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.Even the blood spatter had smoked and vanished.The vampire s words drifted back into his mind: The Master is laughing at you,Traitor& You can t save anyone.Tonight, at least, he had saved one.Red and blue lights flashed across the parking lot.Police cars roared into the lot soquickly they rocked on their springs and their tires screeched.Karl turned and fled as fast as he could, cloaking himself in shadows, wrapping himselfin the night.No reason to bother with the church.No point in praying for the soul of avampire.Chapter Three: Internal PoliticsMaria was dreaming of the ocean, standing on black sand and staring at waves gentlycurling under a brilliant sun, when her cell phone began blaring Black Sabbath s  WarPigs.It had been so damn amusing a week ago when she d downloaded it, but now itdestroyed her dream beach like a napalm strike.She lifted her head to find that she ddrooled on her pillowcase.Attractive. Yeah, she managed to say into the phone.She sat up in bed and immediatelyregretted it as her head threatened to implode.She hadn t gotten in until after two lastnight.It had better be Karl Vance telling her that Katz was dead. Maria, a calm voice said.Not Karl. Who is this? It s John.John Passerini.Underboss of the family.Shit. Is my father okay? she asked.John had never called her on her cell before. He s fine. John s voice was flat, almost emotionless.He d talked that way as far backas she could remember.Angry, happy, bored all the same even tone. Nothing to worryabout.But I want to see you.If you have time.Implying that she should make time.An easy thing to resent, but Passerini couldn t beignored.She was due to reconcile her father s books today, but that could wait.Really allshe was doing was waiting for a single phone call.But not John s. Sure, John.Where? I m taking my kids to the aquarium today.If you could meet me there in&  Hepaused, and she could imagine him glancing at his Rolex. An hour, that would be great.That gave her less than twenty minutes to get ready and out the door.Rush hour wasover, but with all the construction downtown, getting to the aquarium that quickly wouldbe iffy.Like she had much of a choice. I ll be there, she said, and hurried for the shower.She made it, but barely.Road construction was a bitch the Big Dig was a plague fromGod on Massachusetts.Atlantic Avenue was down to one lane, and she considereddriving her Mercedes off Long Wharf to end her misery.She hated to leave her car in a public parking lot, but she had little choice.At leastgetting her parking validated at the aquarium would offset the plundering a bit.Parkinglots& She had to get into that racket.Pay an attendant minimum wage to collect theridiculous rates and watch the cash roll in.A nice source of legitimate income for herselfand her father if she set it up right.There she went again, her mind wandering off in every direction.The call from Johnhad upset her more than she wanted to admit.More cash to get inside the aquarium.He couldn t just meet her in the Common? Sheglanced around for John Passerini but didn t see him on the ground floor.Son of a bitch.She paused at the rail above the rock formations and illuminated pools where penguinsfrolicked.A woman in a wetsuit was giving a speech to an elementary school classclustered around the glass rails.Aside from the class, the place was mostly empty, the fewfamilies and couples inside were spread out along the walls of tanks.So much the better.At first she d thought John nuts to pick so public a place for their walk and talk, butperhaps she d been wrong.It was random, impossible for the feds to wiretap on shortnotice, lots of ambient noise, lots of space.So what did he want?They called John Passerini  The Cleaver because he came from a long line ofbutchers, not because it was his weapon of choice or anything [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]