Thankless in Death

had to stay out of sight, in shadows, or pretend to talk on his ’link.
    Just after eleven, he saw the door open, and fat-ass Ms. Farnsworth come waddling out with the ugly little mutt on a leash. She talked to the dog in that high, annoying voice of hers, the same voice she’d ragged on him with when she’d screwed him over in Computer Science in high school.
    They’d made a big deal of her when she’d retired. He’d even gotten a damn e-vite to her retirement party. Hell of a nerve, after she’d flunked him out of spite.
    When she’d made it half a block away, stopped for the dog to take a shit on the square of ground around some tree, he slipped through the gate of her narrow front yard, and back into the shadows near her front door.
    Nice house, he thought. He’d be happy here for a couple days. Bitch inherited the place when her real estate daddy died. Lived alone since her stupid husband croaked. No wonder she lived alone, considering she was fat, ugly, and mean as an alley rat.
    He slipped the baseball bat out of his bag, enjoyed the feel of it in his hands, knowing what he’d do with it.

    He thought how he could’ve been an assassin. One of those special operatives—licensed to kill—the government ran. Maybe he still could, after he’d finished what he needed to do.
    It might be fun to kill people he didn’t even know. But he knew so many who really needed to die.
    He was going to be really busy for a while. A career opportunity would just have to wait.
    He watched her come back, ugly dog prancing. When they clanked through the gate, his heart picked up its beat in anticipation.
    The dog stopped, quivered, barked.
    Shit! He hadn’t thought of that.
    “Oh now, Snuffy! Is it that bad cat again? That nasty bad old cat?”
    Yeah , Jerry thought, grinning. I’m a bad cat .
    “Come on now. Don’t be such a baby.” She scooped up the barking dog, cradling him, hushing him, and walked to the door.
    Turned the key. Opening the door.
    He was on her like a leech. One swing to send her pitching forward. Slamming the door behind him, breathing fast, fast as he fought the urge to just whale away.
    Instead he gave the barking, quivering dog one hard kick that sent Snuffy smashing against the wall, then dropping, just like its mistress.
    He had to slow his breath, force himself to slow it down, slow everything down until the tornado roar of blood storming in his head died so he could just think again.
    Then with a self-satisfied nod, he propped his trusty bat against the wall. And rubbed his hands together in anticipation of all to come.

    I n Chelsea, Eve spoke briefly to the waiter who had served Reinhold.
    “He came in about four, four-fifteen maybe, ordered a Maxima latte, double-shot caramel and a grande chunky-chunk cookie. He worked his ’link and PPC, but lots of people do.”
    “Did you hear him talking to anyone?”
    The waiter scratched his ear as if it would help him think. “Now that you mention it, I guess not. He was just sitting there, watching out the window, and he’d try his ’link off and on, poke around on his handheld. I figured he was maybe waiting for someone, and they were late, but I asked him if he was, like, expecting someone, and he said no, he was just killing time before an appointment. He paid cash. I mean, after all that hang time, he got up all of a sudden, and fast, left cash on the table, grabbed his bag, and bugged out. Kinda trotting. I went to make sure he covered the tab—he did, not much tip, but covered—and I spotted him cutting across the street, zipping around cars stopped for the light. That’s about it.”
    “What kind of bag?”
    “What kind of what?”
    “Bag,” Eve repeated. “You said he grabbed his bag before he left.”
    “Oh yeah, right. Pretty nice bag. Looked new, I guess. Black, big. I guess it was like a duffel, but classier. I didn’t pay much attention.”
    “Good enough. If you think of anything else, or see him again, get in touch.”
    “No sweat on it.”
    She went outside where McNab and Roarke stood on the sidewalk in geek conversation. She held up a hand to cut that off. “Security visuals?”

    “We were just talking about that.”
    “Not in English.”
    McNab just grinned at her. “We’ve got him off a few street cams, and we can put that together. What we were figuring is how we backtrack, see if we can catch him farther back to where he came from.”
    “Why didn’t you just say so?”
    “We did, or were,”