The Alamo - John Milton #11 (John Milton Thrillers) Read online

  THE ALAMO

  MARK DAWSON

  CONTENTS

  I. Sunday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  II. Monday

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  III. Tuesday

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  IV. Wednesday

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  V. Thursday

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  VI. Friday

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  VII. Saturday

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Get Exclusive John Milton Material

  Also By Mark Dawson

  In the John Milton Series

  In the Beatrix Rose Series

  In the Isabella Rose Series

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  About the Author

  PART I

  SUNDAY

  1

  Tramon Howard looked around in disgust. There were a dozen men and women in a room that was big enough for half that many, and they lounged around in a squalor that he found difficult to stomach. There were piles of soiled clothes that had been removed and dumped in the corner next to soiled diapers from the unfortunate babies who were brought here by mothers focused on getting their next hit rather than on the well-being of their children. There were dirty mattresses with addicts sprawled across them, none of them moving even as cockroaches scuttled over them in search of the uneaten food that had been left where it fell. T-Bird bottles full of piss stood along the wall; some of them had toppled over to spill their contents across the naked floorboards.

  Tramon looked over at his number two, a white kid called Styles with a dirty face and hair that had been forced into ugly braids, and told him that he was going home.

  “A’ight,” Styles said. “You here tomorrow?”

  Tramon said he was, stepped over the arms and legs of his regular clientele, and followed the corridor to the front door. He opened it. It was freezing, and his breath clouded in front of his face. December in Brooklyn could get cold, and the weatherman on WCBS had warned that they were due a major snowfall before the week was out. That had set Tramon to thinking. The cats who bought his heroin might find it difficult to get to him if the streets were buried under snow. He spoke to Acosta about it, and they were going to empty out the rooms at the back of the house and put in more mattresses. That way, his customers could buy their gear and more of them could stick around to use it. They’d be a captive audience, too. Provided they had the cash, Tramon figured he’d be able to push more than he usually did. He had applauded himself for thinking of the idea. Acosta encouraged his dealers to think like entrepreneurs, and the Dominican had told Tramon that he was impressed. He used the word ingenuity. Tramon Googled it and found the definition flattering.

  The house was on the corner of Danforth and Crescent, just south of Cypress Hills station. It was a poor and down-at-heel part of Brooklyn that had been ignored by the tide of gentrification that had swept south out of Manhattan. Danforth Street was a two-block alley that ran east between Autumn Avenue and Crescent Street. The house was at the end of a row of attached brick buildings with bowed fronts that were typical to the streets in the area; some of them had ugly additions built, replacing what would once have been grassy front gardens. The house was shadowed by the elevated section of track that carried the J Train above Broadway, Fulton Street and Jamaica Avenue to the terminal at Parsons Boulevard.

  Tramon crossed the sidewalk and opened the door of his 1976 Ford Gran Torino. It was the two-door hardtop, and he had picked it up from a customer in Woodhaven in exchange for him wiping out the debt that the man had run up. He put the car into drive and pulled away.

  He didn’t notice the glare from the headlamp of the motorcycle that had been parked at the other end of the block. He didn’t notice as it, too, pulled away.

  He didn’t notice as its rider settled in behind him, following at a safe distance on the quiet streets.

  2

  Tramon never felt like eating while he was inside the house. The atmosphere was so unpleasant, and he found that the smell of the addicts—the sweat and the filth—robbed him of his appetite. He wound down the window to breathe in the fresh, cold air and found that he was hungry. He diverted to the 7-Eleven in Ridgewood, parked the Torino in front and went in. He bought a sandwich and a six-pack and took them back to the car. He pulled away again, found his way to Broadway and settled in for the short drive to his place in McCarren Park.

  He hit the lights on Union Avenue and glanced up into the rear-view mirror. The street behind him was empty. It was after
midnight now, and there were only a few cars around. A police cruiser turned out of Heywood and rolled up alongside him. Tramon knew he was good: he wasn’t carrying his piece, he only had a few hundred dollars on him, and the car was registered to him, just as it should be. The knowledge gave him the confidence to glance across the cabin and out of the window, eyefucking the cop, who glared back at him sourly.

  The light changed. Tramon let the cop pull out first, then tailed along behind him.

  Tramon’s place faced the Williamsburg waterfront on the East River and had a view of the city from Lower Manhattan all the way up to the Queensboro Bridge. He parked the Torino in the garage and went up to the fourth floor.

  His place was the corner apartment in a block and had big floor-to-ceiling windows that he left uncovered so that he could enjoy the spectacular view. It had rich, wide-plank American walnut floors, a custom-designed kitchen with a Sub-Zero fridge, Viking ovens, chrome hardware, and marble countertops with a pure crystal white backsplash. The bath was offset with custom tiling, and he had dropped a small fortune on contemporary chrome fixtures and a frameless glass-enclosed shower with rain head and separate soaking tub.

  He went into the living room. He reached for the light switch and then paused, changed his mind and went to the window instead. He stared out at the view. It was the reason he had bought the place. The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were right in front of him, slender daggers that glowed in the darkness. His business was in Brooklyn, and it made no sense for him to go and live on the island, but he found it reassuring to know that he would have been able to afford it if he so chose. To have the vista laid out for him here, his own private show, was a reminder of what his hard work had made possible.

  He saw the ghostlike reflection of the man behind him, but he didn’t have enough time to react; he felt strong hands on his shoulders before he was shoved, hard, across the room. He crashed into the sideboard and bounced back, turning around and walking into a straight right jab that connected flush on his jaw. It was a stiff blow, hard enough to tremble his knees. He was halfway through blinking the blackness out of his eyes when he was struck again, on the jaw once more, and he crashed back into the sideboard and slid down to land on his backside.

  He was woozy, but remembered enough to reach up for the knife on the kitchen countertop. It was an instinctive reaction that was, perhaps, one that he might have been better to ignore. His face was at the same level as the attacker’s knee and, before he had even managed to slide his fingers across the smooth marble to the block, the man had kneed him in the side of the head.

  A curtain of darkness fell over everything. He was aware of the side of his head bouncing against the floor before he blacked out completely.

  3

  Tramon was aware of a light shining directly at his face. His eyes were closed, the lids glowing so that he could see the lattice of veins that were spread across them. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again. The standard lamp with the adjustable bulbs had been moved across the room so that it was in front of him, and the light had been adjusted so that it shone into his face.

  He had seen the silhouette of a man sitting behind the lamp.

  “Hello.”

  Tramon tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “How’s the head?”

  He tried to move, but found that he could not. His arms were straight against his torso and his hands were in his lap. He opened his eyes and looked down: he had been trussed up with duct tape. He could see loops of it around his torso and arms; another loop kept his wrists together, and another secured his ankles.

  “What the fuck?”

  “I’m sorry about that. We wouldn’t have been able to have this chat otherwise.”

  Tramon squinted through the harsh glare. He was sitting in his armchair. The light had been moved away from the wall so that it was directly in front of him. The man was sitting behind the lamp on one of his wooden dining chairs. The rest of the room was still dark, with the sparkle of Manhattan still visible out of the windows beyond.

  “You’ve got a nice place here,” the man said. “How much would an apartment like this cost? A million?”

  Tramon tried to focus on him. The lamp in his face made it difficult, but, as his eyes adjusted, he could make out a few details. The man was dressed in black. He was wearing gloves and, as he looked up at his face, he saw that he was wearing a balaclava.

  “That’s all right,” the man said. “You don’t need to answer. I just need you to listen.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a concerned citizen. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Yeah? That right? And you know who I am?”

  “I know everything about you, Tramon. And you’re very boring. Small-time. So don’t waste your time thinking that you can frighten me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You have a place on Danforth Street. Somewhere you do business.”

  “What’s it got to do with you, man?”

  “You’re going to close it.”

  “Say what?”

  “You heard me.” The man reached up and adjusted the lamp so that the bulb shone directly into Tramon’s eyes. “I don’t want to see any more business being done there or anywhere near there. Understand?”

  “Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”

  “Like I said—I’m just a concerned citizen.”

  “You can take that and shove it up your—”

  The man leaned forward and, before Tramon could react, he punched him, hard, in the nose.

  “What the—”

  He hit him again.

  “Finished?”

  Tramon nodded.

  “Good. This is me asking you politely. I’d rather we could leave it at that. If I have to come and find you again, I won’t be so pleasant.”

  Tramon felt the blood running across his top lip. “You know who I represent?” he mumbled.

  “Of course. Carlos Acosta. And I don’t care. I’m talking to you, not your boss. Find somewhere else. Don’t make me come around again. You won’t enjoy it.”

  The man got up. He went behind Tramon and, when he returned into view again, he was holding up a bundle of bills and the Beretta that Tramon carried in his jacket.

  “You gonna rob me, too?”

  “This is for making me come all the way over here.”

  The man opened his jacket and shoved the bills inside. Tramon had hidden the money inside one of the kitchen cupboards. He couldn’t remember exactly how much was in the bundle—at least five grand. The man put the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and closed the jacket.

  “What about this?” Tramon said, jerking his chin down to point at the duct tape.

  “I’m going to leave you like that tonight so you can think about what I’ve said.”

  The man went into the kitchen and came back with the roll of tape. He unrolled it around Tramon’s head, covering his mouth but leaving his nose clear. He cut the tape with a knife and patted it down.

  “Remember,” he said. “Don’t make me come back again. I’m serious.”

  4

  John Milton went out into the corridor and followed it to the fire escape that he had used to gain access to the building. The door was still ajar; he pushed it open and climbed down to the ground. The apartment was in a converted warehouse right on the water. Milton had parked his motorcycle between a line of concrete posts that marked the end of North 3rd Street and the beginning of the narrow strip of land that ended with a fence and the river beyond it.

  He took off the balaclava and stuffed it in his pocket. He took his helmet out of the top box and put it on his head. He slid onto the bike, switched on the ignition and kick-started the engine. It was a sixteen-mile ride back to Coney Island.

  It was cold, he was tired, and he wanted to get to bed.

  But he was satisfied, too.

  He had staked out the shooting gallery for two days
, identified the man in charge of it and then put him under surveillance. He had followed him home the night before and had determined that tonight was the night to act. As Tramon had stopped off at the 7-Eleven, Milton had made the decision to get to the apartment before him so that he could surprise him as he arrived. And it had worked very well.

  Milton hoped that he had been persuasive enough.

  Milton rode south through Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook and Sunset Park, picked up the Belt Parkway and eventually crossed Coney Island Creek. He saw the struts and parasol of the old abandoned Parachute Jump ride on the boardwalk, dominating the skyline ahead of him as he drew closer and closer to the sea. He reached West 24th Street. His building was an ugly, brutal monstrosity that seemed to crouch on one side of the road, facing a similar building set on the opposite side in a fashion that suggested that they might launch themselves at each other. It was arranged in the shape of a short T, with two broad wings on either side of a stumpy protuberance. The central spine was seventeen storeys tall, and the flanks were marked with dozens of stingy windows that did not admit nearly enough light. Trees had been planted around the perimeter of the building, but the winter had stripped the leaves and now they just looked like bare skeletons exposed in the cold.

  Milton parked his bike next to a utility pole. He had left a thick lock and chain fastened around the pole. He unlocked it, fed the chain through the wheel, and locked it again.

  His apartment was on the fourteenth floor. Milton went in through the door and tried the elevator. It didn’t come. He went to the stairs and started to climb.

  Milton had done his homework. Most places available in the area at less than a thousand dollars a month were shared, and shared accommodation was something that Milton was not interested in investigating. He preferred his solitude, and he suspected the ‘young creatives’ who were advertised as already in residence in most of the available apartments would not have taken too kindly to someone like him as their co-tenant.

  He had logged onto Zillow and increased his maximum rent to $1,100 a month. That had presented him with a few more options that bore more promise. He had selected one—a one-bedroom apartment—and visited to check it out. The landlord was a Russian who either spoke no English or had no interest in conversation. He had unlocked the door and invited Milton to take a look around with a grunt that suggested he was putting him out by making him come over here. The apartment was tiny: a small kitchenette, a bathroom and a tiny sitting room with scuff marks on the tile indicating the spot where a bed must once have been positioned.