The Punisher: The Murdered World Ch. 02

She laid on the couch like a cat in the sun. Tall, sleek, and sinewy, there was still nothing pared down about her. Her strawberry blonde hair tousled all around her face, hiding it from view, but if it were anything like her body it'd be almost illegal. She was sylphlike, with only the most piquant of curves at her hips and chest, but the flare, swell, rise, and fall of her curvature still added up to a sinuousness that made for a contradiction in terms. It could harden a man at his groin and soften him at his heart.

Even Christina felt it, seeing that little kittenish creature in her frayed jean shorts and T-shirt that was like a threadbare rag thrown over her lean torso. Her pert breasts might not've needed a bra, but they were still enough to fill a mouth—male or female.

Christina felt a charge of annoyance. Angel would just love that, wouldn't he? Not only to fuck all the whores he wanted, but to have his wife join in, turn his marriage into a never-ending threesome. He'd swap out the sluts like this one until Christina made the trip from her early thirties to the big-F forties.

Then, Angel would pick one of those girls with a T—her twenties, her thirties—c'mon, it would be her twenties, if she wasn't in her teens—and Christina would be replaced.

Christina didn't like to yell, but Angel wasn't a man who appreciated poise. She raised her voice: "Angel Mercader, you're really going to bring your whores into my house and let 'em sleep in my living room?"

"Jesus Christ!" the woman said, turning about out of her sleep, showing Christina the face of her sister, Emma.

She was six years younger than Christina and solidly in her twenties. Since the last time they'd met, she'd grown her hair out into waves that were almost curls. Her face was soft but sharp, white gold with the tan anyone in Miami but Christina had to have.

Emma worked hard to keep her naturally pale skin from outright burning; Christina had never seen her outdoors without a hat. A delicate spray of freckles still crossed her neat, perfect nose. Her chin was impishly pointed and her eyes were as green as a bottle washed up on shore. Her lips were small but such a vivid, natural pink that she'd never needed the curves Christina possessed. It was enough to see that devilish little mouth smile and O and hopefully pucker.

She could've been much more of a brat than she was and men would've let her get away with it. She was beautiful, like her sister, but Emma was also appallingly pretty.

"Jesus, Christy, what the fuck?"

Christina wanted to apologize to her. She'd misread the situation and no doubt made everyone in earshot see her as more of a harridan than they already did. She would've explained herself... explained it wasn't the first time she'd run across some floozy coming out of the shower or frolicking in the pool... but the damage was done.

The household already saw her as a chilly bitch. The worst thing she could do was appear to be a bitch who ran hot and cold, weak and strong.

"What are you doing here, Emma?" she asked, crossing her arms.

Emma sat up. Her spaghetti-strapped top was like a basketball jersey, with such big armholes it practically had no sides at all. The sides of her snowy cleavage showed in the heartbeats between her moving and the top following.

"My boyfriend kicked me out. I'd say why, but I'm guessing you'd agree with him. So Angel said I could stay over." She pushed her gaze into Christina's eyes like needles. "Real cool guy you're married to, sis."

Christina pinched her lips together. "You're set up in a guest room?" she managed a moment later, when she was able to part them again.

"Yeah. It's about as big as the old apartment. I was having flashbacks, so I decided to sleep out here."

"Good to see you making yourself at home."

"And good to see you making home into—" Emma looked around. "A bejeweled eggshell."

"It's been featured in Architecture Monthly," Christina informed her.

"Can you tell how shocked I am that you read that?"

Christina crossed her wrists behind her back, pushing her chest out. She noticed Emma's eyes going enviously to her abundant bosom. "Dinner's at six, on the dot. If it's not too much trouble, maybe you could change into something with sleeves. Perhaps a skirt that reaches your knees. You know, so long as you have help, it behooves you to at least dress like you're better than them."

"That's you, sis. Better than everyone."

Christina ground her teeth behind placid lips. Between her husband and her sister, her world was suddenly under enough pressure to explode.

***

Caring was an occupation of the middle-class. The rich affected it and the poor discarded it. When Frank parked his car at Lulu Coffee and helped the semiconscious girl through the push-door and over to a booth, the few looks he got were to ascertain that he wasn't a threat.

No one looked twice at the girl. But Frank noticed that the waitress didn't make an approach. He guessed he didn't look like much of a tipper.

Frank had taken his bloodstained jacket off merely as a precaution. Without it to cover his S.O.B. holster, he'd taken the rig off and stuffed his Glock into the waistband of his pants, covered by his untucked shirt. Safety on. No round chambered.

Frank's interest in sex had died with his wife. But enough Mafiosos had threatened to castrate him that he saw no point in doing it himself. Why spoil the fun of anyone good enough to run him down?

Matt Peters showed up shortly. The detective had it in him to be police commissioner: he was blandly handsome, aside from an unfortunate soul patch. Had a deep speaking voice. Was halfway competent and knew how to read the room well enough to avoid the media scrounging him over a racial slur, or something they'd decided was now a racial slur.

The fact that he hadn't made lieutenant spoke more to his politics than to his skills. Peters wanted to jail bad guys, not get promoted. And like most cops, he'd realized the system was set up more to control crime than to punish it. Decades of imprisonment for hate speech, so long as it was hating the wrong people, while rape got months of jailtime.

America or people who thought they were America had decided that what offended them superseded what offended God; the taxpayers didn't get the police force they paid for, but the one the politicians and the journalists and the college professors left behind after all their bitching was done.

Did it protect them? It was too busy protecting itself.

Some cops got comfortable with that. They kept their heads down and their eyes on their pension. But some compromised in other ways. They saw what Frank Castle was doing and knew that it worked.

This was a punishment that couldn't be tossed out by high-priced lawyers or activist judges. It couldn't be argued with or mollified or bargained down. It was Nature in an urban landscape that thought it had eradicated the primitive.

The Punisher hunted the predators as the sheepdog hunted the wolf. No politics, no sophistry, no moral relativism. Frank Castle boasted a zero percent recidivism rate.

But he was one man. The vast octopus of the Mafia could not be taken head-on. It had to be cut away one tentacle at a time. So Frank fought an insurgency against an empire of crime. He struck where the strong didn't know they were vulnerable.

Wiping out the Mob's numbers. Burning away their resources. Exposing and eliminating them under whatever name they hid behind, then disappearing before the full might of American crime could be brought to bear on him.

Men like Peters made it possible. Far from the compromise and corruption of the brass, boots on the ground like him knew what had to be done and knew the Punisher had the grit to do it. They gave him what tools they could and when he was done, they mopped up the mess. And Frank would be in a new city, cutting the Mafia in a new place where they didn't know that they could bleed.

"Jesus, who's this?" Peters asked as he slid into the booth opposite Frank, seeing the girl sagged against the window, blinking owlishly.

"Didn't come here to talk about her," Frank said simply. "Tell me about Angel Mercader."

Peters took a deep breath. He had misgivings about the Punisher. Frank knew any good cop had to. But in a fight for survival, you had to win before you worried whether you could sleep at night.

"You probably know as much as I do. Angel is the Mafia's top man in Miami. Ties to Cuban intelligence, and Cuban organized crime, as if there's any difference. His people smuggle refugees from Cuba, if they can afford to pay, and still they filter the Cubans into positions Angel wants filled. Prostitutes, drug mules, day laborers, legbreakers. Angel's got it all sewn up. He even has people in INS. If he wants someone gone, one phone call and they're deported."

"Where's he live?" Frank asked.

"Jupiter Island, cheek to jowl with George H.W. and Tiger Woods. He's got his mansion set up right on the beach and he still built an Olympic sized swimming pool."

"Blueprints?"

"I can get them. If you're serious about this."

"Do I not look serious?" Frank asked. "I'll need everything you can get on Jupiter Island and I'll need it gotten quietly."

"I can get what I need without making waves. But you're really going to just kick down the door with this guy? His place is a fortress—he has a small army there!"

"Small," Frank grunted, and it was something like a laugh. "There much boating around Jupiter Island?"

"It's Miami," Peters told him. "But these thugs he keeps around, they've got nothing better to do all day than stomp their boots around. I can't tell you how many complaints we've got from fishermen, beachcombers... it's like Angel thinks no one else has a right to even look at his place."

"I'll keep my distance," Frank assured him. "Until I don't. If this neighborhood is as upscale as you say, boat's the only way to do surveillance."

"They'll notice the same boat parked on their doorstep day and night."

"It's not about being invisible, it's about being harmless."

"What about weapons?"

Frank half-grinned. "I've got that covered. I'm following Angel's wife on Instagram."

"Jesus," Peters burst out. "There's something I never thought I'd hear you say."

"She and hubby are going to a charity ball tonight. I want you parked outside it. The moment Angel leaves, text me."

"He'll have bodyguards."

Frank shook his head. "Angel's smart. You can see it on his social media. When he goes out in public, he makes sure any assassination would rack up a lot of collateral damage. It'll be at his house, after the servants have left for the night. All I'll have to worry about is the wife."

"I've seen her in the society pages. She seems nice enough. Be a shame if she caught a stray shot."

"She's well-padded," Frank replied.

"Like I said. A shame."

"I'll check my fire. Knowing Angel, it's doubtful she'll throw herself in front of him."

"Guess it depends on if she's in the will or not," Peters cracked. "You're really doing this tonight? You even have a hotel room, man?"

"The clock's ticking. Once they know I'm in town, this gets a lot harder. That's why the girl's here."

Peters glanced over at her. She was still in shock. "Yeah, I was wondering about her."

"Stop wondering. You saved her. Damn fine police work. You might want to call in the shooting, now that you've calmed down the victim." Frank placed the slide of his 9MM on Peters' side of the booth. "Trade you."

"Goddamn!" Peters muttered, knowing this was a test, resenting being tested—but the thought of Miami without Angel Mercader was too good not to reach out and grab.

Under the table, he unholstered his 9MM, took off the slide, and tossed it to Frank.

"So, this the kind of save we hold a press conference about or the other kind?"

"Don't expect a medal," Frank told him.