Killer of Killers (24 page)

“
You said you wanted to be somebody. Did
you mean it or not?”

Trent sobered.
“Yes, I meant it.”

Jiro faced the main gate of the dojo, as if
his fate lay beyond it.
“So did I, Tora.”
Then he turned to
Trent again.
“So did I.”

* * * *

The high-rise apartment building reflected
the glare of the afternoon sun. A block away, and inside his parked
yellow cab, Armin Gul turned around to escape the blinding rays. In
the back seat, his two hefty cousins—Ali and Jamir—were stroking
sharp silver blades with white silk handkerchiefs. Up and down they
polished their steel.

Ali looked up and snarled, “I told you to
keep your eyes on the building.” He put his blade against Armin’s
neck. “But if you prefer to watch my knife, tell me, and I will use
it to slit your throat.”

Armin opted to watch the building. A charming
rose garden bloomed astride the entrance to its lobby. He raised
his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding rays and hoped the
wait would not be long.

* * * *

The rush-hour traffic packed the roads with
large trucks, small sedans, and a steady stream of yellow cabs.
Trent was one of countless pedestrians who matched their motorized
counterparts in a variety of shapes, sizes, and impatient headway.
Seemingly oblivious to each other, most were heavy-gaited and
looked straight ahead or down at their feet. Many strolled along
reading newspapers, talking on cell phones, or listening to their
iPods.

Though he was part of the horde, Trent
entertained a separate thought. He had an appointment with Shalom
DaBomb, and it was for reasons other than adulation. Right about
now, the rapper should be in the middle of his performance in
Central Park. Trent didn’t plan on making that part of the event.
He decided to wait at the Manhattan Central Mall.

When he sighted his destination, Trent
observed the mall’s custodial staff preparing a first class
reception. He didn’t doubt it was for Shalom, nor did he doubt
Shalom had made it a required part of his agreement to appear. It
was truly amazing how these celebrities believed themselves so high
and mighty, even superior to the masses whose pockets they
picked.

Latino workers rolled out crimson carpets,
set up golden posts, and connected padded ropes to cordon off
spectators. They set up a long table, covered it with a burgundy
tablecloth, and added a half dozen, soft-cushioned folding chairs.
Attendants supplied boxes filled with books to be signed by the
murderer and sold for what Trent considered tainted dividends.

Uniformed policemen, stationed at both ends
of the steps, stood guard for the arriving performer. Trent filled
with scorn. Here was the law protecting the criminal. It was an
example of the backward state of affairs to which his country had
rotted. With his hands in his pockets, he wandered to the far
corner of the block. From there, he would observe the crowd’s
erratic anticipation.

Within the hour, a chorus of cheers erupted
as a white limousine parted from the main boulevard and traveled
the mall’s incoming roadway. The cheering spiked when it parked in
the valet recess. Next, a chauffeur wearing a fancy blue uniform,
complete with coat tails and an eight-point hat, popped out to open
the door for his notorious passenger.

Without giving the driver so much as a
glance, Shalom emerged, waving to the whooping mob. Girls screamed
and boys hollered for the man, as they might for a national hero.
Trent was appalled. Real heroes rescued families from burning
buildings, or saved people from murderers and rapists. True heroes
risked their lives in foreign lands to keep Americans safe. Yet
these fools treated Shalom like a hero, and worse, for his repeated
defilement of the genuine article. A despicable person like this,
put on a pedestal for his crime, was a bad joke. Like all bad
jokes, it wasn’t funny. Trent was going to make sure this man’s run
of poor taste ended today.

Outside the limo, Shalom stood about six
feet, three, and wore a bright orange, loose-fitting jacket over a
white-ribbed muscle shirt. Bedecked in bling, he glistened with
every move. Even his teeth were lined in gold, and he flashed a
broad smile to show them off.

A huge black man stepped out next. He was
dressed in a red, short-sleeved shirt, buttoned down the front,
untucked over dark slacks. Another husky black man, like-wise
attired, followed him, and then a third followed the second.
Finally, two pretty black girls in lime-green miniskirts took their
places on either side of Shalom.

Trent noted one point of special interest.
The chauffeur was an average-sized white man with brown hair and a
goatee, much like his own. Once Shalom and his entourage found
their seats, the chauffeur re-entered his limousine, cruised around
the corner, and pulled into the mall’s underground garage. At a
casual pace, Trent followed the vehicle through the same entrance.
Easily slipping by the attendant, he moseyed down the paved tunnel,
which led to a vast subterranean parking lot. Apparently, it
accommodated the business owners and visiting personalities like
Shalom.

The lower level was devoid of sun, and less
than adequate lighting kept it dark. Cars were parked sporadically,
but a reserved section on the far end was near empty. It was there
the chauffeur parked the limo next to an enclosed staircase. At the
moment, he leaned against his vehicle, smoking a cigarette. While a
silent Trent moved toward him from the opposite direction, a deep
voice sounded through a cell phone in the man’s coat. “Yo,
Bruce!”

The driver pulled out his phone and answered,
“Yo!”

“Be ready. Shalom’s gettin’ bored over here.
He wants out.”

Straightening his stance, the man named Bruce
replied, “You got it,” and tossed what was left of his
cigarette.

Trent slithered around the limo’s rear,
closed the distance with a noiseless bound, and dug his fingers
into the auricular nerves astride the man’s neck. He stiffened with
a shiver and dropped.

Trent broke his fall by holding him under the
armpits. He removed the oversized coat and tried it on. After
deciding it fit well enough, he snatched the hat and fixed it over
his head. It was snug, but Trent had his disguise. He eyed the
uniform pants and knee-high boots. Trent had no inclination to
remove the man’s pants, but decided to go with the boots. They fit
like a glove. He considered, then, the man’s gloves and took them,
also. Trent examined his reflection in the limousine’s window. He
firmed his mouth and nodded.

The cell phone ended Trent’s self-inspection.
“Yo, Bruce!”

Trent figured to mimic the chauffeur’s voice.
“Yo!”

“Let’s go, dawg. You comin’?”

“Um, you got it.”

Trent dragged the unconscious man into the
stairwell and sat him up in a corner. “You sit this one out, eh,
Bruce?” He left him there to do just that.

When the disguised Trent entered the
stretched vehicle, he found a single door serviced the passenger
compartment afore the rear axle. A couch spanned the length of the
opposite side, curled behind the driver’s seat, and also around the
back end. Folding tables propped bottles of liquor in recessed
circles and white powder in short glass jars. Mirrors and
butt-ridden ashtrays protruded from slots in the segmented
wall.

More pertinent to Trent were the side
windows. They were so heavily tinted it was impossible to see
through them. A hand cupped to the glass made nothing of the
light-deprived garage. Only the front and rear windshields retained
translucence, made less so by the limo’s interior lights. Trent
reached to power them off but decided against it. For what he had
in mind, it was better they stayed on.

* * * *

Directed by traffic cops, Trent pulled
Shalom’s limousine to the carpeted curb. He adjusted his hat and
jumped out to open the rear door. The women and bodyguards entered
without giving him a glance. Shalom posed for final photos and also
ventured in. “Let’s go, Bruce,” he barked.

Trent started up the engine and cleared the
waving fans. When the limo passed the cop-guarded barricades,
Shalom’s people started drinking the booze and opened the jars of
the white-powdered drug. With discreet peeks in the rear view
mirror, Trent witnessed the illicit consumption. The bodyguards
drank whiskey straight from the bottles. The women took turns
snorting the white powder drawn in lines on mirrors. Shalom
ingested both.

Trent noted the tinted windows offered a
better view in the daylight, so he decided to make the dim garage
his destination after a brief trek through the city. But as he made
the second block, the squalid stink of skunkweed assailed his nose.
He was disgusted and felt violated breathing the smoke second hand.
The restricted space in the limo was worse than the Global Room and
the backstage party combined. Trent decided to cut the journey
short. He doubled back and re-entered the subterranean lot. The
attendant didn’t question the limo’s return, and none of the
passengers realized they were back at the Manhattan Central
Mall.

Shalom, however, took note of the lessened
speed. He looked to the windows but couldn’t see beyond the black.
“Yo, Bruce, we here already?”

Trent replied, “You got it,” and parked in
the same spot as did the driver before. He jumped out, peeled the
heavy coat from his shoulders, and tossed it across the back
window. Then he stood next to the rear passenger door and swung it
wide.

A wary Shalom directed one of his bodyguards
to exit first. A husky man in red exposed his face and asked,
“Whatchu doin’, Bruce?”

Trent answered by landing a power roundhouse
between the man’s eyes. Knocked unconscious, he flopped backward,
sprawled with his head on the lap of Shalom. Trent slammed the door
to remain unobserved.

* * * *

Inside the limousine, Shalom and his
inebriated bodyguards widened their eyes and opened their mouths in
shock. Then Shalom studied the man on his groin. “Bruce gone
crazy!” he shouted. “He done laid out Jay.” He pushed the sleeping
body off his lap and tried again to look out the side windows.
“Damn, can’t see shit out there.” He turned to the window in the
limo’s rear but saw only the coat spread end to end. Turning to his
second bodyguard, he snarled, “Moose, you get out there and see
what’s goin’ on.”

Moose pulled a handgun from under his shirt.
He opened the door and advanced the weapon. A black-gloved fist
knocked the gun loose with a bone-crushing blow to Moose’s
forearm.

“
Aaarrhhgg!”
Moose screamed as he
grabbed his wrist. He lowered his head to grimace in pain, after
which a downward elbow strike pummeled him senseless. His falling
body bounced the door wide, and the door’s recoil slammed it shut
once again.

Shalom pulled out his own handgun and yelled
to his third bodyguard, “Bulldog, let him have it!”

Bulldog also drew a gun, and they started
shooting at the windows, but the bullets ricocheted throughout the
interior. Slugs thudded the padded upholstery around and between
them. Nevertheless, they fired off round after round, dotting a pox
across the panes. The deflecting shells struck a whiskey bottle,
then a second, and a third, shattering glass and splashing liquor
to the floor. Even the table struts were hit, snapping a platform
into the wall, heaving crystalline shards across the
compartment.

Bulldog yelled, “The gawddamn white boy’s
shootin’ back at us!” and they continued firing at every window on
all sides, resulting in multiple and continuous deflections.

The loud gunshots, along with the shattering
bottles, caused the women to scream at the top of their lungs and
scamper about. They lowered their heads and raised their hands,
trying to avoid being hit. The containers of powdered narcotic
exploded into a white dust storm, which adhered to everything it
touched, including the clothing, hair, and faces of everyone
inside.

The shooting stopped, but the women’s screams
were not abated, and the excited Shalom bellowed,
“Shut up! Shut
the fuck up!”

It was useless. The women couldn’t help
themselves, and their incessant screaming made it impossible for
Shalom to think. His head ached, and his mind burned. The bleached
image of the screaming women became distorted. Their eyes and
mouths opened wide, and their nostrils flared, which, added to
their non-stop shrieking, was more than he could bear.

Shalom yelled as loud as he could,
“I said
shut the fuck up!”
but he was no match for the alarming volume
of the frightened females. His head seared from their sonic
assault. It had to stop. He raised his pistol and fired point blank
into both women. Blood erupted from the impacts on their chests,
and both of them slumped to the side.

An unnatural silence followed, and Shalom
stared at the faces of the dying women. He witnessed, as if in slow
motion, their eyelids close, and heard, as if amplified, their last
gasps accompany the final beats of their fading hearts. “I just
killed the bitches!” he cried in disbelief.

Bulldog’s eyes turned feral. “Who gives a
shit about the bitches?” he boomed. “That muthafuckin’ Bruce! What
the fuck’s the matter with him?”

Shalom knew he had to think and figure a way
out of the jam. “Look, man, I forgot the windows are bulletproof.
We almost killed ourselves in here.”

Shalom and Bulldog examined the devastation
their shooting created. Bullet holes riddled the upholstery.
Shattered glass and white dust had settled throughout. Slush formed
on the carpet, a blending of whiskey and cocaine, fouling the air
with the pungent odors of alcohol and iodine.

Realizing what just happened, they looked at
each other’s whitened faces and burst into fits of hysterical
laughter. Shalom slapped his knee and Bulldog held his gut. The
more they tried to restrain themselves, the louder their howls
became. When he calmed enough to speak again, Shalom crowed to his
dust-covered partner, “Look at you, dawg. You white as a hooded
cracker.”