The Equalizer by Michael Sloan Read Free Book Online Page B

their features ugly. As soft, moist eyes became dark with terror. In fiction, heroes faced death with a kind of placidity he had never seen. In real life, fear clawed at a man or woman’s face, distorting it, changing it forever. It was the last expression of their lives.
    He owned it.
    Then her face disappeared. He thought she was probably making her way to the train door. From there she would climb down the steps that were permanently in place. She had risked a look outside to make sure she saw nothing moving. No betrayal of anyone who had followed her to this place.
    He knew the ex-FTB agents would not arrive. They had received no intel, had just jumped into a vehicle at the art gallery and driven after her. She had lost them easily. They were amateurs. But what of her own people? There would have been an elite cell guarding her, a Control in the field. Where were they ?
    He thought they might be back at the bomb site, making certain their precious agent had not been blown to pieces. They could not have been close enough to see her escape, because he had not seen them, and he would have. He would have seen the car, or panel truck, or a nondescript bus, whatever vehicle they were using for surveillance, go after her. No vehicle had left the scene of the explosion after hers except his own.
    He took his eye from the eyepiece of the sight. A couple of deep breaths centered him. He put the eyepiece back to his right eye and focused on the stairs leading down from the first train carriage.
    He hummed a lullaby he had heard when he was a small boy. Not one that his mother had sung to him. He did not remember her at all. But somewhere … maybe a young woman whose throat he had cut, singing softly to herself before that instant of choking horror. He tried to remember. For some reason it was important to him. Soft lullabies were precious memories.
    He waited for her.
    *   *   *
    McCall bagged his own groceries. It was a mom-and-pop grocery store on the corner of the street and it was a running joke between himself and the old Asian woman who owned it. McCall would pick up his carton of milk, jar of coffee, fruit and vegetables, a six-pack of Diet Pepsi and a bag of M&M’s, which he would put in a bowl on the living-room coffee table. The old Asian woman would start to put the items into two big brown paper bags that looked like they were purchased when World War II ended. McCall would gently move her gnarled hands away and bag the items himself.
    â€œYou no let me work,” she said. “I sit here all day. I need to work.”
    â€œYou’ve worked hard enough to keep this place on this corner,” McCall said. “You deserve to sit back and rest.”
    It was the same things they said to each other every time he went in, just like Luigi asking him if the fusilli was good and him saying it was superb as always. A ritual. He liked it. His life was pretty regimented these days. Except for the incident with the hooker and her pimp. That had broken his rhythm.
    Maybe permanently.
    McCall paid the old woman and she rang it up and gave him some change. Her husband, who McCall knew had fought with Americans in Vietnam against the Viet Cong, shuffled up to her and put a Parkinson’s hand on her shoulder.
    â€œYou honor us with your business, Mr. McCall.”
    â€œThe honor is mine.” He started to turn away, then turned back. “No trouble in the neighborhood?” he asked.
    â€œWhat kind of trouble?” the old man asked, but his eyes said he knew exactly what McCall meant.
    â€œYoung men with vacant eyes wanting to protect you. Keep you safe. Make sure your establishment is not robbed or either of you are harmed.”
    The old man shrugged. “This is New York. There are always men like that. They don’t bother us. We mean nothing.”
    â€œYou mean something to me.”
    The old man smiled a tolerant smile. “We are old. We get by. We don’t