Blackjack by Andrew Vachss

‘wrong’ with that, Tiger. The point was simply to emphasize his wife’s obsession with materiality.”
    “And what’s this ‘post-Vietnam’ designation …?”
    “It’s the same for
all
of them, Wanda. Apparently, somesort of bargain was struck between the man we know as ‘Cross’ and one of the … agencies operating in the field at that time. All the records concerning Cross and Buddha have been death-wipe overwritten. How that came to include Ace—who never served in the military—is not information we have.”
    “Not the first time
that
trick was pulled,” Percy said. “Who cares about names, anyway? What I want to know is what that … whatever we just saw … what was
that
all about?”
    “The Cross gang was hired by person or persons unknown to shut down a dogfighting operation,” the blond man said, in the bored voice of a Mafia don taking the Fifth for the hundredth time.
    “And for that they slaughtered a couple dozen people?” Percy responded, a faint note of admiration seeping into his deep voice.
    “That’s how he came by his name.”
    “Huh?”
    “ ‘Cross.’ That’s not just the name he ‘enlisted’ under, it’s his reputation. He specializes in twofers, understand?”
    “Kills the guy who hires him to kill another guy?”
    “Nothing that simple, but that’s the idea. If he got paid to take out a couple of
individuals
inside that building by one person
and
put the dogfighting operation out of business by another, that would be more consistent with his reputation.”
    “The cops,” Percy asked, “didn’t they lean on the others? The ones who walked out, I mean.”
    “There were no survivors,” the blond man said, no trace of surprise in his voice. “The crowd that walked out walked into … something. They ended up exactly like the Canyon Killings, every one of them.”
    “Good,” Tiger snarled.
    “What are you, PETA on steroids?” Percy cracked.
    “Anytime you want to find out—”
    “Enough!” the blond man said, using his broken-record voice.
    “All this … stuff,” Wanda complained. “We have names like ‘Cross’ and ‘Buddha’ and ‘Rhino’ and ‘Ace’ and ‘Princess.’ That’s it? Speaking of which, do we at least have a real name for this ‘Princess’?”
    “Not even close,” the blond man told her. “All we know is that a crew Cross put together did some kind of ‘work’ in Central America. We don’t know who he did it for, but we do know two things: one, he lost a couple of men in that operation, and two, he brought Princess back with him.”
    “Lost a couple of men?” Tiger mused aloud.
    “Yeah, that’s another thing about this guy. He’s
obsessed
with revenge. You want to see the effects of
real
terrorism, just say his name around any of the local gang leaders. But if we don’t know the identities of the men he lost, we can’t know if he ever took care of whoever he held responsible.”
    “That’s a good rep to have,” Tiger said. “Makes anyone thinking of pulling a fast one think again.”
    “That’s not just his rep,” the blond man corrected her, “it’s part of a profile we commissioned. Outside his own crew, people are nothing but chess pieces to him. Like I said before, a sociopath.”
    “Right. And he’s
still
with the same men he partnered up with a million years ago?”
    “I’m not disagreeing. Any idiot would make that connection. I agree—that single fact contradicts the diagnosis. And we’ll confirm that with the doctor when the chance comes. We do know one thing which binds his crew completely. A question anyone who wants to join them has to answer. But it’s just a phrase, and we can’t translate it.”
    “Well?” Wanda said, tapping the side of her keyboard with her fingernails to indicate her impatience.
    “Here it is: ‘Do you hate them? Do you hate them
all
?’ ”
    “Who’s ‘them’?”
    “There are hundreds of pages of guesses. But that’s all they