Forests of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

straw.
    Hundreds of people passed by before the man appeared.
    Jacob saw his face through the swarm, on a route that would bring him only a few feet away from Jacob’s position. Jacob gripped the mouthpiece of his blowgun and drew it a few inches from the cup. But just as his target entered killing range, he made a sudden cut behind a group of women and Jacob lost the shot.
    The crowd swarmed, and the man passed by only two yards away, but shielded by women in bright dresses. He walked with his usual cocky strut, passing quickly with his long, even stride.
    Jacob swung around, bumped a tall woman holding up a welcome sign. He apologized and slipped through the crowd.
    At the head of the escalator, his target halted for an elderly lady who was balking, as if this were her first experience with moving stairs. A moment of providence.
    Jacob headed down the fixed stairway that ran between the up and down escalators. He slowed his pace, watched in his side vision as the elderly woman glided past, then the tall man with the familiar face. Jacob timed his descent to stay even with the man. Two feet away.
    Choosing the largest patch of exposed flesh, he used the move he’d rehearsed a hundred times. Drawing the straw smoothly from the cup, taking only a second to aim, then he puffed hard into the mouthpiece.
    The dart lodged two inches below the man’s left ear. In half a second, the blowgun was back in the plastic cover of the cup.
    Grabbing at the sting in his neck, the man looked directly at his killer. Recognizing Jacob, his eyes flared with dark lightning. A second later the light drained away, and his mouth opened into a savage yawn, and he tumbled forward just as the old lady was stepping from the escalator.
    Behind Jacob a woman shrieked. Two men in dark suits hustling down the escalator halted at the bottom and stared at the body sprawled on the linoleum before them. One of them glanced at his watch, spoke in Spanish to his friend, and they tiptoed around the dead man and hurried on.
    Jacob pretended to take sips while he mingled with the crowd that gathered around the man. Edging backward little by little to the perimeter ofthe throng until a security guard arrived, kneeled over the man, felt for a pulse, and began to bark into his radio.
    Jacob walked out the exit and headed for the airport’s Flamingo Garage, where he’d parked the red pickup. One more stop. Another man to deal with.
    This one he’d been wanting to meet for a long, long time.

Three
    Charlotte Monroe didn’t recognize the red pickup truck parked in her front drive. It didn’t belong there, that was for sure. In fact, it was illegal. One of the nitpicky rules of the city of Coral Gables was that no pickups were permitted to be parked in residential driveways overnight anywhere within the city limits. Workmen were okay in daylight hours, as long as they returned to their own shabby neighborhoods before nightfall. Charlotte had never written a ticket for a pickup truck parked overnight, and she didn’t know anybody on the Coral Gables PD who had. But still, the law was there and at least once a week a good citizen called 911 to turn in a violator. City Beautiful. This was her beat. Protecting people who spent way too much time spying on their neighbors. Her beat and also her home.
    Her patrol car was in the motor pool for its sixty-thousand-mile service and there were four officers waiting ahead of her for spare cruisers, so when she saw Jesus Romero pulling out of the parking lot, she flagged him down. Her old partner, back in the early days.
    Now as Jesus stared at the ornate wrought iron gates blocking the drive, he grunted as if marveling at an attractive woman crossing his path.
    â€œYeah, yeah, I know,” Charlotte said. “Go on, give me some shit.”
    Charlotte drew the remote from her purse and aimed it through the windshield and, as the heavy gates rolled back, Jesus chuckled.
    â€œSay it,” she