The Identity Man

PART VI

NIGHT FELL. Far away, beneath a chandelier flashing rainbows over a fine ballroom in the nation's capital, Augie Lancaster was bestowing the high, ringing ideals of his oratory on the upturned faces of worshipful celebrities. But here, in the alleys of the city he'd created and left behind, there were a thousand little crucifixions. Girls who still had secret dreams of romantic dances were on their knees in the dust taking a mouthful of dick for a handful of dollars. Boys in the animal rage of manhood-without-nobility were strutting the little distance between their hard-ons and the grave. Gunfire was everywhere. A teenager was gurneyed into an ER with a slug in his chest. He'd leave in a wheelchair: dead-eyed, drooling. Wailing drifted through every half-opened window. A little girl slapped her baby because it wouldn't stop crying long enough for her to hit her methamphetamine pipe in peace. Tsk, tsk, tsk, said the old men shaking their heads. Old, dried-up, moralizing men locked behind the barred doors of their houses to keep them from souring the juicy life of the street; chewed-up old men spat into the gutter of the juicy street life. And the women? So mean. Thirty-year-old grandmothers: nasty, bullying.

Why you so mean, woman?

'Cause you so weak!

In the churches, meanwhile, they preached other men's sins, so who could fail to say amen?

Then there was the white shingled house on H Street. Strange it should still stand there, surrounded by all that ruin and debris. All those empty lots. Those piles of rubbish rising gothic against the starless sky. Unfair, it almost seemed, to the gangsters staring at it balefully from the dark. Why should it go untouched by the disaster when whole other neighborhoods-their neighborhoods-were gone? The yellow glow of the lights in the windows touched some inborn notion of home they didn't even know how to imagine, and so instead of yearning for it they felt a sort of gibbering justification in their intentions, an instinct to destroy what obscurely moved them and threatened to reveal them to themselves in the light of their best desires. What they had come to do was only right, they felt somehow: the rape and the murder and the fl ames. It was only as it should be, their privilege and their calling.

They glanced fitfully at their leader, wondering why he hesitated to give the word.

Inside the house, there was squealing and comical chatter, a comical music of zwits and boings. The boy, Michael, was lying on his stomach in the living room, looking up from his crayon drawing at an old cartoon on the TV. Teresa checked on him from the archway and then returned to her father in the front room. He was sitting in his reading chair, fiddling with an unlit pipe. She sat across from him on the sofa, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees.

"He'll turn up," the old man told her without much conviction.

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I think he's gone for good."

"He'll come to say goodbye. If he can, he will. You'll see."

She frowned. "I'd just like to hear Henry's side of it, that's all." She didn't like to admit her feelings for Conor, even to herself, but she knew them now and she knew her father knew them and it made her feel exposed and embarrassed. "It's just-that policeman, that detective…"

"Oh, he was…" The old man waved the stem of the pipe in the air before him. "I wouldn't believe a word he said. In this city? The police are worst of all, worse than the criminals. I took one look at him-I knew he was after Henry for his own reasons. Believe me."

"I don't know. He seemed… like he might've been a good person."

"I think that's what he's good at: seeming like that. Probably was one once. Which makes him even worse. I'm telling you, I took one look in his eyes and…"

Applebee stopped short. He cocked his head, listening. There were only the boings of the cartoon music and a comical chattering.

"What? What's the matter?" said Teresa.

"Did you hear something? In the kitchen? In back?"

"I don't think so…"

With his eyebrows lowering, the old man pushed himself out of his chair. Teresa instinctively stood up, too. They hesitated a moment, looking toward the back of the house, listening for a noise.

Then, with violent suddenness, the gangsters burst in through the front door.

There were three shotgun blasts, thunderously loud as they blew off the door's security cage. Even as Teresa recoiled in shock-that quickly-they kicked the door in and charged through.

The old man had a second to lean toward the stairs, toward the gun he kept in his bedroom. Then one of the bangers whipped the butt of the shotgun into his face. The old man staggered back, his knees buckling as he hit the wall and tumbled down to the floor.

Teresa screamed for her son: "Michael!" She turned toward the archway. Two bangers grabbed her by the waist and legs and lifted her into the air as she twisted and struggled. Another thug stalked past her into the living room. He came out laughing with the writhing child helpless in his arms.

"Mommy!" screamed the boy.

Super-Pred gave an avuncular laugh. "You a fierce little man, ain't you?" he said. He glanced through the archway, charmed for a moment by the cartoon rabbit and the cartoon hunter on the TV screen.

"Leave him alone!" Teresa shouted.

Rage flashed in the gangster's eyes, and he spun and grabbed her as she struggled in the grip of his two thugs. He pincered her cheeks with one hand and leaned his nose almost against hers.

"You don't talk to me, bitch! You just a bitch!"

Teresa tried to twist her head free, tried to talk to him. "Please! You can have anything you want. Just leave him alone!"

The Pred laughed again. Grabbed her face again. Grabbed her breast hard so that she cried out in pain.

"Mommy!" screamed the little boy.

"Bitch, I can have anything I want anyway!" Super-Pred said. He glanced at his companions. "Spread that shit around."

He meant the gasoline in the cans they'd brought with them. The thug who'd whipped the old man leaned the shotgun against the armchair and grabbed a red can. Another thug grabbed another can, and they began splashing the room with gasoline, splashing gasoline over the old man where he lay gasping and coughing in his own blood.

"He look like he burn good," said a banger, laughing.

The little boy struggled and shouted. The thug holding him was surprised and angered by the child's strength. He cursed and lost his temper and hurled the boy face first into the wall. Teresa let out an anguished scream. The boy fell dazed to the floor. The thug kicked him.

"There!" he said.

And the other thugs spread gasoline on the boy, too. The boy coughed and curled up, gripping his stomach.

"Hold off a second," said Super-Pred.

He was in that zone of his now, that mental zone of unpredictable fury. He grabbed the front of Teresa's blouse with two hands and tore it open. That set the fire going inside him.

"Bring her in here," he said.

Gripping her arms and legs, they hauled and dragged and hustled Teresa through the door into the dining room. Grunting and crying out, she kicked and tried to tear free and tried to bite their hands, but she was helpless.

"Put her on the table," Super-Pred said, following them through the door.

They forced her, struggling, onto the table, while the Pred, with a great show of lordly calm, wandered around the room, studying it with mock appreciation.

He noticed the reredos on the mantel.

"Shut that bitch up," he said casually over his shoulder as he approached the wooden sculpture.

One of the bangers punched Teresa and the other groped and clutched between her legs. They tore at her clothes.

Super-Pred looked up at the three angels, confronted the central angel staring down at him from the mantelpiece. He liked it. It gave him a feeling, a feeling that he and the angel were actually communing in some way. He could see the depth of love and sorrow carved into the angel's expression. It made him laugh because he felt this was a joke that he alone in his uniqueness understood. Someone else might ooh and ah at such a face, but he was special and got the joke of it. With the sound of the bangers taunting Teresa behind him, the sound of their punches and her anguished gasps, the Pred reached up for the reredos almost with a sense of fellow feeling and affection. Inevitably, he lifted it from the mantelpiece and hurled it to the floor. The wing splintered with a cracking sound. The head snapped off and rolled free.

The force of the action bent the teenager forward slightly, just on the threshold of the kitchen doorway.

Shannon curled around that doorway and put the Beretta nine against the side of Super-Pred's head.

He had let himself in through the kitchen door. He had used the key old Applebee had given him, the small Medeco key with the green dot on the bow. He had come to the house without knowing what he would do, just wanting to make sure Teresa was safe, just following his instinct to watch over and protect her. He had lingered outside a long time, uncertain. Then he had seen the gangsters arrive and had slipped in the back way using the key.

Now, he stood with the gun pressed to the gangster's head. Super-Pred glanced at him, gauging his chances.

Shannon smiled. "You think I won't kill you?" he said. "Look in my eyes. I'll kill you. I want to kill you. Tell them to let the girl go."

Super-Pred looked into Shannon's eyes and even his usual pretense of courage deserted him; he knew he had never been so near the precipice of oblivion.

"Let her go," he said-but his voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and his boys were busy working the girl over. He had to shout it at them a second time: "Let her go!"

Then the bangers noticed the new situation. They stumbled back away from Teresa, clumsily reaching for the pistols in their belts.

By then, Shannon had the fifteen-year-old gangster king by the collar, was holding him in front of himself, holding the nine up under the punk's chin.

"Better tell them how it is, son," he said.

"No guns. Put the guns down," said Super-Pred quickly.

"Drop 'em," said Shannon.

Teresa had rolled off the table. She had fallen to her knees on the floor. She braced herself on the floor with one hand and clutched at herself with the other, clutched at the shreds of her clothing, trying to cover her nakedness. Blood and snot and tears were dripping from her. She was crying with a wild rage.

Shannon paid no attention to her. He was already filled with her and looking for a chance-hoping for an excuse-to kill every one of these little shits, every single one.

Super-Pred knew it and a note of hysteria entered his voice as he shouted, "Put the pieces down, motherfuckers!"

One thug dropped his gun, but the other hesitated and Shannon killed him. He shot him quick in the chest and by the time the kid went down dead, he had the pistol under Super-Pred's chin again. It felt good to kill the kid, and Shannon hoped some of the others would try something. Even if they riddled him with bullets, he would kill them all. Even if they shot him dead, he would come back from hell and kill them.

"Move through the door," Shannon said.

The banger who was still living had his hands in the air. His whole body was quaking. His eyes were wide because his friend was suddenly dead and he saw what Shannon was now, he saw what Super-Pred saw. He didn't need the gangster king to repeat Shannon's order. He nearly leapt to the dining room door.

"Tell them to drop 'em!" Super-Pred shouted after him, his voice cracking.

The other three bangers in there had heard the gunshot, but it didn't occur to them it wasn't one of theirs. They figured Pred had shot the bitch, that's all. One of them was even moving to the door to get an eyeful of the bloodshed. But just then, his pal came through, babbling, "Put the guns down, man, put all the pieces down!"

The gangsters saw Super-Pred hustled into the room, Shannon holding him and holding the nine-a to his chin.

"Put the pieces down!" Super-Pred was shouting, and the other thug kept babbling, "Put 'em down, man, he's serious!"

Two of the gangsters dropped their guns. The third one gave it a second's thought, but dropped his, too, before Shannon got the chance to kill him.

Shannon shot a quick glance over at the old man on the floor. The old man was crawling to the boy. Now the old man cradled the boy in his arms, blood dripping from his mouth onto the back of the boy's head. The whole place stank of gasoline. Antic cartoon music filtered in from the back room pathetically. Shannon wanted to kill every g he saw.

The gangsters could see the murder in his eyes, and one of them said stupidly, "Man, we didn't mean nothing."

Shannon shot him in the leg just for that. The punk went down howling.

"Shut up! All of you, shut up!" said Super-Pred, his voice cracking.

"Get out," Shannon ordered quietly. He saw they would do whatever he said now. He was half sorry about that, sorry to have no excuse to kill them. He shoved the gun up under Pred's chin hard. "Get out, I said. Drive away. Look back and I blow this fucker's head off. Then I come after the rest of you. Get out and drive away."

The bangers crowded to the door so fast, Shannon had to shout after them. "Take this one! Take this one with you!"

They came back for the one he'd shot in the leg. The wounded punk was blubbering like a child in pain as they draped his arms over their shoulders and hustled him to the door.

When they were gone, when it was just Shannon holding Super-Pred at gunpoint, he looked down at the old man. "Applebee," he said. "Can you stand up?"

The old man nodded painfully, holding the boy. "Yeah."

"The boy okay?"

"You're okay, aren't you, son?"

"I think so," said the boy.

"Go upstairs and get some clothes for your daughter," said Shannon.

"I'll get them." It was Teresa in the doorway. Clutching the shreds of her clothes to her, her bloodied face still, her cheeks tear-stained, her eyes luminous with fury.

Shannon nodded at her. She went unsteadily to the stairs.

"Mommy!" the boy called after her.

"I'll be right there, sweetie," she mumbled. "Stay with Grandpa."

She went up the stairs quickly.

Shannon heard the bangers' cars start up outside. He heard them roar off into the night. He moved away from the old man and the boy. He yanked the punk gangster to the door and kicked it shut. Now it was quieter inside and they could all hear the cartoon music filtering in from the back room.

"You know what I'm thinking," Shannon said in Super-Pred's ear.

"Come on, daddy," said the boy.

"I'm thinking of killing you. It'd be good."

The punk trembled in his grip. "Come on, man."

"Come on?"

"Yeah, daddy. What the hell, you know?"

"Yeah, well… maybe this wasn't your idea."

"It wasn't. I swear."

"I know it wasn't. Fact, I know whose idea it was."

"So you know. So don't kill me, man. What the hell, right? It's like I had no choice."

Shannon shoved the gun in his chin even harder. He spoke in his ear through gritted teeth. "You had a choice."

"Don't… don't…"

"I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say the name. If it's the right name, I might let you live. If you lie to me, you'll be dead a second later."

Super-Pred couldn't think that fast. He tried to weigh the dangers. He stalled for time. "She your girl, is that it?"

"Shut up. Mention her again, I'll blow your balls off. Tell me the name."

"Ramsey," said Super-Pred. He could hear his own death in every word Shannon spoke. He could feel his feet hanging over the pit of death. "The cop. The lieutenant. The Brick they call him. He big. It's like he say it, you gotta do it, man. You gotta."

"He told you to come here, do this."

"Yeah, man, swear."

"He say why?"

"Just said do 'em, daddy, didn't give no reason."

The stair creaked and Shannon glanced over to see Teresa coming down. She had pulled on a pair of jeans and a gray army sweat-shirt. Her cheek was swollen and bloody. Shannon wanted to hold Super-Pred up in front of her so she could watch while he pulled the trigger.

Teresa went to her father and her son. The old man had gotten hold of a chair arm. He had pulled himself to his feet. Now he was bent over, helping the boy up, too. "Come on, son, come on." The boy rose slowly, clutching his stomach.

Teresa reached them. She put her arms around the boy and murmured to him.

Shannon turned his attention back to Super-Pred, breathing hard. "If I let you live," he said, "can you get a message to Ramsey?"

"Yeah, daddy, yeah. Sure, I can get a message to him easy. Tell him anything you want."

"Tell him we can deal. Him and me. You understand? Tell him I have what he wants and we can deal for it. I get my payoff, I leave town, he'll never see me again."

"Yeah. Yeah. I can tell him that, sure," said Super-Pred.

Shannon glanced over at Teresa. She was standing with the boy clutched against her. Her father leaned on her shoulder for support, wiping blood from his face with his hand.

Shannon gestured with his head toward the dining room. "Take them into the kitchen and wait for me," he told her.

Teresa shepherded the boy to the door. The old man went with them, his hand on her shoulder.

Shannon waited until they left the room. Then he said to Super-Pred, "You tell him what I said. Tell Ramsey I'll be in touch and we can deal."

"Okay, okay, I'll…"

Before Super-Pred could finish, Shannon drew back his arm and stabbed the butt of the pistol into the punk's temple. The kid collapsed in his grip, unconscious. Shannon let his collar go and dropped him to the floor.

That was that. Shannon stood, looking around the place, breathing hard. The smell of gasoline was nauseating. The comical cartoon music tinkled and banged in the next room-pathetic. The punk lay still at his feet for only a second. Then he began to stir and groan. Shannon sneered down at him. The image of Teresa struggling on the dining room table flashed in his mind. He had stopped himself from thinking about it before, but now it came to him. He forced himself to stop thinking again. He needed Super-Pred alive to deliver his message.

He stepped through the door into the dining room. The other thug lay dead on the floor in there. He lay on his back beside the dining table, his arms splayed, his mouth open, his eyes staring. That made Shannon feel a little better. He was glad he'd gotten to kill one of them at least.

He crossed the room quickly. He went to where the angel altarpiece lay smashed near the kitchen door. Without breaking stride, he stepped over the wreckage and went through to join Teresa and her family.

He brought them around to the front of the house, leading the way, holding the gun out before him with one hand and keeping the other on Teresa's arm. He led them to her car, a gray Ford, in the driveway. He stood guard as the three of them got inside. He opened the door-and just as he was about to lower himself behind the wheel, he heard a ragged scream from inside the house. It was a scream of unholy rage and frustration. It barely sounded human-barely even sounded animal to Shannon, but more like something subnatural, like some sound effect from a horror movie. As Shannon paused to listen, it came again, and then there came a string of terrible and Tourettic curses howled at full volume. There was a crash, another crash, the sound of glass shattering. Shannon saw Super-Pred stumble past the window as the gangster hurled a chair across the room in his fury. A light must have broken, because the front room flashed and went dark. Then, a moment later, there was another sound-a deep and airy utterance under the boy's raving-and a new, weirdly lightless light raced up over the walls, swift, giddy, and explosive, as if it were the living expression of the gangster's malice. He had torched the gasoline and set the house on fire.

Shannon got in the car and started the engine. As he backed out of the driveway, the blaze seemed to leap up around the white shingled house on both sides like two enormous red hands rising from the earth to grab hold of the place and drag it down.

At the same time, Super-Pred staggered out into the night, a small black figure against the great, red, rising flames. He had a gun in his hand and was firing wildly at the darkness as he went on screaming curses.

Shannon saw all this in the rearview mirror for another second or two. Then he guided the car around the corner, and there was nothing of it visible behind him but the orange glow against the blue-black sky, and that was quickly fading.

It was only one more of over fifty fires burning just then across the night city. SHANNON DROVE ON through the dark streets. The old man sat beside him. Teresa sat in back, cradling her son in her arms.

"You all right?" Shannon asked the old man.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. Where're we going?"

"How about you back there?"

"We're okay," said Teresa.

"Where're we going?" Applebee said again.

"I know a place," said Shannon. "Just hold on."

Then he drove in silence. He darted glances here and there, watching the street for danger. He caught the eyes of gangsters who looked up to check him out as he passed. He caught the eyes of whores and hustlers looking to deal. The scenes back in the house kept flashing in his mind. The bangers holding Teresa on the table. He was furious and ashamed, and he wished he had killed them all. It wasn't his fault this happened, he told himself. It was this guy Ramsey's fault-and Foster's fault, too, the seedy federal bastard who'd set him up. But it didn't matter what he told himself. He felt as if it was his fault anyway. He felt he had come to Teresa and her family and brought this down on them. It didn't matter how it happened. He felt as if it was all because of him.

"Where are we going, Mommy?" said the boy faintly in the back seat.

"Shh," she said. "Henry is taking us someplace safe."

"I want them to see a doctor," Applebee told Shannon.

Shannon nodded. He drove in silence.

He came onto a street of brooding darkness, old office buildings rising on either side. Most of their big, arched windows were dark, but here and there a light shone through thin curtains. Here and there, firelight flickered, too, as squatters on some abandoned floor huddled around a flame.

Shannon pulled the car to the curb and switched off the engine. Applebee glanced at him.

"I gotta go see someone," Shannon told him. "You all better come with me."

"Where are we, Mommy?" said the boy.

"Shh. I don't know."

Shannon got out and came around the rear of the car, scanning the street's shadows. The old man climbed out more slowly. Shannon opened the door for Teresa and held it as she slid out with the boy in her arms. When she set the child down on his own and straightened up, she faced Shannon and looked at him. It was not a hard look-or a soft look either. It was neither angry nor kind. She was just searching his face for an explanation.

He wanted to explain. He wanted to tell her it wasn't his fault. He wanted to tell her he was sorry because he felt like it was his fault even if it wasn't. There was no time to tell her everything he wanted to.

"My name is John Shannon," he said finally.

Teresa nodded, as if that were enough for now.

The lock on the building's front door was long broken. Inside, there were no lights working. It was nearly pitch black. Shannon had to feel his way to the stairs and whisper at the others to come to him. The little boy kept asking questions: "Where are we going, Mommy?" Teresa kept answering, "Shh. I don't know."

They climbed the stairs slowly in the dark, clinging to the rutted banister. It was eerily silent. When they reached the fourth-floor landing, they went down the hall, brushing their fingertips against the rough, pitted wall to feel their way. Shannon could see a dim light gleaming under the door at the end.

He reached the door. He remembered the coded knock and rapped it out with his knuckles. There was an instant response from the other side. A chair shifting. Quick, soft footsteps approaching. A whisper from within: "Who is it?"

"Shannon."

He heard the locks turn. Foster opened the door. He looked at Shannon. He looked at Teresa and her family.

He laughed and stood back to let them in.

At the far end of the stakeout loft, there was a small enclosure formed by plywood dividers. There was a card table in the enclosure and a couple of folding metal chairs. Shannon sat on one of the chairs and waited there alone, leaning forward, his hands clasped together between his knees. He could hear the voices on the other side of the dividers: Foster and one of his men-only the slick agent was in the loft tonight-talking to Teresa and to Applebee and the boy. After a while, he heard footsteps. He sat straight as Foster stepped into the opening between the dividers and came into the little room with him.

The small, narrow man was in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened. His gun was in a shoulder holster. He was fidgeting, shifting his neck in his collar.

"We're going to take them to a doctor," he said. "We have a car coming to pick them up. They'll be safe."

Shannon nodded. "Thanks. I wasn't sure you'd still be here."

"We were going to close up shop first thing tomorrow."

"Well, happy days then. You're back in business."

Foster gave a series of quick, nervous expressions and gestures: smiles, shrugs, winces. Then he settled into the chair across from Shannon. After that, for once, he seemed to stop moving. He became unusually focused, his features unusually still.

"Okay," he said. "Let's hear it."

"I sent Ramsey a message," Shannon said. "I told him I'd deal."

Foster's eyes shifted once, away and back, as he took this in. Then he was still and attentive again. "Okay. You figure he'll get the message?"

"He'll get it."

"And then?"

"Then… I fi gure-you brief me on what it is I'm supposed to know. I go in wired, meet with the guy, deal with him, maybe draw him out. When you hear what you need to hear, you move in and bust him."

There was another moment of stillness between the two of them, Foster's eyes on Shannon, Shannon's on Foster, both men silent. Murmuring voices came from the other side of the dividers, the other end of the loft. Then Foster's face went bright with a grin. He shook his head. He laughed.

"What?" said Shannon.

"No, no, dog, nothing. It's a great plan. Great, really. Except if you go in wired, he'll find it in half a second."

Shannon thought about it. "Not wired then. We set it up somewhere you can mike."

"He won't come into anything like that. He won't come just anywhere."

"He'll come. He'll have to."

"No. He's not stupid. He'll have to feel safe."

Shannon thought some more but couldn't come up with anything.

Foster helped him out. "We have some tools available. If they work, we'll be able to listen in."

"There you go. Do that then. Use your tools."

"What we won't be able to do is stay close. If he's smart-and he is smart-we'll be too far away to get to you."

"Why do you have to get to me?"

"Stop him killing you. We won't be able to get to you in time to stop him killing you."

"If he kills me, then you've got him. Isn't that what you said?"

Foster shook his head. "That was before. Now you're a cop-killer."

"He still can't just kill me. Not if you're listening in."

"Maybe."

"All right then. It's a plan."

"He will kill you, Shannon. You know that, right? He may talk to you, he may not. He may just open fire."

"Then you've got him. That's what you wanted."

"I'd say probably. I'd say he'll probably just open fire."

"Well, then you've got him," Shannon said again.

"And if you do live… in the unlikely event… man, I'm telling you-I can't promise you anything. Not thing one. I'm not in that position."

"Doesn't sound like it's going to be an issue, does it?"

Foster laughed again. "No, it doesn't. No, it definitely does not." He lapsed into another silence-silence and stillness-studying Shannon.

"Is there a problem?" Shannon said.

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm not reading this. It makes me uncomfortable."

"I guess we all have to take our chances, don't we?"

"Maybe. I mean, give me a clue-what am I dealing with here? Is it silver bells, Christmas time in the city? You suddenly discover your inner good Samaritan…? Oh wait… The girl."

Shannon said nothing.

"You're kidding me," Foster said. "This is about the girl?"

"And the boy and the old man, too."

"Well, well, well."

"Whatever."

"What do you want exactly?"

"I want them out of here. They're not safe in this city. The cops are after them, the bangers are after them. The cops and the bangers are the same people here-what the hell? I want them safe. I want them out. New city, new job, new names if they need them."

"New life, like princess in fairy tale, huh."

Shannon's lip curled. The skeevy federal bastard had been listening to that, too. "That's right. Why not? They'll never be safe here now."

"No, they won't. You're right about that. They're dead if they stay."

"So what's the problem? Can't you do it? They're clean. They got no records. Nothing you got to clear or pull strings for. You got programs that handle stuff like this, don't you?"

"Oh yeah. We can do it. For them? It'd be easy."

"So there it is. That's the deal."

"You go in, Ramsey kills you, we get Ramsey, the girl and her people are safe. That's the deal?"

"Well-who knows? Maybe he won't kill me."

"Oh, he'll kill you, Shannon. I don't mind making the deal, but that's what it is. He'll kill you."

"All right. But you'll make the deal?"

"I might. Is that everything?"

Shannon hesitated, pressing his lips together. He didn't like to tell this skeevy bastard any more than he had to. "Tell her how you set me up. When it's all done, tell her how I didn't know. When I came into her house, I didn't know anyone was after me. I wouldn't have brought them into it, if I'd known."

"That's right. It was my doing. I'll tell her that."

"And about Gutterson, how that happened. And how I never did Hernandez. I was never anywhere near that."

"Your last will and testament, huh?"

"Whatever. Don't be an asshole. Just tell her."

The federal agent sat still, watching him, thinking it over. "I don't think I've ever seen this before."

"The world is full of things you don't see."

"Is it? I wouldn't know." He stood up quickly. "All right."

Shannon stood up. "We're good to go?"

Foster nodded. He stretched his neck, moving his shoulders up and down in an undulating rhythm. The tics and nervous shiftings had begun again. "We're good. We'll have to move fast before Ramsey figures it out."

"That's your department. Do what you do."

Foster moved away, moved to the edge of the plywood divider. He paused there. He glanced back at Shannon.

"What now?" Shannon said. "For Christ's sake, Foster."

"All right. All right. But it's kind of out of character for you, this, isn't it?"

"I guess it's not, since I'm doing it."

"I guess that's right." But he studied Shannon another moment or two.

"We all have to take our chances, Foster," Shannon told him.

"I guess that's right," Foster said again. He walked out.

Shannon stayed where he was, alone in the little enclosure. He paced back and forth behind the plywood walls. He didn't want to go out in the loft and see Teresa. He didn't want to see Applebee or the boy, either. He just wanted them to go so he could do what he was going to do and get it over with. It would be easier without seeing them.

But the boy came running the length of the loft. Shannon heard his footsteps, and then the kid came into the enclosure.

"Hey," said Shannon, looking down at him.

"The car is here to take us to the doctor."

"That's good. The doctor'll fix you up."

"I don't even hurt anymore."

"Well, you're a tough guy."

Teresa came looking for her son. She took him by the shoulders. "Come on, Michael, we have to go."

The boy stood looking up at Shannon. "You beat the gangsters," he said.

"That's right."

"There were a lot of them, too."

"They won't hurt you anymore. You'll be safe now."

"Come on, sweetheart," said Teresa.

"Isn't Henry coming to the doctor?"

"We have to go," she told him. "The car is waiting."

"I'll see you, kid," Shannon said.

"Go wait with Grandpa," Teresa said.

She sent the boy back into the loft. She stepped into the enclosure with Shannon. She stepped close to him. Her face was swollen and lopsided, but it didn't bother him. He looked in her eyes and he was crazy in love with her. He wanted to explain that he hadn't known he was dangerous to her or he would never have come to her house in the first place.

"Listen…" he said.

She put her hand on his face and drew him toward her and kissed him. It was a good kiss. When she drew back, he couldn't find any words.

"We'll talk later," she said softly.

"Sure," he said.

"We'll figure it all out. Nothing's impossible."

He was crazy in love with her; he couldn't believe how much. "I'll be seeing you, Teresa," he said.

"See you."

She walked out of the enclosure. He listened to her footsteps, moving back across the loft. He listened to the voices. He heard the door closing. Then the loft was quiet.

He was glad they were gone. They just made it harder. Now he could do what he was going to do. Now he could get it over with. IT WAS A LONG NIGHT-a long, long night. The waiting was bad. The waiting is always the worst part, Shannon thought. He lay on the cot where the slick agent had read the girly magazine. He lay with his eyes open, staring up at the pipes zig-zagging through the shadows on the loft ceiling. He thought that this was what it must feel like to be on death row. The weird combination of suspense-as if you didn't know what was going to happen-and the sickness of inevitability. Shannon figured you felt the suspense because even though you did know what would happen, you couldn't help hoping you'd be saved from it somehow. Where there's life, there's hope-that's what makes the whole business so terrifying.

Funny, he thought, he had done all this to escape from death row and yet here he was. But then what did you expect in the long run? In the long run, it was all death row. There was only one way out of the world.

Foster and the slick agent stayed with him through the night. Mostly, they sat silently in the metal folding chairs. Once or twice Foster went into the enclosure. Shannon could hear him in there, murmuring into his cell phone, but couldn't make out what he said. After a while, Foster left the loft altogether. A few hours later, he came back and the slick agent left. Shannon figured they were going somewhere to get some sleep.

Shannon himself slept now and then. He would doze off and then wake with a start, realizing the morning was now that much closer. He figured it was just as well to sleep since the waiting was awful, but still, the end was that much closer, and the suspense and the sickness of inevitability grew worse.

Finally-suddenly-he saw blue dawn at the loft windows and figured he'd dozed off again. There was something lingering in his mind as if it had come to him while he was asleep. It was a story someone had told him a long time ago, when he was a little boy. He must've been very little, because he couldn't remember who had told him the story. He only had the sense that it had been a woman and he'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor looking up at her and she had been very kind. It was strange the things that came back to you and the things that didn't.

As for the story itself, it was about a boy who went to a magical country in his dreams. Shannon couldn't remember the details of it, only that the boy had met a magical fairy and she had given him a golden ring. Then, at the end of the story, the boy woke up in his bed and realized it had all been a dream-but when he looked down in his hand, there was the ring. It was still there. As a little boy, Shannon had been very impressed by the story and had found the ending wonderful.

He lay there on the cot for a moment, gazing out the window at the lightening sky, sick with the waiting and inevitability. He hadn't thought about that story in a long time, but he sort of understood why it had come back to him now. It was his story in some sense. What had happened to the boy had also happened to him. He had had a dream, too-a dream that he could have a new life with a new name and a new face in a new city-and now he was awake and it had only been a dream, but he had met Teresa there, and the way he felt about her was like the gold ring in the story.

Who was it who had told him that story, he wondered. It seemed to him he should remember someone who had been kind to him when he was a boy…

The loft door opened and Foster came in. Shannon had not realized he was gone. He was carrying a bag with him from a local diner. Shannon could smell coffee.

"Let's get ready," Foster said.

Shannon swung his legs over the side of the cot and sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

He was glad the waiting was over.

Now it was full day. Shannon was sitting in one of the metal chairs in the main part of the loft. He had his elbow propped on the card table to steady his arm. He was holding the handset of an old-fashioned landline phone to his ear, the kind with a coiling wire. His grip on the handset felt weak. His palm was sweaty.

He looked at Foster. Foster sat next to him, leaning toward him. He had an earpiece in his ear, wired to the phone so he could listen in. He fiddled with the earpiece and with the wire and tapped at a nearby computer keyboard. The phone was hooked to the computer, which was running some kind of program that Foster said would foil a trace, fooling the electronic switching system into thinking the call had come from somewhere else.

Shannon waited for Foster to finish with the keyboard and give him the go-ahead. He was growing more and more nervous by the second. The other two agents stood over them, pretending to be nonchalant, but watching the whole thing intently.

Now finally, Foster drew a breath and nodded at him. Shannon pressed the buttons on the phone. He waited. The phone started ringing. Shannon listened. He licked his lips to wet them. His heart was beating hard. The phone rang again. Foster tapped at his keyboard. Shannon switched the handset to his other hand. He wiped his wet palm on the leg of his jeans.

The phone began to ring again-then it broke off. Shannon's breath caught. Foster stared at him. The weaselly agent and the slick agent stood straighter. There was silence on the other end of the line. Then a voice:

"Yes?"

Foster nodded. It was Ramsey. It was a moment before Shannon could speak.

"Hello?" Ramsey said.

"You know who this is?" said Shannon.

"Yeah," Ramsey said. "I know."

"You want to meet me, I'll be at Betsy's Cafe at noon."

"No. That's no good for me."

"You're not in charge of this," said Shannon gruffly.

"We've both got to feel safe."

There was a pause. Shannon didn't know what to answer.

"You know Anatomy?" Ramsey said. "It's public, crowded. We can sit in plain sight and talk it out. Everyone goes home happy."

Shannon glanced at Foster. Foster shrugged and nodded.

"Yeah," said Shannon. "That's all right. Noon."

"I'll be there."

The phone line went dead.

Shannon hung up. He let out a long breath. "All right. What's Anatomy?"

"Restaurant downtown. Ground floor of One CC-One City Center. It just reopened about a week ago. They'll be booked solid-that's why he picked it. The place has strong connections with the city machine-obviously, or it wouldn't have that location. We won't be able to get a man in there without Ramsey knowing. You'll be on your own."

"But if it's crowded like he said, he can't just kill me."

"Oh, he'll kill you, Shannon."

"But not just right there with everyone looking."

"Maybe. Or maybe he'll just shout, 'Everyone get down, there's a cop-killer' and open fire. I don't know."

Shannon wiped his hand on his jeans again. "I don't think he'll do that."

Foster took out his earpiece and tossed it down on the table. "That must be nice for you," he said. "But believe me, he'll find a way." THE BUSINESS DISTRICT had been hit hard on the night of the disaster. Water had damaged luxurious lobbies and atria. Rioters had smashed massive storefront windows. Mobs had marauded through skyscrapers, ransacking offices at random. There had been fires everywhere.

No one knew exactly what had destroyed the upper floors of One City Center. Its distinctive spire had somehow been torn free of its moorings and had speared down forty-five stories through the flaming night before piercing the floodwaters, hurling great waves in every direction, and pulverizing itself on the pavement underneath. What was left of the building's top windows had been shattered. Its offices had been gutted by flames. From a distance, the building now seemed a looming charred-black tower rising to a jagged, mangled confusion of light and shadow. It darkened the whole skyline with an aura of malevolence and ruination.

Below, at the building's base on Center Street, there were still rows of boarded windows. There were lobbies and offices still filled with debris. But there were lights on, too, a checkerboard of lighted panes. Revolving doors were turning, people going in and out. The banks and financial and legal businesses had opened again wherever they could. So had the restaurants that served them. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks and cars passed hesitantly under the sporadic traffic lights, edging around the barriers protecting the broken place in the street where the tower had crashed.

Foster and his agents had found an office directly across from the restaurant Anatomy. The office was abandoned, all the furniture removed, the walls torn up, the insulation underneath exposed. The paneling was gone from the ceiling, too. Wires hung down and light fixtures dangled. The floors were covered with dust.

Shannon and Foster stood together at a filthy window, looking out. They were on the second floor. They could see the front of the restaurant below, but they couldn't see inside through the tinted window. The slickster and the weasel were there behind them, each sitting on a metal chair. A laptop computer was set up on a third chair.

Shannon kept his hands in the pockets of his jeans. They were unsteady and he didn't want Foster to see them shake. It was annoying. In his mind he was pretty calm now that the waiting was over. In his mind he was thinking: What the hell, right? Everybody dies. But his body was afraid and unsteady.

"Need another look?" Foster said. He held his cell phone out in front of Shannon. There was a photograph on the phone's screen: Lieutenant Brick Ramsey. He was a solidly built man with a serious, oval-shaped face and a thin moustache. He seemed to have a sort of stillness and dignity about him. He looked like an upright guy, the kind of upright guy every tough neighborhood needs. The priest, the cop, the coach-the kind of father fi gure they need in these neighborhoods where there are no fathers, where it's all women without virtue and men without honor, like Applebee had said. If this had been one of those old black-and-white movies he had watched back in the white room, a guy who looked like Ramsey would've been the hero of the picture, except for his being black and all. But the real world was different from the black-and-white movies, Shannon thought. The real world was always right on the brink of falling completely the fuck apart.

"I've got it," Shannon said. "I'll recognize him."

Foster put the phone back in his pocket.

"And you'll be able to hear me, right?" said Shannon. He just said it to say something because he was nervous. He didn't really want to know how the whole thing was going to work.

"Maybe," said Foster. "We may be able to hear you. We sent a text message to Ramsey's cell phone. When he picked it up, it downloaded a Trojan horse-malware-software-that turned his phone into a listening device."

"Really? You can do that?"

"Maybe. I guess we'll find out."

"Hell, if you can do that, why didn't you just do it before? Why do you need me?"

"Because every warrant we've ever gotten in this city, the target's been alerted within forty-eight hours."

"Great. So what's different now?"

"We got the warrant twenty minutes ago. We may have some time before he finds out."

"But what if…?" Shannon started to say.

"If the Trojan horse doesn't work? Or he turns off his phone or he somehow spots the download or the warrant's already been blown or any of another million ways we can be fucked? Then we'll be fucked. That's just the kind of fly-by-night operation it is, dog."

Shannon's hands clenched in his pockets. "My tax dollars at work," he muttered.

"If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't be working for the government, believe me. We'd make our own damn money."

Shannon glanced at a clock that stood above the boarded storefront of a bank. It was nearly noon.

Foster said, "All right. Let's go."

It was during the next few moments that Ramsey had his revelation. Until then, there had just been his burgeoning, amorphous dread and superstition, an increasing sense of persecution by unseen forces too powerful to resist and an increasingly desperate idea that none of it mattered anymore anyway. Ever since his meeting with Super-Pred, he had felt like that. He had felt vague and distant, indifferent, dead. When the phone call from the gangster reached him, when he heard that Teresa and her family had escaped, that this plan, too, even this one, had been foiled by the forces arrayed against him, he accepted the news with a sort of spit of laughter, as if to say, What else could you expect in this unfair world? He no longer seemed to care whether or not he saved himself. He didn't even feel as if he was himself any longer. He was just the sullen vessel of his own resistance to the inevitable end. But the end was inevitable all the same.

So he sat in the booth, waiting. Anatomy was an upscale Italian restaurant. It had soft lighting and yellow walls. There were square tables under white tablecloths throughout the open room. There were booths with brown leather seats against one wall. Hanging on that wall between the sconces here and there were large plaster sculptures of body parts. That's what gave the restaurant its name. There were enormous arms and hands hanging up there, huge legs and feet and an oversized torso. And there was one table under a gigantic woman's breast and another under a gigantic pair of buttocks. That's where Ramsey was sitting-in the booth under the giant ass.

There were people at almost every other table, and the empty tables had signs on them marking them reserved. The crowd was mostly men in suits, but there were some women, too. Everyone was talking and the room was filled with voices and laughter.

Where Ramsey sat-under the plaster buttocks-he had a clear look at the front of the place. The bottom half of the long window was blacked out and there were venetian blinds on the top half. The blinds were partially open, so he could see the people passing on the street. The door was clear glass. He would be able to see anyone approaching.

He sipped from a glass of water, set the glass down, and checked his watch. It was nearly twelve. When he lifted his eyes, he looked out through the front door. He spotted Henry Conor crossing the street.

Ramsey hadn't realized until then that he despised Conor and was afraid of him. Maybe he'd denied it to himself because he didn't like to think he was afraid of any man. But now he felt the full force of it. This nemesis that he sensed was dogging him-this evil fate he'd got himself all worked up about in his mind-what was it, in the end, but Conor really? Conor inspired by the Reverend Skyles as Patterson had been inspired by Skyles. Conor coming after him to avenge Patterson like he was Skyles's vengeance or the vengeance of God. Conor killing Gutterson. Getting the drop on Super-Pred and his g's. Conor and Patterson and Skyles and God and his mother-it had all gotten wrapped up together in Ramsey's mind until it felt like the work of some persecuting power. But now that he saw the man in the flesh he realized: it was just this man, this one man. All he had to do was get rid of this one man and his problems would be over and he'd be free.

Yet, even as he thought that, once again, he felt that instinctive doubt, that awareness of shadow and uncertainty beyond the edges of his understanding. Something still didn't quite add up. Something was wrong.

And then, as so often happens in the moment of crisis, circumstances brought the revelation he needed.

Because, just as Conor reached this side of the street, just as he was approaching the door, his hand lifting to push it open, a waiter came up beside Ramsey. The waiter was a husky crewcut blockhead who looked a lot like a police detective in a white waiter's outfit. He handed Ramsey a pink square of paper from a message pad. Ramsey glanced at the paper. The words on it were scribbled in pencil:

They got a warrant to Trojan horse your phone.

Ramsey looked up sharply. Silently, he mouthed the word: Who?

The blockheaded waiter-who-was-really-a-cop mouthed a word back at him: Feds.

Shannon pushed through the restaurant door. The voices and the laughter rose around him as the door swung shut. He saw Ramsey sitting in the booth along the wall. The lieutenant was wearing a fine gray suit and a fine burgundy tie. He was holding a pink message slip in his hand, talking to the waiter standing next to him. Then the waiter moved away and Ramsey looked over and saw Shannon coming toward him and Shannon saw the look in his eyes and it was a look like murder. For a second, fear rose uncoiling like a cobra in his stomach, and he actually thought the scenario might play out the way Foster described it: Ramsey just pulling his gun, just shooting him down right there with everyone watching. But no, that didn't make sense. He took a breath and managed to force himself to keep walking forward.

Ramsey stood up as Shannon reached the booth. The waiter stood close to Shannon so that both men blocked him from the restaurant's view. The waiter was a cop, too, it turned out. He searched Shannon quickly, his hands going over his sides, his stomach, down to his ankles. Shannon let it happen, glancing up idly at the enormous plaster buttocks hanging on the wall. What the hell was that about?

Then the waiter was finished searching him. He nodded at Ramsey and moved away. Ramsey sat back down. Shannon slid into the booth across the table from him. He wagged his thumb at the ass over his head.

"I hope that's not a working model."

Ramsey gave a barely visible hint of a smile. "Could be." He crumpled the pink message slip and put it into his jacket pocket. He came out with his cell phone. He placed the phone in front of him, a small black machine on the white tablecloth. "In your case, it could just be."

The lieutenant's calm, still, dignified eyes held his eyes steadily. It made Shannon even more nervous. And that cell phone on the table, the phone that was supposed to act as a listening device… Shannon glanced away, looked around the room at the men and women talking and laughing over their plates of pasta. At least the restaurant was full of witnesses in case anything bad happened.

"You have something to say to me?" Ramsey asked.

When Shannon looked at him again, Ramsey was toying with the cell phone on the table in front of him, turning it this way and that as if he was getting ready to spin it around. Had the warrant been blown? Did he know the phone was bugged? Did he know this was a federal operation? Shannon couldn't face the possibility. He decided the lieutenant was just playing with the phone, that's all.

Shannon leaned toward him, leaned toward the phone.

"I was there the night you took down Patterson," he said. That was how Foster had told him to open it, go for the shock value. "I was Patterson's backup. I saw the whole thing."

Ramsey turned the cell phone on the tablecloth this way and that. He gazed at Shannon mildly. "Take down Patterson? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. I was there. I saw it happen."

"Saw what? I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know damn well. He gave me copies of his records, too."

"You're not making sense." Ramsey turned the cell phone in his hand, gazing at Shannon.

"I'm not here to bust you, Ramsey. That was Patterson's thing. I don't care. I'm just after money, that's all."

"I'm sure you are," said Ramsey calmly, turning the phone in his hand. "But this is all a mystery to me."

Shannon felt cold sweat break out on his temples and under his shirt. This was bad. It was wrong. He could feel it. He could feel disaster coming at him, a train on a track. He leaned toward Ramsey, his face damp, his arms on the table. He was vaguely aware that the restaurant noise of voices and laughter had grown dimmer around him.

"Look," he said in a harsh whisper. "You brought me here. I thought you wanted to deal. You don't want to deal, don't waste my time."

"You're the one who's wasting time," said Ramsey coolly, smiling slightly. "I thought you had information for me about a murder case. Now you sound as if you're trying to blackmail me. But over what? It doesn't make sense."

It was such a smooth performance that Shannon stared at him. And as he stared, he noticed for the first time that the sounds of voices and laughter all around him had died away completely. The restaurant was quiet. There was a clink of silverware against a plate, then nothing.

Feeling the sweat roll down his chest, Shannon turned. The people sitting at the tables-the men in suits, the women here and there-had all stopped talking, stopped eating. They were all just sitting there at their tables. They were all turned toward him, every single one of them. Just sitting at their tables and staring at Shannon.

Shannon sensed a movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a waiter-or a man dressed as a waiter-close the venetian blinds that covered the top half of the front window. Now the whole window was covered. Shannon turned farther at another movement and saw another waiter directly in back of him locking the front door, moving to stand in front of the door so that no one could see past him.

Now there was no noise in the restaurant at all. The place was silent and he understood: they were all cops. Everyone in the restaurant. They were all Ramsey's people. It was all a setup, all of it.

Shannon slowly turned back to Ramsey, his eyes passing over all those people-all those cops-at the tables staring at him. When he faced front again, Ramsey gazed at him just as mildly as before. A line of sweat ran down Shannon's temple.

Without looking down, Ramsey opened his cell phone. He pressed the power button. The cell phone gave out a tone and went dark.

"Now let's really talk," Ramsey said.

In the abandoned second-floor office across the way, the weaselly federal agent leaned forward in his chair, his face close to the laptop. He was listening to the voices of Ramsey and Shannon coming through the speaker.

"Man," he said. "Thing's working great. They're really coming over five by five."

Foster was still standing at the window, still looking down at the front of the restaurant below. "Well, well," he said. "Will wonders never cease?"

Then the voices coming from the computer crackled once and died.

"Wait a minute," said the weasel. "I think we lost them."

"I guess that answers that question," Foster murmured.

He narrowed his eyes, peering down at the restaurant. His hand was lifted near his face, his thumb rubbing his fingers as if he were feeling a piece of cloth-a nervous gesture. He noticed a movement now at the dark windows. It took him a moment to figure out what it was, then he realized: the venetian blinds had closed. His heart sank.

"Shit," he said. "They've got him."

Shannon felt the silence all around him, the eyes all around him. He felt his own breath go in and out and looked in Ramsey's eyes, which were calm and sad and unmovable. He hoped that Foster was on the run, coming like the cavalry to save him, but at the same time, he knew this was just hope, the everlasting reflex of hope: no one was coming, no one could. Ramsey's mild gaze-no wonder they called him Brick, his mild gaze was like a brick wall, like the dead end of yet another blind alley in a luckless life full of blind alleys, full of brick walls. And all those people-all those cops-sitting at all those tables, in all those booths under the plaster body parts, staring at him without mercy and without a sound… No one could save him here.

"It's funny, you know." Ramsey frowned down at the cell phone on the table. He considered it, turning it this way and that. "I was actually beginning to get superstitious about you. No, really. All this time, I sensed there was something wrong, something working against me. I thought… I'm not sure what I thought. But there's a reasonable explanation for everything, isn't there?"

Shannon breathed in and out, and the sweat trickled down his face. He knew it showed his fear, but he couldn't stop it.

"Who are you?" Ramsey asked him quietly. "Who sent you here?"

Shannon licked his lips and started, "I told you, I-"

"The smartest thing"-Ramsey interrupted him without raising his voice-"the smartest thing you could do for yourself now would be to tell the truth quickly. Because otherwise, we'll take it out of you slowly, bit by bit."

Shannon wiped his face with one hand. There was no point trying to hide the sweat; there it was for everyone to see. He took a long, deliberate look around the room-at the giant plaster nose, the torso, the cold, plaster, comfortless breast, and all those expressionless faces underneath the body parts that might as well have been plaster, too.

"Pretty good," he said, nodding. "Pretty good, Ramsey."

"I'm going to ask you one more time," Brick Ramsey said. "I need to know who you are and who sent you. I need to know how far along this has gotten. You're going to tell me eventually, so why don't you just tell me now."

Shannon opened his mouth. His tongue felt as if it were coated with some sort of sour dust. He felt all those merciless eyes on him and all those cold, plaster body parts and Ramsey's merciless eyes. And no one was coming to help him.

"Go to hell," he said. He looked around the room and swallowed the sour dust and raised his voice. "You can all go to hell."

Ramsey barely lifted his chin in answer and the blockheaded waiter-who-was-a-cop stepped up behind Shannon swiftly and stuck the hard, hurtful barrel of a Beretta into the hollow behind his ear.

The slick agent now rose thoughtfully from his chair. He moved to stand beside Foster. Foster remained where he was, standing at the window, staring out the window at Anatomy across the street, rubbing his fingers with his thumb, rubbing them.

"Should we go in?" the slick agent asked him.

Foster hesitated, gazing down at the restaurant, thinking through the possibilities. Finally, he shook his head. "If they see us coming, they'll kill him on the spot. It'd be over before we got there. Just another dead cop-killer, they'd say." Rubbing his fingers. Thinking. "No. Ramsey is going to want to know who he is, who sent him. If our guy holds out, they'll take him somewhere, somewhere they can work on him, make him talk."

"Why would he hold out?" said the slick agent. "He's just a punk. Why would he?"

Foster's face was blank, his lips parted. He went on rubbing his fingers with his thumb, in a reverie, thinking. "The girl," he said, in a distant voice. "If he gives us up, they'll get to us before we can get her into the system. If he talks, they'll get the girl."

The slick agent considered that, looking from Foster to the window. He grimaced. "He's a punk. He'll just tell them everything."

But Foster shook his head. "He won't. They're going to have to move him somewhere. To work on him."

Now the weaselly agent got out of his chair as well. He moved to stand next to Foster and the slick agent, and they all three stood at the window, looking out.

"They're going to have to bring him out-get him into a car," said Foster. "We'll have a chance then, a shot at stopping them. They've got to bring him out and when they do, we'll see them and make our move."

But he was wrong. They took Shannon out of the restaurant through the service exit in the kitchen. It led to a hall off the ground floor of One City Center. It was an empty concrete hall that led to a service elevator.

Ramsey led the way. Shannon followed him. He had no choice. The blockheaded cop dressed as a waiter was right behind him with the Beretta nine trained on his back. The blockhead kept the gun close to his side so there was no chance to grab it. Shannon knew the blockhead would kill him if he tried.

Ramsey used a Homak key to summon the elevator. The door opened at once. He stood back and let Shannon walk in. Then the blockhead walked in with the nine. Then Ramsey walked in.

Ramsey worked the Homak key in the elevator panel and the door closed. The elevator started up.

Then Ramsey turned and drove his fist deep into Shannon's midsection, right above the groin.

Shannon felt the air rush out of him and doubled over, sick. He was already falling to the floor when Ramsey hit him again, a lead-knuckled blow to the side of the head that dazed Shannon and made his knees give way.

Shannon lay gasping at Ramsey's feet. The moment before Ramsey kicked him, Shannon knew it was coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. Ramsey kicked him in the midsection hard and then kicked him again, aiming for his balls. Shannon spit puke and tried to cover himself. Ramsey grabbed Shannon's windbreaker and lifted him off the floor and punched him, dropping him back down again.

Shannon lay curled on the floor, groaning. He hurt and he was sick, but he didn't think there was anything irrevocable yet, anything broken inside. At the same time, he didn't see any hope of escaping, not with the blockhead holding the gun on him. They would just keep beating him until they were finished, and then they'd shoot him and he didn't see any way out of it. It made him sicker still with fear.

The elevator stopped with a heavy jolt. The door came open. Ramsey grabbed Shannon roughly, lifting him.

"Get up," he said.

Shannon had to take hold of Ramsey as he tried to get his feet under him. He couldn't think straight because of the blows to the head and because his whole body was weak with pain and sickness. He managed to stand up with Ramsey holding him. He stumbled out of the elevator. They were in another concrete hall. Ramsey grabbed him by the collar and hurled him face first into the wall. Shannon felt his nose break, which sent a unique and terrible pain through his head. Hot blood poured down over his face. His legs went rubbery and he started to collapse, but Ramsey grabbed him, held him up, and frog-marched him down the hall.

Shannon saw a door coming at him, but by now he barely knew what was happening. The door opened in the center of a nauseating whirl. A gritty wind bearing the first dead heat of summer washed over Shannon's face. The next thing he knew he was outside, out in the middle of the sky, in the middle of the hot wind. Ramsey dropped him roughly to the floor.

Shannon lay there bleeding, trying to lift his head, trying to look around and get a glimpse of things through his haze of pain and concussion. He saw the naked sky through iron beams, walls in shreds like torn fabric, charred like burned paper. The dark towers of the skyline were visible through the gaps. Great, billowing clouds raced behind the towers on the hot, gritty wind.

Shannon understood where he was. He was on one of the top floors, one of the ruined floors, of One City Center. It was like being in a room that had exploded. The walls were smashed clear through, the beams visible, the windows shattered, the remnants burned. All that was left was the charred wreckage of the place on an open platform in the sky.

He knew what they were going to do to him, too. They were going to throw him off the building. He would fall so far, hit the pavement so hard, his body would be crushed to cinders, and no one would be able to tell what had happened to him. They would get their medical people to say it was an accident or suicide. That would be that.

The fear of dying in that particular fashion made him even weaker, even sicker, but there was nothing he could do, he was too beaten and dazed now to fight back. He tried to think of something that would make it easier for him. He thought of Teresa. He thought he still had the way he felt about her. It was like the gold ring in the boy's hand after his dream in the story-he still had it. He thought she would be safe now. If he could just keep his mouth shut till they killed him, she would be safe, and Michael and the old man-they would be safe, too. So he could die feeling how he felt about her and knowing he had kept his mouth shut and kept her safe and that was something. Otherwise, yeah, it had been a crap life all around. Maybe there was a better life when this one was over. Maybe God would forgive him for some of the bad things he'd done because, in the end, he had helped Teresa, then he would have a better life. But even if there was no God and no better life, Teresa would be safe. Maybe she would even think about him sometimes. So there was that, too. And basically Ramsey could go fuck himself.

The gritty wind blew over him with a roar. The shredded walls shook and fluttered loudly. Shannon lay on the floor and fought against his sickness and the fear of falling.

The weaselly federal agent and Foster and the slick agent stood together at the window and stared down at the restaurant. Foster rubbed his fingers with his thumb, his face blank.

"What do you think?" said the weaselly agent finally. "They're in there a long time."

Foster wasn't sure what he thought. He stood there silently.

Then he saw a flash at the window. The venetian blinds had opened.

"He's gone," Foster said. "Damn it. They took him out. Let's go."

Ramsey worked Shannon over on the floor of the shattered room at the top of the ruined tower. He kicked him in the gut and in the spine. He stomped on his hand, breaking his fingers with a snapping sound. He lifted him up by the jacket and punched him. The blockheaded cop in the white waiter's outfit looked on absently, holding the gun vaguely in Shannon's direction. The hot wind blew through the torn walls and the walls shuddered with a loud noise.

At first, the blows hurt Shannon, each one a fresh pain. He tried to cover himself and when he couldn't cover himself, he tried to crawl away. When he couldn't crawl away, he just lay there on the floor and went through it. After a while, it was all pain, a sort of throbbing, indivisible suffering mixed with the mess of blood and vomit on him and the sad understanding that they would kill him when they were through. He tried to think about Teresa, but after a while he couldn't think about anything except how bad it was. He just wanted it to stop, even if they did kill him.

"Now," said Ramsey, breathless with the work. He knelt down next to Shannon's head. He knelt on one knee and draped his arm over the other. He looked at Shannon mildly. Shannon flinched at his every move, afraid of more blows. "You're going to tell me who you are and how much you really know and who runs you," Ramsey said.

Cowering, his hands over his head, Shannon tried to answer him, but it just came out a sobbing groan.

Ramsey reached down. He pulled Shannon's hands away from his face and slapped him in the nose lightly with his knuckles. With his nose broken and his cuts raw all over, the blow sent a fresh explosion of hurt through Shannon's head.

"I didn't understand you, boy. Speak up," said Ramsey.

Shannon swallowed blood and tried again, louder. "You killed Patterson."

"Is that right? Who told you to say that?"

"I saw."

"You're lying. I want to know who runs you."

Shannon wearily mumbled his answer.

"What did you say?"

"Said… go… to hell. And fuck yourself on the way down."

Ramsey laughed at that. He glanced at the blockhead standing guard. "He's a tough guy."

"He is," said the blockhead reflexively. He wasn't really listening and didn't really care.

Ramsey looked down at Shannon's blood-soaked face. Shannon's eyes blinked whitely at him out of the blood. "Are you a fed? Or are the feds just running you?"

"Killed… Patterson…"

"You're going to tell me everything, Conor," he said. "Really. Why make it so hard?"

Shannon gave a weak laugh. "Already hard."

"It's going to get a lot harder, son, believe me."

Shannon tried to curse him out but could only cough up blood.

"You don't want to die, do you?" said Ramsey.

Shannon coughed some more. "Not afraid," he said.

Which wasn't strictly true. He was full of fear, but he knew he could get through it. It had been a crap life and now Teresa would be safe. Fuck Ramsey.

Ramsey rabbit-punched him in the testicles. Shannon doubled over, gagging and sobbing.

"I want to know who sent you," Ramsey said quietly.

Shannon could not feel the hot wind on him anymore, but he could hear the walls rocking and shuddering. He could see patches of blue and clouds flying past towers as his head lolled over. He prayed to God to let it end already, to let him die, even if there was no better life.

Foster sent his two agents into the restaurant and good luck to them, but he went another way. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of One City Center. He strode to the reception desk, flashing his federal ID. There was a male security guard there and a female receptionist.

"How many ways are there out of the restaurant?" Foster barked at them.

"There's a door into the lobby and one into the service hall," the receptionist said. She was a short, busty woman with an air of competence.

"There a way out of the service hall?"

"A back door to the Dumpsters and the elevator. You need a key for the elevator." The woman slapped a Homak key down on the black marble reception desk.

"This way," said the security guard. "I'll show you."

Foster followed him across the lobby. He already had an idea about where they'd taken Shannon.

Ramsey didn't have to slug or kick Shannon anymore. He could just probe his torn and broken places. Shannon screamed and sobbed at the pain. After a while, Ramsey knelt over him and studied him, expressionless. He was startled at how much he hated this man, how much he wanted to break him and kill him. The sadistic feelings disgusted him, as if they were some squirmy thing he wanted to hold at a distance from himself. Every time the man screamed, Ramsey felt some satisfaction in it and that disgusted him, too. He wanted to end this-and he would have ended it if it weren't for his pride, his fierce desire to break the man's resistance, to have that victory over him before he threw him off the building.

"Damn it, I'm going to find out the answers anyway, whether you tell me or not," he said quietly. "Tell me what you know and who else knows and who sent you, and we can be done."

Shannon tried to say fuck you but couldn't get the words out.

Ramsey grabbed Shannon's broken fingers and made Shannon scream again.

"You said you saw me," Ramsey said.

"Saw you kill Patterson," Shannon managed to answer.

"You're lying. You've got nothing. That's why they sent you, isn't it?"

"I saw you."

Ramsey made him scream again, squeezing his fingers.

"You're lying, aren't you? They sent you because they've got nothing."

"You killed Patterson," Shannon managed to mumble.

Ramsey's anger rose in a red tide. He could feel that he was about to lose control of this. Maybe he already had lost control and just didn't know it yet. He was furious and disgusted and he knew he had to finish it, but he couldn't finish it. So maybe he had lost control. What difference did any of it make? he reasoned with himself. He could trace the warrant, find out which feds had slipped out of the net. They would make the proper phone calls, take care of them, get rid of them. Whoever ran this operation would end up checking parking meters on the moon…

Still… still… this man here. He couldn't quite rid himself of the feeling that this man was, in fact, the nemesis that had pursued him all this time, that was still pursuing him. He wanted vengeance on him for forcing him to go to Super-Pred, forcing him to degrade the very meaning of his biography-his rise out of the ghetto, his service to his country, his service on the force-by begging favors from that fifteen-year-old nightmare version of himself, by letting that nightmare version of himself become his agent in the world. This man had done that to him, forced him to it. He would not be beaten by him now. He would not be defied.

He stood up over the trembling Shannon. He drew his Beretta. He pointed it down at Shannon's knee.

"Look at me, boy," he said.

Shannon looked up at him, blinking through the blood.

"You're making this uglier than it has to be," Ramsey said.

Shannon blinked up at him, open-mouthed. Even in the haze of pain, he realized what Ramsey was going to do. "Aw, don't," he begged.

"Are you going to talk to me or not?"

"Please…"

"Are you or not?"

Shannon sobbed in expectation of the agony. "Fuck you," he said. "Fuck you."

"God damn you!" Ramsey said.

His finger was tightening on the trigger when Foster charged through the door.

It was all like a slow-motion dream to Shannon. He was staring up at Ramsey and he saw the gun and he understood what was about to happen and he couldn't do anything but pray and pray for God to let him die and then there was a bang and he thought he'd been shot but he wasn't and he saw movement and there was Foster in some vague, unfocused distance charging across the background of blue sky and tower tops, shouting words Shannon couldn't hear through the wind noise, holding his gun out before him in his two hands.

Then Ramsey was turning, his gun still pointed down at Shannon, and the blockheaded cop in the white waiter's uniform was whipping around toward Foster and lifting his gun. Shannon heard the first shot, not loud, a distant snap almost drowned by the hoarse roar of the wind and the walls rocking and shuddering. He saw the smoke and fire explode from the barrel of Foster's nine. Then the blockheaded cop was flying backward and crumpling to the floor next to Shannon's feet.

Then there was another shot, a blast echoing through the wind. Shannon didn't know where it'd come from. But then he saw the blood and flesh explode on Foster's shoulder and the agent's face contorted with pain and his body twisted and his gun flew from his hand as he went falling toward the sky.

Shannon blinked upward through swollen eyes and saw that it was Ramsey who'd fired, his gun trained on the spot where Foster had been, smoke curling from the barrel of it.

Foster now lay at the edge of the floor, inches from a break in the charred wall, an open space into emptiness, a forty-story fall. The agent was wounded, writhing like a hurt animal, trying to crawl away from the edge to recover the gun that had fallen out of his reach.

All in that vague, unfocused slow-motion-all beneath the hoarse, shuddering roar of the hot, gritty wind-Shannon saw Ramsey glance down at him from far above to make sure that he wasn't moving, that he was helpless there. And then Ramsey walked away, walked across the room to finish Foster off.

And a thought came to Shannon that was almost like a voice in his ear-that clear-the fi rst clear thought he'd had since Ramsey had started working him over: The gun! The blockheaded cop's gun!

Shannon looked up at Ramsey's back as Ramsey walked into the unfocused distance to kill Foster where he lay, and then he, Shannon, looked over at where the blockheaded cop lay on his back on the floor at his feet. And, sure enough, there was the weapon, the nine the cop had been holding-there it was on the floor not far away, so that Shannon realized that if he could only move, if he only had the strength to move, he might get the gun. He might get the gun.

Shannon understood that this was what he had to do, an un-looked-for chance he had to take. He did not feel he had the strength to move or that his body could stand the pain of moving, but he knew he had to. He did not think or pray. He was all prayer and all pain-unbelievable sickness and pain-as he began to curl his body toward the gun, moving his flesh as if it were a mountain of stone under which he was buried, moving it around by what seemed like inches at a time, over a time that seemed like hours. He still saw Ramsey in his peripheral vision, the gray back of him moving away toward Foster. And then Ramsey was gone, and Shannon thought there must be no more time left and that it didn't matter anyway because the pain was just too much, he could not move another inch, but he kept moving-another inch and another-because he understood this was what he had to do, an unlooked-for chance.

It was his left hand that was broken. He reached for the gun with his right, flinching with the agony of the movement but trying not to cry out. Suddenly he felt the wind again and the grit of the wind stinging his wounds. He reached the gun. He closed his fingers around it and began to lift it, his hand trembling weakly and the weight of his flesh and the weight of his pain crushing him down so that every inch of movement required more strength than he believed he had.

He squinted across the room at Ramsey and his vision cleared so that he saw the lieutenant standing over Foster now, lifting his gun to put a final bullet in him. Shannon could not bring his own weapon to bear fast enough. He could not stop Ramsey in time.

So he shouted out "Ramsey!" through the wind.

And he saw Ramsey, startled, spinning around, turning the gun quickly from Foster to point it straight at him.

When Ramsey heard the shout and turned and saw the blood-soaked figure bringing the gun to bear on him, he knew what was going to happen next, it seemed inevitable. All in a moment, he felt overwhelming desperation, rage, and terrible shame. A wild, silent cry of regret, a silent cry of yearning for his mother's comfort, tore from his guts and filled him. All in a moment, he saw: it was his doing, all his doing, and he was sorry for it.

Maybe that's why he hesitated just a fraction of a fraction of a second before he began to pull the trigger.

But it was too late by then. Shannon shot him.

It was a wild shot. The bullet hit only the fleshy edge of Ramsey's thigh. It didn't even knock the gun out of his hand. But the jolt and the searing pain made him stagger back a step and he tripped over Foster lying there and he staggered back another step and fell off the edge of the floor into nothingness and went down and down and down, screaming in helpless terror and sorrow for what felt like forever.

Shannon saw Ramsey fall back into the sky and vanish in a finger snap as by some terrible magic, and he understood that it was over. The weight of the gun and the pain overwhelmed him then. He collapsed onto the floor in a spreading puddle of his own blood.

He closed his eyes. He felt himself sinking away into darkness-death or unconsciousness, he didn't know which. Either way, he was glad-glad and grateful for it. It was over. He had done everything he had to do.

He let himself go and was gone.