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  Before they could decide what to do, the left-hand door opened and a man walked straight into Arnold.

  29

  Arnold grabbed the guy by the throat and swung him round, slamming him into the nearest wall. He used one hand to wrap his fingers around the dude’s wrist and smashed it twice against the brickwork until the guy’s gun fell to the floor. Arnold squeezed until the dude could only just breathe. He spluttered and wheezed, choked spittle landing on Arnold’s first finger and thumb.

  Mary Lou picked up the revolver from the ground and held it to the guy’s temple as Arnold carried on squeezing the life out of his windpipe. His body went limp and he slumped to the ground. Arnold checked his pockets and passed a snub nose over to Mary Lou. Then a box of slugs appeared out of a jacket pocket. She filled the clip and stuffed it into her waistband - at the front though, as it was quite small and she didn’t want to lose it.

  “That answers the question which door to try first.”

  Arnold opened the left one just a crack to have a peep and closed it again, twisting round to face Mary Lou. A deep breath.

  “Other side is a large room - more of a workspace, really. I spotted at least four guys hanging around either sat on chairs or leaning on a wall. They look bored like they’ve been there an eternity, but I couldn’t see a reason for them to be huddled so close together. They can’t be guarding the floor or they’d be more alert.”

  “Do you think we should leave them be for now and check out the other route?”

  “Reckon so. It’s a whole pile of trouble over there.”

  Arnold’s thumb pointed through the left-hand door and they both imagined the first ten to twelve seconds after they popped their heads around to say hi. Instead, Arnold peeped round the right-hand door and reported all was safe. They went through into a corridor which stretched two hundred or more feet ahead. Both sides had office doors running every fifty feet. The top half of each door was made of glass, so they’d need to tread carefully as they made their way along.

  Mary Lou was the first to scuttle down the corridor until she reached a door and then she flattened herself against the wall. Arnold stood two feet next to her. She heard his inhalations and imagined the stress he was feeling. A quick nod to acknowledge the next step and she swung round and rolled near the floor, swiftly followed by Arnold. They crouched facing each other to steady their nerves, aware how long the corridor felt.

  Arnold pointed at himself to show he wanted to lead and Mary Lou remained stationary to let him pass. Roach stood upright and leaned his head right by the jamb of the next door. A few seconds of intense listening and he walked casually past. He turned round and winked at Mary Lou, who winked back and followed Roach until they arrived at the last door on the right.

  This time, Arnold held a hand up to pause Mary Lou’s progress. Once he was certain she wasn’t going to blunder forwards, he held a solitary finger to his lips. The universal hand gesture meaning ‘shut up’. As they stood there, Mary Lou heard the mumbled sounds of a conversation, but she couldn’t make out a single word.

  Arnold kept his fingers on his lips as he continued to listen intently. His expression gave nothing away though. One long minute and he leaned into Mary Lou’s ear.

  “There’s two, sat talking about all sorts. They are from the east coast and are bitching about being so far from home. No word on where the kids are but Sancho Mendoza is in the building.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me right. He’s got himself some hired hands.”

  “From New York? Baltimore? Boston?”

  “I don’t recognize them, so probably not from the Big Apple. Apart from that, no idea.”

  “But they didn’t have time to come over this afternoon. They must be here on other business.”

  “And Mendoza has been using them as guards. That’s why they aren’t happy. Good news is that we can be certain now that Alice and Frank Jr are here.”

  “We need to take them out.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  Before Mary Lou could pass any comment, Arnold vanished into the room. Ninety seconds later, he returned. She popped her head around the door and saw the two men lying on the ground, dead. But no sign of any knife wound and no sound from a revolver. Arnold had strangled them both. The most remarkable achievement was to kill the first guy without the other one noticing. Hats off to Arnold.

  They scurried to the end of the corridor and held their breath as Mary Lou peeped past the door to see what they were up against. A square reception area with three doors leading off it. The biggest problem were the four fellas standing and sitting round. She had no idea at first glance who or what was behind any of the doors. Arnold pulled out his revolvers.

  “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.”

  He winked and put his knife away into his belt. Mary Lou smiled back at him.

  “How do we play this?”

  “You take care of the two on the right. I’ll handle the others. Anyone left standing: kill them wherever they are.”

  There was a curled smile around his mouth but Roach’s eyes were fixed in a cold, hard glare. This was his business and he knew it well.

  “But let’s do this clean if we can. The quieter, the better.”

  She nodded understanding and Arnold pulled out a second gun from his jacket. He mouthed a countdown and slipped through the door without a sound. One crack and a body crumpled to the floor. Mary Lou reached the other side of the door and put a slug in the chest of one of her targets. His body thumped the wall as it took the momentum of the shot and slithered down to the ground. Blood poured from his heart, forming a large puddle on the floor which seeped into the cracks of the tiled surface.

  The other target sat at a table, holding playing cards. Must have been enjoying a game of solitaire. By the time he realized what was going down, Mary Lou had got one pace further toward him and aimed at his forehead. A squeeze of the trigger and his head pushed backwards with the force of the bullet that entered his left eye and exited the back of his skull. Red splatter spread across the wall behind him.

  Arnold and Mary Lou crouched down and waited for a second. No-one appeared from any of the rooms. They scurried over to the corpses and grabbed firearms and bullets aplenty. She was minutes away from finding her babies.

  MARY LOU AND ARNOLD hugged the floor and took stock of their situation. Three rooms led off from the space they were in. Each had a shut door along with a wall comprising a long glass panel running from the ceiling to halfway up. From her position a few inches from the ground, Mary Lou saw heads bobbing in two of the rooms. The third had green Venetian blinds drawn.

  Arnold wriggled his fingers to get her attention and showed which room they’d hit next. Mary Lou blinked her agreement and they rolled over to the first door. Upright but flat against the wall, they could make out three guys inside talking. More hand gestures and nods, then a quick leap up and they were inside, snapping slugs into brains before the saps had a chance to react. Arnold pushed the door shut and they sorted out the corpses, taking more bullets but leaving the guns behind. He closed the blinds to give them a moment’s respite.

  “How you doing?”

  “Just fine. You?”

  “Cool bananas.”

  They put slugs into chambers and edged out the room and took out the second one much like the first. Mary Lou noticed little flecks of red on Arnold’s cheeks and shirt. She figured she bore the marks of the blood letting too. The two hunkered over to outside the third room and waited. Arnold pressed an ear to the door while Mary Lou craned to hear any conversation through the glass half-partition. Nothing doing.

  In her mind’s eye, Mary Lou imagined Frank Jr and Alice sat on the floor playing, while two brutes stood over them. But she knew their situation was far worse than that - in ways she didn’t want to consider. There would be only one way to find out and they were seconds from the truth. She breathed deeply twice and swallowed hard. A nod to Arnold, who threw the door open wid
e, and they shot at every adult they could see.

  Four men stood at various locations and a handful of tables and chairs were scattered around. Made no sense: there was no order to the place. Mary Lou remained crouched and took out a black-haired dude who was fumbling for his piece in his jacket. Meanwhile, Arnold made mincemeat of one of the other’s brains as pieces of flesh smacked against a far wall.

  The other two hit the floor and flung the nearest table over as a barricade. To cause confusion, they hurled two chairs at the open doorway, but neither Arnold nor Mary Lou responded. They tried firing through the furniture but no joy. Arnold scurried into the room until he reached a square-based pillar. Mary Lou covered him during the manouevre with a spray of slugs all over the place. She searched for even a glimmer of the kids, but they didn’t seem to be there, goddamnit.

  Then all guns stopped firing and everyone took stock, trying to figure out their next move. Arnold and Mary Lou looked at each other and he beckoned her inside. She kept low and made her way to a table, flipping it over before another assault of bullets headed her direction. Then another eerie silence. She was ten feet from Arnold and the fellas were thirty feet behind their upturned table, now gouged with any number of bullet holes. The wood surface was peppered to shit by the slugs, but it must have a metal base beneath or those guys would have met their maker by now.

  There was a moment of calm and Mary Lou noticed a door at the other end of the room. In perfect synchrony, Arnold must have spotted the same thing as they both looked at each other, knowing. He slid away from the pillar to create a better line of sight to attack. Arnold turned his head back to Mary Lou and held three fingers up. How had they missed one of the guys? That wasn’t important right now. Despite all his training and deep experience, Arnold blurted out two words.

  “Sancho Mendoza.”

  Mary Lou’s eyes widened as that single phrase unlocked all that had befallen her since lunchtime. This had nothing to do with the mob. This was all about the brown powder. Nothing more, nothing less. If the deal hadn’t gone south this morning, none of this would have happened. Mendoza wanted the sweet taste of revenge and the motherfucker who’d stolen her children was a few feet in front of her.

  A red veil cast a shadow over her eyes and she ground her molars at the back of her jaw. She raised herself up until she saw over her defenses and glimpsed the top of one head. Aimed slow and squeezed the trigger until the recoil sent her arm upwards and a bullet landed in the middle of the guy’s skull. A quick duck-down as the survivors responded with their revolvers.

  Before they knew what was going on, one of the two made a break for the door three feet behind him. Arnold and Mary Lou peppered the room with gunfire and the last dude behind the table splayed backwards with the force of Arnold’s high caliber pistol. The other slammed the door behind him.

  “Mendoza!”

  They scrambled over to the other side of the room and Mary Lou flung open the door. She saw a leg disappear up a fire escape ladder and then she scanned the room.

  “Leave Mendoza to me.”

  Arnold grabbed the fire escape and Mary Lou stood, guns in both hands, surveying an empty room with one cupboard against a wall and two bodies trussed up lying, one on top of the other, next to the solitary item of office furniture. She didn’t need to give them a close inspection to know it was Serafini and Pavone.

  Gunfire outside as Arnold gave chase. Complete nothing surrounded Mary Lou. Almost nothing: she noticed the ticking of a clock and swung round to see the circular dial and the blade markings near the edge, counting the seconds until her death.

  Then a knocking. From the cupboard. A light tap and not much more than that, but enough to be audible. Mary Lou raised her revolver at the gray object and pulled open one door. Her eyes flitted across the top half as it was lined with empty shelves. The bottom section consumed half the space inside. On the floor sat a bundle of ropes and a gag in each mouth. Their hands and feet were tied, but Mary Lou had found her loves.

  Taking the knife from her jeans, Mary Lou cut through the fibers and undid the knots on the handkerchief gags. Then she held them both as they hugged her back and all three sobbed with happiness.

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED HOME, Bobby opened the door and everyone tumbled inside. The family stood in the hallway in an enormous embrace for a full five minutes. Mary Lou picked up Alice in her arms and Bobby took Frank Jr as they entered the living room. Arnold followed them in, hands deep in pockets.

  Once they sat down on the couches, Mary Lou allowed another tear to roll down her cheek as she pressed Alice against her body. There was a moment when Arnold thought she would never let go, but eventually Alice scampered off and checked on her brother before returning to her mother and forcing Mary Lou’s legs apart so she could loll over one knee.

  Ten minutes later, they took the kids off to bed, leaving Arnold to forage for some Scotch and soda. It had been a long night - and an even longer day before. Mary Lou kissed them both as Bobby returned downstairs, but she didn’t follow. Instead, Mary Lou waited until they were both asleep before she dared to leave them.

  Back in the living room, the two men had spread themselves out. Each nursed a tumbler containing a yellow-brown liquid and ice. A third glass rested on a coffee table. Mary Lou picked it up and sat next to Bobby, but she kept her head pointed at Roach.

  “Thank you again.”

  “Da nada.”

  “No, really. You saved my children’s lives tonight.”

  Arnold nodded and smiled in recognition of her words, but he was not comfortable with this kind of attention.

  “Let’s move on. Mendoza is still out there. We cut off the tail of the worm but the head is still alive and well.”

  “For Mendoza to have acted so quickly, he must have had help.”

  “East Coast help?”

  “That’s what it sounded like.”

  Mary Lou took a sip of her drink and swallowed hard. This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long way. If her family was ever to be safe then she would need to finish off Sancho Mendoza but also there had to be a day of reckoning with the men who supported him from New York. The same mob who’d killed her husband and driven her away from the only place she had ever called home: a dingy one-bedroom apartment in the crappy end of Baltimore.

  Part 11: Monday April 12, 1971

  30

  Mary Lou awoke alone in bed, much as she had done ever since Frank lay dying in her arms a lifetime ago. She sat bolt upright and allowed herself a fleeting moment of panic before she remembered where she was and that her babies were safe. Just to make certain, she tiptoed into their room to see them sleeping soundly. A smile and she closed the door behind her.

  Bobby was in the spare room and Arnold was downstairs on the couch. The man had quite a snore on him to be so audible from this distance. Proof he lived alone. Mary Lou returned to her own bedroom and got dressed. Then downstairs to make breakfast.

  Eggs, bacon and toast smells roused Arnold and he slunk off the couch, rubbed his eyes of sleep and joined Mary Lou in the kitchen. Five minutes later, Bobby appeared - the aroma of breakfast had seeped up the stairs but wasn’t strong enough to wake the kids, not on this morning. The three sat around the kitchen table, quietly chewing and swallowing, lost in their own worlds.

  Mary Lou had placed a pot of coffee in the middle of the table and once they had mopped up their crumbs with the crusts of their toast, they filled up their mugs and felt able to talk to each other.

  “I’ll call the agency and get a housekeeper in fast. This business isn’t over.”

  “First speak with Fabio: if you want Alice and Frank Jr to remain safe, we’ll need their help. Two guys in the front, two in the back and two inside. If Mendoza tries to attack, he’ll bring a fucking army.”

  “Do you think he will?”

  “I dunno the fella so I have no clue how hot-tempered he is. Me? I’d exit stage left and come back once the dust had settled. But I’m content serving my revenge ston
e cold. Others prefer a warmer dish.”

  At that moment, a scampering of feet and the twins descended on the kitchen. Mary Lou prepared breakfast while Bobby kept them occupied. Arnold remained separate from all this hubbub, somehow able to stay in the room, sat on his chair, while all around domestic normality oozed out of every corner of the people around him.

  He took a swig of coffee and left the room to make a tour of the estate. Out of respect to Mary Lou, he kept his piece in its holster until he was out of sight of the kids. They’d seen enough guns and blood to last them forever and a day.

  Forty-five minutes later, a knock on the door and the family’s new housekeeper appeared. She looked at least ten years older than Cindy, but had warm eyes. Truth was Mary Lou had explained she was having security issues, so the agency found her somebody who could handle themselves in times of trouble. Within a few days, she could be swapped out for a more playful youngster, if the kids didn’t like her. The woman’s name was Irma and that was all that mattered.

  Alice was especially nervous of this stranger, but FJ warmed to her almost as soon as she’d stepped into the room. He was so much like a puppy dog.

  They talked in the kitchen and let Alice see that Irma was part of the extended family. Then Mary Lou suggested they go upstairs to get dressed. The two women and the children left and hit the kids’ bedroom. Mary Lou stayed long enough for Irma to take command of the twins and then she made her excuses and returned to the kitchen.

  “All good?”

  “Yeah. They’ll be fine.”

  “I’m gonna stick around here today. If you’re off taking care of Mendoza, I’ll take care of the twins.”

  “Thanks. They need someone they know and can trust. If they are to stay alive, I have to leave them and finish what I started.”

  Mary Lou popped back up to the children and played with them a short while. A simple look in Irma’s direction gave all the explanation that was needed. Alice and Frank Jr were excited when their mom told them she was going out for some ice-cream but it might take a while to find. A long hug for each of them and a hushed word with Irma. Mary Lou turned her back on her precious family and left the room.