3:30 A.M.
A lone man in a long, dark denim coat, Converse Chuck Taylor black sneakers, black woolen baseball cap, and black leather gloves walked briskly up the steps of the F-train subway stop at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street in the heart of fashionable Park Slope, Brooklyn.
He left the subway station and emerged on Seventh Avenue, sauntering along the shopping thoroughfare past stores and restaurants closed for the night. When he reached Twelfth Street and the Ansonia Court loft condos, a converted nineteenth-century factory, he picked up his pace.
Although he had no idea of the gloomy building’s history, he had an excellent mental image of its layout, a five-story brick sprawl more than a half block square.
This was his fourth late-night visit in a week to the neighborhood, and only the week before he’d walked around the old Ansonia factory block twice a day, up Twelfth Street and down Thirteenth, morning and afternoon for seven days.
A nineteenth-century cobblestone courtyard, entered from the middle of Twelfth Street, held his attention.
Night, and the early November air was cold, calm, redolent of familiar New York scents, gasoline and asphalt, old newspapers and garbage stuffed in plastic sacks.
Windows on both sides of the street were dark, the night, silent, the only sound his Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers padding steadily on the sidewalk.
During the subway ride to Seventh Avenue, he’d experienced anxiety, but now he felt calm and confident, his thoughts drifting into song lyrics, the cadence of rap music matching his steps…
Walkin’ tall
Not feelin’ small,
I’m all ballz
When killin’ callz…
He’d tried his own hand at writing lyrics, with disappointing results. He had some good slams, but the record people were scumbags…no contract, no time for him, no nothing.
Brothers?
Horseshit.
It’s falling out their ass.
Ripping off his ideas. He heard songs on the radio on Hot 97, and he sure as shit knew they were his compositions. No question, flat-out stolen. But all that bad stuff, that was over now.
Finished.
He’d had enough. So did some other people, and the way he saw it, they’d soon be extremely grateful to him for what he was about to do. Never again would his life be a waste of space.
The 48 Laws, he read them all. Over and over. And like a lot of people he knew, he also memorized the laws…
Destroy your enemy.
Totally.
Law number…
…whatever the fuck it was.
As the man walked up Twelfth Street toward the Ansonia courtyard in the middle of the block, he kept his right hand gripped on the end of a solid steel bar, a foot and a half long and tucked up the sleeve of his long coat.
As he drew close to the courtyard entrance, he grew more cautious, his movements more alert.
He saw no one. He was hoping that, as on other nights at this small hour, no one would appear before he reached his destination.
And no one did.
He turned quickly into the courtyard entrance, stepping behind a brick pillar. From here, completely in shadow, he could observe the entire enclosed space, the two doorways leading into staircases up to the loft apartments, and next to him the street entrance, the only route in or out. Good location, best he could hope for on this job. He’d hear any car driving up the street. The space in the shadows was narrow, only wide enough for him to step in, slip out. Doing his duty.
As soon as he felt secure, comfortable enough waiting here in the dark, he slid the steel bar down out of the right sleeve of his long coat and held it at his side.
The bar was still warm from the heat of his arm.
Now, if tonight was like all those other nights, he wouldn’t have to wait around in the dark much longer. Still, just in case, if it took a little more time than he had planned, he had a black silk scarf in his coat pocket and he’d pull it out and keep his neck warm. Couldn’t afford to get laryngitis. No fucking way. Not after tonight. Two new pairs of black wool socks on, too, he couldn’t risk catching cold, not from now on, not with his ambitions; after tonight he could forget about ever freezing his ass off again. He’d be collecting gratitude.
He was feeling pretty good about himself. Contented at last. Almost warm. Soon some people were going to be deeply obliged for the priceless favor he was about to do them. He could feel their love already, and he intended to collect his due from every one of them, badass men and sweet-ass women. They had to make all this shit worth his time and effort.
Finally, the moment was now. Right this sorry second.
Go for it…
…here’s our boy.
He heard the car drive up Twelfth Street and stop in front of the courtyard entrance.
He checked his watch.
Yo, bro, quarter to four. This mother was disciplined, always right on schedule. No wonder he scored so big.
The car door opened; the car door slammed closed. A loud noise at this late hour.
Leather heels clicked on the pavement, that scumbag and his custom-made shoes.
All by himself this evening.
No posse, no circle.
No witnesses.
Asshole didn’t need an audience, not for dicking his side piece of pussy at four a.m. And won’t she be glad and grateful soon enough. She’ll be showing killer here some serious gratitude.
Gratitude. Gratitude.
You got to have gratitude,
Gratitude…
Think about it. The payoffs would set him straight for the rest of his long, long life.
The car drove off up Twelfth, turning left onto Eighth Avenue, exactly as the motherfucker passed through the courtyard entrance.
Behind the pillar, the lone assassin in his Converse Chuck Taylor black sneakers rose up onto the balls of his feet. Moments like this and he realized he was totally alive.
Your time’s up now, cocksucker…You and your fur fucking coat, fur hat, Ervin top-dollar mink-and-chinchilla collar. Look at that prick, he’s wobbling, weaving, swaying all over the place. It’s all that good shit you’re drinking and snorting since dinner, it’s catching up on you, dickhead, fifty-year-old Cognac and fresh-off-the-boat coke crawling up your ass.
The killer’s target moved unsteadily into the courtyard.
The lone man—steel bar in hand, hatred pumping his disgust, all his years of loathing coming to a head, stoking his hunger for admiration and gratitude, for the rewards he knew would surely be his due—stepped out from his dark spot, two quick steps up behind the target, steel bar raised, and with the full force of his revulsion, the whole hurricane of his grievances, split the motherfucker’s skull with a single, solid shot.
The body slumped frontward, collapsing to the cobblestones facedown, forehead thumping the ground. The fur hat, that Ervin custom-made special lid, rolled a foot or two.
The killer picked up the hat and rubbed the fur against his cheek—Giorgio cologne, nice and sweet—and he dropped it on the victim’s smashed head.
Disgusting…
Good thing it wasn’t daylight, and he didn’t have to look at brains and blood and bone splinters all over the cobblestones.
Adiós, bro, you sorry-ass piece of shit.
Goods delivered, mission accomplished. And now some people owed him way humongous big-time.
Gratitude. Gratitude.
You got to have gratitude,
Gratitude.
The killer wiped the steel bar clean on the dead man’s mink and chinchilla, then stuck the weapon back up the right sleeve of his long denim coat.
He left the courtyard, striding decisively up Twelfth Street.
He didn’t look around.
Out of the corners of his eyes, he sensed rows of darkened windows in the factory condos above him and in the four-story apartment houses across the street, every window a blank observing eye tracking his march up the block.
The burger-and-beer joint on the corner was closed, as was the 12th Street Bar & Grill on the other side of the avenue.
He kept walking straight up the next block to Prospect Park West, where he slipped into the park at the Eleventh Street entrance.
He crossed the playground, the road, and continued into the meadow past the baseball diamonds on his right, no one popping up flies out there at four-ten in the morning.
No crazy-ass motherfucking Haitians either, doing their zombie shit with chickens and goat heads in the old Quaker graveyard up the hill. All that voodoo-hoodoo jive ended a couple of hours ago.
He reached what was once the pedal-boat pond. Confidently, deliberately, he bent over a sewer grate.
He could hear the water running several yards below. He removed the steel bar from his sleeve, inserted it into the grate, and let go.
Splash.
Then nothing.
He’d hear no more crapola now. Not after all this shit’s gone down. All he wanted to hear from tomorrow on were sounds of appreciation. Payoffs for the rest of his good long life.
Their common enemy destroyed. Totally.
Adiós forever, asshole…
Should’ve moved your butt out of Brooklyn and over to Alpine and the New Jersey Palisades a long time ago, dude. I sure as shit will, with all the goodies I got coming my way for this big-bucks favor. Huge mother house I’m buying, get my own sound studio in there, and soak up those Manhattan skyline views. Who loses, who wins, who’s in, who’s out. Now you know, bro.
Yeah, all your bad. And yo’ momma, she gonna cry and cry.
Mwah mwah…
You can bet your sad busted head, my man, I’m laughing all the way to the bank. Some happy people gonna show me their thanks. Golden days forever from this moment on.
And failure to pay is no option for all the sorry individuals you crapped on and who hated you for every turd you tossed their way and called caviar.
They’re gonna be loving my bad ass now.
I’m their man.
They owe me big-time for this one and they will know it.
Every one of my accomplices, who are here but not really here with me tonight.
Count ’em, dude.
All my partners in vengeance…they’re your true memorial.