Pop Goes the Weasel

little past two in the morning, Shafer watched the gypsy cab pick up two young girls in Shaw. Was Bayer copycatting? Was he setting some kind of trap for Shafer? Or was it something else altogether?
    Bayer took the girls to S Street, which wasn’t far from the pickup point. He followed the girls up the darkened stairs of an aging brownstone, and then they all disappeared inside.
    He had a blue anorak thrown over his right arm and Shafer suspected that a pistol was under the coat. Christ! He’d taken two of them. He could have been seen by anyone on the street. The cab could have been spotted.
    Shafer parked on the street. He waited and watched. He didn’t like being in this part of Shaw, especially without his disguise, and driving the Jaguar. There were some old crumbling brownstones and a couple of boarded-up, graffiti-covered shacks on the street. No one was outside.
    He saw a light blink on the top floor and figured that was where Bayer had taken the two girls. Probably their flat.
    He watched the brownstone from two until close to four. He couldn’t take his eyes away. While he waited, he imagined dozens of scenarios that might have brought Famine here. He wondered if the others were in Washington, too. Or was Famine acting alone? Was he playing the Four Horsemen right now?
    Shafer waited and waited for Bayer to come out of the brownstone. But he didn’t come down, and Shafer grew more impatient and worried and angry. He fidgeted. His breathing became labored. He had lurid, paranoid fantasies about what Bayer might have done up there. Had he killed the two girls? Taken their identification? Was this a trap? He thought so. What else could it be?
    Still no George Bayer.
    Shafer couldn’t stand it any longer. He climbed out of the Jaguar. He stood on the street and stared up at the windows of the flat. He wondered if he, too, was being watched. He sensed a trap, wondered if he should flee.
    Christ, where the hell is Bayer? What game is Famine playing? Was there a back way out of the building? If so, why had he left the taxi as evidence? Evidence! Damn him!
    But then he saw Bayer finally leave the building. He quickly crossed S Street, got into the cab, and drove away.
    Shafer decided to go upstairs. He jogged over to the building and found the wooden front door unlocked. He hurried up the steep, winding stairs. He had a flashlight in one hand, and turned it on. His semiautomatic was in the other.
    Shafer made his way to the fourth floor. He immediately knew which of the two flats was the one. A poster for Mary J. Blige’s What’s the 411? album was on the splintered and scarred door to his right. The girls lived here.
    He turned the handle and carefully pushed the door open. He pointed his gun inside, ready.
    One of the young girls came out of the bathroom wearing a fluffy black towel on her head, nothing else. She was a hot number with pert little titties. Christ, Famine must have paid for it. What a fool! What a wanker!
    “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in here?” the girl shouted angrily.
    “I’m Death,” he grinned, then announced, “I’m here for you and your pretty friend.”

Chapter 27
    I HAD GOTTEN HOME from the John Doe murder scene at a little past three-thirty in the morning. I went to bed but set my alarm for six-thirty. I managed to get myself up before the kids went off to school.
    “Somebody was out very, very, very late last night.” Jannie started her teasing before I had made it all the way downstairs and into the kitchen. I continued down and found her and Damon in the breakfast nook with Nana.
    “Somebody sure looks like he had a late night,” Nana said from her customary catbird’s seat.
    “Somebody’s cruising for a bruising,” I said to quiet them. “Now, there’s something important I need to tell you before you head out to school.”
    “Watch our manners. Always pay attention in class, even if the teacher’s boring. Lead with our left if it ever comes to a fight in the schoolyard,” Jannie offered with a wink.
    I rolled my eyes. “What I was going to say,” I said, “is that you should be especially nice to Mrs. Johnson today. You see, last night Christine said that she’d marry me. I guess that means she’s marrying all of us.”
    At that point, everything became hugging and loud celebrating in the kitchen. The kids got chocolate milk and bacon grease all over me. I’d never seen Nana happier. And I felt exactly the same. Probably even better