LITMIR.BIZ

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as I stepped through the trash-strewed passageway. Rotting food and urine assailed my nose, which I covered with the back of one hand as I tiptoed through a brackish liquid I didn’t want to identify. It had rained earlier, and a trickle—blessedly fresh and silvery—still flowed down a drainpipe, spilling over the broken asphalt.

      I focused on the cleansing overflow as I made my way toward the end of the alley. I’d almost reached the open courtyard, where I suspected Roy awaited my help, when I was greeted by the one thing in this world that could make me want to turn and run.

      “A rat,” I whispered. Not just any varmint, but a rad rat. Rad as in radiation, not trendy. Rats are never in style.

      About twenty years ago some idiot Director of Public Health decided the city’s rat problem had reached apocalyptic proportions and solved it by feeding the nasty critters radiation pellets. A few—the toughest and smartest—survived, mutated, and spawned offspring so large they could have registered with the American Kennel Association.

      One of their descendants stood ten feet away from me right now, the size of a pit bull, daring me to pass. That’s what I hated about rats. They had attitude, in addition to beady eyes, creepy tails and vicious teeth.

      “Get out of my way!” Out of habit, I reached for the Glock that wasn’t there. I seldom used it and had never killed anyone, but it was a menacing weapon to wave around. Instead, I pulled out my whip and cracked it in the air. The rat flinched, but waddled closer.

      “What do you think this is?” I shouted. “Showdown at the OK Corral? Go on! Get out of here!”

      Just then another rad rat stepped out of the shadows. I’d read somewhere that they mated for life. How touching.

      “Okay, which one of you freaks of nature wants to be widowed first?”

      I snapped my whip at the one who’d been acting like John Wayne. “Bull’s-eye!” I shouted triumphantly as it squealed and ran.

      The second rat, apparently outraged by the assault, ran toward me so fast I couldn’t use my whip again, so I met it halfway and punted it, literally. The squealing—I swear, screaming—creature flew through the air and landed hard against the brick wall, then limped away.

      “Ha!” At least I was warmed up. I only hoped these disgusting creatures weren’t an omen.

      I ran the rest of the way down the alley to the entrance to the Cloisters, so named because it was a square courtyard surrounded by arches, as in a medieval monastery. It used to be a loading dock where trucks would unload their wares. But it was abandoned about fifteen years ago, and soon after was the site of a terrible shoot-out between police and drug runners that claimed the lives of nine officers.

      Since then the Cloisters had been virtually crime free. Word on the street was that the slain cops haunted the place. Retributionists, who weren’t as a rule superstitious, sometimes took advantage of the empty real estate because it was centrally located. It was a convenient place to meet with a client who wanted a contract to remain secret.

      I found the square courtyard well-lit and littered with the remains of a giant forklift, whose metal parts were scattered like the bones of a small dinosaur.

      “Roy?” I called out. “Roy, where are you?”

      “Here!” came his croaking reply. “It’s safe. They’re gone.”

      Spying his bloody, prone body amid the metal rubble, I raced to his side, scraping my knees as I dropped to the dirty concrete. I touched his damp and cold forehead. He was very weak and, I suspected, badly in need of blood. He eyed me with a glint of affection. “Hey, Blue Dragon.”

      He often called me that because of the easy-stick dragon tattoo I sometimes wore on my forehead during retribution gigs. It had become my symbol. In Chinese mythology, blue dragons are powerful creatures that live in water. Since one of my great joys as a child was swimming in Lake Michigan, and since I’d learned my best combat techniques from a former Shaolin kung fu monk, the imagery seemed to fit and gave me confidence.

      “What are you doing in this shitty neighborhood?”

      “You called me, remember?” I squeezed his hand hard, willing my life into him. Blood had splattered his white shirt like a panel from a Rorschach test. His abdomen looked like meat ready for a sausage grinder.

      “Shit!” I muttered, momentarily squeezing my eyes tight.

      I jammed my earpiece in place and called for an ambulance and police, then snapped it back on my lapel and took Roy’s pulse. It was too slow. If the ambulance didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t make it.

      “Angel…”

      “Yes, Roy?” I stroked his cheek. “What is it?”

      He looked at me with eyes I had once watched so carefully for approval. With a gray mustache and silver hair, Roy was elegant and smart. He was also wily. He’d been the first man to tell me it was okay to be a little bad for a good cause.

      “Go help the boy,” he croaked.

      “What boy?”

      He raised his right hand and pointed, then dropped it and passed out.

      I checked his pulse again to make sure he was still alive. Then I carefully headed in the direction in which he’d pointed. My stomach surged with vertigo when I spotted a second body, which was so utterly still I knew immediately that “the boy” was dead.

      As I knelt, both fascinated and horrified beside the lifeless form, I thought of Marco’s question to me: do you really know what death is? Trying to take it in as much as I could, I carefully tugged on the shoulder of the young man’s Hawaiian shirt. The weight of his shoulders pulled his still-supple torso toward me, and I winced at the scarlet carnage. I reached down and pulled his head my way so I could look at his face, in case I recognized him.

      Who it was nearly stopped my heart. “Oh, my God!”

      It was Victor Alvarez, the seventeen-year-old son of the Chicago mayor. I’d met Victor briefly when I’d done a top secret retribution job for his father. This was a disaster of monstrous proportions. What the hell had happened here? Had Roy and Victor been in a shoot-out?

      “Angel,” came Roy’s weak cry.

      I ran the thirty feet back to his side and my eyes widened when I saw how white he was. He looked at me with terror shimmering in his eyes.

      “Angel, I’m dying.” He started to convulse, gasping desperately for air.

      I knelt and took him in my arms, but he shook so violently his hand socked me in the temple and I nearly blacked out. When I regained my composure, he was still, his eyes wide open.

      “No!” I shouted and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I fought to keep the cold of death out of my lungs while I stubbornly forced the warmth of life into his, one breath at a time.

      By the time emergency technicians arrived, I was sweating and frantic, pumping at Roy’s chest, willing him to live. Strong hands gripped my upper arms and lifted me away.

      “Hold it, ma’am,” said a brawny EMT, pulling me around. His round, ebony face was serious and soothing. “We have it under control now. You can stop. We’ll take over from here.”

      I took in a hitching breath and nodded, as an EMT took over working on Roy. I looked around and realized the once-empty courtyard was now teaming with detectives, special forces and beat cops. When I looked back at Roy, the technician was pulling a white sheet over him.

      “That’s it?” I shouted. “Why did you stop? Can’t you take him to the hospital?”

      The big guy who had pulled me aside said, “We did a brain scan. There’s no activity.”

      I nodded, finally admitting what I’d known from the beginning. Roy was gone. As devastating as this fact was, I could not cry for him. Not here. I had to know first who killed him. As always, I trusted my own ability to find out

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