Cross

eyes and mouths too—to send a message. Then he took a half dozen photographs of the victims, the would-be assassins, for his prized picture collection.
    One day soon, the Butcher would show these photos to the person who had paid to have him killed and
failed,
and who was now as good as dead.
    That man was John Maggione, the don himself.

Chapter 45
    IN HIS MICHAEL SULLIVAN PERSONA, he had the habit of thinking things through several times, and not just his hit jobs. The lifelong habit included things about his family, small details like how and where they lived, and who knew about it. Also, images from his father’s butcher shop in the Flatlands were always with him: an awning of wide stripes with the orange, white, and green of the Irish flag; the bright whiteness of the shop on the inside; the loud electric meat grinder that seemed to shake the whole building whenever it was turned on.
    For this new life of his, far away from Brooklyn, he had chosen affluent, and mostly white-bread, Montgomery County in Maryland.
    Specifically, he had picked out the town of Potomac.
    Around three on the afternoon that he arrived back from Europe, he drove at exactly twenty-five miles an hour through Potomac Village, stopping like any other good citizen at the irritatingly long light at the corner of River and Falls Roads.
    More time to think, or obsess, which he usually enjoyed.
    So, who had put a hit out on him?
Was
it Maggione? And what did it mean to him and his family? Was he safe coming home now?
    One of the general “appearances,” or “disguises,” that he had carefully selected for his family was that of the bourgeois bohemian. The ironies of the lifestyle choice gave him constant amusement: nonfat butter, for example, and NPR always on the radio of his wife’s trendy SUV; and bizarre foods—like olive-wheatgrass muffins. It was patently absurd and hilarious to the Butcher: the joys of Yuppie life that just didn’t stop.
    His three boys went to the private Landor School, where they hobnobbed with the mostly well-mannered, but often quite devious, children of the middle rich. There were lots of rich doctors in Montgomery County, working for NIH, the FDA, and Bethesda Naval Medical Command. So now he headed out toward Hunt County, the ritzy subdivision where he lived, and what a private hoot that was—“Hunt County, home of the Hunter.”
    And finally, there was his home, sweet home, purchased in 2002 for one point five million. Six large bedrooms, four and a half baths, heated pool, sauna, finished basement with media room. Sirius satellite radio was the latest rage with Caitlin and the boys. Sweet Caitlin, love of his straight life, who had a life coach and an intuitive healer these days—all paid for by his dubious labors on
the Hunt.
    Sullivan had called ahead on his cell, and there they were on the front lawn to meet and greet—waving like the big happy family that they thought they were. They had no idea, no clue that they were part of his disguise, that they were his cover story. That’s all it was, right?
    He hopped out of the Caddy, grinning like he was in a fast-food commercial, and sang his theme song, the old Shep and the Limelites classic “Daddy’s Home.” “Daddy’s home, your daddy’s home to stay.” And Caitlin and the kids chorused, “He’s not a thousand miles a-waaay.”
    His life was the best, wasn’t it? Except that somebody was trying to kill him now. And of course there was always his past, the way he grew up in Brooklyn, his insane father, the Bone Man, the dreaded back room at the shop. But the Butcher tried not to think about any of that right now.
    He was home again; he’d made it—and he took a nice big bow in front of his family, who, of course, cheered for their returning hero.
    That’s what he was, yeah, a hero.

Chapter 46
    “ALEX! HEY, YOU! How you been? Long time no see, big guy. You’re looking good.”
    I waved to a petite, pretty woman named Malina Freeman and kept on running. Malina was a fixture in the neighborhood, kind of like me. She was around the same age as I was and owned the newspaper store where the two of us used to spend our allowances on candy and soda when we were kids. Rumor had it that she liked me. Hey, I liked Malina too, always had.
    My flapping feet kept me headed north on Fifth Street like they knew the way, and the neighborhood scrolled by. Toward Seward Square, I hung a right and took the long way around. It didn’t make logical