NYPD Red 2.

James Patterson.

For my other coauthor, my grandson, Zach.

Write on, kiddo.

-MK.

Prologue.

Gideon and Dave.

One.

October 31, 2001.

"Were you really serious about the Hitler thing?" Dave said, dousing Meredith's jeans and sweater with lighter fluid.

"Easy on the rocket fuel there, pyro," Gideon said. "We're just torching her clothes, not trying to burn the house down."

"I tried to stop her," Dave said, throwing her bra and panties on top of the pile. He tossed them on casually-a teenager disposing of his big sister's underwear. To Dave they were just rags to be burned. But to Gideon the lacy black bra and wispy matching thong were fuel for his sixteen-year-old fantasies.

Meredith was twenty-one, a college girl-red hair, green eyes, creamy white skin. As far as she was concerned, Gideon was just another one of her kid brother's geeky friends. She had no idea how much further his imagination had taken him.

Dave added a few more generous squirts of accelerant to the mound of clothes. "You saw," he said to Gideon, looking for validation. "Didn't I try to stop her?"

"You always try to stop your sister from doing stupid s.h.i.t," Gideon said. "But she's five years older than you and fifty times more stubborn. Stand back."

Dave stepped away from the crusty old Weber kettle grill.

"And yes," Gideon said, striking a wooden match. "I'm dead serious about the Hitler thing." He tossed the match onto Meredith's tattered sweater, and as blue-orange flames shot into the air, he allowed himself to relive what had happened that evening....

It was the night of the Salvis' Halloween beach party, and Dave did his best to convince Meredith not to go. "What's the attraction?" he asked. "The clams, the cannoli, or just hanging out with a bunch of drunken greaseb.a.l.l.s?"

"No, David," she said, which is what she always called him when she was pulling rank. "I'm going because they've got a kick-a.s.s band, fireworks like it's Chinese New Year, and because my brain is fried from burying my head in a macroeconomics book for four hours. Why don't you and Gideon go?"

"To a Mafia party?" Dave said. "No. You know how much Dad hated the Salvis."

"Everybody hates them, but everybody still goes. So what if they're Mafia? The beer is free, and you know for sure they're not going to check your ID." She opened the front door. "What time does Mom get off work?"

"The bar will be packed tonight. She won't be home till after three."

"Then I'll be home by two fifty-nine." She blew them both a kiss and left, laughing.

Two hours later she was back, her jeans and sweater torn, her face streaked with dried blood, her hair matted with wet sand.

"Enzo," she said, struggling to hold back the tears. "Enzo Salvi."

"He hit you?" Dave said.

She wrapped her arms around her kid brother and sobbed into his chest. "Worse."

"Don't shower," Gideon said. "The police have rape kits."

"No cops," she said, breaking loose from Dave. She locked the bathroom door and spent the next thirty minutes in the shower, trying to wash away the dirt, the smell, and the shame.

She joined them in the kitchen, wearing baggy gray sweats and a Mets baseball cap that concealed half her face.

"We made you hot cocoa," Dave said.

"You want marshmallows?" Gideon asked, holding a bag of Jet-Puffed minis.

"It's not exactly a marshmallow kind of night," she said, pouring half the cocoa into the sink. She pulled a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey from the kitchen cabinet and topped off her cup.

"I'm serious. No cops," she said. "And definitely you can't tell Mom."

Dave shook his head slowly. "I don't know, Mer, don't you think Mom should-"

"No!" Meredith screamed. "No, no, no!" The tears started to flow again, and she wiped her face in her sleeve. "He said if I tell her..." She fortified herself with the cocoa. "He said if I tell her...she's next."

Two more shots of Jameson later, Meredith was ready for bed. "Thank you," she said. "I don't know what I'd have done without you guys." She hugged them both and gave each one a soft kiss on the cheek. A kid brother kiss. Not nearly the one Gideon had been dreaming of for years.

"One more favor," she said, tossing her clothes on the floor. "Burn these."

The stretch jeans burned slowly. "I wish Enzo Salvi's b.a.l.l.s were in there," Dave said, finishing off his third beer as the flames crept up the denim crotch.

For more than a year, the Hitler thing had been Gideon's favorite argument. "Do you think Hitler was a nice guy when he was in high school?" he would ask Dave. "No-he was an evil, crazy f.u.c.k," he'd say, not waiting for an answer, "and he got worse and worse. Don't you think the world would be a better place if someone whacked Hitler when he was still young? Because Howard Beach sure as h.e.l.l would be a better place if someone killed Enzo Salvi."

Dave's standard response was always, "You're crazy." But tonight, as he watched his sister's clothes turn into ashes, it no longer sounded so crazy.

"It's my fault," Dave slurred. "I'm three payments behind."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Gideon said. "n.o.body rapes a guy's sister over sixty bucks. Enzo Salvi is a psycho."

Dave popped the top on another Bud Light and finally asked the question Gideon had been waiting to hear.

"How would we do it?"

Two.

The next afternoon, Gideon went to the comic-book store and sold his Sp.a.w.n collection at a painfully cheap price. "Thanks," Dave said, knowing he had no other way to get the money to pay off Enzo.

"Killing this p.r.i.c.k is expensive," Gideon said. "But it's worth it."

For the next three weeks, the two boys thought, rethought, and overthought the murder, watching episodes of CSI and renting as many movies as they could find starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. They jogged on the beach, lifted weights, and tried to bulk up on Joe Weider's Mega Ma.s.s 4000.

"Enzo's been on steroids since freshman year," Dave said as the two of them downed one of their three daily protein shakes.

"That means his b.a.l.l.s are shrinking," Gideon said.

"No, it means we could drink this chocolate s.h.i.t forever, and he'd still have twice as much muscle as the two of us put together."

Gideon raised his gla.s.s in a toast. "Who gives a s.h.i.t?" he said. "We'll still have bigger b.a.l.l.s."

It didn't feel really real until they decided on a weapon. They put together a list of possibilities with the pros and cons next to each one. A gun had the most pros. It was almost guaranteed to do the job. But it also had the most cons. Guns were hard to come by and easy to trace. In the end, they decided on the oldest weapon in the world and the easiest to get their hands on. A club.

"It worked for the cavemen," Dave said.

They took the subway to Royale Sporting Goods in Brooklyn and paid sixty-two dollars for a thirty-four-inch Brett Bros. Stealth bat in black. Next they headed over to AutoZone for a box of Diamond Grip latex gloves.

Then they waited.

It had to be a Friday night. Most of the kids at John Adams High paid Enzo off in cash, but Gideon worked in the stockroom at Tonello's Liquor Store and had to steal a bottle of vodka every week. Every Friday after work, he would trudge out to the dunes across from the Salvi house on 165th Avenue and hand over the booze to Enzo.

They zeroed in on the day after Thanksgiving. There was no school that day, and if they were lucky, Enzo would be drunk by the time he showed up.

As always at this time of year, the dunes were damp and cold, but Gideon was dressed for it-Carhartt waterproof gear, ski cap, Timberlands. Enzo, as usual, didn't show up on time. Five minutes. Ten. At fifteen, the mind games started. He knows. He's not coming. He's going to let me freeze out here, and then when I finally give up, he's going to kill- "Where's that f.a.ggot with my vodka?" Enzo yelled, tromping through the tall gra.s.s. There was a half moon, and Gideon could make out a shadowy figure in the mist with the ma.s.sive neck, arms, and chest of a steroid abuser.

"Yo," Gideon said.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing so deep into the dunes?" Enzo said. "I'm not here for a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. Just a bottle of booze."

Gideon held up the liter of Absolut. "Here it is."

That was the signal, and what was supposed to happen next had been modeled after a scene from Fist of the White Lotus. Dave, who had been hunkered down in the wet gra.s.s, jumped up behind Enzo and brought the maple/ash-wood bat down hard.

But real life doesn't play out like kung fu movies, especially when the victim has the street smarts of a Mob boss's son, and the attacker-who had taken countless practice swings-chokes at the moment of truth.

Aiming for the back of Enzo's head, Dave managed to hit only his right shoulder.

Enzo exploded. In a lightning move, he wheeled around and kicked Dave's arm, sending the bat sailing. A split second later, Enzo pulled a Smith & Wesson Extreme Ops knife from his pocket, flipped open the business end, rushed Dave, and shoved him to the ground.

"You d.i.c.kless Mick b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I'm gonna cut your f.u.c.king heart out and shove it up your b.i.t.c.h sister's s.k.a.n.ky Irish a.s.s." He straddled Dave, drew his arm back, and was about to plunge the serrated steel blade into Dave's chest when Gideon brought the bottle of vodka down on Enzo's head.

The knife fell from his hand, and then the rest of Enzo Salvi toppled face first into the sand.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Dave said, crying for the first time since his father's funeral when he was twelve. "I blew it. Thank you, Gid, thank you. He was gonna kill me. Is he dead? Is he dead?"

The answer was clear as Enzo flailed at the gra.s.s, cursing incoherently, his mouth spitting sand and saliva, his brain and his coordination misfiring.

This wasn't the plan.

"What'll we do, what'll we do?" Dave asked.

"Grab his other side," Gideon yelled, yanking hard on Enzo's already damaged right arm.

"What are we doing?" Dave said. "Where are we taking him?"

"Just shut up and do what I say."

Dave locked on to the left arm, and Enzo howled in pain as the two boys dragged him through the dunes to the water's edge.

After wading into the bay up to his thighs, Gideon shoved Enzo's head under the water. Enzo's feet thrashed wildly.

"Grab his legs! Don't let him kick loose!" Gideon yelled.

Dave fought to grab Enzo's feet.

"Hold them as high up as you can," Gideon said. "It'll force his head down more."

Dave followed orders, and thirty seconds later Enzo's body went limp.

"We can't take a chance," Gideon said. "Come around here."

Dave dropped the legs, and they both held Enzo's face down underwater.

"This is for my sister, you Guinea f.u.c.k!" Dave screamed, punching through the water and connecting with Enzo's pulpy skull. "And this is for all the money you took from me, and this is for all the years you beat me up, and this is for that time you threw my books and all my s.h.i.t in the bay, and this is for..."

He continued to rant and drive his fist into the water.

"Enough," Gideon finally said.

"Is he dead?" Dave asked, pummeling the b.l.o.o.d.y, submerged figure one last time.

"He's been dead about two minutes."

"We...killed...Hitler," Dave said, panting, crying, and laughing at the same time. "We killed...Hitler...."

They dragged the waterlogged body to the sh.o.r.e and then went back to the original plan. Gideon ripped the gold chains from Enzo's neck, took his watch and the money from his wallet.

Dave spat on Enzo's face. "Let's get out of here," he said, ready to bolt.