but he knew he couldn't dwell on the death of the man. He stared at the nearby telephone. Finally he decided to forget Hadford and reward himself for Friday night's success. Some well-deserved, maybe even spectacular, R &R was in order. His only vice, really-David Hudson's only remaining human co

He picked up the telephone and dialed a familiar local number in Manhattan.

“Hello, this is Vintage.” The co

“Yes. This is David… I've used Vintage Service before. My number is three twenty-three.” Hudson spoke in his usual soft but firm voice. “I can tell you exactly the kind of escort I'm looking for. She's between five feet six and five feet ten. I'd like her between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six. I'll be paying cash.”

Colonel Hudson waited, then he received a time and name for his “date.” He spoke into the telephone again. “In thirty minutes at 318 West Fifty-first. Thank you very much. I'll be expecting… Billie.”

It was just past eleven o'clock when Billie Bogan, her eyes raised to a winking neon hotel sign, stepped from a Checker cab on West Fifty-first Street.

The Washington-Jefferson? Now here was an odd one.

It certainly didn't look like the kind of place where Vintage clients usually stayed. Not the kind of successful men who could afford a hundred fifty dollars and up for an hour with some of the most exquisitely beautiful escorts in New York.