The October List

because, believe it or not, bright light made witnesses’ accounts less reliable than overcast; glare could be wonderfully obscuring. Victims too might not even see you or the gun when you approached.
    He looked around once more. The residences were small, many of them red brick or dirt-brown stone that had once been white or light gray. A lot of soot and grime. He passed a bookstore for the gay-lesbian-transgendered crowd, a Laundromat, apartments with elaborate wrought-iron security bars. You could look right into the minuscule, street-level living rooms, which would fit no more than four or five people. Who’d live like that?
    Plenty, Joseph reflected, to judge from the number of the cells he passed.
    Manhattan …
    In his mind once more, Joseph ran through the complex scheme he was orchestrating this weekend. Many parts, many challenges, many risks. But, being in a reflective mood, he was thinking that men are born to work. It didn’t matter how difficult your job, how filthy your hands got – in all senses of phrase. It didn’t matter if you were a poet or a carpenter or a scientist or whatever. God made us to get off our asses and go out into the world and do something with our time.
    And Joseph was never happier than when he was working.
    Even if, as he was about to do in a few minutes, that job was murder.
    The silent GPS sent him around the corner and he paused. There was the brown brick building where his victim lived.
    Thinking of how the night would unfold, Joseph again pictured Gabriela, her beautiful, heart-shaped face, her attractive figure, all of which jarred with the edgy voice. He thought too of the man with her, Daniel Reardon. He’d seemed smart and his eyes radiated confidence, which diminished only slightly when Joseph had displayed the butt of his pistol.
    He thought too of the October List.
    A complicated night lay ahead. But nothing he couldn’t handle.
    Now, no police in sight, he strode nonchalantly past the apartment building’s door, glancing in. Yes, the doorman he’d seen earlier was still on duty. Joseph was a bit irritated at the old man’s presence at the desk, which added a complication, but no matter. Anything could be worked around with enough determination and ingenuity. And Joseph was well fitted with both. He circled around to the back and counted windows, recalling the diagrams from the NYC Buildings Department of the structure’s layout. Yes, his target was home. He could see movement and the flicker of light, as if from a TV or computer monitor. Shadows. A light spread out and a moment later shrank and went out; probably from a refrigerator door, since the glow came from the kitchen.
    This reminded him he wanted a long sip or two from his Special Brew. But later. He was busy now.
    Work to be done.
    Joseph went to the service door. It was locked, naturally. Verifying that he couldn’t be seen from any of the windows, he removed a screwdriver from his inside pocket and began to jimmy. This was all you needed 90 percent of the time; lock-picking tools were usually more trouble than they were worth.
    He double-checked his pistol, then concentrated again on his task of cracking the lock, irritated that his target, Gabriela’s friend Frank Walsh, lived on the sixth floor. His breath hissed out softly as he reflected that the last thing he needed right now was a climb up that many stairs.

CHAPTER
27
     

11:50 a.m., Sunday
1 hour, 10 minutes earlier
     

 
     
     

 
     
    ‘I don’t see him.’
    Daniel Reardon was referring to the man who’d been following him and Gabriela from the chaos on Madison Avenue – the man in the rumpled gray suit and a bright yellow shirt, the man with the eyes of a hunting dog.
    Gabriela said, ‘Who the hell is he? I don’t think he’s a cop.’
    ‘No. He would’ve called for backup. There’d be a thousand cars here if he was.’
    They were moving quickly south on Second Avenue. The wind was now brisk, clouds were coagulating low in the sky. The cross streets were still in the high digits – fewer stores, more residences – so the sidewalks were less crowded than closer to Midtown. They looked behind once again. ‘Maybe it was just a coincidence we saw him a couple of times.’
    ‘You really think that?’ Daniel asked.
    ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘But, frankly, I don’t know what to think anymore.’ She winced as she held her side and stopped.
    ‘Still hurts?’
    ‘Does, yeah,’ she said. She touched away a dot of