The Devils Teardrop

fucking bad.
    “I’m not supposed to give out tactical information to anyone, sir. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s my city that’s under attack and my citizens who’re being slaughtered. I want answers.”
    More silence. Kennedy looked up at Wendell Jefferies, who shook his head.
    Kennedy forced his anger down. He tried to sound reasonable as he said, “Let me tell you what I have in mind. The whole point of this scheme was for those men to make money. It’s not to kill.”
    “I think that’s true, sir.”
    “If I can just have a chance to talk to the killer—at this safe house or where he’s going to hit at eight—I think I can convince him to give up. I’ll negotiate with him. I can do that.”
    Kennedy did believe this. Because one of his talents (in this respect like his namesake from the sixties) was his ability to persuade. Hell, he’d sweet-talked two dozen of the toughest presidents and CEOs in the District into accepting the tax that would fund Project 2000. He’d talked poor Gary Moss into naming names in the Board of Education scandal.
    Twenty minutes with this killer—even staring down the barrel of that machine gun of his—would be enough. He’d work out some kind of arrangement.
    “The way they’re describing him,” Hardy said, “I don’t think he’s the sort you can negotiate with.”
    “You let me be the judge of that, Detective. Now, where’s his safe house?”
    “I . . .”
    “Tell me.”
    The line hummed. Still, the detective said nothing.
    Kennedy’s voice lowered. “You don’t owe the feds a thing, son. You know how they feel about you being on the task force. You’re a step away from fetching coffee.”
    “That’s wrong, sir. Agent Lukas’s made me part of the team.”
    “Has she?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “You don’t feel like a third wheel? I’m asking that ’cause I feel like one. If Lanier had his way—you know Congressman Lanier?”
    “Yessir.”
    “If he had his way my only job tonight’d be sitting in thereviewing stand on the Mall watching fireworks. . . . You and me—the District of Columbia’s our city. So, come on, son, where’s that goddamn safe house?”
    Kennedy watched Jefferies cross his fingers. Please . . . It would be perfect. I show up there, I try to talk the man into coming out with his hands up. Either he surrenders or they kill him. And either way, my credibility survives. Either way, I’m no longer the mayor who watched the murder of his city on CNN while he kicked back with a beer.
    Kennedy heard voices from the other end of the line. Then Hardy was back. “I’m sorry, Mayor, I have to go. There’re people here. I’m sure Agent Lukas will be in touch.”
    “Detective . . .”
    The line went blank.
    * * *
    Gravesend.
    The car carrying Parker and Cage bounded over gaping potholes and eased to a stop at a curb where trash and rubble spilled into the street. The burnt-out torso of a Toyota rested, ironically, against a fire hydrant.
    They climbed out. Lukas had driven in her own car, a red Ford Explorer, and was already at the vacant lot that was the rendezvous point. She was standing with her hands on her trim hips, looking around.
    The smells of urine and shit and burning wood and trash were very strong.
    Parker’s parents, who became world travelers after his father had retired from teaching history, had once found themselves in a slum in Ankara, Turkey. Parker still could remember the letter he’d received from his mother, whowas an ardent correspondent. It was the last letter he’d received from them before they’d died. It was framed and up on the wall of his study downstairs, next to the Whos’ wall of fame.
    They’re impoverished, the people here, and that, more than racial differences, more than culture, more than politics, more than religion, turns their hearts to stone.
    He thought of her words now, as he looked over the desolation of the area.
    Two black teenagers, who’d been leaning against a wall graffiti’d with gang colors, looked at the men and women arriving—obviously law enforcers—and walked away slowly, uneasiness and defiance on their faces.
    Parker was troubled—though not by the danger; by the hugeness of the place. It was three or four square miles of slums and row houses and small factories and vacant lots. How could they possibly find the unsub’s safe house in this much urban sprawl?
    There were some riddles that Parker had never been able to figure out.
    Three