Cross - James Patterson [68]
Hopefully, Sullivan had left no trail to be followed by a crew of mob killers. No bread crumbs like in “Hansel and Gretel.” The good thing was, neither he nor his family had ever been in this area before. It was virgin territory, with no roots or connections.
He pulled into the driveway of a shingle-style Victorian house with a steep roof, a couple of turrets, even a stained-glass window.
“I love this house!” Sullivan crowed, and he was all fake smiles and hyperenthusiasm. “Welcome to Florida, kiddos,” he said.
“Very funny, Dad. Not,” said Mike Jr. from the backseat, where all three boys were looking grim and depressed.
They were in Florida, Massachusetts, and Caitlin and the kids groaned at another of his dumb jokes. Florida was a small community of less than a thousand, situated high in the Berkshires. It had stunning mountain views, if nothing else. And there were no Mafia hit men waiting in the driveway. What more could they ask for?
“Just perfect. What could be better than this?” Sullivan kept telling the kids as they started to unpack again.
So why was Caitlin crying as he showed her their new living room with the sweeping views of big bad Mt. Greylock and the Hoosic River? Why was he lying to her when he said, “Everything is going to be all right, my queen, light of my life”?
Maybe because he knew it wasn’t true, and probably, so did she. He and his family were going to be murdered one day, maybe in this very house.
Unless he did something dramatic to stop it. And fast. But what could that be? How could he stop the Mafia from coming after him?
How could you kill the mob?
Chapter 90
TWO NIGHTS LATER, the Butcher was on the move again. Just him. One man.
He had a plan now and was traveling south to New York City. He was uptight and nervous but singing along with Springsteen, Dylan, the Band, Pink Floyd. Nothing but Oldies and Greaties for the four-hour ride south. He didn’t particularly want to leave Caitlin and the boys at the house in Massachusetts, but he figured they’d probably be safe there for now. If not, he had done the best he could for them. Better than his father ever did for him, or for his mother and brothers.
He finally pulled off the West Side Highway at around midnight; then he went straightaway to the Morningside Apartments on West 107th. He’d stayed there before and knew it was just out of the way enough to suit his purposes. Convenient too, with four different subway lines going through the two nearby stations.
No air-conditioning in the rooms, he remembered, but that didn’t matter in November. He slept like a baby safe in a mother’s womb. When Sullivan woke at seven, covered in a light sheen of his own sweat, his mind was focused on a single idea: payback against Junior Maggione. Or maybe an even better idea: survival of the fittest and the toughest.
Around nine that morning he took a subway ride to check out a couple of possible locations for murders he wanted to commit in the near future. He had a “wish list” with several different targets and wondered if any of these men, and two women, had an idea that they were as good as dead, that it was up to him who lived and died, and when, and where.
In the evening, around nine, he drove over to Brooklyn, his old stomping grounds. Right into Junior Maggione’s neighborhood, his turf in Carroll Gardens.
He was thinking about his old buddy Jimmy Hats and missing him some, figuring that Maggione’s father had probably popped Jimmy. Somebody had, and then made the body disappear, as if Jimmy had never been born. He’d always suspected it had been Maggione Sr., so that was another score for the Butcher to settle.
It was building up inside him, this terrible rage. About something. Maybe about his father—the original Butcher of Sligo, that piece of Irish scum who had ruined his life before he was