The Dodger had removed the suppressor and slipped the Beretta back in its holster before grabbing first Sheffield and then the driver by their hair and pulling them up and back over the seats. Leaving the bodies sprawled on the floor and upholstery in the back, limbs intertwined, the Dodger had gone around front and driven the Lincoln a block, turning into a dark alley. He walked back, brought up the Mazda, dumped the bodies in the trunk, and then drove the Town Car a few more blocks to park it near a popular restaurant. He'd walked back to the Mazda whistling, gloved hands in his pockets.
The Boss always called Gonzaga or the Farino woman to tell them about the hit and where to find the bodiesusing one of his military-intelligence electronic voice distorters and location scramblersso the Dodger e-mailed him that the job was done. But this night, the Boss had another job for him. He ordered the Dodger to go wait for the private eye whose office the Farino woman was in right thennot at the man's office, but at someplace called The Harbor Inn way over in the mill area on the Island. The Boss e-mailed the address as the intersection of Ohio and Chicago Streets.
The Dodger was not pleased with this assignment. He was tired. It had been a long day, starting with that teacher he'd missed out in Orchard Park. He should be free now to go back to his hidey hole and get a good night's sleep, transporting the corpses to the Resurrection Site the next morning. Now he had to go down past the black projects and spend the night watching. That's what the Boss had said. Just watch. Not even harvest this stupid private eye.
So the Dodger had driven south across the narrow steel bridge onto the Island, past the mills and half-empty projects, had driven by the dark Harbor Inn, checking it out, and then parked a block and a half southeast of the place, walking back to keep vigil in the shadows of an abandoned gas station half a block from the old hotel. The manthe Boss had said his name was Kurtz, as if the Dodger gave the slightest shitshowed up in a rusted-out Pinto about an hour later. There was a woman with himthe Farino woman, the Dodger realized as he stared through the binoculars. She seemed to be holding a.45 semiauto on Kurtz.
The Dodger almost laughed out loud in the shadows. He kills the female don's two bodyguards and steals her car, and what does she do? It looks as if she hijacks the felon ex-private-eye she was visiting on Chippewa Street.
The two went in through the boarded-up front entrance of the abandoned hotel, and the Dodger watched lights come on on the second floor. Driving by twice,
he'd cased the placeeven noticed the subtle surveillance video cameras on the north and west sidesbut he was sure that he could climb one of the rusting fire escapes or a drainpipe and get in one of the darkened windows without being heard or seen. He could even get up to the dark third storyprobably empty was the Dodger's guess, this Kurtz seemed like the only resident of the old Harbor Innand he could climb down to the second floor where three lights now burned behind shades. Whatever the female don and Kurtz were up to in thereand the Dodger could imagine what it washe could be on them and finished with them and hauling the bodies out to the Mazda before they had a chance to look up.
The Dodger had gone back down the dark, rainy street to the Mazda only to find one black teenager jimmying open the car door and another one using a crowbar on the trunk. The trunk popped up first, the boy stared at the two bodies in it, had time to say, "Motherfuck ," and the Dodger shot him in the back of the head, not even bothering to use the silencer.
The second boy dropped his tool and ran like hell. Like a lot of these ghetto kids, he was fast. The Dodgerwho had always liked to runwas faster. He caught up with the kid on an eyeless side street less than two blocks away.
The boy turned and flicked open a knife. "Jesus fuck man," the kid said, crouching and dodging, "your face"
The Dodger supped the pistol in its holster, took the knife away from the kid with three moves, kicked his legs out from under him, and crushed the boy's larynx with his boot He left the body where it was, walked back to the Mazdano one had responded to the shotand loaded the first boy's body in the backseat. There was no more room in the trunk.
The Dodger drove the two blocks, found that the second boy was still breathing in a rattling, rasping, twitching sort of way, so he cut his throat with the knife the boy had dropped. He tossed that corpse in the back as wellall the blood would make the Mazda unsalvageable for future use, but the Boss paid for these vehicles and he could afford itand he drove back to the parking lot near Marina Towers, where he dumped the four bodies in the back, of the pest control truck and drove it back to the Harbor Inn area.
The Dodger kept Handi Wipes in the truck, and he had to use eight of them to clean himself up. He had a change of clothes in the truck as well.