Dead Fall (4 page)

When William Murray took his one-way flight to earth, there had been two women in O'Neill's apartment. Long ago I'd promised I'd never willingly make war on women or children—of course that's a rose-tinted view of the world, because there are some nasty, evil, and dangerous bitches out there—and it was a promise I'd rather keep. If it was avoidable I didn't want to shoot O'Neill and also kill his girlfriends behind him.

Other residents lived in O'Neill's building. The ground and next floor up was utilized as office space. Floor three was a communal area. Floors four through fourteen were leased to people with more money than sense. Floor fifteen—in order to promote the privacy of the penthouse suite—had been left vacant. Two elevator shafts gave access, one of which was an express service used strictly by O'Neill and guests. The second elevator only went as far as floor fourteen, but that was close enough for my purposes. I slipped inside the building, avoided the sleeping concierge, and entered the elevator. The car rode smoothly to the fourteenth floor and the doors whispered open.

Although there was only one official route to or from the penthouse, those with fire and safety regulations in mind had other ideas. There was a stairwell that could be accessed via the penthouse, which joined the staircase the other residents of the building would use in the event of a fire or other emergency. On fourteen, a fire door blocked access upward, but could be opened from the other side by anyone fleeing the penthouse by the simple manipulation of push bars. If I'd had a sledgehammer at hand, I could have forced a way through, but that would alert O'Neill that I was coming. Instead, I made my way to a window and slid it open. I leaned out, looked up and saw that there was a similar window to the fifteenth floor six or so feet above my head. The walls were decorated with ornately carved features, and offered hand- and footholds for a daring climber.

Luck and daring was always something I relied upon. I clambered up onto the sill, then inserted my fingertips between two concrete seams and hauled myself up and out. I'll admit that the climb wasn't the easiest or even most skillful, but I made it to the next sill a few minutes later. Here, the outer sill was two feet deep and I was able to crouch tight to the side of the building, exposed to anyone on the ground but also relatively safe from a long fall. I'd come prepared for the next obstacle, and took out a glass cutter from my pants pocket. It was a contraption that could be attached to a window by way of a suction cup and had a diamond-tipped scribe at its circumference. Pressing cup to window, I pulled over the lever that caused the cup to concave, create a vacuum to seal it solidly to the glass. Then I wound the handle around a few times. When I tugged on the suction cup it came away, still attached to the circle of glass I'd cut. Then it was a simple task to insert my hand through the gap, throw the catch and shove open the window. I placed the glass cutter and circle of glass in my pocket. And then I was on the stairs and on my way up to O'Neill's pad.

I could see that the short flight of stairs was rarely used. Dust stood like icing sugar on each step. I didn't bother avoiding it, but my boots would have to go the way of the ones I'd worn to Whalen's apartment. I made it to the top and found a featureless door, with no handle. It could only be opened from within O'Neill's penthouse. That was assuming I wanted to use a door handle. I took out a screwdriver and went to work on the hinges, working out the pins. The door wasn't a security fixture after all. Once the pins were out, I wedged the screwdriver into each hinge in turn, giving each a gentle twist to break the friction of the workings. Afterward I listened, checking that I hadn't raised the alarm.

When I was happy that no one had stirred from slumber, I used the screwdriver to lever the door out of the frame, and the entire thing came loose in my hands. After jiggling the door lock free of its retainer, I carried the door out of the way and set it down. The screwdriver went in my opposite pocket, and I took out my gun, plus a Gerber knife.

The penthouse was huge, taking up most of the upper floor, but it had been separated into a number of rooms and I found myself in a utility passage. Cleaning supplies dominated one room, a laundry another. I doubted O'Neill was familiar with either space, and suspected that his live-in home helps handled all the domestic chores around the place. I moved past them and found another door. Gently I tried the handle and this one gave in my grasp. I teased open the door. All was in darkness, but at the far end of the hall shone a dim night-light, which offered enough illumination to guide me. I could smell a hodgepodge of odors, cooking smells, cigar smoke, alcohol, and men's farts. I had expected to find the penthouse plush, but it was more akin to a crack house I supposed that money didn't necessarily make you house-proud. I moved into the main living area. Expensive furniture was half buried beneath discarded clothing, food wrappers, newspapers, and beer bottles and cans. O'Neill and his crew looked to have been celebrating and I could only assume that it was because the threat of Candice Berry had been removed.

I turned from the room, seeking O'Neill's bedroom.

That was when a door burst open behind me and a huge man leaned out, wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up in the air. The giant shook me like a rag doll, while someone else grabbed my gun hand and ripped loose my SIG. Before I could think of using the Gerber on them, my own gun was shoved in my face. “Drop it, asshole!”

I dropped the knife, and the monster holding me slung me down on the floor. My head ringing, I blinked up as a light came on and stark beams filled the place. Standing over me was a trio of men I recognized as O'Neill's buddies from the day William Murray went off the roof. Thankfully, the women weren't around. Which went to prove that I'd walked into a trap.

Another man came out of a bedroom farther down the corridor. He was fully dressed—albeit casually—in loafers, blue jeans, and a pale green shirt. His silver mane of hair, long at the back and curled at the temples, gave him a wannabe Richard Branson look. He stood gloating as he tapped the screen of his iPhone.

“When I got word of Marvin Whalen's untimely death, was it any wonder I'd prepare for a visitor of my own?” asked Mick O'Neill. He was in his late fifties, had been in America for the best part of twenty years now, but he still retained a Dublin accent. There was some suggestion he had been a real IRA hitter in the old days.

My mouth tasted of blood. I'd bitten my tongue when O'Neill's pet gorilla had thrown me to the floor. I swallowed before answering. “You were expecting me?”

“I was. You could have come earlier and saved me the long feckin' wait.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” I said.

“Sarcastic bastard,” O'Neill said. He flicked his hand at the big man. “Get him up off the floor.”

The big man hauled me up and fed his arms through my elbows, yanking both arms up my back. The other two men pointed my weapons at me.

“What you going to do?” I asked O'Neill. “Hand me over to the police? Or will you make me take a dive off the roof the way you did William Murray?”

“You won't go the same way as that little tow rag. You're going out the same way as you came in. Shame, eh?” He grinned at his men. “Some burglar tries to rob my apartment, only to slip and fall to his death when cutting his way in through the window? Take this prick back down the way he just came, boys.”

I was bundled back past the utility rooms and to the door I'd lifted out of its hinges.

“Remind me to have something a bit more sturdy fitted, will you, lads? I can't be having every Tom, Dick, and Harry swanning in and out of here whenever they like,” said O'Neill.

The four of them hemmed me into the space at the bottom of the stairwell, the big man still holding me tightly. O'Neill studied where I'd cut the glass from the window. He indicated the bulges in my pockets. “Take out his glass cutter,” he told one of the men. To the other, he said, “Go fix the door. It can't be seen that he actually made it further inside than here.”

While one of the men went to see to resetting the hinges, O'Neill called after him, “Make sure you leave the door open for us to get back in. Everything will go to shit if we get trapped out here.”

Then O'Neill was back in my face.

“The feck's any of this got to do with you, anyway?”

“William Murray was a friend of mine,” I said.

“He was a two-bit little thief, and he was skimming money off my profits,” O'Neill said.

“Is that it, the reason you had him thrown from your roof? He stole from you?”

“I had to make a statement to all the other little skanks who run the streets for me,” O'Neill said. “That little punk, Murray, actually came to me on bended knees, tried to reason with me. He said he was in a relationship now, he'd got hisself a girlfriend, and the extra money he skimmed was to help feed her bastard brats. The feckin' nerve of it! He stole from me to feed a whore's offspring? What does he think I am, the feckin' Red Cross?”

After pulling out my glass cutter, the thug handed it to O'Neill. O'Neill took it from him, wiped it down with the tails of his shirt, then approached the window. “Have to make this look real if I'm going to fool the cops a second time,” he crowed as he pulled open the window. He leaned out, allowed the glass cutter and circle of glass to drop. A few seconds later I heard the tinkle as both hit ground. “Hell, that's a long fall.” O'Neill grinned. “Not as far as Murray fell, but still far enough.”

“You'd made an example of Murray,” I said, “thrown him off the roof, but why kill Candice Berry?”

“I didn't. Marvin Whalen sorted that out for me, as you already know.”

“You're splitting hairs, O'Neill. It was your order that murdered the woman.”

“Aye, it was at that,” he said. “When we chucked her boyfriend off the roof we didn't know he'd brought her along with him. She was down there,” he pointed toward the plaza, “waiting for him. Fair enough, she didn't speak to anyone about what happened. She knew better. But it wasn't a risk I was about to take. I'm careful like that. Same as when some of my boys end up murdered by some fucked-up vigilante. I take precautions. Got you dead to rights, my lad.”

“You got me,” I said, and I offered him a smile.

“What you looking so feckin' pleased about? Another few seconds and you're going to learn what those other two did: you don't fuck with Mick O'Neill.”

“You got me,” I repeated. “But I've also got you, you murdering piece of shit.”

O'Neill was slow to catch on.

“Did you get everything you needed, Detective?” I said, for effect leaning down so I could speak closer to the hidden microphone taped to my chest. In my ear Bryony VanMeter said, “Enough to put him away for life, Joe.”

Along the hall there was the repeated boom of a ram smashing into a door as the police arrest squad began breaking their way into the fallow space.

“What the hell?” O'Neill shouted angrily. “You're wired?”

“Yes,” I said, “and the Tampa PD just recorded your full confession.”

“Son of a . . .” O'Neill shook his head in despair. Then his features grew hard again. To his two pals he said, “Throw this fecker out of that window. We might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

I didn't bother begging for my life, or try to tell him that it was over, that he was caught. It wasn't my style. I leaned down, said into the microphone, “Best get in here fast, O'Neill's so distraught I'm not sure he's going to hang around to be arrested.”

My words were enough to give the trio around me pause. It was all I required. I whipped my skull backward, cracking the hard crown into the bridge of the nose of the big guy holding me. His hold on me loosened marginally as he reared back, eyes shutting in reaction to the blow. I jerked down with my arms, clenched him to me and kicked out, finding O'Neill's testicles with the toe of my boot. The third man cried out harshly, bringing up my gun. Everything happened within moments, a confusion of grunts and curses, and the cracking of the gun. Amidst the scuffle I'd twisted forward at the hips, hauling my captor up and onto my back, and it was his face that took the bullet, not mine.

I dropped the dead man, even as his friend stepped back in dismay at killing his buddy. I didn't halt my momentum, and went at him, scooping aside his gun hand and head-butting him full in the face. The man went down on his back, unconscious, the gun spinning away from his grip.

I let the gun lie.

Instead I grasped the flowing hair of Mick O'Neill, twisted it tightly in my grasp and tore him toward the window.

“No, O'Neill, don't do it!” I yelled for good effect and then slung the screaming man out of the window. “Holy shit!” I cried. “He jumped. Jesus Christ, he jumped rather than be taken alive.”

The cops would hear my cry, even if they didn't hear the wet splat of Mick O'Neill's body striking the ground fourteen floors below us.

The scuff of feet on the stairs alerted me to the fourth man. Finished rehanging the door in its frame, he'd returned to investigate what all the noise was about. He was still clutching my Gerber knife as he stared in horror at the dead giant, his unconscious mate, and the apparent disappearance of Mick O'Neill.

I placed my palm flat over the microphone, blocking his words as he said, “I can't believe what you did to Mick, you bastard.”

“Proportional retribution,” I said. “He got his just desserts.”

“Fucker,” the man yelled, “I'll kill you for that.”

The man dashed down the stairs and, unarmed, I took a few steps away from him. The man raised his arm, came at me, and I prepared to deflect his blow.

I didn't need to.

A gun cracked and the man's head disintegrated under the impact of a .357 round from Detective Holker's sidearm.