The First Billion

"Guy just lost it, man. Went in and capped his crew, then did himself. Got every one of them. Ten dudes, all dead." He was a handsome Hispanic kid, maybe fifteen, with spiked hair dyed henna, a golden nose stud, and cargo pants cut to the knee. "I heard it, man," he went on. "I work at the Orange Julius next store. It was like this, check it out: bang, bang, bang, bang. Shit was loud, and quick, like maybe two seconds between shots."

"You think you ought to tell that to the police?" asked Gavallan.

"The police? Heck, no. I don't need that hassle." Suddenly, the kid jumped back a step, his brown eyes skittish. "You ain't the man, are you?"

"No," said Gavallan. "I ain't the man." He beckoned the boy closer. "You said, 'The guy just lost it.' You know who did it?"

"Nah, man, no one knows. But I know one of the dudes was in there. My man, Ray. 'Fact I made him a burger this morning- his favorite, a double chili cheese with jalapeños. Calls it his 'victory burger.' Dude came in real happy, see, smiling even, and that's something. My man Ray is one serious dude."

A victory burger, Gavallan said to himself, remembering Luca's cocky grin, the mention of having some dirt on Kirov.

"When did it happen?" asked Gavallan.

"When did what happen?"

All at once, Gavallan's patience left him, evaporated under the tropical heat, worn away by the endless string of setbacks, one more trading loss in Black Jet's column, who knew? Grabbing the Hispanic youngster by the arm, he shook him once, hard enough to frighten him. "The shooting," said Gavallan. "The murder. Whatever went on inside of that building."

"Yo, man, chill," the kid said, eyes bugging. "Like an hour ago." He flicked a wrist to check his watch. "Ten, ten-fifteen. Ten-twenty. Round there. We cool now?"

"Yeah, we're cool." Gavallan patted the kid's arm and moved off toward his car. A glance behind told him he'd already been forgotten. The Latino was busy offering his story to the next bystander who'd happened along.

Gavallan wiped the sweat from his forehead.

This was not how the day was supposed to have gone.

***

The bodies lay where they had fallen. Some sat slumped at their computers, too surprised, too frightened, to have reacted. Others had run, though none had made it more than a few feet from his or her desk. The mess was terrible and overwhelming, gore spackled onto the walls and cubicles in chaotic, Technicolor blotches. Ponds of blood stained the carpet, clotted now, hard as ice. Black Ice.

Dumdums, thought Howell Dodson as he walked slowly down the center aisle of the trading room at Cornerstone Trading. Bullets modified to flatten on impact. Small hole going in; big hole coming out. He passed a victim, his face missing below the hairline, a gaping mask of blood, bone, and gristle.

Despite himself, he gasped. He'd seen men killed, women too. He'd witnessed death many times over in all its inglorious pageantry. He'd sat at a wooden table, arms and legs bound, and watched as the pinky and ring finger of his left hand were severed with a carpet layer's dulled blade. The smell of blood and the scent of fear were familiar companions.

But this was different, he thought, stepping carefully over another corpse. These were the innocent, the unknowing, the unsuspecting. Death didn't belong in these stained, shabby, ordinary corridors.

"Ten bullets, ten bodies," explained Lieutenant Luis Amoro of the Delray Beach Police Department, a beefy Cubano of fifty who looked about two sizes too big for his khaki rayon uniform. "Guy started at the entrance, went seat by seat taking out each of his buddies, then ran upstairs, got the managers. We figure he came back down afterward, looked around, made sure no one was still alive, everything wrapped up nice and neat, then did himself."

"Some shooting." It was the only thing Dodson's normally glib tongue could manage. For all his time on the job, for all the wanton and terrible things he'd seen and experienced, he was having a tough go with this one. The question "Why?" kept jabbing away at his mind, and he had no answer.

Since entering the building, he'd been overwhelmed by a desperate and irrational fear for his sons' welfare. Though the infants were over a thousand miles away in McLean, Virginia, safe in their Talbots sweaters and Eddie Bauer strollers, he wanted nothing more than to hold them in his arms and guarantee their safety. "Christ our savior," he whispered.

Leading the way to the end of the aisle, Amoro knelt beside one of the bodies and pointed to a neat round hole inside the man's hairline by the temple. "We figure he's the doer. Everyone else got theirs from a foot or more, usually in the back of the head."

Dodson eyed the inert form. "Mr. Luca leave any note? Any message for his loved ones?"

"Not a word. Looks like he came in, worked for a little while. Around ten, something must have gotten him pissed. He got up, took out his haymaker, and went about his business." Amoro did a double take. "Hey, how'd you know his name?"