Devils in Exile

Bounty

Lash met Tricky at dawn on the beach at Columbia Point. They crossed Day Boulevard into the park, walking wide around some citizens doing a daybreak boot-camp exercise class, running up bleachers and frog-walking across the field while instructors barked at them.

“Here’s two hundred bones, please kick my ass,” said Trick, the scar on his neck tightening as he chuckled within his hoodie. He had been about Rosey’s age when Lash saved his life on that Mattapan sidewalk. Rosey was still laid out in bed, snoring like a bear when Lash decamped, having stumbled in a few hours earlier. He’d been going with a girl recently. He had a lot of friends.

They crossed Old Colony near the JFK/UMass station, staying wide of the commuters, drifting underneath a bridge.

“Fuckers staying busy,” said Tricky. “I ain’t heard all that much, past couple a weeks, but I don’t hear everything neither.”

Lash said, “Street prices going up.”

“Up, up, up. Cost of doing business. Supply drying up all over. Seller’s market out here.”

No economic system was as pure and elastic as street economy. Tricky showed Lash what he had brought him here for, the tag on the stanchion beneath the bridge, painted red and fresh: BANDITS 25/PER D-O-A.

“A street bounty,” said Tricky. “Twenty-five g’s each. Dead or alive.”

“That’s a lot of bones.”

“Four bandits is six figs. Tol’ you this serious. Somebody gonna get popped.”

Lash foresaw dead-enders banding together, bandits hunting the Bandits, turning Boston into the Wild West. “Who put it out?”

“We in Broadhouse turf, but I’d put it on L or C.” Lockerty or Crassion, the other two Pins. “Probably Lockerty. It’s his house getting hurt the most.”

“You know this?”

“Who knows anything? It’s what I hear.”

“You wouldn’t just be protecting your own boss?”

“My boss of bosses. That’d be like you hustling to protect your top man in D.C. Broads can take care hisself.”

Lash unfolded the ATM surveillance photo, another copy, this one without Maven’s vitals on the back. Showed it to Tricky.

Tricky pointed to Vasco. “That Bob?”

“Who’s Bob?”

“What you call a guy, cut off his arms and legs, throw him in the river.”

Lash nodded. “That’s Bob. Vasco, the Venezuelan. What about the woman?”

“Shit. I remember blondes much better.” An ambulance siren went screaming past them, down the Southeast Expressway. “You got my attention though.”

“It could be coincidence, a blind alley, nothing.”

“Not if you’re showing it to me.” Tricky one-eyed the photo, working through it. “A girl, huh? Part of the outfit? What you think?”

Lash didn’t tell Tricky about the phantom minutes on Vasco’s mobile, and the bum numbers to a temp phone. Or what Schramm said about needing somebody close to get access to Vasco’s phone. The Venezuelan’s credit card indicated a bunch of restaurant charges in the weeks leading up to his death, the amounts indicating dinners for two.

The sun was coming up over the first buildings, oranging the bridge. Lash folded up the photo printout. “Let me hear from you. Anything. I want to be the one to settle this, not leave it to the streets. And, hey — if I hear you cashing in these mo-mos yourself, we don’t have a pleasant relationship no more, you feel me?”

Tricky flat-smiled him from within his heavyweight hoodie cowl. “I’ll take that under consideration.”