Last Man Standing (55 page)

“Is that all?”

She nodded and then caught herself. She could feel him move closer, and even though she wore the blindfold, she closed her
eyes. She could feel tears forming there.

“Ground rules are no more nods or shakes, I need to hear words, last time I’m telling you, you got me?”

“Yes.” She fought back the tears.

“Now, did he say anything else, about anything peculiar happening when he saw Kevin the second time?”

She said, “No,” but she had hesitated a second too long. She could clearly feel it, as though the pause had been a day long
in duration. And she thought that he had noticed it, as well. She was correct in that assumption, for she instantly felt the
cold muzzle of a pistol against her cheek.

“We having a serious misunderstanding here, like maybe I ain’t making myself clear. Just so we are clear, let me lay this
out for you, bitch. To get my boy back, I’ll blow your brains out and everybody you ever cared about in your whole life. I
see pictures all over the place of this cute-looking girl. Bet that’s your daughter, ain’t it?” Claire didn’t answer and she
felt his hand wrap around her neck. His hand was gloved, which surprised her until she thought of fingerprints and DNA that
machines could detect off of corpses. Her corpse! This thought made her feel faint.

“Ain’t it?”

“Yes!”

He kept his hand on her neck. “See, you got you your little girl nice and safe. Perfect little house in a perfect little place.
But see, I don’t got me my boy and he’s all I have. Why you get your girl and I ain’t get my boy? You think that’s fair? Do
you?” He squeezed her neck a little and Claire felt herself start to gag.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I don’t think that’s fair,” she managed to say in a garbled voice.

“Yeah? Well, it’s a little late for that, baby.”

The next thing she felt was being pushed back on the bed. Her earlier promise to fight if they attempted to rape her seemed
ridiculous now. She was so frightened she could barely breathe. She felt a pillow being placed over her face and then something
hard jammed into the center of the pillow. It took her a few seconds to realize that the hard object was the pistol and the
pillow would serve as a crude silencer.

She thought of her daughter, Maggie, and she thought of how her body would be found. The tears streamed down her cheeks. And
then for one miraculous second her wits came back to her.

“He said that somebody had switched the kids in the alley.”

The pillow did not move for some seconds and Claire thought she had lost after all.

Then it was slowly removed and she was jerked up so hard she thought her arm had been dislocated.

“Say again?”

“He said that Kevin had been switched in the alley for another boy. The boy who went to the police wasn’t Kevin. He was taken
in the alley before he got to the police.”

“Does he know why?”

“No. And he doesn’t know who did it. Only that it happened.” She felt the pistol against her cheek again. For some reason
it wasn’t as frightening the second time around.

“You lying, you ain’t gonna like what I’m gonna do to you.”

“That’s what he said.” She felt like she had betrayed Web to save herself and she wondered if he would have rather died than
done such a thing. He probably would have. The tears started coming again, and not out of fear this time but from her own
weakness.

“He thinks that Kevin being in that alley was planned by whoever was behind what happened. He thinks Kevin was somehow involved.”
She quickly added, “But unwittingly. He’s only a child.”

The pistol was removed from her cheek and her interrogator’s large presence also moved away.

“That it?”

“That’s all I know.”

“You tell anybody we here, you know what I’ll do to you. And I can find your daughter. We been through your house, we know
all there is to know about you and her. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” she managed to get out.

“I’m just doing this to get my son back, that’s all. I ain’t like busting in people’s homes and roughing ’em up, that ain’t
my style, especially women, but what I got to do to get my boy back, I’ll do.”

She felt herself nodding at this and then stopped.

She never heard them go, although her hearing could not have been any more acute.

She waited a few minutes to make sure, then she said, “Hello?” And then she said it again. She reached up slowly to undo the
blindfold. She was waiting for hands to stop her, but none came. She finally pulled off the blindfold and she quickly looked
around the room, half expecting someone to leap out at her. She would have liked to collapse on the bed and cry for the rest
of the day and night, but she couldn’t stay here. They said they had been everywhere in her house. She threw some clothes
in an overnight bag, grabbed her purse and a pair of tennis shoes and went to the front door. She looked out but saw no one.
She quickly went to her car and got in. As she drove off, she kept her gaze on the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following
her. She was no expert in that, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there. Claire entered the Capital Beltway and sped up,
unsure of exactly where she would go.

A
ntoine Peebles pulled off the gloves and sat back, a broad smile on his intelligent features. He looked over at Macy, who
was driving. The man’s face was inscrutable, as always.

“Damn good performance, if I do say so myself,” said Peebles. “I think I got the man’s voice and diction just right. I haven’t
said ‘ain’t’ that many times in my whole life. So what do you think?”

“You sounded like the boss,” agreed Macy.

“And the lady gets all pissed off and she goes to Web London and the cops and they go looking for Francis.”

“And maybe us.”

“No, I explained all that to you. You have to think at the macro and micro level, Mace,” said Peebles as though lecturing
a student. “We’ve already distanced ourselves from him. And on top of that he’s got no product and half his crew is already
gone because of that. His cash flow is down to almost nothing. In this business you have two-day inventory levels, tops. He
had some stuff hidden, I’ll give him credit for that, but that’s gone. And when he shot Toona he lost four more guys just
from that.” Peebles shook his head. “And with all that happening, what does he do? He spends every second thinking about the
kid. Every night he’s looking for him, roughing people up, burning bridges, not trusting anybody.”

“Guess he’s smart not to trust anybody,” said Macy, glancing at Peebles. “Especially you and me.”

Peebles ignored this. “He could write a book on stupid management techniques, killing one of your own guys like that in front
of everybody. In front of an FBI agent! He’s got a death wish.”

“You have to keep your guys in line,” said Macy evenly. “You have to lead from strength.” He looked over at Peebles with an
expression that clearly showed he thought his companion lacked that attribute, but Peebles didn’t notice because he was still
obviously reveling in his triumph. “And you can’t blame the guy for trying to find his son.”

Peebles said, “You can’t mix business and personal. He’s screwed himself already, burning political capital, over what? Something
that is never going to happen. That kid is never coming back. Whoever took him, that boy is six feet under if there was anything
left of him. Now I’ve already got new supply lines set up and his defectors have joined me.” He looked at Macy. “You probably
don’t know this, but my maneuver is classic Machiavelli. And I’ve been skimming the best crew members from other gangs over
the last six months. We’re just about ready to go and this time we do it all my way. We run it like a real business. Accountability,
pay and promotion for merit, bonuses for exemplary performance and rewards for innovation that go right to the corporate bottom
line. We’re going to take over our own money-laundering efforts and cut costs where they need to be cut. Not every crew has
to have jewelry and five-hundred-dollar-a-night hookers. I’m even envisioning a retirement plan instead of the brothers throwing
their money after cars and carats and having nothing when they’re too old to do this anymore. And I’m implementing a dress
code for management level, no more of this looking like crap. A professional has to have a professional image. Look at you,
you look slick, that’s what I want.”

Macy released a rare smile. “Some of the boys aren’t going to like that.”

“They have to grow up sometime.” He looked over at Macy. “I gotta tell you, it was an awesome feeling having that gun in my
hand.”

“Would you have shot her?”

“Are you nuts? I was just scaring her.”

“Well, you pull a gun, some point you may have to use it,” said Macy.

“That’s your job. You’re head of security, Mace. My right-hand guy. You showed your stuff when you came up with the plan to
nab Kevin. And you did the down-and-dirty work rounding up the other crews to join forces. Now we’re going to go places, my
man; a lot farther than Francis was taking us, and a lot faster. He’s old school, the new ways are the best ways. That’s why
the dinosaurs died.”

They pulled down an alley and Peebles checked his watch. “Okay, you got the meeting place all set up?”

“They’re all there, just like you wanted.”

“Mood?”

“Good, but suspicious. You got them worried but definitely interested.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. This is where we stake out our territory, Mace, and where we let the others know that Francis
is no longer the force. This is
our
time. Let’s do it.” He paused as a sudden thought hit him.

“What the hell was that woman talking about, somebody switching Kevin for another kid in that alley?”

Macy shrugged. “No clue.”

“You got the kid, right?”

“Safe and sound. For now. You want to see him?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere near that kid. He knows me, something goes wrong and he gets to Francis . . .” The fear was palpable
on Peebles’s features.

The car stopped and Macy got out and scanned the alley in both directions and then looked up to the rooftops. He finally signaled
the all-clear to his new boss. Peebles climbed out, adjusted his tie and buttoned up his double-breasted suit. Macy held the
building’s door open for him and Peebles walked briskly through. They climbed the steps and with each one Peebles seemed to
transform into a larger and larger presence. This was his moment and he had been waiting for it for years. Out with the old
and in with the new.

He reached the top and waited for Macy to open the door for him. There would be seven men waiting for him in here, each representing
a slice of the District’s illegal drug distribution. They had never worked together; instead, each had grabbed his little
share and over-seen his own little fiefdom. They shared neither information nor resources. When disagreements came up, they
resolved them by shooting each other. They fed information to the police about other crews when it suited them and the cops
came in and cherry-picked them. Francis had done the same thing, and while it was a short-term fix that seemed to have merit,
Peebles knew it could not have been more of a management disaster from a long-term perspective. And it was time for Antoine
Peebles to step in and take charge.

He opened the door and walked into the room where he would start his own legend.

Peebles looked around. And saw no one there.

Peebles didn’t even have a chance to turn before the pistol was at his head and the shot was fired into his brain. He dropped
to the floor, blood running down his fine tie and over his very professional attire.

Macy put the pistol away and bent over the dead man. “I read Machiavelli, Twan,” he said without a trace of conceit. He turned
out the light and walked back down the stairs. He had a plane to catch because things were really going to start rocking now.

W
eb guided Boo up the small hill and reined up next to Gwen, who was on Baron.

Romano was covering Billy down at the equestrian center; actually, Web had left the two admiring Romano’s Corvette. With most
of the farm’s men gone to the horse sale, Web had felt particularly vulnerable and had gotten Canfield to okay some more agents
coming on the farm to patrol the grounds and keep watch, at least until the men returned.

“It’s so beautiful this time of year,” said Gwen. She looked over at Web. “I guess you think we have a pretty easy life here.
Big house, lots of help, just ride around all day admiring the view.”

She smiled, yet Web sensed she was being serious. He wondered why a woman like Gwen Canfield, with all she’d been through,
would have the need to seek approval from anyone, especially a stranger like him. “I think you’ve both been through a lot,
you’ve worked hard and now you’re enjoying the fruits of that labor. That’s supposed to be the American dream, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” she answered without conviction. She looked at the sun overhead. “It’s hot today.” Web could tell the woman
wanted to talk to him about something but didn’t quite know how to broach it.