Fifty-Nine

The picture popped up on faux-Tucker’s Facebook feed next. Five people stood on my steps. One was dead. Four were left. Three to go.

Which three?

Mel pushed me aside, started clattering at the keys. I closed my eyes, resting a brain that had processed too much information on too little sleep after too much alcohol. I slipped into the moment, hearing the keys clicking, feeling the hard plastic chair, rolling the past few minutes around in my mind.

Three to go. Three little pigs. Three blind mice. Three Days of the Condor. Three had to be one of the best numbers out there: the first prime number, if you don’t count two, and who counts two? Three kills makes a serial killer. Lee would tell me it was three days till Christ rose. Three to go.

Mel shook my arm. My head drooped to the side. A warm trail of drool graced my shoulder. My muscles, which had recently lost all tone, protested against the hard plastic of the chair.

“I found the picture,” she said.

“Where?”

“It started on—”

My flip phone chirped a text message. “It’s Xiong,” I told Mel.

“What does he say?”

“‘Help me.’”

“Help you?”

“Xiong is asking for help.”

I texted, Where are you?

We waited. No answer. I called Xiong’s cell. It went to voicemail after a while.

“Took long enough to go to voicemail,” I said.

“So?”

“So he didn’t answer, but he didn’t block the call either.”

“What’s his phone number?”

I told Mel, she clattered at her keys some more.

“You’ve got him on GPS?”

“Just because we had to let him go doesn’t mean we couldn’t surveil him. It was easy to get a warrant.”

“Where is he?”

Mel pointed at the screen. A blue dot sat over Xiong Distribution in Chelsea. Mel grabbed her coat and we headed down the elevator to her car. Got the car going, navigated past Faneuil Hall, past the North End, and across the Charlestown Bridge, Sunday’s afternoon traffic providing no resistance.

“So the picture of the five of us,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It first appeared on the Internet on CapnMerica’s feed.”

“CapnMerica,” I said. “God, I hate that guy.”

We crossed the Charlestown Bridge, the GPS lady guiding us.

“You know, that is what they pictured,” I said pointing at the GPS.

“Who?”

“The people who invented the Internet.”

“They pictured a GPS?”

“They pictured people being able to access a service like this anywhere.”

“Did they picture porn?”

“Back then they would have had to upload their own.”

“You think he did it?” asked Mel.

“Did CapnMerica kill Peter and Earl?”

“Yeah.”

“No idea. Once he put that picture up, anyone could have grabbed it.”

We bumped over the railroad tracks on Second Street. Mel parked in front of the warehouse, and we walked through the front door into the little office. It looked the same as before: same crappy desk, same creepy paneling. The computer at the desktop sat with its Windows desktop exposed. I tapped a key a few times to keep the screensaver from kicking in, then checked its settings.

“This is supposed to lock the computer if it’s left alone for a half hour.”

“How long had it been sitting there?”

“Less than a half hour.”

“Duh.”

“Duh yourself,” I said, disabling the screensaver so the screen wouldn’t lock. “We might want to look at this later.”

We opened the door to the back room. Slipped inside. Lights were on, nobody was home.

Mel saw me about to shout Xiong’s name. “Shh!”

“We don’t want to find him?”

“We don’t want to be found. I have a bad feeling.”

We moved to the door leading to the warehouse. Cracked it open. Lights glared over rows of tchotchke-laden shelves. We slipped into one of the rows. A box of South Boston commemorative plates had been pulled off a shelf and smashed to the floor. We moved past it, trying to keep from making crunching noises as we walked over the shattered china. We failed.

“Shh!” Mel and I hissed at each other. Somewhere in the warehouse metal clanged on metal. Something had touched one of the shelves. A sword? We ran to the end of the row, peeked around the corner at row upon row of shelving. Saw nothing. Stepped out. Mel motioned that she would walk down this row and I should walk down the next.

“Split up?” I mouthed.

Mel nodded. Pulled me close, whispered in my ear, “Can’t shoot both of us.”

Great.

We walked down the row, me staying level with Mel by watching her through the spaces in the shelves. Walked past the Italian section. We reached the end. Continued our peeking and walking exercise for a few more rows: Portuguese, Spanish, Croatian. Never Chinese. One more row and I hit the Manchester United paraphernalia, then Liverpool, then on to baseball. I stopped us at the next row.

I whispered to Mel, “I think we’re alone.”

“Can’t assume.”

Mel took the next row, I took the one after that. That was when I saw it.

This row had holiday lawn ornaments. I could tell because several pink flamingos wearing Santa hats lay in the row. Several had their little Santa-hat heads cut off. Farther down the row, a giant inflatable snowman lay deflated in a pile. The pile formed a puffy barrier across the row.

I shouted, “Over here!” to Mel. Ran down the row to the deflated snowman. Pulled at the material as a shadow fell across me. I looked up, expecting Mel. Instead, I stared down the barrel of a black gun, its barrel rock solid.

Behind the gun stood Jael Navas.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Mel rounded the corner, gun drawn. “Drop the gun!”

Jael didn’t waver, didn’t jump. “What are you both doing here?”

“Drop the gun!”

Jael executed a quick movement and suddenly the gun had disappeared, probably into her handbag. She raised her hands, looked at Mel’s gun, then pointedly at Mel. Mel kept her gun out, finger along the barrel.

I said, “Can we stop now?”

“Why is she here?” asked Mel.

“More important question,” I said. “Who is that?”

A body lay outlined under the snowman. I grabbed the snowman fabric, pulled.

Xiong’s head appeared. Then the rest of him.

“Shit,” Jael said.