Thomas Perry: Sleeping Dogs

Wolf stood up and made his way slowly into the dining room, where they had eaten, then glided silently across the living room where the thick carpet muffled his steps. He could feel his left knee brush against the couch where they had sat, and this helped him orient himself. He stood absolutely still so that he could let his mind work without distraction. He was inside, but he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do. At any other time of his life he would have gone down the hallway to her bedroom and put a hole in her temple before even attempting to do anything else. He might make a noise in the next few minutes, and she would wake up. Or there might be some blood at his house that he had missed, and then she would be alive to give the FBI an accurate description of him. But while he constructed the argument for it, he already knew that he wasn’t going to do it. He was not here to kill this woman. He might have to do it to survive, but he was determined to at least try it the other way first. If he could just get into the room, take what he wanted and get out, there would never be any reason for her to tell anyone what he looked like. He began to move again, but at the entrance to the hallway he stopped. When she had walked onto this floor, she had taken off her shoes, so he did the same.

Inside the door he could hear the sound of a child breathing slowly and deeply. He stepped to the side and felt his way along the wall until he identified the woodwork that framed the closet door. He groped for the knob and squeezed it tightly in his fist to swing it open without making any noise. He reached up to the top shelf and felt something made of leather. A baseball glove. Then there was the soft texture of cloth. Sure, a baseball cap. Now the smooth, sharp corner of the box. He reached both hands up to the shelf to be sure he could lift it without sliding it across the wood.

“Who are you?” came a little voice.

It was high and piping, and there was something shaky about it, like a bird. Oh, God, he thought. I don’t want to kill this kid. “Mr. Richardson,” Wolf said softly.

“Oh,” said the boy. He waited for the kid to say something else, but there was no sound. He lifted the box and turned. “What are you doing here? I was asleep.”

“I’m sorry, but I had to come. I’ll be gone in a minute.”

“Where’s my mother?”

“She’s asleep. If we’re quiet, she won’t wake up. She needs her rest.”

The light came on and the click sounded like a hammer hitting a piece of metal. He was a tiny little boy, skinny, with his hair standing up on his head. He still had his hand on the lamp beside his bed, and he was squinting. “What are you doing with that?”

“It’s for work. We need one of these pictures of your trip to England at the office right away.”

“Which one?”

Wolf opened the lid. “London. The Parliament building. We’re going to enlarge it so we can see what’s going on inside.”

“How can you do that?”

Wolf regretted having said it. How old was this kid—four? “We blow up the part we want so we can see in the window, and we transfer it to a computer. Then we can make a three-dimensional image and turn it around every which way.” He made a slow rotating motion with both hands.

“What for?”

“I shouldn’t tell you,” Wolf said. Jimmy looked at him skeptically. “Well, we think somebody in Parliament isn’t who he says he is.”

“Who is he?”

“We don’t know yet. That’s why we need the picture.”

Jimmy seemed to contemplate the plan, and finally to enlist, but he was a little worried. “You can’t see much.”

“We have to try. Can you show me which one?” Wolf took the sheaf of papers out of the box as he set it down on the kid’s bed. While the little boy shuffled through the pictures, he worked the rubber band off the papers with one hand.

“This one,” said Jimmy, and he held out a picture of his mother standing in front of the Houses of Parliament.

Wolf felt the passport now, and in a second he had it in his coat pocket with the pistol. He took the picture and scrutinized it. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Thanks, Jimmy.” He stood up, returned the photographs and packet of papers to the box and put it back in the closet. Then he turned to the little boy. “I’m sorry I had to wake you up. You’d better turn the light out and go back to sleep now.”

“Okay.” Jimmy clicked the light off and lay back on his pillow.

As Wolf made his way into the hall and closed the door, he could hear the boy stirring. He walked quickly out of the hallway to the living room, stepped into his shoes and moved to the front door. As he opened it, he sensed that he wasn’t alone. He was going to have to kill him.

This time the voice was a tiny whisper. “Good night.”

“Good night, Jimmy.” He stepped outside and closed the door, then hurried down the steps and across the lawn to get to the sidewalk and the place where the darkness began. In an hour he could be on a plane to London.

Jack Hamp crouched in the bushes across the street from the Waring house and watched the lone man walk toward him. The man was cautious, first turning his head to look at Elizabeth’s house, then at the one beside it and finally at the one where Hamp was hiding. He walked slowly, but there was nothing casual or leisurely about it. He had sensed that something wasn’t the way he wanted it, and he was scanning for some sign of another person. It was mesmerizing to watch him. He was going to assure himself that the whole block was clear before he made an attempt to break in on Elizabeth. Attempt? Hell, he still couldn’t overcome his years of talking like a cop. If this guy decided to do it, Elizabeth was going to have a visitor.

Hamp slowly pulled his big .45 out of his coat, trying to keep the movement steady and silent. He had the hammer cocked and the safety engaged. The man was already moving toward the lawn in front of Hamp; in a second or two he would be on top of him. Hamp spent part of the second remembering that the Butcher’s Boy was probably more than a match for him in the dark. By temperament, training and experience, Hamp desperately wanted not to have to squeeze a trigger on anybody, and this would make him hesitate.

Hamp disengaged the safety with his thumb, straightened his legs enough to bring the pistol up above the top of the bush and hoped that it was all that the Butcher’s Boy could see clearly. “Justice Department. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

It was exactly as he had seen it a dozen times in his imagination. The man didn’t stop to think and didn’t hesitate. In the second that it took Hamp to see that his right hand was going to his coat, it was already there and coming back out. Hamp fired. The report of the heavy military pistol clapped the air and the man took the round square in the center of his chest. As the man flopped backward onto the sidewalk, Hamp could see that he had almost gotten the barrel clear of his coat. It slid off his chest onto the pavement and Hamp walked over to pick it up. He stared down at the man. He was about the right age, and he was nondescript and ordinary enough to have survived for a long time while people were looking for him. Hamp could also see that the hollow-point round had made a terrible mess of his chest.

Hamp looked around him at the lights going on in upstairs windows all along the block. He noticed that his mouth had gone all dry and cottony. The last time this had happened, he had thought it was the shock from taking the bullet in his leg, but it must have been another reaction. He began the process of composing himself for the first of the conversations he would have to go through now: you know the fellow you’ve been trying to find? Yes, the one you’ve wanted for ten years. I’m afraid he can’t tell you anything now. I just killed him. My name is Jack Hamp.