But here, now, something bugged him. He’d blasted that flashbang grenade right in the middle of the three of them: Lennon, and his two Italian pals. If he wasn’t mistaken, the grenade actually nailed one of the wops right in the balls. No way he was up and about—checking bodies, smoking cigarettes, ordering pizza. Probably not his twin brother, either. Could be Lennon, but that didn’t make sense either. Saugherty had been standing a good ten yards behind Lennon. If Saugherty had been knocked out, Lennon’s head should have been knocked off.
He took a chance.
He peeked.
Nope. There was Lennon, sprawled on the concrete in what appeared to be a supremely uncomfortable position. Even for Tantric sex.
Which meant …?
A rough hand slapped him across the face. Saugherty’s eyes popped open.
“Hey there.”
The guy looking down at him … now this was a new character entirely. Saugherty tried spinning through his mental Rolodex but came up with a big goose egg.
“Who are you?”
“Michael Kowalski,” the guy said. He was thin yet muscular, with slightly beady eyes and razor-sharp black hair in a crew cut. He was wearing all black—even the gun rig strapped to his chest. “And you?”
“Saugherty. I’m an ex-cop.”
Then, playing a hunch:
“You look like you’re on the job, too.”
“I am. Sort of.”
“FBI?”
“Used to be. Bank robbery squad.”
“And now?”
“Something else.”
“CIA?”
“Something like that. It’s a department they don’t talk about much on the evening news.” Michael scanned the area around the pipe. “There are a lot of dead bodies. Some are already pre-bagged. What happened here, Saugherty?”
All of them dead? Including Lennon? Saugherty felt the white heat of hope burn in his stomach. It even eased the pain from the bullet.
“Guy in the white tracksuit is a bank robber. Did the Wachovia job on Friday. I’ve been pursuing him freelance. At the request of the mayor himself.”
Yeah, that sounded good. Even started out being true. In a way.
“The mayor? Really?”
“Yeah. Check with … well, Lt. Mothers is dead. But check with his replacement. You’ll see.”
Michael considered this.
“Are you sure the guy in the white suit is dead?” asked Saugherty. “He’s one tough fucker.”
“I checked for a pulse. Not much going on there. If he’s not dead yet, it’s a matter of minutes. So … wait a second. I can’t keep calling you Saugherty. That makes it sound like we’re in a bad TV cop movie. What’s your first name?”
A pause. “Harold.”
“Harry, is it?”
“No. Harold. That’s why it’s ‘Saugherty.’” He coughed up something wet. “Ah, shit, don’t make me laugh.”
“Harold, who are these other guys? They don’t look like bank robbers to me.”
“Some mobsters, I’m guessing. This bank robber, Patrick Selway Lennon, had a money-laundering deal with them.” Wow. That was good. Keep spinning, keep spinning. “There was even talk that they did the scouting for the Wachovia job. A pure moneymaker. They’re basically a bunch of washed-up losers trying to get back in the game.”
“Interesting,” Michael said, then walked over to the dead twins. Or what looked like the remnants of the dead twins.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Those your guys?” Saugherty asked.
“Nah. My guy’s over there.”
“Who?” Oh no. What was this? Was he one of Perelli’s guys?
“The bank robber in the white tracksuit. He was my brother-in-law. Or was going to be, anyway.”
Even though he was numb, Saugherty could feel the icy-blast effect of a cold fusion bomb in his stomach.
“Which brings me to my next question, Harold.”
“Yeah?”
“Why is there a photograph of my dead fiancée in your jacket pocket?”
Saugherty didn’t have an answer for that one.
So Michael Kowalski picked him up and threw him down the pipe.
Family
KOWALSKI CLEANED UP AS FAST AS HE COULD—YEP, there were sirens approaching. And no cover would be adequate to explain his presence in the middle of a Camden, New Jersey, bloodbath. Not even his government creds. So his valediction would have to be on the short side.
He rolled his dead brother-in-law-to-be over on his back.
“Nice to finally meet you, Pat,” Michael said.
Lennon stared up blankly. Dark blood had leaked from his tear ducts, nostrils, and ears—as if his brain were a tomato and someone had squished it.
“This is not how I imagined our first meeting. I was looking forward to our time in Puerto Rico. A little baccarat, some steaks, some rum. Not this.
“Well, perhaps this. Eventually. A brother-in-law on the Ten Most Wanted list can be a liability to a guy in my profession, you know? But to be honest, I hadn’t made up my mind about you yet. Katie was so in love with you—she idolized you. I didn’t see how you could possibly live up to your reputation.
“And now that I see you, and now that I’ve seen my dead fiancée and unborn child on a slab in a police morgue … well, I’ve gotta say. I’m disappointed. Did you even know her? Did you know she’d do anything for you?
“Ah, maybe I’m being harsh. I don’t even know you. Maybe you tried your best.
“Maybe you didn’t.
“Maybe I’m going to have to finish what you started here tonight.”
Michael stared down at Lennon and, after some consideration, made the sign of the cross. The sirens were almost upon him.
“Okay, good talk, bro.”
Michael picked up Lennon, then carried him over to the pipe.
Lennon floated across the blood-splattered concrete slab, his lifeless body headed toward the pipe.
Had he been a smoker, Lennon would have savored a last few puffs before smashing the butt into the metal lip of the pipe. Just one cigarette—something for the geeks in khaki pants and navy blue windbreakers to pick up with tweezers, drop into a thick Ziploc bag, tag, log, then store in their evidence cases.
Maybe someone would have gotten around to analyzing the brand, try to pluck some DNA from the butt.
Maybe some part of Lennon would have lived forever.
A Beautiful Friendship
OH, IT WAS BAD. SAUGHERTY DIDN ’T HAVE ANY ILLUSIONS. The wound under his right arm was pumping blood like a kid’s water pistol. The impact of sliding down the pipe had snapped his spine, and he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. He was folded like a V inside a dank, fetid, slimy, and circular metal coffin. There were soft, squishy things beneath him. Bodies. He had been to enough crime scenes to distinguish the degrees of ripeness.
But at least he wasn’t upside down. Saughtery could look up and see the night sky through the opening of the pipe.
Things were looking up already, he thought to himself, and chuckled, which hurt.
Then a hand appeared in the opening, and an arm. Draping itself over the side.
A head, in shadow.
What the hell … ?
The opening of the pipe suddenly went dark. Saugherty heard a scraping sound that became louder and louder until—
Impact. A hard skull pounded into his chest. An elbow smashed his nose, and another slammed into the middle of his left shin.
That Michael asshole had pitched his own brother-in-law—well, his almost brother-in-law—into the pipe.