"Gotta go," she finally said, and wriggled out of the car.

But then she leaned back inside. "I may not look it, but I'm happy. I'm so happy."

Then that little wink of hers again.

I watched Maria walk all the way up the steep stone stairs of the apartment building where she worked. I hated to see her go, and it was the same thing just about every morning.

I wondered if she'd turn and see if I'd left yet. Then she did – saw me still there, smiled and waved like a crazy person, or at least somebody crazy in love. Then she disappeared inside.

We did the same thing almost every morning, but I couldn't get enough of it. Especially that wink of Maria's. No one will ever love you the way I do.

I didn't doubt it for a minute.

I WAS A PRETTY HOT DETECTIVE in those days – on the run, on the move, in the know. So I was already starting to get more than my fair share of the tougher prestige cases. The latest wasn't one of them, unfortunately.

As far as the Washington PD could tell, the Italian Mafia had never operated in any major way inside DC, probably because of deals struck with certain agencies like the FBI and CIA. Recently, though, the five Families had met in New York and agreed to do business in Washington, Baltimore, and parts of Virginia. Not surprisingly the local crime bosses hadn't been too thrilled about this development, especially the Asians who controlled the cocaine and heroin trade.

A Chinese drug overlord named Jiang An-Lo had executed two Italian mob emissaries a week before. Not a good move. And reportedly the New York mob had dispatched a top hit man, or possibly a hit team, to deal with Jiang.

I'd learned that much during an hour-long morning briefing at police headquarters. Now John Sampson and I drove to Jiang An-Lo's place of business, a duplex row house on the corner of Eighteenth and M Streets in Northeast. We were one of two teams of detectives assigned to the morning surveillance, which we dubbed "Operation Scumwatch."

We had parked between Nineteenth and Twentieth and begun our surveillance. Jiang An-Lo's row house was faded, peeling yellow, and looked decrepit from the outside. The dirt yard was littered with trash that looked as if it had burst from a pinata. Most of the windows were covered with plywood or tin. Yet Jiang An-Lo was a big deal in the drug trade.

The day was already turning warm, and a lot of neighborhood people were out walking or congregating on stoops.

"Jiang's crew is into what? Ecstasy, heroin?" Sampson asked.

"Throw in some PCP. Distribution runs up and down the East Coast – DC, Philly, Atlanta, New York. It's been a profitable operation, which is why the Italians want in. What do you think of Louis French's appointment at the Bureau?"

"Don't know the man. He got appointed though, so he must be wrong for the job."

I laughed at the truth in Sampson's humor; then we hunkered down and waited for a team of Mafia hitters to show up and try to take out Jiang An-Lo. That was if our information was accurate.

"We know anything about the hit man?" Sampson asked.

"Supposed to be an Irish guy," I said, and looked over at John for a reaction.

Sampson's eyebrows arched; then he turned my way. "Working for the Mafia? How'd that happen?"

"Guy is supposed to be good. And crazy too. They call him the Butcher."

Meanwhile, an old, bowed-down guy had begun to cross M Street with deliberate glances left and right. He was slowly dragging on a cigarette. He crossed paths with a skinny white guy who had an aluminum cane cuffed at the elbow. The two stragglers nodded solemn hellos in the middle of the street.

"Couple of characters there," Sampson said, and smiled. "That'll be us someday."

"Maybe. If we're lucky."

And then Jiang An-Lo chose to make his first appearance of the day.

JIANG WAS TALL and looked almost emaciated. He had a scraggly black goatee that hung a good six inches below his chinny-chin-chin.

The drug lord had a reputation for being shrewd, competitive, and vicious, often unnecessarily so, as if this was all a big, dangerous game to him. He'd grown up on the streets of Shanghai, then moved to Hong Kong, then Baghdad, and finally to Washington, where he ruled several neighborhoods like a new-world Chinese warlord.

My eyes shifted around M Street, searching for signs of trouble. Jiang's two bodyguards seemed on the alert, and I wondered if he'd been warned – and if so, by whom? Someone on his payroll in the police department? It was definitely possible.

I was also wondering how good this Irish killer was.

"Bodyguards spot us yet?" Sampson said.

"I expect they have, John. We're here as a deterrent more than anything else."

"Hit man spot us too?"

"If he's here. If he's any good. If there is a hit man, he's probably seen us too."

When Jiang An-Lo was about halfway to a shiny black Mercedes parked on the street, another car, a Buick LeSabre, turned on to M. It accelerated, the engine roaring, tires squealing as they burned against the pavement.

Jiang's bodyguards spun around toward the speeding car. They both had their guns out. Sampson and I shoved open the side doors of our car. "Deterrent my ass," he grumbled.

Jiang hesitated, but only for an instant. Then he took long, gangly strides, almost as if he was trying to run wearing a full-length skirt, heading back toward the row house he'd just come out of. He would have correctly figured he'd still be in danger if he kept going and reached the Mercedes.

Everybody had it wrong though. Jiang, the bodyguards, Sampson and I.

The shots came from behind the drug dealer, from the opposite direction on the street.

Three loud cracks from a long gun.

Jiang went down and stayed there on the sidewalk, not moving at all. Blood poured from the side of his head as if there were a spout there. I doubted he was alive.

I spun around and looked toward the rooftop of a brown-stone connected to more roofs lining the other side of M.

I saw a blond man, and he did the strangest thing: He bowed in our direction. I couldn't believe what he'd just done. Taken a bow?

Then he ducked behind a brick parapet and completely disappeared from sight.

Sampson and I sprinted across M and entered the building. We raced upstairs, four flights in a hurry. When we got to the roof, the shooter was gone. No one in sight anywhere.

Had it been the Irish hitter? The Butcher? The mob hit man sent from New York?

Who the hell else could it have been?

I still couldn't believe what I'd seen. Not just that he'd gotten Jiang An-Lo so easily. But that he'd taken a bow after his performance.

THE BUTCHER FOUND IT EASY to blend in with the hot-shit college students on the campus of George Washington University. He was dressed in jeans and a gray, rumpled tee that said "Athletic Department," and he carried around a beat-up Isaac Asimov novel. He spent the morning reading Foundation on various benches, checking out the coeds, but mostly tracking Marianne, Marianne. Okay, he was a little obsessive. Least of his problems.

He did like the girl and had been watching her for twenty-four hours now, which was how she came to break his heart. She'd gone and shot her mouth off. He knew it for sure because he'd heard her talking to her best friend, Cindi, about a "counselor" she'd spoken to a few days before. Then she'd gone back for a second "counseling" session, against his explicit order and warning.

Mistake, Marianne.

After her noon class in hoity-toity eighteenth-century British literature, Marianne, Marianne left the campus, and he followed her in a group of at least twenty students. He could tell right away that she was headed to her apartment. Good deal.