It worked like this. Say the horse wearing number thirty-eight came in sixth. That meant the sixth letter on the thirty-eighth page was the one you wanted. Big enough block of numbers, you could encode damn near any message you liked. Any message like a name and an address. Any message like take your time or make it look like an accident. And because nearly every letter of the alphabet appears in dozens of places throughout the course of any book, there’s none of the repetition code-breaking programs rely upon to work their mojo. Unless you knew what book the code was referencing-right down to the exact edition-there was no way you were ever going to crack it. At least, that’s what Lester kept on telling him once he’d identified the code itself.
Unless you get me the goddamned book, Mikey, he’d told Hendricks, ain’t no way we’ll break this thing.
So Hendricks got him the book.
Granted, it took him the better part of two years-and if his target hadn’t slipped, he might never have discovered it. Said target was a made guy who was picking up a little freelance wetwork on the side. Hendricks took him alive, and after a couple hours’ cajoling-and enough sodium amytal to make half a cell block sing-the guy told him what he wanted to know in return for ending him quick.
Turns out, it was the 1969 first edition of The Godfather.
Never let it be said the Mob doesn’t have a sense of humor.
After several minutes of poring over Lester’s printouts, Hendricks gave up. “You know I’m lousy at reading this stuff,” he said. “You want to tell me what exactly I’m looking at?”
“The first one’s a series of dispatches from the Chicago Outfit. Urgent, by the sound of ’em. Seems they’re looking to pop one of their own on the quiet-a capo’s nephew. He runs a nightclub the Outfit uses as a front to peddle Molly-but word is, the guy ain’t right. He likes cutting on women. They’re worried his extracurricular activities put them at risk, and they’re sick of cleaning up his messes.”
“Pass,” Hendricks said. He was no fan of organized crime, but one thing most old-school outfits had going for them was their disdain for crime of the disorganized variety on their turf-even if it was committed by one of their own. Anybody who cut women was a rancid pile of human garbage, and as far as Hendricks was concerned, there was no point saving someone who wasn’t worth saving. If Chicago wanted to take out their own trash, it was best to let them do it without a fuss.
“Yup. Good riddance, says I.”
Hendricks took a bite of his sandwich-the bread toasted to crunchy perfection, the pastrami juicy and delicious-and washed it down with a sip from his pint. “What else you got?”
“The Los Angeles mob just put a hit out on some gangbanger out of Long Beach. Nobody’s accepted the contract yet, so the details are a little light on the ground.”
Hendricks ate in silence for a moment. “You got a name on the target?”
“Yeah, and not much more. Born Irving Franklin. Receives mail at his grandma’s place. Doesn’t seem to have a fixed address.”
“Arrest record?”
“Vandalism. Petty theft. Possession with intent. The arresting officer on the latter rolled up a crew of corner boys who call themselves the Savage Prophets, and he was one of ’em.”
“Any reason these Savage Prophets would have a beef with the LA family?”
“None that I could find-and anyway, Franklin is the only one they’re looking to whack. They’re one of the few black gangs in the area not affiliated with the Crips. Could be the Prophets get their product from the LA family, which would make this a supply chain issue.”
“How old is he?”
Lester sighed. “Listen, Mikey, I know you, and I know what you’re thinking here. But Franklin isn’t some scared kid who fell in with a bad crowd-he’s a fucking drug dealer.”
“How old, Les?”
Les hesitated. “He’s sixteen.”
Sixteen. Jesus. “There a time line on the hit?”
“Nothing solid. Be a few days, at least.”
Hendricks finished his beer. Nodded as if something had been decided. “Get me on a flight to Long Beach. I want to give this kid a look.”
“You sure you don’t wanna sit this one out, Mikey? You’ve been running yourself ragged lately, and you haven’t even been home yet since your last job.”
“I’m fine, Les,” Hendricks replied. “Book the flight.”
“Say for a second that I’m wrong about this Franklin, and he really is a decent guy-there’s no way he’d be able to pay your fee. Only way he’d have the money’s if he’s crooked. You’ve said yourself you’ll never kill for free.”
“True. But I can warn him to get clear, at least.”
“And if I’m right? If this kid is just another piece of shit drug dealer?”
“If you’re right, I let him die.”
Lester studied his friend a moment, the lines in Hendricks’s face deepened by the angle of the light.
He’s looking old, Lester thought. Tired.
Not for the first time, Lester wondered just how long Hendricks could keep this up-and what kind of toll this job was taking on him. Gone was the scrubbed idealist he’d met those many years ago when their unit was first assembled. Then again, apart from him and Hendricks, gone was the whole damn unit. Maybe becoming something cold and hard was the only way to make it through.
Lester’d tried another route. Tried to put the past behind him. After his injury, Lester was of no further use to the military-his very existence a reminder to the current administration of the sins of the past. His discharge had been listed as general, as he knew it would be; regardless of how valiantly their unit served, their actions were covert and could never be acknowledged, so an honorable discharge was never in the cards. Still, after all he gave-and all he lost-it stung. And when his parents died just six months after he returned Stateside, burned alive in his childhood home when his mother fell asleep with a cigarette between her lips, he just gave up. He used his parents’ life insurance and his meager disability benefits to buy this bar-an utter shithole at the time-and spent the next year or so behind it, the place closed more often than not as he tried his damnedest to crawl into a bottle and die. He’d lost everything-his friends, his family, his hope, his sense of purpose.
Then one day, Michael walked through that door-back from the dead-and everything changed. Michael gave him hope. Gave him purpose. Gave him some small measure of absolution, as though he’d been sent by God himself to let Lester know the guilt he’d been carrying around for getting his unit killed was too much for any one man to bear. Michael represented both an easing of his burden and someone to help him shoulder the remaining load.
The money didn’t hurt, either. Anyone who says it can’t buy happiness should do without it for a while. The money he and Michael brought in turned the bar around-turned it into the kind of homey neighborhood place one goes to live a little, instead of just die slowly. And, more important, it got Lester out of the storeroom and into a proper apartment. He’d bought the bar before the market crashed, and by the time Mike found him, he’d been so far underwater he couldn’t afford a place to live, so he’d been sleeping on a cot in back. Now the bar was beautiful and so was his apartment, with its stunning view of Portland spreading out below him to the west and nothing but the icy blue Atlantic to the east.
Lester didn’t think of what they were doing as killing. The way he saw it, the balance sheet was murder-neutral either way. Either some poor schlub was getting whacked, or a hardened killer was. Hell, you take out a hardened killer, you’re probably saving lives.
He knew for damned sure they were saving him- nothing stronger than club soda’d passed Lester’s lips since the day they started on this little crusade.