Collateral Damage (Stone Barrington 25)

“Perfection is what we deal in,” Sheba replied. “The change in the eyebrows will help give you a new appearance, too. As it is, you look nothing like the person in the flyers that are all over town.”

So she knew whom she was dealing with, Jasmine thought. She stood up. “How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching for her purse.

“One hundred thousand dollars,” Sheba replied calmly. “Our special price for fugitives.”

Jasmine laughed. “And worth every penny,” she said. If she wanted that much now, what would she demand when the reward was offered? She reached into her purse, and her hand closed on the butt of the Walther PPK, silencer fitted. In one easy motion, she turned, raised the little pistol, and fired into Sheba’s face. A small hole appeared on one side of her forehead, and blood trickled down her face.

Sheba looked astonished, and seemed to be trying to speak, but she didn’t fall; she clutched at a countertop to steady herself.

Jasmine shot her in the head again, and Sheba collapsed in a heap at her feet.

—

Back in the car, Habib spoke. “You look wonderful,” he said. “Did you kill her?”

“She wanted a hundred thousand dollars,” Jasmine replied. “Can you believe it? We would never have been able to trust her.”

“Quite right,” Habib said, and drove away.

The New York City police commissioner was having a sandwich at his desk and enjoying some unaccustomed solitude when his secretary buzzed. He picked up the phone. “I’m deep into corned beef and chicken liver at the moment,” he said. “Do you have something more important than that for me?”

“I have the chief of detectives for you, Commissioner—in the flesh.”

“Oh, shit, send him in, then.”

The man ambled into the commissioner’s office. “I’ve got an interesting homicide,” he said.

“As I recall, you get something like two-point-seven homicides a week, Dan.”

“Not many of them are as interesting as this one,” the chief replied.

The commissioner took a huge bite of his sandwich, put it down, and beckoned for the file as he chewed. He opened it and read the first page, then grabbed the diet soda and washed things down. “A hairdresser, shot twice in the head? What is it, some sort of high-fashion mob hit?”

“The hairdresser was known as Sheba, and she had a very fat client list of women of Middle Eastern background.” The chief paused, but the commissioner still didn’t seem to get it. “She is also renowned for turning her clients into blondes.”

The commissioner took another swig of his diet soda and pondered this, then his bushy eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit!”

“I thought you would say something like that. One of her employees told our detective that she was the last one out of the shop, at around nine last evening, and that Sheba—that is apparently her only name—locked the door behind her. This morning at seven forty-five, when she showed up for work, the door was unlocked. She had a look around and found nothing amiss, then she thought to look in the private room where Sheba took her personal customers and found her on the floor, with two bullet wounds to the head. Coroner reckons she died between ten and twelve last night. Sheba was not known for having customers after closing time—she was always out by eight or nine.”

“Anything interesting in the way of prints?”

“I thought you’d ask. Normally, everything would be wiped down by the cleaning lady, but Sheba called her yesterday and gave her the night off. The place is a swamp of prints, and we’re running them as we lift them, directly from the scene.”

“Ah, electronics!” said the commissioner, who had spent one hell of a lot of the city’s money on such gadgetry.

“Ah, indeed. So far we’ve identified a woman with a record of shoplifting and matched another set to those found at a burglary in the neighborhood two weeks ago. No name, so the burglar doesn’t have an arrest record anywhere.” The chief cleared his throat. “And the prints of one man.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“His name is Habib Johnson.”

“What, an Arab Swede?”

“Exactly. Arab mother, Swedish father, born in Brooklyn thirty-three years ago, earns his living from a small-time bookkeeping business, with a list of Arab and Arab-American clients.”

“Can we connect him to anything?”

“He was questioned late last year in an investigation of a gun-running ring operating between Virginia and here, but he was released without charges. He knew some of those involved, but we didn’t have enough evidence to connect him to the gun sales.”