Ray eased the arm hold a fraction. “Yeah?”
“Jesus,” Tony said. “Yeah.”
Ray held for a second, then let up a little more. After another pause, just for good measure, he said, “I’m getting off.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Tony said. “Don’t get any on me.”
Ray moved a hand to the back of Tony’s head. He pressed down, let the arm lock go, and stood up.
Tony pushed himself up and hung for a second, resting on his hands and knees. He caught his breath, rolled his shoulder. Spat more blood, plus a tooth.
Motherfucker.
He grabbed the edge of the coffee table, pulled himself up to his feet.
Ray stood between Tony and the front door, working his jaw. He dabbed a bleeding cut at the corner of one eye with the back of a hand.
Tony straightened. Slowly.
He said, “Thought you had my back.”
“This is me getting your back,” Ray said.
They leaned against each other then, stood there, breathing like bulls. Tony grinned. It hurt.
“So what now?” he said.
“You tell me, partner.”
It was a tooth from the bottom Ray had knocked out. Broken off right at the gum line; Tony could feel jagged shards of enamel with his tongue. His mouth had filled up with blood.
He swallowed. Sighed. “It’s been a long day.”
Ray nodded. “I know.”
“A long fuckin’ day, brother.”
“Ride with me to the station,” Ray said. “I’ll change up. We’ll go get drunk.”
Tony straightened again, looking away. He finally sighed. Nodded. “Okay.”
When he saw Ray’s hand move away from the butt of his service weapon, he added, “Hey?”
“Yeah,” Ray said.
Tony head-butted him in the face.
Ray stumbled back. Without waiting, Tony dropped his good shoulder and rammed him in the gut, using his legs.
You had to hand it to Ray Salcedo. He recovered quick for a guy who’d been head-butted in the face. He lowered his center of gravity and spread his legs, instinctive as breathing, not only staying on his feet but gaining leverage again.
Tony sacrificed his position and jammed a thumb in Ray’s eye. He finally heard the guy grunt, like he’d actually been hurt. He shot in like a high school wrestler, grabbed a leg, lifting and driving forward at the same time.
Ray twisted and tried to drop even lower. Tony stepped in front of his other leg and shoved.
They went down again, Ray headfirst, Tony riding his back, into the coffee table Eddie had given him. The table collapsed under their weight in a twist of chrome and a crash of glass.
“Booya!” Tony said.
He punched Ray twice in the kidney before rolling off, not wanting to get into more Greco-Roman bullshit on the floor. He planted his elbow in a pile of glass and sucked air through his teeth at the pain.
But he still made it to his feet first.
Now it was Ray on his hands and knees, slowly pushing himself up out of the rubble. Tony put a boot in his ribs and stepped back.
Blood streamed from his nose. He felt more dripping from his fingers. He stood there, out of breath again, sporting another new set of wounds.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “We’re splitting sixty–forty.”
Ray made a strange gurgling sound.
Tony finally noticed the way he pawed at his collar. He said, “Ray?”
Ray lowered his hand. He gagged, and something wet hit the carpet. For a moment, Tony thought he’d vomited.
Then Ray sagged against the couch. Tony finally saw the scythe-shaped shard of glass in his partner’s throat.
“Oh, shit.” He hurried over, dropped down. “Shit. Hang on.”
Ray worked his mouth without making a sound. The blood seemed to be falling out of his neck in sheets. Tony reached out and took the glass in his fingers; a new gout pumped from the wound, pouring over his hand.
“Hang on, partner.” Tony looked at Ray, forcing eye contact. Ray’s gaze had gone vague. “Just hang on.”
His heart raced now. He didn’t know what to do with all this blood coming out. Before Tony could stop him, Ray finally managed to pull the glass out himself.
“No! Shit. Goddammit.”
It came in a hot flood now, bright red. Arterial. The front of Ray’s duty shirt was soaked, dark blue turned black, silver badge turned red. Tony’s hands were slick to the wrists.
He eased Ray back and pressed down on the wound. He tried to clench the flow off in his fist. Ray grabbed his free hand, but his grip had no strength.
Tony shook free and tore the comset off Ray’s shoulder. His fingers were so slippery that he couldn’t hold it. He fumbled the unit, picked it up again.
Ray coughed. A wet, congested heave.
It didn’t take much longer after that.
For a long time, he stood there in the demolished apartment, looking down at Ray’s body.
The carpet had soaked up a lake of blood. Tony was covered in the stuff; he couldn’t tell what was his and what was Ray’s. Ray lay there in the middle with his eyes still open. He almost looked gray.
At some point, Tony found himself in the bathroom, looking in the mirror. His nose was broken. He had a knot on his forehead, and his upper lip was pulped out on one side.
A sharp pain caught his attention. He looked all over, finally pulled a long sliver of glass out of his elbow. It was easy to grab, now that his hands were sticky. Ray’s blood had already started drying in his fingerprints, the grooves of his palms.
At some point, Tony glanced at his watch and coughed out a laugh.
It hit him like a knife in the ribs, but he couldn’t help it. It just seemed so utterly, impossibly fucked up.
All this, and it wasn’t even eleven-thirty yet.
Standing there, numb, trying to decide what to do, Tony finally followed the only real urge he had:
He stripped out of his gore-soaked clothes and got back in the shower. Cranked the water on hot as it would go.
Tony Briggs hung his head in the gathering steam. He let the water run over him. Watching the runoff turn red and swirl down the drain, he thought of Ray, dead in the living room. He thought of Eddie in a tray at the morgue.
As the warm water slowly loosened the aches, Tony thought of the fake identities all three of them had kept on hand. Just in the unlikely event that everything went to hell in a hurry.
He thought of other things.
Pretty soon, he grabbed the soap and started scrubbing.
32
The Homey Inn sat askance in the bend where Saddle Creek turned, a lone cracker box with a covered porch and neon eyes.
It was the kind of bar Worth’s dad would have liked on a Sunday afternoon: a dark smoky nook with lacquered tables, low ceilings, and newspapered walls, where they served warm peanuts in dog bowls and cheap champagne on tap.
An hour before last call on a Thursday, the place was half packed with college students, slumming office types, and the barflies who had been there since lunch.
They lucked into the booth least visible from the door. Back corner, half tucked behind a vertical air shaft and the scratch card machine. Worth took the view of the bar; Gwen wriggled out of her coat and hung it on one of the booth-side hooks.
“This still doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“Don’t worry.” He had to raise his voice over the thump of the jukebox. “Everything’s set.”
“Well, I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m ready for a drink.”
She headed for the bar before he could ask her to sit tight. Worth kept his eyes on the door.
While Gwen was gone, he reached under his shirt and pulled the concealed microphone plug half out of its jack in the transmitter. He gave the plug a wiggle, just for a second. Then he jacked the line back in again.
His cell phone vibrated on the table. Worth flipped it open and said, “I’m here.”