Let's hope. I'm not always completely confident about the sixteens I pick. You never know about unexpected alibis. Or idiotic juries. Maybe DeLeon 6832'll end today in a body bag. Why not? Don't I deserve a little good luck in compensation for the edginess God gave me? It's not always an easy life, you know.
It should take about a half hour or so on foot to get to his house here in Brooklyn. Still warmly satisfied from my transaction with Myra 9834, I'm enjoying the walk. The backpack rides heavy on my spine. Not only does it contain the evidence to plant and the shoe that left DeLeon 6832's telltale footprint, but it's filled with some treasures I've found prowling the streets today. In my pocket is, sadly, only a small trophy from Myra 9834, a portion of her fingernail. I'd like something more personal but deaths in Manhattan are a big deal, and missing parts draw a lot of attention.
I pick up my pace a bit, enjoying the triplet beat of the backpack. Enjoying the clear spring Sunday and the memories of my transaction with Myra 9834.
Enjoying the complete comfort of knowing that, though I am probably the most dangerous person in the city of New York, I am also invulnerable, virtually invisible to all the sixteens who would do me harm.
*
The light caught his attention.
A flash from the street.
Red.
Another flash. Blue.
The phone sagged in DeLeon Williams's hand. He was calling a friend, trying to find the man he used to work for, the man who skipped town after his carpentry business went under and left only debt behind, including more than $4,000 owed to his most dependable employee, DeLeon Williams.
"Leon," the guy on the other end of the line was saying, "I myself don't know where the prick is. He left me holding--"
"Call you back."
Click.
The big man's palms were sweating as he glanced through the curtain that he and Janeece had just put up Saturday (Williams feeling bad, bad, bad that she'd had to pay for them--oh, he hated being unemployed). He noticed that the flashes were from the grille lights of two unmarked police cars. A couple of detectives climbed out, unbuttoning their coats, and not because the spring day was so warm. The cars sped off to block the intersections.
They looked around cautiously, then--destroying the last hope that this was some st
range coincidence--walked to Williams's beige Dodge, noted the tag, glanced inside. One spoke into his radio.
Williams's lids lowered in despair as a disgusted sigh eased from his lungs.
She was at it again.
She . . .
Last year Williams had been involved with a woman who was not only sexy but smart and kind. Or so it had seemed at first. Not long after they started going out seriously, though, she'd turned into a raging witch. Moody, jealous, vindictive. Unstable . . . He was with her about four months and they were the worst of his life. And he'd spent much of that time protecting her own children from their mother.
His good deeds, in fact, had landed him in jail. One evening Leticia had swung a fist at her daughter for not scrubbing a pot clean enough. Williams instinctively grabbed the woman's arm, while the sobbing girl fled. He'd calmed her mother down and the matter seemed settled. But several hours later he had been sitting on the porch debating how he could get the children away from her, perhaps back to their father, when the police arrived and he was arrested.
Leticia had pressed assault charges, displaying the arm bruised by his restraint. Williams was appalled. He explained what had happened but the officers had no choice but to arrest him. The case went to trial, but Williams wouldn't let the daughter take the stand in his defense, though the girl wanted to. He was found guilty of misdemeanor assault, the sentence community service.
But during the trial he'd testified to Leticia's cruelty. The prosecutor believed him and gave the woman's name to the Department of Social Services. A social worker showed up at her house to investigate the welfare of the children and they were removed and placed in the custody of their father.
Leticia began harassing Williams. It had persisted for a long time but then she'd disappeared, months ago, and Williams was just thinking recently that he was safe. . . .
But now this. He knew she was behind it.
Jesus, our Lord, how much can a man put up with?
He looked again. No! The detectives had their guns out!
A wave of horror zipped through him. Had she actually hurt one of her kids and claimed that he'd done it? He wouldn't be surprised.
Williams's hands shook and he cried big tears, which streamed down his broad face. He felt the same panic that had slammed him in the desert war when he'd turned to his buddy just in time to see the grinning Alabaman turned into a red mass of nothing, thanks to an Iraqi's rocket-propelled grenade. Until that moment Williams had been more or less fine. Been shot at, spattered with sand from bullets, passed out from the heat. But seeing Jason turn into a thing had affected him fundamentally. The post-traumatic stress syndrome he'd wrestled with since was now kicking into high gear.
Utter, helpless fear.