Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

To Kill a Cop by D. M. Downing

The old cop had said, “Nobody can stay just half-hood, Johnny. There always comes a time when he’s got to go all the way... or else.” Johnny fingered the stiletto in his pocket and he knew that the time had come.

Johnny Manse stepped out of the bright October daylight into the musty dimness of the Silken Peacock. Crossing the room to his usual table in the corner, he heard the muted rumble of the juke-box and felt the familiar hush of the underworld hangout pour over him. He smiled grimly to himself. Harry’s fancy name for the bar had been a hopeless attempt to give it class. It was still a dive.

Johnny sat down and scanned the room. A lush or two and a couple of small-time chiselers. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock in the morning. No self-respecting crook would even be up at this hour, much less out. But Johnny had been covering the streets of the 96th Precinct for two hours, stopping here and there, waiting for Harry to open up.

A guy in the confidence game has to keep in touch, he told himself. But the real reason for his early-morning prowl — the killing — he kept pushing below the conscious surface of his mind.

Harry brought his drink, the fat face grinning its usual happy welcome. “You ever see daylight before, Johnny?” he kidded, wiping his hands on his aproned stomach.

“Listen to the guy with the neon tan, would you?” Johnny grinned back at the bartender’s pasty face.

Harry Donato and Johnny Manse had been friends since they were kids on Lacy Street. And though Harry had not followed the rest of the gang into the rackets, Johnny knew that behind the amiable fat was the same tight-lipped Harry who held answers to questions a whole generation of cops were still asking. If anybody knew anything about this deal it would be Harry.

“What’s new, Harry?” Johnny asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.

“Not much.” Harry was mopping the table with a towel. “Same old grind.”

Johnny made his tone as casual as the way he picked up his glass. “I hear Jim Cole is out of stir.”

“Yeah,” but Harry’s smile had faded, “he was in last night with Morelli and Burke.”

Johnny kept the pace slow and tossed Harry the old joke they’d kept going since the early days. “How’re you fixed for police protection, Harry?” A cop was about as welcome in Harry’s joint as a case of measles, but Johnny wasn’t laughing this time. The joke needed a different answer.

The bartender was folding his soggy towel into a meticulous square, and Johnny knew Harry had that answer.

“There’s some who think we got too many cops in this precinct.” Harry’s dark eyes swept up to meet Johnny’s so briefly a less skilled man would have missed their portent.

Then, as quickly as it had disappeared, the smile was back. “I’ll bring you another drink.” And the bartender hurried away with the empty glass.

So the little lush he’d run into last night had somehow got hold of the real dope, and — if Johnny could guess at all — the punk was probably keeping the bottom of the West River company right now.

A shudder went through him and he shifted in his chair to bring out a small knife from the pocket of his topcoat. Cole was back after ten years in stir. He’s gonna get the bull that put him away, the drunk had garbled. And Harry had backed it — too many cops in this precinct. It was Mahoney all right. His testimony had been the clencher that nailed a ten-year murder rap on Cole.

So, okay! He’d got a tip and he’d been curious. Now he knew. Johnny flicked the button on the tiny stiletto and watched the silver flash of the steel blade. How many cops had he seen picked off in his thirty years without losing any sleep over it? He took a candle from it’s holder on the table and began to carve on it.

But as he watched the wax chips fall he thought of Mahoney again. Somehow he couldn’t make this deal set right. A cop was a cop and Johnny steered clear of all of them. Hell, Cole’s right. There are too many of them. There’ll always be too many.

It was just that Pop Mahoney had never been a cop to him the same way the others were. Say that out loud, con man, he warned himself quickly, and you’ll be fish-food too.

Johnny thought back to the old days of the neighborhood here, when Mahoney was a beat-cop over on Lacy Street. There had even been times when Pop was more like Johnny’s old man might have been — if he’d ever had one. Johnny laughed, Damned if he wasn’t almost a member of the gang in those days. The way he helped them with this and that, fronted for them when they got in trouble. Always trying to make something out of them besides hoods.

And every darned one of them was a hood today, except Harry. Johnny ticked them off in his mind: Nick Morelli, dope syndicate; Charlie Burke, protection racket; Jim Cole, professional killer. And Johnny Manse, top man in the con game, they called him. The others in the gang were either working for one of the Big Three or were on Johnny’s payroll.

Where the devil is Harry with that drink!

Above the pile of chips, Johnny smiled to himself as he remembered that Pop was almost pleased with Harry. He recalled one of the cop’s grave speeches to his friend:

“All your crimes, Harry, are going to be sins of omission. But they’ll be bad enough, lad — you’ll have to watch it.”

And bad enough they were, Johnny laughed again. Harry’s business thrived on racket money.

Harry’s fat hand passed in front of him and put a drink on the table.

“Still got it, eh, Johnny?”

Brought too quickly from his thoughts, Johnny raised an eyebrow at Harry.

“Your lucky-piece, kid,” Harry explained quietly, pointing to the knife. “You’ve had it a long time.”

“Yeah,” Johnny’s glance met Harry’s dark, brooding eyes and held a minute. “Yeah,” he repeated soberly.

The bartender pulled out a chair and sat down. He remained quiet, but as he folded his arms on the table, Johnny knew they were thinking of the same thing.

He and Harry didn’t see much of each other anymore, but years ago on Lacy Street they’d been like brothers. Johnny and the Donato boys, Harry and Dominick, had grown up in the same tenement house, belonged to the same gang, fought the same battles for survival. It was Dominick’s knife that Johnny had carried as part of himself for fifteen years. The special-made keepsake from the old country — the lucky-piece he held now.

He felt his jaw tighten at the misnomer. Johnny carried it — maybe for luck, he didn’t know — but it had brought no luck to Dominick Donato the night a rival gang cut him down in an alley.

Johnny and Harry had found the slender three-inch stilleto, unopened, on the blood-smeared pavement by Dom’s hand.

“You remember who paid for Dom’s funeral?” Harry spoke as though continuing a conversation. “Pop Mahoney,” he answered himself quietly and looked penetratingly at Johnny.

Avoiding the stare, Johnny clicked the stiletto shut and laid it on the table. “How about another drink, Harry?” he asked, downing the one in front of him.

Johnny lighted a cigarette and watched Harry’s fat figure return to the bar. Hell, is he plugging for Mahoney? He knows better than that. He must be sampling his stuff here.

Johnny’s eyes went back to the stiletto on the table. He used to do some pretty sharp knife-throwing when he was a kid. Just for kicks. But, for some screwy reason, he’d never wanted to throw that stiletto. He glanced at Harry and stiffened against thoughts he couldn’t shake.

Harry was never meant to be any kind of hood. But it was that night in the alley, fifteen years ago, when Johnny had know that he could go only so far with it himself. He could still feel the pain that had filled him when he’d looked at Dom. And he couldn’t forget the dark torture in Harry’s eyes as Johnny had tried to hand him his brother’s knife.

“You keep it,” Harry had said in a trance-like tone. “You... you loved him too.”

At fifteen, they’d long ago forgotten how to cry. But that night as they’d stared through the dark, each had seen the other’s hate for the thing that still hovered in the alley.

And the surest damned way to find that kind of thing, Johnny brought himself angrily from the past, is to try to stop it.

“Never saw you take three in a row before, Johnny,” Harry’s tone seemed odd to Johnny as he set the new drink down.

“You pushing for the temperance league or something?” Johnny asked coldly. But inside every nerve was suddenly raw. I’ve got to get out of this dump, he told himself.

“Johnny Manse,” the bartender smiled, as Johnny swallowed his drink and stood up, “smoothest operator in the business. Dressed like a Wall Street broker and cold as a marble slab.”

The smile never wavered, but Johnny saw now that the dark eyes were studying him. “Don’t nothin’ bug you anymore, Johnny?”

A funny feeling came over him as he realized that Harry was the only guy in the world he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — con. “Sure, Harry — sure, lots of things bug me. Cops, for instance.”

That was an old joke, too, but he saw the tension leave the fat face, and he knew he’d been understood.

Outside, Johnny hailed a cab and climbed in. That damned Harry must be gettin’ squirelly, he told himself, as he settled against the seat. What kind of a crack was that to make? Does he expect me to do something about this? Johnny Manse had stayed alive this long by minding his own business. A guy was either on one side of the fence or the other. He made his choice and took his chances. Pop was no exception.

But inside the con man there was a Johnny who knew different. This Johnny was a ragged little kid on Lacy Street looking up into the face of an Irish cop, who held a bag of peppermint sticks.

“Hell!” Johnny pulled out his cigarettes and jammed one in his mouth. I’m getting sappier than Harry. Mahoney sent Cole to the pen for ten years and no sack of candy is going to make Cole forget it. This is the kind of thing nobody meddles with.

In the living room of his apartment, Johnny stood in his bathrobe trying to open a bottle of cognac, when he decided he needed his knife. He went to the closet and searched the pockets of his suit. Finding nothing, he got his topcoat and went through it. The knife wasn’t there.

An alarm swept over him that seemed unreasonable. He had no need for weapons. He hated them. Yet Dom’s stiletto was something else.

He went slowly back to the living room and poured a drink of bourbon while he thought of the fine bone and tempered steel. He had never been without the little knife since he’d owned it.

Johnny emptied his glass and walked restlessly to the window. Looking out over the smudged and throbbing city, he wondered how Cole planned to give it to Mahoney. Would it be like it had been with Dom?

A little dog wormed his way through the traffic below and Johnny thought of the pup Mahoney had once given him for Christmas. A hundred years ago! Johnny sneered and turned abruptly from the window.

Cole’s good with a shiv — equally good with a rod. Pop’s old — not very quick anymore — he won’t be expecting it. Suddenly Johnny saw the Irish Cop’s face lying in the pool of blood where he’d last seen Dominick Donato.

His hand shook as he poured another drink and tried to remember all the times Pop had hauled him in or fouled up a job for him. But all he could think of were the hundreds of times Mahoney had tried to steer him away from the rackets.

“Get out of it while you can, son,” the old man had said once. And the memory of the still-unconquered brogue was a strange ache somewhere in Johnny. “You’ve not got the stomach for it, boy.” Pop’s mouth had-curved in gentle irony. “You wouldn’t even make a good cop. I know — I’ve watched you.”

“Sure, Pop. I know!” Johnny had snapped impatiently. “So I’m no good with rods and shives. I don’t need ’em — I do it the easy way. So lay off, will you!”

There had been a mixture of disappointment and contempt on Mahoney’s face when he’d answered.

“Kid, you’re nothin’ but a punk right now, who can’t sec past his nose. How long do you think you can stick to your private little ways?” The gray eyes had grown wet with frustration. “One of these days, Johnny, you’re going to have a dissatisfied client. And it’s going to take some of Nick’s or Charlie’s men to keep you out of a real jam. If they don’t get you in a worse one.”

Then Pop’s voice had softened. “Nobody can stay just half-hood, Johnny. There always comes a time when he’s got to go all the way — or else!”

Johnny lit a cigarette and went back to the window. The old man should have played the ponies, he thought. He could sure call the shots. Johnny Manse hadn’t made many mistakes, he remembered with professional pride. But there had been a time or so when a couple of Charlie’s boys had called on one of his clients, as Mahoney called them. Nothing rough — just a little reminder that worse things could happen to them than dropping a few grand. And, in return, Johnny had done a thing or two he hadn’t liked for Charlie. But... oh, the hell with it!

Pop had never seemed to understand that a kid who lives on Lacy Street grows up wanting just one thing — to get off of it. And he does it the quickest way he can — the rackets.

Johnny returned irritably to his chair by the table. Refilling his glass, he caught sight of himself in the mirror across the room. What the devil! He smoothed his rumpled hair and stared at the tense lines in the usually inscrutable face of the con man.

“Harry’s right,” he told the reflection, and he put the drink down. “You’re hitting it too hard. One lousy flatfoot is set-up and all of a sudden you’re a lush!”

Then it hit him. Harry’s place. That’s where he’d left the stiletto. He began to dress hurriedly. Lucky or not, Johnny wanted that knife.

When he walked into the Silken Peacock, he could feel the tension even before he saw the calcimine grimness of Harry’s face. Scanning the dimness with trained eyes, Johnny saw the reason almost instantly. In the shadows at a corner table sat Jim Cole.

A chill went over Johnny and his first impulse was to do a quick fade. But it was too late. Cole’s eyes met his across the room and he played it cool when Cole spoke to him.

“Well if it ain’t Johnny Manse.” There was still a hint of the old sarcasm that Johnny remembered. Cole had never made any secret of his contempt for a guy who didn’t like guns.

“Hello, Jim.” Johnny smiled, slipping by habit into the safe concealment of the confidence man. “How goes it?” he asked, approaching Cole’s table.

“Great, Johnny. Just great.” The voice was friendly, but the eyes were bright and guarded, studying Johnny. “I been in town almost a week now and I ain’t seen nothin’ of you till now.” The grin on Cole’s unshaven face just missed being a sneer. “You ain’t hot for sellin’ the Third Street Bridge to the cops or something, are you?”

Johnny laughed and took a chair. Automatically he cased the bar and caught Harry’s nervous glance, as the bartender hurried past them. The last two customers were leaving and he heard Harry locking the door. What the hell?

Johnny raised his eyes to the clock behind the bar, but Cole seemed to read his mind.

“Five o’clock, Johnny. It ain’t exactly closing time, is it?” Cole leered. “But you see, I’m expecting some company and I need a little privacy.”

“You sure I won’t make a crowd?” Johnny asked casually, as Harry waddled over with another glass.

“Nuts, Johnny! Stick around.” The tone had more command than invitation.

But Johnny pretended not to notice and poured himself a drink from Cole’s bottle. Whatever this was it was smart to take it slow.

“I guess it feels pretty good to be back, eh, Jim?”

“Yeah — it’s real good.” Cole drew the words out slowly and for an instant his eyes held Johnny’s like a magnet. “Real good!” he repeated.

Something’s cockeyed, sure as hell, Johnny told himself. Harry’s nervous as a cat and this gun-happy torpedo’s too chummy.

Harry was back again. “You forgot your lucky-piece, kid.” As the bartender’s shaky hand laid the little stiletto on the table, his eyes telegraphed an alarm signal that froze Johnny’s spine.

“Still got your little toy, kid?” Cole’s sarcasm carried a friendly tolerance unnatural to the killer.

“Got to clean my fingernails, you know.” Johnny quirked a good-humored brow at Cole and pocketed his knife.

Cole laughed uncontrollably for a minute. “Just don’t cut yourself, kid,” he jeered. Then suddenly his expression changed.

“Ain’t you gonna ask me what ten years in stir was like, Johnny?” The rasp-like whisper carried a complete flip in mood now, and as Cole leaned over the table Johnny watched the strange grin spread and the kid-like excitement grow in the wide eyes.

As quick as that, Johnny knew. The pinched look — the dry mouth. Cole’s a user! He’s on the junk! The knot tightened in the con man’s stomach. Booze, snow, and hate! This guy’s dynamite — he could blow any minute! But Johnny kept his face expressionless.

“Sure, Jim, I’d like to know,” he stalled Cole sociably. “How was it?”

“Rotten!” A gloom stormed into the glassy eyes. “Filthy rotten! Every stinkin’ day of it!” Cole moved spasmodically and took a drink straight from the bottle before his eyes burned into Johnny’s again. “They gave me ten years in a hellhole on the say-so of one bastard flatfoot!” The low tone became a shout, breaking on every high note. “Well this time they can fry me!”

Johnny battled with his growing tension and Harry’s fear clattered in the glasses behind the bar.

“I’m gonna get that dumb cop — that goddamned, lousy Mahoney!” Cole screamed his hatred. “Then I’m gonna drag in every crummy bull in the city to view his ragged carcass!”

Watching the insane rage flare and burn low again, Johnny gripped the lucky-piece in his pocket and fought for composure. He’s nuts! Johnny had heard about guys who couldn’t take stir. Somehow, feeding on revenge, Cole had made it back to the outside. With a monkey on his back! A flicker of something like pity mingled with Johnny’s fear and was gone. The meanest guy I’ve ever seen, dope-crazed and stir-bug now.

Johnny flashed around in his mind for a reason to leave. Then something jelled and a hunch shook him clear to his shoes. Company, Cole had said — Harry’s blanched face — the empty bar! It was going to be right here and soon!

He looked at the bottle and got an idea. “I’ll get us something else,” he told Cole. “I’m tired of this stuff.”

At the bar Johnny punched a loud number on the juke box. Then he asked Harry for another bottle, adding through stiff lips: “What’s the deal, Harry?”

“Mahoney checks the bars every night at this time.” Harry’s words were suppressed terror as he fumbled under the counter for the liquor. “He’ll hit here about six.” Johnny glanced at the clock. Two minutes till six.

Harry’s dark eyes flashed an indisputable SOS. “Cole’s not going to give him a chance!”

Without answering, Johnny took the bottle Harry offered and headed back to Cole’s table just as the rattle of the front door echoed through the bar.

Just some guy wanting a drink, Johnny hoped as he tensed all over. But a second persistent jiggle of the door told him, even before he heard the Irish brogue, that Mahoney was outside.

“Harry... Harry are you in there?”

Harry never closed until midnight. Everybody knew that no cop as good as Mahoney would fail to investigate such an unusual break in routine. Sweat formed between Johnny’s hand and the bottle as he fought against panic.

He put the bottle on the table, glancing quickly from the petrified Harry to the leering Cole.

With a satanic grin, the killer took in the bartender’s immobile state before turning to Johnny.

“That must be my company, kid. Let’s see you play butler and let him in.” The blue nose of a thirty-eight revolver slipped in silent menace over Cole’s side of the table.

Johnny stalled for time. Maybe the damned fool cop will beat it if I can con this S.O.B. for a minute.

“What’s the matter, kid?” The old contempt was back in Cole’s face. “Still ain’t got the guts for some things?”

Cool, Johnny, cool! “After ten years in the business, Jim” Johnny laughed, “a guy grows guts. I was just thinking that no flatfoot’s worth it. Why not quit when you’re ahead?”

Cole studied him for a minute, while Pop banged on the door, and Johnny met his gaze levelly. Suddenly the killer grinned.

“You know, Johnny, you turned out better than I thought. You’re pretty damned cool.”

But before Johnny could answer, the front door rattled again and Cole’s eyes narrowed, as the thirty-eight moved out over the table.

“Open the door, kid.”

“It’s your show,” Johnny shrugged.

As he turned toward the door, the con man knew the layers of steel calm were melting away. There always comes a time, he remembered, when you go all the way — or else. Make one move to warn Pop and you’ve had it. Con yourself out of this one, wise guy, he told himself bitterly when he reached the door.

“Just pull the bolt and step back, Johnny.” Cole’s hard voice was edged with suspicion as it cut through the silent barroom. “I might get nervous.”

Johnny gave an inward laugh of self-contempt and put his hand on the bolt. Don’t worry, crumb, I never learned to be a hero.

At the rumble of the lock, the door opened instantly from the outside and Mahoney’s bruskness filled the bar.

“What’s goin’ on, Harry?”

The door swung closed, revealing the con man.

“Well — and Johnny Manse, is it?” Pop grinned. “It’s been a long time since the old neighborhood has seen the fancy likes of you.” Pop’s clumsy attempt to cover his pleasure twisted something in Johnny’s stomach as the gray eyes searched his for a minute. He still hadn’t spotted Cole.

“I was afraid some of your thug pals might be holdin’ a convention here, Harry,” Mahoney laughed as he went toward the bar.

An ache of understanding burned briefly under Johnny’s fear. You Irish fraud, you also thought Harry might be in trouble.

“Now why would you two be lockin’ the door as this—” Mahoney broke off, his face sobering to stoniness. And Johnny turned to see Cole step out of the shadows, the thirty-eight gleaming evily in the dim light.

It was plain Pop hadn’t been tipped, but the sharp old bull saw the trap fast enough now. He stopped dead still in the middle of the room, looking long and hard at the depraved killer who had taken his stance less than ten feet from him. Mahoney’s gun bulged in its holster, but the old cop was too smart for that, Johnny knew.

“That’s right, freeze, you piglatin tongued bastard!” Cole’s words were a lunge of animal fury, and the years of underworld training began to buckle in Johnny.

“We didn’t lock you out, flat-foot,” Cole lowered his voice to a whisper. “We been waitin’ for you.” The sadistic restraint congealed in the air above them as he turned to the con man. “Lock the door, Johnny.”

In the brief second that Johnny hesitated, Pop’s eyes met his over a bridge of twenty years. Then Johnny moved to the door.

Locked or unlocked won’t make a hell of a lot of difference now, Pop. He shoved the bolt and the sound it made echoed his thoughts. Full hood now! Turning, he stood with his back to the door and faced the other three.

Cole was taking his time, trying to sweat Mahoney. Harry stood rooted behind the bar, his round eyes moving back and forth between cop and killer.

“Ten stinkin’ years, copper!” Cole hissed. “Do you think I’d make it quick for you after that?” A gloating look came into his eyes, and suddenly he shot a hole in the floor by the cop’s feet.

Johnny jerked at the sound, and heard Harry knock over a bottle. But Mahoney never flinched. Johnny felt sick. You wouldn’t even make a good cop, he tortured himself. This was going to be a bad one. He caught Harry’s pleading look. What the devil does he expect me to do! he thought angrily. I’m no match for this maniac. He’d get us both sure!

“A slug for every year, cop — placed where you’ll know about it. Like I felt every rotten day of that rap!” Cole was grinning now and licking his mouth like a snake.

Still gripping the lucky-piece in his pocket, Johnny looked at Pop. The cop’s face was set and ready, a touch of sad irony around the Irish mouth. It was plain to Johnny what he was thinking. Mahoney had said it once when he’d lost a buddy: “A cop dies this way sometimes.”

The killer paused tauntingly in a nerve-tearing silence. And Johnny’s mind whirled dizzily away from him — back to the slums. Back to the fight he’d made to shake the stench and filth from his shoes, only to find now that another kind of slime had formed inside him. He looked at the cop’s face again and knew this was not the dream he’d built on Lacy Street. Somewhere he’d missed it.

“Where do you want the first one, flatfoot? In the gut maybe?” Johnny heard Cole’s insane glee.

A cop dies this way sometimes — the click of the hammer went through him like an electric current — No!

Johnny’s thumb pressed the little button and the last of the con man cracked away as the sharp blade flicked out firmly. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m lucky. Swiftly, by the tip of the blade, he slipped the knife from his pocket and the kid from Lacy Street broke through as he sent the stiletto slashing through the air toward Cole’s gun hand.

The blade missed its mark, sparking against the gun’s blue metal, and Cole whirled toward Johnny in a vicious scream of profanity — his gun blazing.

Hot fire went through Johnny’s shoulder. He saw the floor of the bar tilt toward him and heard the other shots. A hood dies this way too — sometimes — sorry, Pop.

“He’s coming around, Pop.” It was Harry’s voice.

Johnny tried to move and couldn’t.

“Johnny — can you hear us, lad?” That was Pop Mahoney.

“How do you feel, Johnny?” It was Harry again, anxious now.

Somewhere Johnny heard a steeple clock strike twelve, and he opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed and Pop and Harry were leaning over him. The old cop was still in uniform and Harry’s bar-apron hung down from under his suit coat. A laugh rolled out of Johnny and he winced at the stab of pain it brought.

“Easy, lad.” Pop laid a hand on Johnny’s arm. “They’ve just dug a bullet out of you.”

He was fully conscious now, and he looked from Harry to Pop for an explanation.

“It was really something, Johnny!” Harry began excitedly. “After you threw the knife, Pop grabbed his gun and got Cole the same second you fell. It took four slugs! That crazy Cole just wouldn’t drop that gun.”

“Johnny” — Pop began slowly — “I’ve always said that—”

“I know, Pop,” Johnny moaned in surrender, “I haven’t got the stomach for it.”

“That’s not what I meant, son. I never thought you lacked guts.” The gray eyes smiled with gratitude. “It’s your heart that’s not right for it,” the old man continued, “and I was thinkin’ of your future — you could get out of the rackets now and—”

“Pop” — Johnny cut in with a groan — “will you knock it off! How much future do you think I’ve got after tonight?”

“The doublecross, Pop,” Harry said quickly. “He’s thinking about what they’ll do to him when they find out he crossed up Cole.”

The old man’s face relaxed into the smile Johnny remembered from Lacy Street. “Nobody knows but the three of us what happened at Harry’s tonight, Johnny.”

“There’s this busted shoulder and the hospital bit, Pop. They’ll know,” Johnny said with resignation.

Mahoney’s eyes held a solemn oath as he looked at Johnny and spoke each word evenly. “Every hood in the underworld knows right this minute, lad, that you were in Harry’s tonight with Cole — that I killed him and accidentally shot you.”

For a minute Johnny just stared at Mahoney, while understanding and relief flooded through him. Then he smiled. “You fronted one more time, didn’t you, Pop?”

“To the last detail, lad,” Mahoney grinned, fishing in his pocket. “I picked this up from the floor.” Then he tossed Dom’s little stiletto on the bed.