“Hey, Larry Bird, are you all done fucking around?” O’Leary asked.
“Sorry, boss.”
“Go outside and keep an eye out, I don’t want to be disturbed while me and Jermaine have a little talk.”
Jimmy waited until Billy was gone before pulling a chair in front of the youngster. “Do you know who I am?”
“No, suh. I ain’t never seen yo b’foe.”
“My name is Jimmy O’Leary—most people just call me Jimmy O—and I’m the worst fuckin’ thing that’s ever happened to you”
The kid’s eyes widened when he heard who was sitting before him. It finally registered that he was in serious trouble.
“How you been, Jermaine?”
“Hey, man, why you fuckin’ roustin’ me? I ain’t done nothing to you.” The young man’s eyes were in constant motion darting from side to side as he tried to find a way out of his predicament.
O’Leary missed none of the telltale signs of fear. He knew it was just a matter of time before this gutless puke told him everything he wanted to know. Before he was finished, Jermaine would gladly sell his firstborn. “That’s true, Jermaine, but what about Latisha Worthington?”
“D-don’t know nobody named Latisha.” Watts’s breathing was labored and his voice quavered.
“Is that so? Let me refresh your mind . . . she was thirteen years old and lived across the hall from you and your grandmother. Seems she showed up dead a few weeks back, not far from where you and your homeboys hang out. Somebody introduced her to crack, then raped and murdered her. I think you know something about it.”
“I tol’ you, I don’t know shit, man—” He made a last-ditch effort to sound tough. “Even if I did, no way I’d rat on my brothers to no cracker . . . ”
“Well then, let’s see what this cracker can do to jog your memory.” O’Leary reached over and ground his cigarette out on the back of Watts’ right hand.
Jermaine screamed and bucked against the tape that bound him to the chair arms.
O’Leary sat silent and stared at him until he calmed down. “You remember anything, Jermaine—or should I call you Razor?”
Sweat poured down Watts’s forehead and he shook his head to get it out of his eyes. After several futile attempts, he raised his head to stare at his tormentor. “What you do that for? You ain’t got no call to be doing shit like that.”
“Son, you aren’t in any position to be telling me what I can or cannot do.”
O’Leary rose from his chair and walked to the tool crib. He pawed through it for a few seconds, removed several tools and then sat down again. “Let me tell you what I think, Jermaine. I think that if you didn’t do her, then you know who did. As far as I’m concerned, either one makes you as guilty as the other.”
He reached out and gripped Watts’ left hand. “You got some real long nails, Jermaine.” He gripped the index fingernail of the kid’s right hand with a small vice grip and tightened the handle screw until the tool’s jaws were tight and held the nail securely. “Once more, Jermaine; who did Latisha?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
O’Leary yanked back on the vice grip and ripped the fingernail from its place. Jermaine howled with pain.
“One down; nine to go,” he said, removing his hand from Jermaine’s chin. He loosened the tension on the vice grip, removed the bloody fingernail and studied it for a second—holding it before his prisoner’s face as he did.
Watts’s head dropped forward as if it had suddenly become too heavy to hold up. Sweat covered his face and dripped onto his lap. Blood poured from his mangled finger and splattered on the concrete floor.
His sobs were like music to O’Leary, who lit a cigarette. He glanced at his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock, kid—we got a long night ahead of us . . . ”
An hour and eight fingernails later, later O’Leary wheeled an acetylene torch from the corner, placing it before the chair. He lit his lighter, opened the valve and held the flame to the torch’s tip.
Watts’s head snapped up when the gas ignited with a loud pop. O’Leary stood in front of him and made a big show of adjusting the flame until it was cobalt blue.
Watts’s eyes widened and he began sobbing. “M-man, this ain’t legal. You can’t be doin’ shit like this—I gots rights.”
Winter watched his boss for a few seconds and then said, “I think I’ll go outside and give Billy a hand—it looks like you got things here under control.”
O’Leary dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He squatted in front of Watts. “What you think, I’m the fucking cops? What about Latisha’s right to be a kid and grow up to have her own children? I’m goin’ to keep hurting you until you tell me what I want to know.” He swiped the torch across the boy’s bloody fingertips, cauterizing the wounds. Watts bucked against his bonds screaming and cursing as the torch scorched and blistered his fingers. O’Leary grabbed the last of his fingernails and yanked. He smiled when Watts shrieked in agony.
“I hate guys who molest kids, Jermaine. You street punks think that once you’re fifteen or sixteen you become men. Well, son, before I’m done with you, you’ll wish you were still five years old.”
“Man, you crazy!” Watts cried.
“Jermaine, you don’t know the half of it . . . ” The torch swept across Watts’s hands again and he screamed and bucked so hard the chair fell over.
Jimmy pulled the chair back onto its legs and squatted in front of his captive. The torch’s angry hiss filled the warehouse. “Son, you better tell me what you know. I got a full tank of gas.”
At two in the morning, O’Leary walked out of the warehouse and found Winter leaning against the wall. O’Leary lit a cigarette and inhaled deep.
“Is it over?”
“It is for Jermaine. I want you to get some of the guys and take care of a few things for me.”
“Okay.”
“Start by dumping that piece of garbage. Do it so word will get around. I want his goombahs to know what happened. Then find Jamaal Rooms and Shawnte Armstrong. Once that’s taken care of, locate Andrew Sheets.”
“You want them disappeared?”
“I don’t care about Rooms and Armstrong, but Sheets is the leader. I want him. The others you can leave where any other drug-pushing, pedophiles will know the cost of molesting kids.”
“You got it, Jimmy.”
“Gordon . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do it too fast, give the motherfuckers enough time to think about their sins and repent before they meet God face-to-face.”
13
“It was the stalk that I enjoyed. Pitting yourself against another human being.”
—Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, USMC
Houston sat on the couch nursing a glass of iced tea. He was lost in thought and impervious to the sounds coming from the kitchen as Anne rattled the pan in which she cooked omelets. He used the few moments of solitude to reminisce about his life. Where had it all gone to hell? A kaleidoscope of memories came and left, vignettes of his marriage and Susie’s early life racing through his mind. Never before had he been in a situation that made him feel so helpless.
Anne walked into the room and placed a plate in front of him. “You all right?”
“Lately that’s all you seem to be asking me. No, as a matter of fact, I’ve never been further from all right . . . ”
“Want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know where to start.” He picked at the food, spearing a chunk of omelet with his fork.
“How about the memory you’re dealing with right now?”
“You’d think I was a sophomoric fool.”
“Really? I know how memories can rip you up. I was a person long before I became a cop, you know.”
“I was thinking about Susie. I remembered coming home after work and how she’d be waiting for me. As you know, a rookie doesn’t make big bucks and back then we made a lot less. We rented a two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor. Ou
r couch sat in front of the living room window and Susie had me timed. She would stand on the couch and watch out the window for me. I’ll always remember how she looked. When she saw me coming up the walk, she’d get so excited that she’d jump up and down. The sight of that little red head bouncing like a curly-haired ball would instantly erase all the fatigue and frustration of my day . . . ”
“It must have lit you up.” Anne slowly chewed her omelet.
“Yeah, it did. Then I get to thinking . . . no, asking myself: Where did it all go wrong? What made me push all that aside for a job?”
“Mike, it wasn’t entirely your fault—it never is.”
“Then why do I feel like such a shit?”
“No doubt you carry your share of the blame. But you’re not the sole cause of all of it. Pam had to be at fault too.”
Houston sighed. “All I know is that she was a far better wife to me than I was a husband to her.”
“You’ve always been your own worst critic, Mike. Maybe it’s time you took the pity pot off your ass and stopped saying that.”
Houston looked at Anne. His face went from angry to quizzical, as if her words were a great revelation. “You think I’m having a pity party?”
She smiled. “Yes, I think so.”
“Anne, you’re the best friend I’ve got . . . ”
“Don’t act grandiose, I’m the only friend you have. Nevertheless, I’m not about to let you flagellate yourself over what happened today.”
“I know you’re right, but knowing that doesn’t let me off the hook.” Houston took his mostly uneaten omelet into the kitchen. Halfway there, he realized that Anne might think he didn’t like her cooking and he stopped. “No appetite.”
Anne grinned at him. “Me either. You should be getting home. Are you going to be all right?”
“There’s that damned question again . . . yeah, if I need you I’ll call.” Anne walked to him and placed her hands on his arms and looked into his eyes. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Come on. I’ll walk you down.”
The driver sat motionless, watching the apartment building. A normal person would have been half-crazy with boredom. He, however, had spent countless hours in a sniper hide. During those hours of immobility, the only thing active was his mind, and this time, as it did on many occasions, it took him back to where this had all started—Somalia.
The van’s interior seemed to fill with the stench of burning flesh, his flesh. Black faces hovered inches above his face, looking at him like he was the football in a rugby scrum. They shouted at him in that gibberish they called a language, spit landing on his face. He recalled the inhuman pain of the burns that covered his body and remembered the smoke from his smoldering clothes forming a cloud around him.
Movement in the apartment building’s vestibule broke his trance. He shifted in the seat and reached for his weapon.
Houston appeared from inside the building, followed by the broad who was his partner. The sniper smiled, twisting the scarred flesh on his face into a grotesque mask. He watched him open the door and walk down the steps to the sidewalk. Slowly, the sniper placed the 9mm Beretta pistol in his lap. His mind focused now, he watched and waited for his shot.
Houston settled into his car and Anne stepped back as he closed the door. When he rolled down the window, she said, “Get some sleep. We’re going to be spending a lot of time on this one.”
“Don’t lecture me, I’m senior to you.” He smiled at her.
“Watch your back, Mike. This perp is burning a torch for you.”
“I don’t deserve a friend like you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Mike. You deserve a lot more than you think.”
Unable to think of a suitable wisecrack, Houston settled for a forced chuckle.
“Mike . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“Pam forgave you for everything.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s the way women are . . . we forgive easily. My mother always said that whenever my father messed up, she usually forgave him long before he forgave himself.”
Houston pondered her words.
Anne placed her hand on his arm. “It’s past the time when you should have forgiven yourself and moved on, Mike.”
“Tell that to my daughter.”
Anne took his hand. “She’ll come around. You just have to give her time.”
“I hate it when things take time—”
She reached through the window and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. “I promise you that it will all work out. You just need to be patient.”
She stepped back and watched as he started the car and put it in gear. She lifted her left hand in farewell as he drove away. She paid no mind to the van that pulled away from the curb and followed Houston’s car.
Houston stopped before the bank of mailboxes in the foyer of his apartment building, retrieved his mail and browsed through it while climbing the stairs to his third floor walk-up. Halfway up the first flight of stairs a postcard caught his eye. The picture on the card was of the main gate at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. Who would be sending him a postcard from Quantico? He hadn’t been there since—the epiphany made his eyes widen—scout/sniper school. He stopped walking, turned the card over and saw a message written in all caps:
HEY, HEY, WHAT DO YOU SAY?
IS MIKEY GOING TO CATCH THE SNIPER TODAY?
Houston stood on the steps and stared at the writing. The words brought to mind the familiar cadence of marines chanting as they ran. The rhythmic chant left his head as quickly as it had entered and he looked for anything that would give him a clue to the sender’s identity. There was no return address, only a Boston postmark and stamp. Houston ran down the steps two at a time. He reentered the vestibule and saw the white van slowly cruising the street.
An arm appeared through the driver’s window, a pistol gripped in its fist and aimed in his direction. Houston dove to the floor a second before the external glass door exploded, followed immediately by the angry snap of a bullet passing over his head. A deadly storm of glass engulfed him and he buried his face into his arms to protect it from the deadly shards that flew around the small lobby. The sound of the bullet passing was immediately followed by another loud snap as the interior glass door exploded sending yet more glass flying. He felt a tickling sensation on his forehead and realized that he was bleeding. The blood flowed down the side of his nose and dripped onto the floor.
He pulled his service pistol and scrambled across the floor on hands and knees, slipping and sliding through jagged glass and debris until he reached the base of the door. Broken glass cut through his trousers and razor-sharp pieces pierced his hands and knees. Ignoring the pain, Houston jumped to his feet and vaulted down the steps to the sidewalk. He raised his pistol and sighted at the truck. Suddenly a small face appeared in an apartment window behind the Chevy. Fearing a ricochet if he missed, he dared not shoot.
The shooter raised his arm in farewell and then stomped on the accelerator. The truck burned rubber and fishtailed as it sped away, filling the air with smoke and the screech of spinning tires. Houston stood in the middle of the street with his pistol pointed at the escaping truck.
Realizing that taking a shot at the fleeing truck would be stupid, Houston holstered his weapon and stared after the van. Never before had he felt so impotent. He concentrated on the license plate, but sweat and blood from the cuts on his forehead flowed into his eyes making the numbers illegible. However, he was able to note that the license plates were not green. The witnesses were either wrong or the sniper had switched plates, or this was a different truck.
Houston raced inside the building and vaulted the stairs three at a time until he reached his apartment. He bolted through the door and frantically searched for the phone. Spying it on the coffee table, he reached for it. Just as his hand touched the handset, it rang, scaring the hell out of him. Igno
ring the blood that dripped from his lacerated hands and knees onto his carpet, Houston grabbed the phone. Not knowing who the caller was he shouted, “Get off the line!”
“Hey, Mikey, that’s no way to treat an old buddy—especially one you fought skinnies with.”
Skinnies? It had been years since Houston had heard the derogatory name the grunts in Somalia had used for the enemy. The voice was raspy and sounded as if the caller smoked as much as Jimmy O’Leary did.
“Who’s this?”
“You don’t remember? Shame on you, Mikey, how could you forget? Hell, you and me were comrades-in-arms together. Still, even after this afternoon’s activity, I owe you from the Mowg.”
Houston realized the caller referred to Pam and exploded with rage.
“Listen—”
“No, Mikey, you’d best listen and get with the fucking program. Because if you don’t start coming up with answers to the right questions, I’ll have to start leaving you more clues. Lethal and bloody clues. Remember our credo: one shot; one kill? Well, ol’ buddy, let’s change it to one shot; one clue.”
Houston felt the small hairs on his neck stiffen. The sniper’s phrase, “one shot; one kill,” had him running a mental inventory of the name of every scout/sniper he remembered serving with in Somalia.
The sniper continued in a calm, almost teasing, tone. “Of course, you can stop it all right now, Houston.”
“How can I stop it? That’s up to you.”
“Well, you’re the hotshot detective—think about it. Either way, you can rest assured about one thing . . . I got special plans for you and me. I’ll be in touch. Give my regards to Susie, will you?”
Sniper Page 9
