The Furies (3 page)

Finally, at 11:00
P.M.
, she looked at her watch and said she had to go. Her hotel was in Bushwick—a dicey part of Brooklyn, especially late at night—and she was planning to take the subway. John immediately offered to drive her there instead. It was only a half hour out of his way, he said. After dropping her off at the hotel, he could take the Verrazano Bridge and I-95 to get back to Philly. And because he'd had only two drinks all night, he added, he was perfectly sober. Ariel thought it over for a few seconds. Then she leaned toward him, slow and sexy, bringing her lips close to his ear. “That would be nice,” she whispered.

As they left the bar, arm in arm, and strolled down West Fourth Street toward where his car was parked, John should've realized that it had all happened too easily. But the thought never occurred to him. He was too damn happy.

TWO

The hotel was shabbier than John expected. Bushwick was a neighborhood in transition, with trendy restaurants and clubs at the western end and seedy tenements to the east. The Evergreen Inn was closer to the eastern section. As John drove down Evergreen Avenue he saw dark, vacant lots and boarded-up storefronts sprayed with graffiti. It wasn't as bad as North Philly, but it didn't look too safe. The hotel itself was an old, weather-beaten row house with a small neon sign over the entrance and a bunch of shifty teenagers loitering on the sidewalk outside. The kids stared at John's car, a battered 2006 Kia, as he pulled up to the curb. It's a good thing he drove a shit heap, he thought. The car was hardly worth stealing.

John shut off the engine and turned to Ariel. “All right if I walk you inside?”

She didn't say anything. Instead, she just smiled and reached for his hand. John's heart pounded against his breastbone. He knew what was going to happen next.

Eager as a schoolboy, he escorted her to the hotel's entrance. One of the teenagers whistled at Ariel as she and John walked by. They stepped into the Evergreen Inn and rushed past the night clerk, a scruffy, bearded dude who was reading the
New York Post
behind his desk. He looked up from his paper and grunted, “Good night,” and then they bolted up the narrow staircase. Ariel was still holding John's hand. When they reached the third floor she let go of him and reached into her purse for the key to room 302. Then she opened the door and they stepped inside. They were in each other's arms as soon as the door closed behind them.

John had to lower his head to kiss her, and though he stayed on his feet he felt like he was falling. Ariel's lips tasted of salt and white wine. She shivered in his arms, her shoulder muscles trembling under the thin silk of her blouse. The only sound in the room was the whisper of her breath, which mingled with his own.

After a minute or so they pulled apart. Ariel reached behind her and hit the light switch, and John surveyed the room. It was small but clean. A queen-size bed took up most of the floor space, and behind it was a window with dark gray curtains. There was a night table next to the bed and a big ceramic lamp with a yellow shade, but no chairs and no TV. Ariel took his hand again and led him to the bed, which had a cheery blue cover and two large pillows. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.

She slipped off her shoes as they sat on the edge of the bed. Then she looked John in the eye and squeezed his hand. “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

Amazing
, he thought. She was ten years younger than him, and she was asking if
he
was okay. “Oh, I'm more than okay with it. I'm freakin' ecstatic. You're wonderful, you know that?” He lifted her hand and kissed her smooth knuckles. “But what about you? How do
you
feel?”

“I don't do this very often. Almost never, in fact. I guess you made a big impression on me.” She reached for the lapels of his jacket and peeled them over his shoulders. John wriggled his arms out of the sleeves and let the thing drop to the carpet.

“I feel the same way,” he said. “I was bowled over the minute I saw you. I didn't think I had a chance.”

“Why not?” She grasped the knot of his tie and loosened it.

“You're so beautiful. And smart. I'm just a regular guy.”

“Don't sell yourself short, John Rogers.” She undid his tie and threw it across the room. Then she started unbuttoning his shirt. “You're special. Don't ever forget that. You're one in a million.”

He kissed her again as she took his shirt off. Then he gripped the fabric near the bottom of her blouse and eased it out of the waistband of her skirt. She helped him pull the blouse over her head, and then he reached both hands around her and unhooked her bra. The lacy cups slid from her breasts, which were a wonder to behold. He stared at them for so long that Ariel had to tap his nose to get his attention.

“Come on, you,” she said. “Take off my skirt.”

She lay down on her back, sinking into the soft mattress. John's hands trembled as he reached for the clasp on her skirt and undid it. He couldn't believe this was happening, couldn't get over how lucky he was. He wasn't drunk, but he still got a little dizzy as she lifted her butt off the mattress to make it easier for him to slide her skirt down her legs. Her eagerness was inexplicable, but it was also a turn-on. Without pausing he hooked his fingers beneath the waistband of her panty hose. He yanked the nylon down her legs along with her panties, which were damp at the crotch. Then he started fumbling with his belt and kicking off his shoes, in a mad rush to get naked and lie down beside her. As he struggled with his zipper, though, he belatedly realized he didn't have a condom. He froze, awkwardly perched on the edge of the bed. Noticing his hesitation, Ariel looked up him and smiled.

“Don't worry,” she whispered. “I'm on the pill.” She sat up and helped him take off his pants and boxer shorts. Then she lay back down on the bed and pulled him on top of her.

Her skin was so warm. John grasped her shoulders and kissed her breasts. He felt like he was falling again, diving from a great height into a deep, warm pool. Ariel clutched his back and murmured, “Oh, sweetness.” Then she spread her legs and reached for his erection, gripping it firmly. John felt the wetness between her legs as she started to guide him inside her.

Then he heard the gunshot. It came from the corridor outside the door to their room. The noise was muffled by some kind of silencer; it sounded more like a snap than a boom, but it was still unmistakable. John's reaction to the sound was automatic: he pushed Ariel off the bed and they both hit the floor.

Another shot echoed in the corridor. Keeping his head low, John picked up his boxer shorts from the carpet and pulled them back on. He'd heard lots of gunfire when he was a soldier for the Disciples, but silencers were unusual. The only people who used them were the Italian guys in the South Philly gangs, the mafia types. As he scrambled into his pants and grabbed his shoes, he noticed that Ariel was putting on her panties. The girl wasn't screaming or crying. She moved quickly and silently, staying low as she slipped into her blouse and skirt. Then she opened her purse, which was also on the floor, and pulled out a Glock semiautomatic pistol.

That sight was even more startling than the gunshots. John felt a jolt of alarm. For a second he thought Ariel was going to shoot him. But instead she took cover behind the night table and aimed her Glock at the door. “Stay down,” she whispered. “I'll take care of this.”

“Jesus, what's going on?”

“I'm sorry, John. I've put you in danger.”

“Are you a cop? Is that it?”

“No, I'm not. Just be quiet now, okay?”

While he struggled to make sense of things—if Ariel wasn't a cop, what the hell was she?—three more gunshots sounded in the corridor. Then the door burst open, its flimsy frame splintering, and a man holding a pistol staggered into the room. But he didn't fire at them. He stayed close to the doorway and flattened himself against the wall, as if taking cover from a shooter in the hallway. A moment later he reached around the broken door frame to fire at his pursuer. He carried a Glock too and held it expertly, keeping the gun steady as he pulled the trigger.

John recognized the man—he was one of the two brawny guys who'd accompanied Ariel at the bar in Greenwich Village. Judging from the way he handled his Glock, John guessed that he didn't really work on Wall Street. He moved like a Special Forces soldier or a paramilitary bodyguard, someone with plenty of training in firearms. But why would Ariel need a bodyguard?

The man fired again down the hall. Then he swung his head toward Ariel and pointed at the window behind the bed. “You can go out the fire escape,” he whispered. “I'll hold them off here.”

“Who are they?” Ariel asked. Her voice was calm, which was pretty remarkable considering the circumstances.

“Sullivan's men. At least a dozen.”

John had seen enough. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and started to dial 911. “I'm calling the cops,” he said. “I don't know who you are or what you're—”

Ariel snatched the phone out of his hands and flung it against the wall. The look on her face was pure ferocity. “The police won't get here in time. Do you want to stay alive?”

Another barrage of gunfire erupted in the corridor, and the bullets slammed into the door frame. Ariel's bodyguard lurched to the side, raising his arms to shield himself from the flying splinters. John realized in that instant that he was in the middle of a gang war. These gangs were different from the ones he knew—the Disciples, the Bloods, the Latin Kings—but the violence and viciousness were the same.

Ariel dashed toward the window behind the bed and parted the curtains. She unlatched the window and gripped the handle to slide it open, but the thing wouldn't budge. Her face reddened as she strained against it. “It's stuck!”

John lifted the ceramic lamp from the night table. He had some experience making quick escapes from row houses. “Get out of the way!” he shouted, and as Ariel stepped backward he swung the lamp against the window. The glass broke into a thousand pieces that clattered on the rusty bars of the fire escape. John used the lamp's heavy base to pulverize the shards remaining in the window frame, then poked his head outside. He heard some distant, scuffling noises, but the dark alley behind the row house was deserted. He glanced over his shoulder at Ariel. “It's clear! Let's go!”

At the same moment, the gunfire in the corridor intensified. Several shooters in the other gang were firing at once, and some of the bullets whizzed through the doorway. The bodyguard clutched his stomach and crumpled to the floor. Ariel shouted, “Richard!” and took a step toward him, but after half a second she stopped herself. Keeping her Glock pointed at the doorway, she went to her purse instead and pulled something out, a small notebook with a frayed leather cover. She tucked it into the waistband of her skirt, then draped the hem of her blouse over the thing to hide it. Then she raced toward John, who'd already stepped onto the fire escape.

He reached for Ariel and helped her clamber through the window frame, praying that she wouldn't cut her bare feet on the broken glass. As soon as she was on the fire escape, he pushed her toward the rusty steps that went upward. It was always better to go up than down, John had learned. If you made it to the roof, you could cross over to any of the neighboring row houses, giving you dozens of possible escape routes and hiding places. That was a lot safer than descending to the street, where you'd be an easy target for anyone shooting from the window.

They came under fire from below just as they reached the fifth floor. Luckily, their pursuers had to shoot upward, which was awkward, and the bars of the fire escape deflected their shots. A moment later, though, John heard footsteps echoing in the alley behind the row house. The other gang was surrounding the building. Their soldiers might be on the roof already. He and Ariel pounded up the steps of the fire escape as fast as they could, but when they reached the top they saw the silhouette of a tall figure looming over them. Ariel aimed her Glock at the edge of the roof, but the tall man jumped backward. “Don't shoot!” he called. “It's me!”

“Hal?” Ariel dashed up to the roof, and John followed right behind. The tall man, he saw, was the other brawny guy from the bar. Ariel's second bodyguard. This man carried an assault rifle, an M4 carbine. And it wasn't a civilian copycat of the gun either—it was the fully automatic military version. John had seen plenty of them during his brief stint in the army.

The bodyguard lowered his rifle as Ariel came toward him. “Where's Richard?” he asked.

Ariel shook her head. “Lost.”

Hal said nothing in response, but after a second he returned to the edge of the roof and crouched behind the low wall there. Pointing the barrel of his rifle over the wall, he took careful aim and pulled the trigger. Then he chose another target and pulled the trigger again. His rifle had a silencer attached to the muzzle. The gun was quiet enough that they could hear his victims falling to the pavement.

He fired six shots into the alley behind the row house, then four more at the soldiers climbing the fire escape. His face was blank as he sighted his targets through the rifle's scope. He was a professional, cold and efficient. John was familiar with the type; every gang in North Philly had at least a couple of seasoned killers in its ranks. They were scary as hell, even when they were on your side.

Meanwhile, Ariel took cover behind one of the rooftop vents, a rectangular steel unit about four feet tall. Holding her Glock in both hands, she scanned the roofs of the neighboring buildings, obviously searching for the best escape route. John, who was crouched behind a similar vent on the other side of the roof, did the same. There were nearly a dozen row houses running down the length of the block, and each roof had an emergency-exit door that led to the building's stairwell. Most of the doors were probably locked, but John was willing to bet that one or two had been propped open by the locals. The best strategy, he decided, was to cross over to the other buildings and start trying all the doors.