Cross - James Patterson [7]
The day was already turning warm, and a lot of neighborhood people were out walking or congregating on stoops.
“Jiang’s crew is into what? Ecstasy, heroin?” Sampson asked.
“Throw in some PCP. Distribution runs up and down the East Coast—DC, Philly, Atlanta, New York. It’s been a profitable operation, which is why the Italians want in. What do you think of Louis French’s appointment at the Bureau?”
“Don’t know the man. He got appointed though, so he must be wrong for the job.”
I laughed at the truth in Sampson’s humor; then we hunkered down and waited for a team of Mafia hitters to show up and try to take out Jiang An-Lo. That was if our information was accurate.
“We know anything about the hit man?” Sampson asked.
“Supposed to be an Irish guy,” I said, and looked over at John for a reaction.
Sampson’s eyebrows arched; then he turned my way. “Working for the Mafia? How’d that happen?”
“Guy is supposed to be good. And crazy too. They call him the Butcher.”
Meanwhile, an old, bowed-down guy had begun to cross M Street with deliberate glances left and right. He was slowly dragging on a cigarette. He crossed paths with a skinny white guy who had an aluminum cane cuffed at the elbow. The two stragglers nodded solemn hellos in the middle of the street.
“Couple of characters there,” Sampson said, and smiled. “That’ll be us someday.”
“Maybe. If we’re lucky.”
And then Jiang An-Lo chose to make his first appearance of the day.
Chapter 10
JIANG WAS TALL and looked almost emaciated. He had a scraggly black goatee that hung a good six inches below his chinny-chin-chin.
The drug lord had a reputation for being shrewd, competitive, and vicious, often unnecessarily so, as if this was all a big, dangerous game to him. He’d grown up on the streets of Shanghai, then moved to Hong Kong, then Baghdad, and finally to Washington, where he ruled several neighborhoods like a new-world Chinese warlord.
My eyes shifted around M Street, searching for signs of trouble. Jiang’s two bodyguards seemed on the alert, and I wondered if he’d been warned—and if so, by whom? Someone on his payroll in the police department? It was definitely possible.
I was also wondering how good this Irish killer was.
“Bodyguards spot us yet?” Sampson said.
“I expect they have, John. We’re here as a deterrent more than anything else.”
“Hit man spot us too?”
“If he’s here. If he’s any good. If there is a hit man, he’s probably seen us too.”
When Jiang An-Lo was about halfway to a shiny black Mercedes parked on the street, another car, a Buick LeSabre, turned on to M. It accelerated, the engine roaring, tires squealing as they burned against the pavement.
Jiang’s bodyguards spun around toward the speeding car. They both had their guns out. Sampson and I shoved open the side doors of our car. “Deterrent my ass,” he grumbled.
Jiang hesitated, but only for an instant. Then he took long, gangly strides, almost as if he was trying to run wearing a full-length skirt, heading back toward the row house he’d just come out of. He would have correctly figured he’d still be in danger if he kept going and reached the Mercedes.
Everybody had it wrong though. Jiang, the bodyguards, Sampson and I.
The shots came from behind the drug dealer, from the opposite direction on the street.
Three loud cracks from a long gun.
Jiang went down and stayed there on the sidewalk, not moving at all. Blood poured from the side of his head as if there were a spout there. I doubted he was alive.
I spun around and looked toward the rooftop of a brownstone connected to more roofs lining the other side of M.
I saw a blond man, and he did the strangest thing: He bowed in our direction. I couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Taken a bow?
Then he ducked behind a brick parapet and completely disappeared from sight.
Sampson and I sprinted across M and entered the building. We raced upstairs, four flights in a hurry. When we got to the roof, the