The Reapers

“It was business,” said the Priest. “It was nothing personal.”

“It’s fu

He shot the Priest once in the head, then stood. Louis was staring down the barrel of his gun at the bartender, who was flat on the floor, his hands spread wide.

“Get up,” said Louis.

The bartender started to rise and Louis shot him, watching impassively as he folded in upon himself and lay still on the filthy carpet. Angel stared at his partner.

“Why?” he asked.

“No witnesses, not today.”

Louis moved swiftly to the door. Angel followed. He opened the door, glanced quickly outside, then nodded at Louis. Together, they ran for the Oldsmobile parked across the street.

“And?” asked Angel, as he got into the passenger seat and Louis climbed behind the wheel.

“You think he knew what went on there, how his boss made his money?”

“I guess.”

“Then he should have found a job someplace else.”

The car pulled away from the curb. The doors above the club opened and two men emerged with guns in their hands. They were about to fire when the Oldsmobile made a hard left and disappeared from view.

“Will it come back on us?”

“He got above himself. He attracted attention. His days were numbered. We just accelerated the inevitable.”

“You sure of that?”

“We walk on this one. We did some people a favor back there, and not just Parker. A problem was solved, and they got to keep their hands clean.”

“And they’ll go back to ru

“That’s a problem for another time.”

“Tell me that we’ll deal with it, that we won’t walk away.”

“I promise,” said Louis. “We’ll do what we can down the line.”

They ditched the Olds four blocks away in favor of their own Lexus. The car boasted a Sirius satellite radio and, by mutual agreement, each was allowed to choose a station on alternate evenings and the other was not allowed to complain about the selection. Tonight was Angel’s choice, so they listened to First Wave all the way back to Manhattan.

And thus the journey home passed in an almost companionable silence.

Farther south, the second link in the chain of killings was about to be forged.

There were only a handful of people in the bar when the predator entered, and he spotted his kill almost immediately: a sad, overweight little man with beaten-down shoulders, balding and sweaty, wearing a pair of brown trousers that had seen neither an iron nor a laundry in at least a week, and brown brogues that had probably cost him a lot some years before but that he could now no longer afford to replace. He was nursing a bourbon, the faintest trace of amber liquid coloring the melted ice at the bottom of the glass. At last, resignedly, he drained it. The bartender asked him if he wanted another. The fat man checked his wallet, then nodded. A generous shot was poured for him, but then the bartender could afford to be generous. It came from the cheapest bottle on the shelf.

The predator took in every detail of the fat man: his stubby fingers, the wedding band embedded in the flesh of one; the twin handles of fat at his sides; the belly that flopped over the cheap leather belt; the sweat marks beneath the arms of his shirt; the sheen of perspiration on his face, his forehead, his pate.

Because you’re always sweating, aren’t you? Even in winter, you sweat, the effort of hauling around your soft, gelatinous bulk almost too much for your heart to bear. You sweat when you wear a T-shirt and shorts in summer, and when the snow comes you sweat beneath layers of clothing. What is your wife like, I wonder? Is she fat and repugnant like you or has she tried to keep her figure in the hope that she might attract someone better while you’re out on the road, even if that someone merely uses her for a night? (For she will surely be using him in return.) Do you think about those possibilities as you hustle from town to town, barely eking out a living, always laughing harder than you should, paying for drinks that you can’t afford in order to curry favor, picking up the tab at restaurants that others choose in the hope that an order might follow? You have spent your life ru

The predator ordered a beer, but it was just for show and he barely touched it. He didn’t like his faculties to be dulled when he worked, not even fractionally. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror against the wall: tall, hair graying, body lean beneath his leather jacket and dark trousers. His complexion was sallow. He liked to follow the sun, but the demands of his chosen vocation meant that such a luxury was not always possible.

After all, people sometimes had to be killed in places where the sun was not shining, and his bills had to be paid.

Yet pickings had been thin these last few months. In truth, he was mildly concerned. It had not always been thus. Once, he had enjoyed a considerable reputation. He had been a Reaper, and that name had carried a certain weight. Now he still had a reputation, but it was not entirely a good one. He was known as a man with certain appetites who had simply learned to cha

He had been following the kill for two days. It was practice as much as pleasure. He always thought of them as “kills.” They were never targets, and he never used the word “potential.” As far as he was concerned, once he focused upon them they were already dead. He could have chosen a more challenging individual, a more interesting kill, but there was something about the fat man that repelled him, a lingering stench of sadness and failure that suggested the world would be no poorer without him. By his actions, the fat man had drawn the predator to him, like the slowest animal in the herd attracting the attention of a cheetah.

And so they stayed that way, predator and prey sharing the same space, listening to the same music, for almost an hour, until the fat man rose to go to the men’s room, and the time came to end the dance that had begun forty-eight hours earlier, a dance in which the fat man did not even know he was a participant. The predator followed him, keeping ten paces back. He allowed the men’s room door to settle in its frame before entering. Only the fat man was inside, standing at a urinal, his face creased with effort and pain.

Bladder trouble. Kidney stones, perhaps. I will end it all.

The doors to both stalls were open as the predator approached. There was nobody inside. The knife was already in his hand, and he heard a satisfying click, the sound of a blade locking into position.

And then, a second later, the sound came again, and he realized that the first click had not come from his own blade, but the blade of another. The speed of his every motion increased, even as his throat suddenly grew dry and he heard the pounding of his heart. The fat man was also moving now, his right hand a blur of pink and silver, and then the predator felt a pressure at his chest, followed by a sharp pain that quickly spread through his body, paralyzing him as it grew, so that when he tried to walk his legs would not answer the signals from his brain and instead he collapsed on the cold, damp tiles, his knife falling from the fingers of his right hand as his left clasped the horned handle of the throwing blade now lodged in his heart. Blood pumped from the wound and began to spread upon the floor. A pair of brown brogues carefully stepped aside to avoid the growing stain.