“Do I know him?”
“No … not really.”
“So I fookin’ do know him. What’s his name?”
“Oh, Patrick.”
“His first name, at least.”
“You know, this really isn’t the way I imagined this. I had Vueve Clicquot. I had reservations. I had it perfectly planned.”
“Yeah, so did I.”
They sat there in silence. Mulling things over. Waiting for the doctor to arrive. Sunlight was starting to creep around the cheap fabric window shades.
“I’m going to have to find that money,” Lennon said, at long last.
“Why?”
“You’re going to need a crib.”
“Michael has … shit.”
“Michael? Fucking Michael who?”
Lennon spun through his mental Rolodex of pro heisters, but nothing came to mind. Common enough name, Michael. But he really didn’t know any. At least, he hadn’t worked with any Michaels in the past few years. Had he? Unless it was that … nah. Couldn’t be.
“Okay. Last name.”
“Never you mind. Keep your mind on the money. You hate being distracted in the middle of a job, remember?”
“Too fookin’ late for that.”
“Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a shithead. We can just walk away. Last time I balanced the checkbook, we were doing okay. This money was for the future.”
“I have more immediate needs.”
“Like what?”
“Like I need $350,000 to pay for this house and torn-up suit I’m wearing.”
“It’s a nice suit, but I think you paid too much for the house.”
Lennon chuckled, in spite of himself. It broke the dam. He could be himself with his sister. She was the only person in the world he felt comfortable around.
So he told her everything that had happened since Friday morning—the double cross, the attempted burial at the pipe down by the river, the dorm, the car theft, the rogue cop, the gunshot wound, the threats, the black guys with guns, the burning house, the 7-Eleven heist, the parking lot, the meeting with the junior-grade Mafioso, the deal, the trip to Wilcoxson’s condo … .
Lennon lapsed into Gaelic every so often, but Katie understood enough to follow. She had grown up in the U.S., and had a faint New England accent. Lennon had spent most of his time in Listowel, and then Dublin, before emigrating to the U.S., mostly to find his sister. Their parents had died years before.
“If you want the money, there’s one thing you have to do.”
“What’s that?” Lennon asked.
“Go back to the pipe, and see who’s buried there.”
“You’re thinking of Bling.”
“I’m thinking of Bling.”
Lennon sighed. “I’m not sure what I want more—to find his body, or not to find his body.”
“I think you want to find his body.”
That’s when the doorbell rang. Dr. Bartholomew Dovaz was back for the second time in a twelve-hour period.
“I’ll get it,” Lennon said. “But as soon as he leaves, you’re telling me which Michael defiled you.”
Back to the Pipe
WHEN DR. DOVAZ TOOK THE WOMAN INTO THE BATHROOM, and the guy, Patrick, went downstairs to use the half bathroom, Lisa took the opportunity to split.
Things happened quickly after that.
Lisa’s dad kept trying to yell at her, trying to be the father—What the hell were you doing in that house? Is that your house?—but Lisa wasn’t hearing that. She kept pounding him with what she’d learned, over and over again. The guy is a murderer. He killed Andrew. He killed Mikal. He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the river. The guy is a murderer! He killed Andrew! He killed Mikal! He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the fucking river!
Eventually Lisa’s dad saw the light of reason and assembled a team. It wasn’t hard to find the pipe Lisa was talking about. There was only one major construction project down on the Delaware River. The new children’s museum. Lisa’s dad’s team took shotguns, baseball bats, and baling hooks. They didn’t need the first two items. Everybody inside the pipe was dead. They recovered six bodies before reaching mud and clay at the bottom of the pipe. Two of the faces matched a photo they were given, a black-and-white promotional photo of a band called Space Monkey Mafia. It was the bass player and the keyboard player.
The team knew the keyboard player. It was Lisa’s boyfriend, Andrew.
Andrew didn’t look too good. He had a black Bic pen sticking out of his neck. Blood had caked and dried all around it.
They called it in to Lisa’s dad, and he told them to dump all the bodies down the pipe again. No questions; just do it. So they did.
“But before you do,” Lisa’s dad said, “take the pen out of the boy’s neck. And bring it to me.”
SUNDAY P.M.
I want you all to know that I don’t take no orders.
—“BABY FACE” NELSON
Ink and Blood
WHEN LENNON WOKE UP AGAIN, HE WAS TIED TO A chair, and his throat was sore.
Other people were in the room. Which was not the room he’d fallen asleep in. The last thing he knew, he had been given a shot of painkillers. He didn’t want the doctor to give him something that would render him unconscious. “Don’t worry,” the doctor had said. “This’ll just take the edge off.”
Lennon’s vision focused a bit. He saw Katie in the corner of the room. Her hands were behind her back. She was wearing stark white lipstick, and her eyes looked puffed shut. Somebody held a gun to her head.
Now somebody slapped him in the face.
“Hi, Dillinger,” a male voice said. He had said it the correct way—Dill-ING-er. Most people thought it was dill-IN-jer, like the pistol. “Glad you could join us.”
Lennon tried to count the people in the room. Aside from his sister. He got up to five before somebody slapped him again.
“Stay with us,” said the same voice. “This is important. This concerns you, and your pregnant girlfriend there.”
Pregnant girlfriend my arse. Lennon wanted to shout it at the top of his lungs. He was tired of the charade. It was a handy charade—people assumed they were a couple, so let them think that. It made tracking them down all the more difficult. But that didn’t really matter now, did it? They were already tracked down.
“What the fuck did you give him, Dovaz? Horse tranks?”
“I gave him what he required.”
“Jesus. The guy’s a fucking zombie.”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely the fault of my medication.”
Another slap—harder this time. Lennon felt his teeth vibrate in his gums.
“You see this, Dillinger?”
Lennon focused. He saw a beefy hand holding a pen.
“You stuck this pen in a kid’s neck a few days ago. You remember that?”
The hand clenched the pen tighter. Lennon could make out the crimson glaze that still caked it. Holy Jesus. This guy had been down in the pipe.
“That kid was my daughter’s boyfriend.”
Who knows, Lennon thought. Maybe he was your daughter’s brother. It’s not right to jump to conclusions like that.
“Are you going to say something, you mute bastard?”
Lennon opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
He was going to say: “Fuck you, ya cunt.”
But he couldn’t.
“Trying to talk, ain’t ya? Well, you can’t. For real now. I know you were playing me—my daughter told me she heard you talking. Those days are over, fucker.”