“I suppose I can’t change your mind,” Irons said.
“With money? Yes. One billion dollars.”
Irons laughed derisively. “In small bills, I suppose?”
“You will wire it to my account.”
“That’s rather steep,” Irons said flatly.
“True. But the girl means quite a lot to you.”
“I can’t deny it. But a billion? Even if I would permit myself to be blackmailed . . .”
“You can’t prevent it. I am doing it, Mr. Irons. One billion, or the girl dies, and that she is some kind of sorceress will not make a difference.”
“Oh. And just how do you propose to take her down?”
“That is my business.”
“Nevertheless . . .” Irons could only say.
“Very well. I have given you fair warning. Good bye.”
Irons began, “Mr. Strauss, I think you fail to—”
But Strauss had hung up.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
It’s one of the bad ones,” a patrolman said in passing to Jake and Sara as they entered the crime scene. “Bloody as hell.”
“As if murder can be anything but,” Jake commented to Sara as they walked into a spacious apartment on the upper West Side.
“Looks like murder by cable guy,” another patrolman greeted them. He was standing in front of a wall that looked like a Jackson Pollock painting in blood. At the base of the wall lay a body with about as many bullets in it as a body could contain without being classified as an alloy of lead.
“What led to that conclusion, officer?” Sara asked.
“We have at least two people saw the cable truck double parked outside, saw the cable guy enter. Residents then heard lots of what they called ‘popcorn popping.’ A silenced Mac 10, we’re thinking.”
Jake said, “Are you bucking for a promotion, Patrolman . . . ?”
“Linaweaver. Matter of fact, I’m taking the sergeant exam next week.”
“Very good work, all that deduction.”
“Thank you, sir. Uh . . . actually, I’m just reporting the facts as we got them.”
“So we have witnesses to the cable guy,” Sara said, “to the shots, and what else?”
“Uh, I called up the cable company. The victim was scheduled to get a digital box installed today. Real cable guy is working on the other side of town. Ergo, this was obviously a fake cable guy.”
“Aren’t they always?” Jake said.
Sara asked, “No one saw the cable guy leaving?”
“No one’s come forward. But the truck’s gone.”
“Okay,” Sara said. “Thanks, Linaweaver.”
“So we have a cable guy who’s a homicidal maniac?” Jake said.
“No, we have an assassination with the hit man posing as a cable TV company employee.”
“You think the victim’s mobbed?”
“Sounds like a pro job,” Sara said. “Who would suspect the cable guy of being a hit man?”
“No one. Right, you let him right in.”
“Has all the earmarks of a hit.”
Jake nodded toward the wall. “What do you think of those marks?”
“Don’t make jokes.”
“I’m not,” Jake said. “I was about to make the comment that there have been some pretty spectacular hits lately. And this one looks like another.”
“Linaweaver?” Sara called.
“Yes, sir. Ma’am?”
“Didn’t you leave something out of your report?”
“Uh, I don’t think so, ma’am.”
“No?”
Linaweaver frowned and thought.
Sara prodded, “The name of the victim? Whose apartment is this?”
“Oh! Sorry, sorry. Uh, name’s Bubnov.” Linaweaver fished out his notepad and thumbed through it. “Ivan . . . uh . . . Ilyich Bubnov.”
“Need I say more?” Jake asked.
“Right,” Sara said, taking a stance a few feet from the wall. “Close range. Perp was standing about here. Opened up and emptied the magazine.”
“Wonder why,” Jake said. “Wanted to do a thorough job, or he liked to see the blood spatter?”
“Little of both?” Sara said. “Linaweaver, is the victim the tenant here?”
“Uh, yes. Super ID’d him. Sorry, I should have said that.”
“Yes, you should have, right straight off. Hope they don’t have that question on the sergeant’s exam.”
“Sorry.”
Linaweaver slinked away.
“Well, another mob-related death.”
Sara still stood looking at the wall. Jake watched her for a moment.
“Sara?”
She glanced at the bracelet on her wrist. Then she said, “No.”
“No?”
“Right,” Sara said.
“No, what?”
“It’s not related. Not related at all. For all that spatter, looks like it could be hanging in the MOMA.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Let’s do our job and get all we can out of the place. But I can tell you now it’s not going to connect up with anything.”
Jake and Sara were the last ones out of the apartment. The paramedics, techs, uniformed officers, and all related personnel had cleared out a least a half-hour before the detective partners came out the front door of the building.
“So he was nominally in real estate, but head of an extortion ring,” Jake commented as they walked down the avenue. “Nice things people are up to behind the façade of respectability. You ready for lunch?”
“Yeah, I’m starved,” Sara said. “Façades are what it’s all about. Your modern mobster wants a low profile. The lower the better. The smart ones do, anyway.”
“Street gang types aren’t among the smart ones, I guess.”
“There’s always plenty of that type. I’m talking about the upper echelons.”
“Yeah, they always have a way of protecting themselves. Except sometimes they don’t. Like our Comrade Bubnov. Oh wait, do they use ‘comrade’ as a title anymore? In Russia, what do they call—?”
The shot sounded like the explosion of a fairly good-sized firecracker. The sound came from high up, a roof or a window.
Jake’s mouth was still open and in the middle of his last sentence. He closed it and hit the pavement behind a parked car. “Sara!”
She was still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, her right arm raised.
Covering his head, Jake peered between his fingers. He saw something he had seen before. A strange gauntlet, a mailed glove of some kind, busy with swirls and arabesques of metal filigree, covered Sara’s right hand and forearm.
Jake knew what had happened, but didn’t want to believe it. Besides, he didn’t have time to think about it just now.
Another shot came, and with it the whining ping of a ricochet. She had deflected another bullet off her gauntlet. Jake got to his knees and searched for the source of the fire.
“Jake, stay down!”
He obeyed. Another shot, and another, both whanging off the gauntlet. Sara’s arm was a blur of motion.
How? How? Jake screamed in his mind.
Sara was looking up, searching the high vantagepoints. She lifted her left arm. “There! Jake, I’m the target. Get across the street and cover the back of the place. This creep’s not going to slip away if we can help it. Call backup now!”
“Right!” Jake yelled, getting up and dashing out from cover. He ran across the street as fast as he could make it. The building was a typical apartment for this neighborhood, a lobby locked to nonresidents, a security man sitting at a desk in the lobby. Jake had to pound on the door and wave his badge before the security-doorman would let him into the lobby, where he phoned for backup and a SWAT team to back up the backup.
Sara looked up and down the street. Jake did the same. Arrayed all around them were SWAT team members, regular police, and county cops. Around the corner lurked fireman, paramedics, news reporters,
and the general public, all milling about. They had the building covered from all angles. Jake had gotten to the back door immediately after phoning in.
Sara was ticked at him for that. But he had felt bad about leaving Sara all alone out there. He’d run to the back fire doors as soon as he got off the phone. They had been closed, and opening them would have tripped alarms. He was fairly sure that no one could have left the building.
Sara turned around and sat on the concrete with her back against a squad car. “He’s gone.”
“How?” Jake asked. “Most of the residents are still in the building. Maybe he’s hiding out in an apartment, holding the tenants hostage.”
“We’ll screen everybody inside. We won’t find him. I just have a feeling.”
“Could the shots have come from another place?”
“I saw the barrel. High-powered rifle, big scope, up on the roof.”
“Okay, I believe you. On the roof.”
“Of that building,” Sara said.
“So he has to be still in there,” Jake said without feeling.
“No, he does not.”
“How’d he get out? And so quick?”
“I don’t know. But obviously we are dealing with an accomplished pro.”
“Know why he’s out to get you? Because I think you’re right, you were the target. He didn’t even try a shot at me.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t know who. But the rest is obvious.”
“Obvious? Why do you say that?” Jake asked.
“This thing is telling me,” Sara said with a glance at her bracelet.
Jake was again reminded that she seldom referred to the thing on her wrist, and when she did it was usually in an indirect manner. “Okay, but what is it that’s obvious?”
“Let’s call these guys off and go in and question the residents. We are going to hit every apartment. And I want to look into every apartment that doesn’t have somebody answering the door.”
“Sara, we’re not papered for searches.”
“I didn’t say search. I said look into.”
“Oh. I guess we can do that thing.”
They did that thing, and after talking to just about everyone in the building, mostly aged Jewish people of foreign birth and/or recent citizenship, Sara realized that the search was hopeless.
“Still up for lunch?” Jake asked when everyone was readying to go back whence he had come.
The SWATs were packing equipment into cases, the police were gathering up barricades and yellow police tape. The paramedics had pulled up to the front of the building in case any resident had heart trouble caused by the commotion. The firemen, having better things to do, had left.
“You’re incorrigible,” Sara said.
“I’m human. I have to eat at least once a day.”
“Listen, you go grab a dog or something, I’ll run into that Starbucks across the street. We have an interview at one, remember?”
“Yeah, okay. Thought I saw a street dog vendor when we arrived. Wonder where he got to?”
“I’ll meet you at the coffee shop,” Sara said, heading for the intersection.
She wasn’t dejected. Just frustrated. This was the most frustrating Witchblade snafu to date. Not only did it all make zero sense, it didn’t even—
“Miss Pezzini.”
“Huh?”
Sara whirled. Out of the proverbial dark alley stepped a man in a utility work uniform. He looked strange. Something about even the shape of his head was sinister. Every line in his forehead and face exuded menace. Yet overall there was something bland, almost bureaucratic about him. The prosaic malevolence of a genocidal civil servant, a true sense of the banality of evil, radiated from him like an aura.
Sara took an instinctive step backward.
“My name is Edwin Strauss. I have been hired to assassinate you. I intend to do just that.”
He spoke with a pronounced middle-European accent, but with overtones of culture and refinement. Sara took another step back.
“This was a test, a test of your powers. You passed admirably. You did not even look to where the first shot came from before you blocked it. Truly remarkable, Miss Pezzini. To say that your powers are extraordinary would be an understatement by several factors of magnitude.”
Sara said simply, “What do you want?’
“I always try to meet my subjects and introduce myself. It makes the interaction a more human one. I do it whenever possible—whoops!”
Sara had made a motion. Strauss had his gun out, as if by magic.
“Hand me your weapon please, and please step back from the street. We are conspicuous here. Come into the alley. I wish to speak with you.”
Sara obeyed, handing him her revolver as she stepped by him. In the alley, she turned to face him.
“Your talisman is fast to defend you but not as quick on the offensive. Curious. I suppose I still have much to learn about it. But I am learning very quickly.”
“How do you come to know about me?”
“I know many things I should not know. That is how I stay alive in this world, Miss Pezzini. I know about you, about Kenneth Irons, and perhaps a bit more.”
“Perhaps,” Sara said. “And then again, you could be lying.”
“I don’t lie,” Strauss said.
“How did you get out of that building so quickly?” Sara asked pointedly.
“Ah. But I did not say I would divulge my trade secrets.”
“Then say what you have to say. I was on my way to lunch.”
“My apologies. But I have said it already. I have introduced myself, and have announced my intentions. That is sufficient.”
“Who hired you?”
“Again, a secret that hired assassins guard with their lives. Sorry. I must decline to answer.”
“Okay, you said your piece. Here’s mine. You won’t kill me, and I will catch you and put you away for a long, long time. There’s lots to explain lately, and you are the likeliest explanation to come along yet. In fact, you’re a welcome sight. You’re going to come in mighty handy, mister.”
“Oh, my.” Strauss was grinning from ear to ear in a ghastly rictus that was not at all a pleasant sight. “You do have spunk. Oh, my. I think you may prove a great deal of fun.”
“I’m so glad for you.”
“I’m not alone, you know. There is a veritable team out for your demise.”
“I hope you and your chums have all the fun you can get. You’ll be having none in Sing Sing.”
“Ah, Sing Sing! The very name rings with the sound of high crime and misdemeanor. An American institution in every sense of the word. I should be proud to be an inmate. But I must decline the offer. I have never come close to being apprehended. I do not intend to be caught now, or ever.”
“Well, I guess it’s rah rah, team, then.”
“Indeed. However, it also must be admitted you will be a challenging subject. This test tells me that ordinary methods will not be sufficient. Next time, I might be one of a number of . . . shall we say, unnatural adversaries?”
“Got it.”
“Yes. You see, I am not unacquainted with the occult. Neither are you, as evidenced by . . . that.” Strauss gestured with his gun at the bracelet, which, while he had been talking, had slowly grown and metamorphosed into its gauntlet form, albeit a subdued and compact variation.
“Okay,” Sara said simply.
Strauss looked at his gun. “Strange. Standing here like this, part of me is wondering why I couldn’t just shoot you now and get it over with. But, as I see, you would simply ward off the bullet in magical fashion, the shot would draw attention, and I would be in a pickle.”
“Very interesting,” Sara said. “Here’s something to think about. If that gun is doing you no good, what’s preventing me from clouting you with this mitten I have on and hauling you in right now?”
“I told you I was not alone. I am for the moment protected from you by magical means. You see this?” Strauss reached in
to a pocket and pulled out a bright orange feather. The color was more than iridescent. It was almost incandescent. “It is a feather of the firebird.”
“Eh?”
“The firebird. Its feathers are magical and can ward off any attack. I am thus protected from you. The gun is simply for psychological effect.”
“Let’s do an experiment,” Sara said, stepping forward and reaching for him with the gauntlet hand.
He disappeared.
“You see? Behind you, Miss Pezzini.”
She turned. He was indeed standing behind her. She lunged and tried again. Again, he vanished momentarily, only to reappear about twenty feet farther up the alley.
“Sorry,” Strauss said. “We are at a stalemate. I can’t hurt you, and you can’t lay a glove on me. Now is not the time of our final confrontation. So I will simply say good-bye. Good-bye, Miss Pezzini, and good luck to you. I will leave your weapon in a trash receptacle in the back alley. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Thanks,” Sara said cheerily. Then her smile faded as she saw the lettering on the back of his work suit: MANHATTAN CABLE . .
She watched him disappear into the shadows.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
When Sara and Jake reported back at the end of their watch, there was a note in Sara’s message box. It was from Siry. It read simply: Sara, see me immediately. Joe.
She knocked on his door. For some reason the frosted glass panel struck her as quaint. It had never occurred to her before. She didn’t know how old the precinct house was; doubtless it was ancient.
Speaking of which, Joe Siry was looking his age today. The lines of his face seemed deeper, darker, and his eyes had receded into their sockets. He looked as though he had done himself up in stage makeup to play an older part. Maybe it was just his somber expression.
“I take it the news isn’t good,” Sara said, standing at the door.
“You are in some deep do-do,” Siry said in a sepulchral tone.
“That isn’t good,” she replied. “How not good is it?”
“You do a bad impression of Johnny Carson.”
“I thought it was Ed McMahon. You’re at least trying to crack a joke. That must mean I’m not being indicted.”
Witchblade: Talons Page 15
