Wheelman, The

Holden thought about it for a while, then realized there really was no good reason to keep her alive. He picked up his cell and dialed Derek.

Bathroom with a Book

LISA PERELLI KEYED INTO THE FRONT DOOR, AND IMMEDIATELY felt this weird vibe. Somebody else was here. Had her father rented this place out without telling her?

Of course, why would he tell her?

She was here to pick up Andrew’s things. This house on Oregon Avenue was one of many that her father owned. It was the one she had used during the past six weeks. Her and Andrew.

Lisa hated Andrew’s dorm room—it was like a shoebox, only with worse interior design. Andrew, meanwhile, hated camping out on the couch at Lisa’s father’s place in South Philly. Andrew never said why until one day, a month and a half ago, when he finally broke down and admitted the truth: he couldn’t use the bathroom at her father’s house. Not the way he usually did in the mornings. Andrew veiled it in all kinds of cute terms—I’m a regular guy, I need to read in the morning—but Lisa knew what he was talking about. Funny thing was, Lisa was the same way. That’s why she hated crashing at the dorms. She just couldn’t feel comfortable getting up, walking down a hallway past a bunch of strange doors with strange boys behind them, walking up two flights of stairs, then using the common women’s bathroom. She wasn’t used to that sort of thing. That’s why she never chose to live on campus in the first place.

The only solution: Dad’s Oregon Avenue rental property, complete with one and a half baths. A full bathroom upstairs, and another smaller one on the first floor.

It was like playing house, only without the risk. Andrew had some minor things there—an Aerobed, a stack of paperback books, extra contact lenses, and a cardboard box with underwear, deodorant, a toothbrush, and a huge tube of Crest. Lisa brought candles and stored jug bottles of Pinot Grigio in the fridge, and stacked some of her unmentionables neatly in the master bedroom closet.

Her dad didn’t know they stayed there; Lisa had filched the keys one night.

The same keys that were in her hand now, still halfway jammed into the front-door lock.

Lisa listened.

Somebody was definitely here. Upstairs.

She closed the door behind her and locked it.

Gamma Delta Gazelle

IT WASN’T THAT KATIE ESPECIALLY MINDED BEING HAND-cuffed to a pole all day. She could deal with that. She didn’t even mind the tender bruising on her face from where that Russian had punched her. She could deal with that, too.

What she couldn’t deal with: how badly she needed to pee.

It was a pregnancy thing.

Katie was in Henry’s bedroom, that much she knew. She’d been in here once before, when he’d given her and Patrick the grand tour. She didn’t expect her next visit to Henry’s bedroom to involve loss of consciousness, handcuffs, and a support column, around which her arms were secured backward, behind her back. Henry didn’t seem like the kinky type.

After the Russian had decked her, she’d woken up on the couch. The Russian had a black revolver pressed to the back of Henry’s head. “They want you to make a tape recording,” he said calmly, his eyes trying to communicate something else. “I suggest we do what they say, then sort this out later.”

Katie didn’t argue the point. She had felt bad—she obviously had led the Russian right here and gotten Henry tangled up in this. Patrick would have never involved Henry. Not for a million bucks. She was disgusted with herself. There was so much she needed to learn.

Michael kept telling her that. Not in a snide way. Just in his typical, nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact way. Michael was a real professional. It’s what had attracted her to him in the first place.

Katie spoke the words Henry gave her into the tape recorder, trying to reassure Patrick by how calm she could sound. As if nothing were wrong. She tried to think of a code word, something to let Patrick know where she was, but couldn’t think of anything. It all happened too fast.

There was a knock at the door. The Russian forced Henry up to answer it. It was two young-looking white boys who desperately wanted to look black. They didn’t look at Henry. She didn’t know them, but she started putting the pieces together. One of the white boys was probably the third guy on the Wachovia job—aside from Lennon and Bling. And this third guy had sold the job out to the Russians.

The thicker of the two white boys handcuffed her to a support column in Henry’s bedroom. Henry tried to reassure her: “Everything’s going to be fine”—before he was hustled out the door with the other white boy and the Russian. They were off to find Patrick. Or threaten him. Or kill him. Or bring him back here, then threaten and kill him. That was probably it. Why else would the Russian keep her alive?

Fifteen minutes later, it first occurred to Katie that she had to pee.

Thirty minutes later, she knew she was going to have to do something drastic, or otherwise wet herself. As well as Henry’s fancy Pergo bedroom floor.

“Hey.”

Her captor. He was a young-looking blond-haired Alpha Chi thick-neck, complete with college sweatshirt and scuffed baggy pants. Joe Frat, with a heavy pistol. He obviously wasn’t a member of the Russian mafiya; he was an errand boy. An extremely odd choice for an errand boy.

“Want a blow job?”

It took some more sweet talk, but the Alpha Chi thick-neck eventually agreed to her proposal. After all, he’d led a life where it was easy to believe that random women wanted nothing more than to take his cock into their mouths. But he was no fool, this boy. First, he made her promise that she wouldn’t use any teeth. Katie promised. Then she asked him if he wouldn’t mind servicing her first, otherwise, it would just be demeaning. Alpha Chi eagerly agreed to her amendment to the proposal. That sounded even better—she must be really into him. The thick-neck said he really liked doing that. He probably had a very satisfied Gamma Delta gazelle somewhere in the city.

He dropped to his knees, then unbuttoned Katie’s jeans and lowered the zipper.

“Be gentle with me,” she cooed, and waited for him to look up at her.

When he did, she smashed her knee into his Adam’s apple. It was the most effective way to kill a man with a single body part, be it the flat of a hand, an elbow, or a knee. Patrick had taught her that. Joe Frat died fairly quickly, scraping the Pergo floors with his thick monkey-boy fingers until they stopped twitching.

The only problem was: she had no way of searching him for a key.

She had no way to contact Michael.

And she still very badly, very desperately, had to pee.

Many, many hours later, the cell phone in the corpse’s pants pocket rang.

No One Answers

LENNON STOLE A CAR A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE safe house in South Philly, then drove up Twentieth Street all the way to Center City. The clouds were low and the wind was cold. Lennon found a parking spot on Rittenhouse Square, miraculously enough. The doorman didn’t bother with him, once he told him where he was headed. Lennon put his ear to Wilcoxson’s door and listened, then knocked.

Fuck.

There was no answer.

Wilcoxson was his ace in the hole—the only guy in Philadelphia he could trust. Lennon hadn’t clued him in to the Wachovia heist ahead of time; better for Wilcoxson not to know. The old man had retired from the business years ago. No sense dragging him into something that could come back to bite him on the arse. Still, Wilcoxson had always been there for him in the past, and there was no reason not to go to him now. Lennon felt hopelessly outnumbered—Russian and Italian gangsters here, rogue cops there. This wasn’t his city. He needed help, protection. A few hours just to breathe. Wilcoxson could give that to him. Mentor to mentee, one last time. For old time’s sake.

But Wilcoxson wasn’t home.

Double fuck.

Lennon walked back down the hallway to the elevator, then took a car down to the lobby again. He scanned the lobby, hoping he might see Wilcoxson, lazing about, maybe kissing a Rittenhouse Square socialite good night, until we meet again, blah blah blah. Lennon had always wanted money just to live. Wilcoxson wanted money to buy a better life. The old man had grown up dirt poor in Brooklyn and clawed his way up and out during the 1960s. He never wanted to go back.

Lennon knew he couldn’t stay in this lobby forever. He was wearing a sharp Italian suit, but he still looked like he had gone six rounds with a piece of industrial machinery. And lost. The Rittenhouse Hotel management would get nervous soon.

Triple fuck.

This is the way it always was. Lennon hated asking for help. He absolutely loathed it. Lennon grew up promising himself he would never ask his father for anything as long as he lived—his father considered basic food and run-down shelter in a bad neighborhood gifts enough—and Lennon stuck to that promise. Even in jail. Self-reliance was always his preferred course.

But the moment he broke down and decided that asking for help was the most reasonable course, help was suddenly not available. There was no one to turn to. There was no help in this world. You were always lugging the load by yourself. Surround yourself with family, with loved ones, with minions, with partners, with whoever. But the truth remained: everyone has to do it alone.

Lennon exited the hotel lobby and started walking toward Locust Street. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts, he almost didn’t see him.

The dead man, walking out of the park.

Kick Back

FUCKING DEREK. HE NEVER TURNED HIS CELL PHONE on. What was the point of owning one of the fucking things if you never turned it on? So instead of chilling out for a couple of hours like he had promised himself—hey, throwing dead bodies down a fucking pipe is still hard work, no matter how you cut it—he was forced to drive all the way back down to Center City to check in on Derek and Lennon’s bitch.

The doorman looked at him funny at first, then regained his composure. He must have remembered him from this morning, when Wilcoxson had called for him. That was the way it was going to be from now on. Instant respect. Especially with that $650 large all to himself. Maybe he’d buy Wilcoxson’s apartment with some of the money. The old guy sure wasn’t going to be needing it anymore.

Holden took the elevator up. He keyed into Wilcoxson’s apartment and called out. “Yo, Derr.”

Nothing.

He walked into the bedroom and saw his cousin on the floor, dead. The girl was still handcuffed to the pole, but it looked like she was dead, too. Water was all over the floor, like someone had dumped a wash bucket. What the fuck?

Holden kneeled over Derek and felt his neck for a pulse. Not that he’d really know what to check for, but his skin was cold anyway, so there wasn’t any need to get scientific about it. Derek’s neck felt funny—aside from being cold.

Holden turned back around, and just in time.

The bitch was yelling and throwing a knee at his face.

I. O. You

BEFORE JOHNNY KOTKIEWICZ TOOK A JOB AS HEAD OF security for the Rittenhouse Towers, he worked as a Philly cop, and eventually ended up in the Robbery/Homicide Division. He put in his twenty, then retired to the private sector. The Rittenhouse made him a nice offer; he accepted it. The money came in handy for his daughter, who was attending Villanova Law School. Maybe someday she would work for one of those hightoned Center City firms—Schnaeder Harrison, Soliss-Cohen—and afford to buy into this condominium, instead of working the entrance like her old man.

He was proud of what he did. But he wanted better for his daughter. Same old parenting story.

Kotkiewicz was here late on a Saturday night, which was unusual. But this had been an unusual day at the Rittenhouse. A cast of unusual characters had been floating around all day. First, a pretty young redhead, around 7 A.M. She went up to room 910, which belonged to Mr. Henry Wilcoxson, a Center City financial consultant. (At least, that’s what it said in the Rittenhouse security files.) Not unusual in itself. But the redhead left twenty minutes later. Later that morning, a beefy man who looked Slavic—Bosnian, Russian, maybe—also went up to room 910. An hour later, the redhead returned and took the elevator straight up to room 910. Barely twenty minutes later, a guy who looked like that white rapper—Eminem—entered the lobby, along with a doughier white guy. Their destination? Yep, 910. Forty minutes later, Mr. Wilcoxson, the Slavic gentleman, and Eminem left the building together. The doughy guy and the redhead were still upstairs.

It was an odd assortment of people and behaviors, and odd collections made Kotkiewicz nervous. He was familiar with the daily patterns of Rittenhouse residents, as well as their guests, but this was something he’d never seen before.

He made a phone call or two, and had a few things faxed over to him. Following a hunch. Like always.

So Kotkiewicz decided to stick around. Judy wasn’t thrilled; she was looking forward to Johnny bringing home some takeout from Kum-Lin’s and she had rented a movie, Road to Perdition. This was the same old story, too; Kotkiewicz torn between the work, and the wife.

As the evening wore on, Kotkiewicz thought maybe he’d been foolish.

And then another stranger entered the lobby and made a beeline for room 910. Mr. Wilcoxson’s pad again. He was obviously joining the redhead and the doughy boy. But for what?

Five minutes later, the new stranger—a brown-haired, blue-eyed guy with the nastiest set of facial bruises he’d ever seen—stepped off the elevator and walked out of the lobby.

Barely a minute passed. And then:

Eminem walked into the lobby again. Kotkiewicz was prepared. Eminem nodded at him, then Kotkiewicz threw a last look at the I.O. sitting on his desk. He’d been studying it all afternoon, trying to rely on his memory. But this last glance clinched it. Bingo. Holden Richards. Suspect in the Wachovia bank heist the day before.

Then he flipped to another I.O. Richards was one of three guys.

Hot damn. The other stranger. Mr. Purple Bruises.

Kotkiewicz picked up the phone. When he looked up, Bruises was walking back into the lobby.

Surgical Grade

“I BET YOU THINK I’M PISSED OFF ’BOUT MY COUSIN HERE.” She didn’t reply.

“Well, you know, I’m not. Not really.”

Nothing.

“I’m all bidness tonight. You know what I’m saying?”

Nothing.

“Alright, play it hard. I can play it hard, too.” The white guy—the other white guy from this morning, this was—stood up. “Be right back.”

Katie watched him walk out of the bedroom. She looked around the room one last time—was there something she had missed? Something that would get her out of these handcuffs? No, of course there wouldn’t be. She’d been looking all afternoon, all evening, all night. The digital clock on Henry’s dresser was out of view. She could see the imitation wood-grain top, but not the numbers. She had no idea what time it was. And she had no idea how she was going to get out of this one.

Her entire body ached; her shoulder muscles were starting to spasm. She had lost control of her bladder more times than she cared to remember.

The white guy walked back into the bedroom. He was holding a kitchen knife.

Wonderful.

What would Michael say, if he could see her now?

“I know you’re knocked up and all. Wilcoxson told me all about it. And I was there when he told your old man. Boy, did he look surprised.”

Katie didn’t look at him, but her mind was reeling. If this little idiot was telling the truth, it was a cruel disappointment. The news was supposed to have been delivered in the warm breeze, with cold flutes of champagne in hand. Not here in Philadelphia. Not by Henry.

Why did Henry tell Patrick about the baby? Jesus, was he trying to make the Russian feel sorry for all of them? Playing the unborn-baby card?

She could only imagine what Patrick must be thinking.

“You want me to do you a favor?” the white boy asked, kneeling closer to her, holding the tip of the knife up to her nose. “How about I give you an abortion, solve all your problems?”

Katie looked at the knife handle. It was a Tenmijuraku, one of those high-end Japanese kitchen knives made with a single piece of surgical stainless steel. Henry enjoyed cooking, and insisted on owning the best kitchen tools. The white boy wielding the knife, however, probably didn’t appreciate the difference. Tenmijuraku, Ginsu, whatever. As long as it could slice a tin can in half. Or a woman, handcuffed to a pole in a luxury apartment.

This white boy comes anywhere near my legs with that thing, Katie thought, I’m going to pummel him with my knees. Or try to.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what seemed to be on the white boy’s mind.

Ta Tuirse Orm

LENNON TRIED THE DOORKNOB; AS HE SUSPECTED, IT was open. Henry. Holden. The failed heist. Too many coincidences; he’d sort them out later. He took one of the Sig Sauers out of his jacket pocket—he’d stashed the other one downstairs, in the park—and slowly edged his way into Wilcoxson’s apartment. No sign of anybody in the living room. He heard a voice speaking in the bedroom, which was down a short hallway. He edged around corners, taking it nice and cautious. But the only people in the apartment, it seemed, were in the bedroom.

A dead guy, facedown on the floor. The back of what appeared to be Holden Richards’s head. And Katie, handcuffed backward to a pole.

Holden was holding a butcher knife in one hand and trying to loosen Katie’s pants with his other hand. The button on her jeans was already undone, the gold zipper halfway down.

Relief flooded Lennon. Katie was alive. Even better, she was alive, and not guarded by a phalanx of beefy Russian gangsters. Just Holden, the little fuck.

Soon to be ex-fuck.

Katie saw him and smirked. She was still here.

“My brother’s back, and you’re gonna be in trouble,” she sang softly.

Holden’s head whipped around, knife in hand, fabric in the other, looking like the cover of a rape counseling video. His mouth flopped open.

“Lennon? Who told you to come here?”

Lennon responded by aiming the gun at his face.

“The only reason he’s not shooting,” said Katie, “is that he doesn’t want to get blood all over me. Now put the knife on the floor, fuck-o, and crawl backward.”

Holden seemed to think this over; the knife in his hand jumped a bit. But after realizing that his only option—stabbing the girl, getting shot in the head—wasn’t a good one, he relented. The knife clanged when it hit the floor.

“Now kiss the floor, facedown. That’s it. Slide away … slowly. Toward the bed. Uh-huh. By the way, you know that wet stuff you’re lying in? It’s piss. Never handcuff a pregnant woman to a pole all day.”

Lennon watched Holden shudder.

“The keys to these cuffs are in the dead guy’s pocket,” Katie said. “I hope.”

Lennon checked both front pockets; the keys were in the left. He uncuffed Katie, then gently helped her crawl to a lying position on a dry spot of the floor. Katie touched his cheek, ran a thumb across his chin. She smirked again. Lennon winked. He leaned in close to her ear. He whispered: “Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?”

“Ta tuirse orm,” she replied.

Lennon was supposed to be a mute. But too many people could interpret sign language. So Lennon had taught Katie—who had been born in Massachusetts, not Ireland—some Gaelic, which they used in secret, or in sign. She told him she was tired.

Lennon walked over to Holden. His objective was now relatively simple: Holden had sold the Wachovia job to somebody. Lennon needed to know who, and where the money was now. He wasn’t very good at the heavy stuff—even in bank situations—but the way things were going, Lennon didn’t think he’d have too much trouble improvising on the spot.

Something caught his eye. An iridescent flash of blue reflecting from a window in Wilcoxson’s bedroom.

“Patrick,” Katie said.

She’d seen it, too.

Blue, then red lights, flickering through the air outside the window.

Repenthouse

LENNON ONCE READ AN ENCYCLOPEDIA THAT LISTED everyone who was ever on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Many Top Tenners, as the FBI called them, were bank robbers, and Lennon skipped to those first. It was interesting. Whenever a bank robber made the top ten, it usually fit a particular pattern: three or four guys hit a series of banks, then in the last job, some cop or citizen gets killed. Three guys scatter, and two of them inevitably get picked up within thirty-six hours. The third guy usually goes the distance.

The lesson: if you can manage to make it past the first thirty-six hours, you have a strong chance of going the distance, making a long run. Of course, your captured compadres might rat you out, so it’s best to avoid your usual haunts, especially the place where you planned the caper.

It was rapidly approaching the thirty-six-hour mark, and there were two heisters still at large. Lennon and Holden. The cops were outside.

Lennon decided he wasn’t going to be the one picked up. He was going for the big run.

They had no idea how many were waiting outside, or if the Feds were involved. They had no escape routes in mind; neither of them knew the building all that well.

“And what do we do with him?” Katie asked, gesturing to the bedroom door. Lennon had gagged Holden, then handcuffed him, face-forward, to the pole. Then he’d locked him in there with his dead friend.

Killing Holden would be a waste. Lennon was already responsible for the deaths of at least six people, and that was about six over his personal limit. He used to pride himself on his choice of a nonviolent criminal profession.

“Let the FBI have at him,” Lennon whispered.

“Does he know anything about Wachovia?”

“Nothing important.”

“Okay then.”

There wasn’t much time left. If the guy down at the desk had any brains, he’d know the exact door through which to send the police.

“Let me grab my luggage, and let’s go,” Katie said. “That’s a nice suit, by the way. It almost distracts from your face.”

“Tell you about it later,” Lennon said, still taking care to keep his voice low. He didn’t know if Holden could hear them or not, and he still wanted to keep his speaking voice a secret.

Up or down? Katie decided they should go up. The Feds would expect their fugitives to see flashing lights and try to scramble for the exits. That’s why they flashed the lights in the first place. There were eleven more floors above Wilcoxson’s apartment. Plenty of places to hide. If they could find a cooperative neighbor.

“Do we have a plan?” Lennon asked.

“Yes,” Katie said. “We knock. If nobody answers, we go in. If somebody answers, we show them that gun of yours—nice gun, by the way.”

“Tell you about it later.”

“Did it come with the suit?”

Lennon smirked at her.

They settled on the eighteenth floor. Not quite the luxe penthouses, but nice enough views to guarantee some serious space. Better to keep someone under wraps in a bigger place. You could isolate them in one room, move around in the others. Breathe a little, plan your next move.

“Which one?”

“That one. 1809. It’s going to be my wedding date.”

Lennon cocked his eyebrow. “Your what?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. Ready?”

Katie knocked while Lennon pressed himself up against the outside wall, Sig Sauer clutched in both hands. Nothing. Katie glanced at Lennon and cocked her eyebrow. Lennon raised his index finger. Steady on.

Still nothing.

Lennon nodded. He handed the gun to Katie, who aimed it, chest-level, at the door. Katie stepped back and Lennon prepared to boot the bastard in.

A lock tumbled, then clicked into place. The door slowly opened.

Here we go.

Katie steeled herself. Waited for a face to appear. Lennon froze, mid-kick.

A guy in a tuxedo opened the door. But he didn’t wait to see who was there. He turned around, without looking, and walked back down a long hallway. They could hear the faint din of conversation and a wailing saxophone, deep inside the penthouse. A party.

Katie shrugged, grabbed her luggage, and walked in.

There was a full bathroom just off the main hallway. Katie and Lennon went inside; Lennon locked the door behind them.

“You don’t mind if I shower, do you?” Katie asked. “I had a series of accidents this afternoon and this evening.”

Lennon turned his back to her and busied himself with her luggage.

“Want anything pressed, dearie?”

“Just hang the black Vera Wang on the back of the door. The steam will take care of the rest.”

“Will do.”

Katie took a brief shower. Brief for Katie meant ultra-brief; she never took more than five minutes anyway. It was Lennon who usually took his time under the hot spraying water. He always did his best thinking in his shower at home, among other personal hygiene locations.

She toweled off and looked at Lennon. “Where’s the money?”

Lennon was secretly relieved. He didn’t want to discuss the elephant in the room just yet. The eight-ounce elephant, tucked away in Katie’s uterus. He was worried they would start discussing that, and who put it there, instead of how they were going to get their money and get out of there.

“I’ll be fucked if I know,” he said.

“The Russians don’t have it, obviously. They wouldn’t have bothered with me and that tape and everything else if they had. And it’s fairly clear their coconspirator, your former partner, doesn’t have it, either.”

Lennon had been playing around with this in his head all night. Nix the Russians, and Holden. Who had the loot?

“Wilcoxson,” he said.

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. He’s involved because I led the Russians here. Accidentally.” She looked at him. “I might have been a bit careless this morning.”

Lennon considered this, stared at Katie’s belly. Nothing really showed yet. “I’ve been careless, too. I don’t even want to tell you what the fuck I’ve been through.”

“Your face certainly paints an interesting picture. As does the suit.”

“Again with the suit?”

“It’s awfully impressive,” she said, drying her hair. “And here I thought you were lying dead in a ditch all this time.”

“It was a pipe, but I’ll save the wild stories for another night. We have three priorities: getting the fuck out of this building, getting our money, and getting the fuck out of this city.”

“Don’t you want to see the Liberty Bell?”

“Right. Almost forgot about that.”

Forensics

LISA WOKE UP AND STARED AT THE BLOODIED SWEATSHIRT again.

It had been balled up and pitched into a corner, along with a pair of wrinkled dress slacks, socks, and underwear. The underwear was definitely not Andrew’s. When they’d first started dating, Andrew had worn tighty-whiteys—Fruit of the Loom. Gross! Old-man underwear. No matter how tough the guy, it made his legs look like little froggy legs poking out of a diaper.

Andrew loathed boxers; they were too baggy to wear under jeans, he said. So Lisa promptly escorted her American Express Gold card and Andrew to Boscov’s, at the Franklin Mills Mall, where they settled on the next best thing: Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs. Lisa vetoed anything close to white; Andrew went home with a half-dozen three-packs of navy blue, black, and dark gray. The tighty-whiteys went into the weekly garbage.

The underwear balled up in the corner was a pair of blue-green plaid boxer shorts. Definitely not something Andrew would wear.

So whose were they?

The sweatshirt was a gray deal with navy blue letters: FATHER JUDGE HIGH SCHOOL emblazoned on the front. That wasn’t Andrew’s either—he was a St. Joe’s Prep boy. Even more disturbing were the bloodstains, which were more black than red, and still wet to the touch (gross!), near the left shoulder. The sweatshirt reeked.

Lisa took another look at the dress slacks, at the label. Slates, size 34L, 30W. Andrew’s size exactly. And Andrew’s preferred label. He had two pair, which he wore Friday and Saturday nights alternately when he had gigs. Were these Andrew’s pants?

And if so, why were they rolled up in a ball along with somebody else’s clothes?

Off Gardai

THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE AT THE PARTY WERE the drunk crime writer and the drunker chief of detectives. It was a writers’ party. The host was new to Rittenhouse Towers, and new to money. Apparently he had written a surprise bestselling coffee-table book called Barbers. Page after page of black-and-white photographs of old South Philly barbers, posing with their customers, with tiny write-ups under each photograph telling each barber’s life story in about 175 words.

For a reason known only to the American public, it was a runaway smash hit, spawning a calendar, date books, posters, an ABC television special, even a line of home hair-care tools. (Which seemed to negate the very job of the old-fashioned barber, but what the hell.) The forty-something writer sat back and watched the Brinks truck pull up and shovel bales of money into his living room. He traded in his dumpy Bella Vista one-bedroom for this five-bedroom spread in one of the city’s most prestigious condos. Now he was preparing to compile a sort-of sequel, Bartenders, and had decided to show off to the rest of his old writer pals, many of whom were scraping by with $25,000-a-year gigs—if they were lucky—at one of the two competing weeklies.

All of this Lennon gathered in about twenty minutes of cocktail-conversation eavesdropping. The only thing flowing more freely than booze was the jealousy. The condo was absolutely lousy with it.

“You believe that? Six figures just for the calendar rights,” said one guy in a threadbare jacket and brand-new jeans.

“It’s a fucking racket,” Lennon replied, laying on the thickest brogue he could muster. He sipped his drink, which was Sprite.

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Ah, me?” Lennon asked. “Donal. Donal Stark.”

Donald Westlake was one of Lennon’s favorite crime writers, but he enjoyed Westlake’s pseudonym, Richard Stark, even more.

“What happened … if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Auto wreck. My face took the worst of it.”

“It looks painful.”

“You know, after a few of these motherfookers, it feels just fine.”

“That accent … you from Galway?” Trying to sound all worldly-like.

“Listowel, actually.” Fucking Galway?

“Yeah, I thought so. You must be new at the Welcomat.”

Lennon nodded. “Ah, yeah.”

“I’ve been at the City Press for two years. They still got me stuck fact-checking restaurant listings. You know, if I had graduated five years earlier, dot coms would have been lining up to suck my dick.”

“Terrible times, these are.”

Despite the accent, Lennon tried to be boring enough to make his new friend seek conversation with someone else. Someone with ovaries, presumably. Women seemed to be at a premium at this gathering.

Speaking of which.

Lennon strolled over to check on Katie’s progress.

Katie had spotted the drunk kid in the kitchen right away, and a plan was formed. She had gone over, made nice, helped him fill up his tumbler with ice cubes—slippery little suckers were sliding all over the place. Then she located an elusive bottle of Johnnie Walker Black that was tucked away, deep in a cabinet, where the party’s hosts assumed the guests wouldn’t dare venture. The kid, a real boyish-looking guy with curly black hair and delicate features, wore a wrinkled seersucker suit, and kept his line of sight on Katie’s breasts, then hips, then eyes, thinking all the time that he was artfully stealing glances at the first two. His name was Will.

“What d’you do?” Will asked.

“You, later,” Katie whispered, pouring more Johnnie Walker into his glass.

“No, I meant for a liv—,” he started, then stopped himself. “Come again?”

Good God. This was going to take all night.

The plan: find some drunk blaggard, get him drunker, then usher him out, draped over their shoulders. The cops were looking for one or two male bandits, not a threesome.

The plan became trickier when Lennon overheard someone say, “Hey, chief. What’s with the lights outside?”

Fucking hell.

“Seems we have some escaped bank robbers in the building,” the chief said.

This was un-fucking-believable. About as un-fucking-believable as the rest of Lennon’s weekend. This shit did not happen to professionals—this was fodder for those America’s Dumbest Criminals books.

“Say what?”

“Yo—somebody get Will. We’ve got his next crime box, right here.”

“Yes,” the chief continued. “I got a call twenty minutes ago—one of our retired badges works the security detail downstairs. He thinks he spotted two of the guys who pulled that 211 at Wachovia yesterday.”

“That two-what?” someone asked.

This was really un-fucking-believable.

“Police code for bank robbery, Ben.”

“Yo, Will! Come on, man, get out here!”

Will.

Will was the drunk guy Katie was trying to sauce up. Their escape hatch. The compiler of a “crime box.”

“What did the robbers get away with yesterday, anyway?”

“The bank president told me himself that it was $650,000. Probably the biggest pinch around here in a while. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Shit. That’s almost as much as Feldman paid for this place.”

There were nervous titters of laughter.

“Fuck that—you know how much these Rittenhouse condos run? Don’t you keep up with Metropolitan magazine? You’d have to pull two of those Wachovia jobs to snag a pad like this.”

Lennon walked by Katie close enough to whisper one word.

Gardai.

Police.

Fugitive or Prisoner

NO ONE NOTICED THEM LEAVE—THE PARTY WAS ALL the hell over the place, especially after the news spread that the John Dillinger gang was loose in the building. The elevator ride down was uneventful, too. There were uniforms everywhere, but no one seemed to want to bother with a man dressed in a clearly expensive Italian suit and a woman in a Vera Wang dress.

Two cops did, however, want to check the identity of the man slumped between them. Yeah, him. The unconscious one.

“We found this boy in the elevator,” Katie said, her eyes crinkled up. “I didn’t know that our building hosted frat parties from time to time.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name?” asked Katie. “Officer, I don’t even know his eye color—he’s out cold.”

Will was out cold because after Katie had lured him into the hallway, Lennon had punched him twice in the head.

“Okay, ma’am, relax.”

“Jesus—what happened to your face?” asked the other cop, who was staring at Lennon.

Lennon ignored him.

“Sarkissian—check the kid’s ID.”

One of the two uniforms reached around and fished a wallet out of Will’s back pocket. He flipped it open, rolled his eyes, and whistled. “Shit. You’re not going to believe this.”

“What, already?”

“This frat boy is Will Issenberg.”

“The crime box guy? The asshole who wrote about Murph—”

The first uniform—Sarkissian—turned back to Lennon and Katie. “Ma’am, we’re sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll take care of Mr. Issenberg from here. Just check in with Mr. Kotkiewicz at the front desk before you go, okay?”

Mr. Kotkiewicz at the front desk was a kindly-looking guy in his fifties. “I’m really sorry about all of this,” he said, sliding a piece of paper and a pen toward them. “I just need you to write your names and apartment number on this log sheet.”

“This really is turning into a terrorist state, isn’t it?” Katie asked.

“I’ll also need you both to put your hands flat on the counter and spread your legs.”

Mr. Kotkiewicz was leveling a pistol at them.

“What is this?” Katie asked. She was also reaching up under Lennon’s jacket to grab his Sig Sauer.

“Now!” Kotkiewicz shouted, stepping back. “Hands on the counter!”

The entire lobby—about a half-dozen cops, and a half-dozen citizens—jolted. Guns were drawn, safeties clicked off. A uniform ran up behind Katie, hand on his holster.

But he was too slow.

Katie reached back and shoved the Sig Sauer up under his chin. He didn’t look surprised, more resigned.

“We’re walking out of here,” Katie said. “You’re going to let us go, and then we’re going to let him go.” With the word “him,” she poked her hostage with the gun.

“No,” said Kotkiewicz. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I think this man here would disagree with you.”

Lennon tried to process everything at once. The variables, the possible outcomes. Katie had done the right thing. If Lennon had reached for the gun, Kotkiewicz would have blasted first. But taking another cop hostage had taken things up a notch. Granted, it was a sound strategic move. That was Katie’s strength—planning—but in the abstract. Never in the moment. She’d never been along for any jobs. She’d never been tagged for a crime. Ever. They’d had two very different childhoods.

Five seconds, and already she was staring at only two possible outcomes: fugitive or prisoner.

His sister. Mother of his unborn nephew/niece.

Push that shite away, Lennon thought. There were piles of problems in the world, but they could only be dealt with one at a time. Solve this one now.

Getting out the door wasn’t the problem. The cops knew to stand down in a hostage situation—or at the very least, wait for a clean shot. Well, Lennon would be fucked if he was going to give them one. He walked behind Katie, reached around, and grabbed the hostage cop’s gun. The two men formed a Katie sandwich, one in front, one behind. They slowly moved toward the front doors.

Revolving.

Fuck.

Move to the side. Hit the handicapped exit doors.

“Don’t make a move, Patrick,” Kotkiewicz said.

Fucker knew his name.

Probably tagged him from his I.O. on the way in here.

Think. Solve.

I just need a car, Lennon thought. I’m not good with armed stickups, or note jobs, or escapes from banks, or pipes, or with hostages, or any of that shite. I’m good with a car. If I can just get Katie into a car, and me behind the wheel, we have a chance.

The car was around the block.

Crime Box Guy

WILL ISSENBERG WAS NEVER RENDERED COMPLETELY unconscious. Shock had put him into a slightly vegetative state. With the first blow to the head, everything took on a numb, dreamlike quality, which reminded him of the first time he smoked pot. His IQ instantly lowered at least twenty-five points. And then with the second blow, another twenty-five points.

But he never lost consciousness.

So he heard everything, felt everything, and tried to keep reminding himself: remember this stuff. This is going to be great for the crime box. Remember what was said, and how it was said. Who did what and when.

Who, what, when, where, why. The basics.

This was going to be great. Just stay awake, and keep recording.

The only problem was that, lying there on the carpet in the moments after the shooting, Will couldn’t remember one key detail:

Who fired first?

When the shooting started, Will’s eyes snapped open. Ostensibly, he saw the whole thing. But he couldn’t get the action straight in his head. In the moment, the sound of bullets and snicks and pops and shattering glass and nicks seemed to fill the lobby, immediately followed by screams and a lone, hollow moan. Who fired at whom? In what order? Who was struck first? When did the windows shatter?

Blasts.

Bullets.

Smoke.

Screams.

Guns.

You try to figure out what the hell happened.

The only solid facts Will could trust were the end results, which was all he ever had when compiling his crime boxes for the City Press. Fat lot of good it did being an on-the-scene reporter. Which is when Will decided that maybe he had been wrong all of these years. Maybe he didn’t love crime reporting so much. Maybe what he really liked were the end results, neatly compiled in the police logbooks, or in legal briefs. Those were solid, understandable, safe, distant. A writer could wrap his brain around things like that.

Live, on-the-scene reporting? That was bullshit. Schroedinger and his dead cat were right. You can’t observe something without changing it.

Or it changing you.

This is what Will Issenberg thought about as his lungs collapsed, and he started to lose consciousness for real.

Free

“RELAX, SWEETIE,” HE SAID. “JUST KEEP BREATHING.” They were temporarily stopped at a red light deep in Southwest Philly. Lennon’s left hand was on the wheel of the stolen car; his right held a torn scrap of his jacket to Katie’s stomach.

SUNDAY a.m.

I am spending your money to have you and your family killed. Nice, eh?

—GEORGE “MACHINE GUN” KELLY

Relaxing with the Paper

SAUGHERTY READ ABOUT HIMSELF EARLY SUNDAY morning, not long after his ex-colleagues from the Philadelphia Police Department showed up for the third time to hear his story.

You know the story. The one about how his house got invaded and torched by niggers as well as his ex-boss, Lt. Earl Mothers, all of whom just so happened to perish in the blaze, leaving Saugherty alive to pursue another black gangster into South Philly, where he was brutally assaulted by—are you getting all of this?—a hanger-on of what remained of the Italian mob, and left broken and bleeding in an alley behind a restaurant.

Three cracked ribs, broken wrist, broken blood vessels up and down his face, two snapped fingers, internal bruising, and covered in gasoline. Saugherty thought that the gasoline was just gratuitous. As if to scare him. As if the broken parts weren’t scary enough.

By the third visit, Saugherty was getting the idea that he was the number one suspect in the mysterious death of Lt. Earl Mothers. Internal Affairs was all over this like white on rice. They sniffed a shady deal gone wrong, somewhere. Mothers was not without splotches of mud on his record. Neither was Saugherty.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the first article to catch Saugherty’s attention Sunday morning.

It was another one: “Ex-Cop, Reporter, Killed in Shoot-out with Robbers.”

Saugherty had almost skipped it at first, but the word robber nagged at him. He skimmed the first paragraph and the name practically jumped off the page and smacked him in the face.

Patrick Selway Lennon.

And an “unidentified female accomplice.”

Saugherty couldn’t believe what he was reading. The cops had somehow cornered two of the Wachovia heisters—Lennon, and this fuckup named Holden Richards—at the Rittenhouse Towers, one of the glitziest condos in Philly. Police found Richards upstairs, handcuffed to a pole.

But Lennon and his mysterious female accomplice crashed a party, then tried to sneak out with one of the guests, a two-bit crime hack named Will Issenberg. An ex-cop named Johnny Kotkiewicz made the ID and tried to arrest Lennon, but his accomplice took another cop hostage, and tried to make for the door. That’s when the shooting started.

Lennon shot first, the paper said.

In the end, Issenberg bought it when a bullet hit his back and collapsed a lung. Kotkiewicz was shot in the throat, and died at the scene. No other officers or civilians were wounded.

Police believed that either Lennon, his accomplice, or possibly both were injured as they fled the scene in a stolen squad car. Pursuing officers lost the pair in a chase that extended from Rittenhouse Square deep into West Philly.

The third Wachovia suspect, Harrison Crosby, was also still at large.

Saugherty lowered the paper, and for the first time all night and morning, was filled with a gleeful kind of hope. The kind of hope that made the runny eggs and industrial-rubber sausage on his hospital tray seem edible.

The money was still out there.

Lennon wouldn’t be going through all this shit if the money wasn’t still out there, somewhere. Richards obviously didn’t know where it was, because his dumb white ass was now in the Gray Bar Hotel. This Crosby guy might be holding the loot bag, but even so, he still had to be in the city. Because Lennon was still in the city.

And the money was still in the city.

Saugherty decided maybe it was worth getting out of bed after all.

The Closet and the Mattress

THE DOOR SLAMMED. LISA JOLTED AWAKE IN THE CLOSET. Somebody else was here. Probably the doctor they had called a few hours ago.

At long fucking last.

Lisa had heard the whole thing.

She had been asleep on the mattress the night before when they came back in the early hours, the mystery guy and his girlfriend. Lisa thought she would just be confronting the guy, asking him what the hell he was doing here, but it didn’t turn out that way. Besides, it sounded like both of them were hurt; she could hear it in their quiet gasps and moans.

When Lisa heard them walking up the carpeted staircase, the wooden floor beneath them creaking from the weight, she came to her senses and scrambled across the floor and into the bedroom closet.

They entered the room just as she was easing the closet door shut.

“Take it easy,” someone said. The mystery guy.

“I’ll be okay.” His female companion. “Where are you hit?”

“It doesn’t matter. Wait … there’s a mattress here on the floor. Ease down onto it. Keep pressure on your belly.”

“It’s just grazed,” she said.

“You have an M.D. now? Lie back.”

“Don’t worry. The baby is fine. I can feel that much.”

“It’s not the baby I’m worried about.”

Lisa cracked open the closet door a fraction of an inch. The room was dark, but she saw the outline of a man lowering a woman onto the mattress on the floor.

She could tell they were a couple—aside from the fact that the woman was apparently pregnant—because they bickered so much. Neither wanted to admit they were hurting, and both wanted to attend to the other’s wounds. The mystery guy seemed to have the upper hand, though, because he had the number of a doctor scribbled on a napkin. The tide turned when Lisa heard that the woman was the one with the cell phone, and she insisted on making the call.

“He won’t know you,” the guy said.

“Who is he, anyway?” she asked.

“He came with the house.”

“And where did the house come from?”

When Lisa heard the mystery guy tell the abbreviated story, she almost put a foot through the drywall in the closet.

The mystery guy didn’t mention names, but he said that an Italian gentleman had agreed to let him use the house in exchange for half of “the take.” The house came with guns, a set of clothes, and an unlicensed doctor to take care of injuries.

“Wait—you needed a doctor before tonight?” the woman asked.

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really?”

“We were ambushed in the getaway car, then stripped and thrown into body bags. I woke up as two assholes were trying to shove me down a pipe, down by the river. Later I was shot. But I’m feeling much better.”

“You were shot? By the Russians?”

“No. But the guys from earlier … one of them was Russian. The other was a college kid. Not Russian. American.”

“Are they still out there?” the woman asked. “Will they be coming after us?”

“No,” the guy said, quietly.

Lisa turned this over in her brain. A Russian. And a college kid.

Mikal. And Andrew.

This is why she almost kicked the wall in.

“So let me call the doctor. Have him look at us both. And then we can get the fuck out of this city. We need to regroup.”

“We need to talk,” the woman said. “I have a lot to explain.”

There was no torture greater than Lisa’s hours in that closet, trapped, enveloped with rage. Right out of her closet door was the man who had killed her boyfriend. And the salt on that particular wound was the fact that her own father was this guy’s partner in crime. Her dad had given them the use of this house! Her house! Her and Andrew’s house! And guns. And clothes. And a doctor.

Lisa seethed as she listened to the phone call. She even knew the doctor they were calling. It was Dr. Bartholomew Dovaz, her own pediatrician. She had grown up afraid of Dr. Dovaz—he had an awful bedside manner, sticking you with needles when you weren’t ready—until his wife got sick, and he started doing drugs. Lisa had assumed her family had severed all contact with Dr. Dovaz after a messy arrest in Lower Merion back in 1993, but apparently, her father had kept in touch with the man.

Her father had kept him on hand for special occasions. Like treating murderers he was hiding.

Had Lisa a weapon of any kind, she would have bolted from the closet and used it. Repeatedly. A gun. A baseball bat. A knife. A chainsaw. A nail gun. And then she’d confront her father later.

But she had nothing, and she had no idea what this couple was packing. They were professional criminals of some kind, and most likely had guns. Which made sense. They were talking about gunshot wounds. It would do no good to pop out of the closet and get shot in the head.

Lisa decided to wait for Dr. Dovaz to arrive, and then she’d figure out her move from there. There would be time to sneak away, to run back to her house and talk to her father.

She repeated things to herself, in her mind, so she could remember them later. They were important.

Getaway car.

Stripped, and thrown into body bags.

A pipe, down by the river.

A while later, Lisa fell asleep.

Am I Blue

SAUGHERTY FELT WOEFULLY UNDERDRESSED TO BE calling on the Rittenhouse Towers on a Sunday morning.

He’d scraped together what he could. The clothes on his back from yesterday were ripped and blood-soaked; his house—and his pitiful wardrobe inside it—had probably burned to the ground. That left one choice. Doctor’s lounge. Saugherty knew his way around hospitals from his cop days, especially this one: Pennsylvania Hospital. He knew the ER. He knew the ER lounge, and how nobody really paid any attention to people popping in and out of it.

He found a pair of khakis and a nice black Eddie Bauer mock turtleneck in one of the lockers. He kept his own shoes, but glommed a shabby-looking black blazer from another locker. Didn’t they pay these docs anything?

The Rittenhouse Towers were only twelve or so blocks away, across town, but since Saugherty had a busted arm, a sack full of broken ribs, and various other oochies and ouchies, he opted for a cab.

Getting in was not a problem; he knew the acting chief of security, Al Buchan, from his working the Fifteenth District. Saugherty fed him some line of bull about working a freelance bank robbery consulting thing for Lt. Earl Mothers, which Al swallowed without complaint. Let him up to 910, where a couple of uniforms told him he should check out 1809, where they hid out for a while.

“They” = Patrick Selway Lennon plus an unidentified female companion.

Saugherty got what he could from the guys on the scene; eyewitnesses weren’t much use coming up with a name. The description was hazy, too. “Hot as balls,” one guy had said, describing the unidentified female companion. “But an ice queen.” Yeah, that helped. Saugherty poked around the condo, marveling at the appliances and utensils. The owner of the place, some guy named Feldman, even had a set of Tenmijurakus sitting on the counter. Swank.

It was getting to be that time, and the Percocets he got at the hospital were starting to lose their luster, so Saugherty found the appropriate cabinet, appropriated the appropriate bottle, then sequestered himself in the guest bathroom, near the entrance. Nothing fancy—just a bottle of Johnnie Walker. But when he closed the door behind him, Saugherty realized he’d hit the fucking lottery. It was Johnnie Walker Blue. He’d never tasted it; only read about it in the storybooks and musty volumes of Greek and Roman fables. Saugherty took this surprise as a good omen. With $650,000, he’d be able to enjoy J.W. Blue on a regular basis.

He unscrewed the cap and breathed in the smoky aroma through his nose. It was almost a contact high.

There was a dispenser of small plastic Dixie cups on the bathroom sink. Saugherty plucked one off the stack and poured himself a tall one, almost to the brim. This was not something to be sucked from the bottle, nor cut with tap water. Presentation was one thing.

The taste was everything else.

Saugherty sat on the closed toilet, in a frayed blazer not his own, drinking some incredibly fine Scotch that was not his own, either. For having woken up in a hospital bed and been grilled by humorless jackasses from Internal Affairs, he thought he was doing all right.

He let the liquid pleasantly burn down into his stomach, and felt the attitude-adjustment mechanisms turning in his brain. He lifted his face to heaven, by way of thanking God.

As his head returned to its usual forward-facing position, Saugherty spotted it.

The bathroom closet door, slightly ajar.

Saugherty didn’t go to it right away. He wanted to finish the Scotch in his Dixie cup first, because he knew what he was going to find in there. The lead he needed. And once he found it, he would be leaving the bathroom, and tracking down more leads, and eventually, tracking down his money.

The morning had been so charmed, how could it be otherwise?

Ten minutes later, the bathroom closet yielded a small black suitcase. Which yielded a set of women’s clothing and toiletries. And beneath that, identification and a passport.

Hiya, Katie Elizabeth Selway.

Paterfamilias

“SO WHO’S THE FATHER?”

“Mary, Mother of God,” she said, sighing.

“You’re not gonna tell me?”

“Yes, I’m going to tell you. But this isn’t how I’d planned it.”

“Ah. Right. Puerto Rico. He supposed to meet us there?”

“He’s there right now.”

“And why aren’t you there now?”

“I got worried.”

Lennon leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. Katie was a few feet away, reclining on the mattress.

He didn’t want to say it, but he’d told her a million times: no matter what, even if I’m arrested, don’t come looking for me. I can take care of myself. That was Rule Number One. That had always been Rule Number One, ever since Lennon had reunited with his sister, and confessed to her what he did for a living. But Katie wasn’t much for rules.

“Do I know him?”

“No … not really.”

“So I fookin’ do know him. What’s his name?”

“Oh, Patrick.”

“His first name, at least.”

“You know, this really isn’t the way I imagined this. I had Vueve Clicquot. I had reservations. I had it perfectly planned.”

“Yeah, so did I.”

They sat there in silence. Mulling things over. Waiting for the doctor to arrive. Sunlight was starting to creep around the cheap fabric window shades.

“I’m going to have to find that money,” Lennon said, at long last.

“Why?”

“You’re going to need a crib.”

“Michael has … shit.”

“Michael? Fucking Michael who?”

Lennon spun through his mental Rolodex of pro heisters, but nothing came to mind. Common enough name, Michael. But he really didn’t know any. At least, he hadn’t worked with any Michaels in the past few years. Had he? Unless it was that … nah. Couldn’t be.

“Okay. Last name.”

“Never you mind. Keep your mind on the money. You hate being distracted in the middle of a job, remember?”

“Too fookin’ late for that.”

“Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a shithead. We can just walk away. Last time I balanced the checkbook, we were doing okay. This money was for the future.”

“I have more immediate needs.”

“Like what?”

“Like I need $350,000 to pay for this house and torn-up suit I’m wearing.”

“It’s a nice suit, but I think you paid too much for the house.”

Lennon chuckled, in spite of himself. It broke the dam. He could be himself with his sister. She was the only person in the world he felt comfortable around.

So he told her everything that had happened since Friday morning—the double cross, the attempted burial at the pipe down by the river, the dorm, the car theft, the rogue cop, the gunshot wound, the threats, the black guys with guns, the burning house, the 7-Eleven heist, the parking lot, the meeting with the junior-grade Mafioso, the deal, the trip to Wilcoxson’s condo … .

Lennon lapsed into Gaelic every so often, but Katie understood enough to follow. She had grown up in the U.S., and had a faint New England accent. Lennon had spent most of his time in Listowel, and then Dublin, before emigrating to the U.S., mostly to find his sister. Their parents had died years before.

“If you want the money, there’s one thing you have to do.”

“What’s that?” Lennon asked.

“Go back to the pipe, and see who’s buried there.”

“You’re thinking of Bling.”

“I’m thinking of Bling.”

Lennon sighed. “I’m not sure what I want more—to find his body, or not to find his body.”

“I think you want to find his body.”

That’s when the doorbell rang. Dr. Bartholomew Dovaz was back for the second time in a twelve-hour period.

“I’ll get it,” Lennon said. “But as soon as he leaves, you’re telling me which Michael defiled you.”

Back to the Pipe

WHEN DR. DOVAZ TOOK THE WOMAN INTO THE BATHROOM, and the guy, Patrick, went downstairs to use the half bathroom, Lisa took the opportunity to split.

Things happened quickly after that.

Lisa’s dad kept trying to yell at her, trying to be the father—What the hell were you doing in that house? Is that your house?—but Lisa wasn’t hearing that. She kept pounding him with what she’d learned, over and over again. The guy is a murderer. He killed Andrew. He killed Mikal. He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the river. The guy is a murderer! He killed Andrew! He killed Mikal! He stuffed their bodies in a pipe down by the fucking river!

Eventually Lisa’s dad saw the light of reason and assembled a team. It wasn’t hard to find the pipe Lisa was talking about. There was only one major construction project down on the Delaware River. The new children’s museum. Lisa’s dad’s team took shotguns, baseball bats, and baling hooks. They didn’t need the first two items. Everybody inside the pipe was dead. They recovered six bodies before reaching mud and clay at the bottom of the pipe. Two of the faces matched a photo they were given, a black-and-white promotional photo of a band called Space Monkey Mafia. It was the bass player and the keyboard player.

The team knew the keyboard player. It was Lisa’s boyfriend, Andrew.

Andrew didn’t look too good. He had a black Bic pen sticking out of his neck. Blood had caked and dried all around it.

They called it in to Lisa’s dad, and he told them to dump all the bodies down the pipe again. No questions; just do it. So they did.

“But before you do,” Lisa’s dad said, “take the pen out of the boy’s neck. And bring it to me.”

SUNDAY P.M.

I want you all to know that I don’t take no orders.

—“BABY FACE” NELSON

Ink and Blood

WHEN LENNON WOKE UP AGAIN, HE WAS TIED TO A chair, and his throat was sore.

Other people were in the room. Which was not the room he’d fallen asleep in. The last thing he knew, he had been given a shot of painkillers. He didn’t want the doctor to give him something that would render him unconscious. “Don’t worry,” the doctor had said. “This’ll just take the edge off.”

Lennon’s vision focused a bit. He saw Katie in the corner of the room. Her hands were behind her back. She was wearing stark white lipstick, and her eyes looked puffed shut. Somebody held a gun to her head.

Now somebody slapped him in the face.

“Hi, Dillinger,” a male voice said. He had said it the correct way—Dill-ING-er. Most people thought it was dill-IN-jer, like the pistol. “Glad you could join us.”

Lennon tried to count the people in the room. Aside from his sister. He got up to five before somebody slapped him again.

“Stay with us,” said the same voice. “This is important. This concerns you, and your pregnant girlfriend there.”

Pregnant girlfriend my arse. Lennon wanted to shout it at the top of his lungs. He was tired of the charade. It was a handy charade—people assumed they were a couple, so let them think that. It made tracking them down all the more difficult. But that didn’t really matter now, did it? They were already tracked down.

“What the fuck did you give him, Dovaz? Horse tranks?”

“I gave him what he required.”

“Jesus. The guy’s a fucking zombie.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely the fault of my medication.”

Another slap—harder this time. Lennon felt his teeth vibrate in his gums.

“You see this, Dillinger?”

Lennon focused. He saw a beefy hand holding a pen.

“You stuck this pen in a kid’s neck a few days ago. You remember that?”

The hand clenched the pen tighter. Lennon could make out the crimson glaze that still caked it. Holy Jesus. This guy had been down in the pipe.

“That kid was my daughter’s boyfriend.”

Who knows, Lennon thought. Maybe he was your daughter’s brother. It’s not right to jump to conclusions like that.

“Are you going to say something, you mute bastard?”

Lennon opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

He was going to say: “Fuck you, ya cunt.”

But he couldn’t.

“Trying to talk, ain’t ya? Well, you can’t. For real now. I know you were playing me—my daughter told me she heard you talking. Those days are over, fucker.”

Lennon tried again but felt razor blades churning around in his throat. What did that bastard do to me? he thought. His eyes snapped to the doctor—Dovaz—and saw a tiny smirk under his beard.

“Yeah, I had you fixed, Dillinger. The good doctor here was kind enough to help me out. He poured some acid down your throat there. So you’re just going to sit there and listen to me.”

Somebody else wheeled a tray into view. He was big and pasty-looking, with ugly tortoiseshell glasses and a bushy, greasy moustache hanging under his nose. Spread out on the top of the tray were all kinds of tools, surgical and otherwise—scalpels, hammers, wrenches, clamps, needles. There was dried blood on some of the tools. In the corner there was a folded-up set of leather stirrups.

“Nothing to retort? Good. You can listen up. I’ve got your girlfriend over there. Pretty soon, we’re going to move her to an undisclosed location—just like Dick Cheney. Then, a little while later, we’re going to set you free. I know, you’re saying, no way, but we are. What you’re going to do for me, Dillinger, is you’re going to rob some banks. I figure you’ll need to knock over at least one a day, because your girlfriend’s room and board is going to be $5,000 a day. I read in a book that the average bank robber can only expect between two and three grand for your average note job. That’s why I’m saying you’re going to have to rob at least one a day.”

Lennon stared at him.

“And I’ll know if you’re robbing banks or not. I read the Daily News every day—it’s delivered right to my doorstep. They cover everything. Some guy takes a piss on the side of a building, it’s in the paper the next day. So I’ll be looking for your work.”

What the fuck was this cunt talking about?

“You should probably get yourself a nickname. All the big bank robbers have them. The Bad Breath Bandit. The Zit-Face Bandit. The Bobby DeNiro Bandit. You can be the Oh Shit, I Got My Vocal Cords Burned Bandit. How’s that? But really, you should figure out something. You want to be distinctive. Anyway, after you pull down the heist, you’re going to deliver the money to this address, right here. You can keep a couple of bucks for yourself, just so you can get by. But a couple of my boys will be waiting for your delivery. You try anything, you’ll be the Pushing Up Daisies Bandit. Swear to fucking God. And your woman here? She’ll be the Girlfriend Who Had a Rusty Coat Hanger Abortion.”

Lennon decided right then to make this man die slowly. He wasn’t exactly sure of the details yet, but it didn’t matter. Once he had a goal fixed in his mind, the rest was academic.

“Yeah. See these tools here? Probably got you all nervous. Well, relax. They’re not for you. They’re for her. You fuck up, get arrested, try to fuck with us, or piss on the side of the wrong building, and we take it out on her. And the kid inside. We got all kinds of ways of pulling that little bastard of yours out. Don’t worry. It won’t survive long. She don’t look that pregnant.”

This bastard, Lennon decided, was going to die the slowest of slow deaths. The kind where you start out with a cheese grater and a blowtorch, and things escalate from there.

“Okay. That’s it. You work for us until you pay back what you owe, and then we let her go on her way. You fuck up, she dies. And I send somebody to hunt you down, too. Whaddya think, Dillinger?”

Just for thinking the thoughts.

“I’ll take your silence as agreement.”

And then someone hit Lennon from behind. That failed to render him unconscious, as someone else quickly noted, so the first person hit him again, which did the trick.

MONDAY a.m.

This bank, my sister could have robbed.

—PATRICK MICHAEL MITCHELL

Breakfast in Bed

THE SAD TRUTH WAS THIS: LENNON WASN’T REALLY A bank robber. Sure, he’d taken part in countless bank heists. If you had handed him an application with a box that requested previous experience, and if you could somehow persuade Lennon to fill it out, he’d write “bank robber” in that box. But technically, Lennon had never robbed a single bank. He had merely transported bank robbers from one point (right outside the bank) to another point (another vehicle, or a safe house, or an airport, or a cave in the woods) in exchange for a cut of the money. Lennon was a master getaway driver. He’d read a ton about bank robberies. But still: he was not a bank robber.

So for his first solo robbery, Lennon picked the easiest target he could think of: a bank inside a supermarket. He’d read they were the easiest. Nobody wants to shop for doughnuts and cold cuts inside something that resembles Fort Knox.

His target: a SuperFresh on South Street, a long walk from the mob’s safe house in South Philly. Lennon had stolen a car from a few blocks away, then simply driven up Ninth Street until he saw the supermarket. It was a start.

But Lennon had no intention of robbing banks for that fat Italian gobshite bastard. He just knew he had to put his hands on enough money to appease the goons left behind at the safe house, spend two dollars of it on a screwdriver, then use it to get some answers. Then collect Katie and finally get the fuck out of Philadelphia forever.

He didn’t remember anything else useful from the previous night; the second blow had knocked him out cold. The next morning, Lennon had woken up alone in the same house, in the same bedroom, on the same mattress. He had tried out his voice; he still couldn’t use it. He wondered if those drops Dovaz had used were permanent. Wouldn’t that be a scream.

On the floor next to him was a typed note that read, “Eat breakfast and get going.” There were three Nutri-Grain bars and a liter bottle of spring water. The note continued: Make your daily deposit through the mail slot at 1810 Washington Ave.”

So the bastard had been serious, after all. Rob banks, hand him the money.

That’s when he saw that the note had been resting on something else—a piece of fabric.

No, not fabric—underwear.

Katie’s.

Lennon drank some of the water—which burned the living shit out of his throat—then put the bars in his jacket pockets and left the house. He stole a car, then saw the SuperFresh a short while later. Let’s get this over with already.

How the FBI Gets Its Man

BLING HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE BANK HEIST MASTERMIND, but he didn’t talk shop too much. Just concrete details, like this joint here’s got an ACU that sniffs gunpowder. Lennon would nod and file it away. All Lennon really had to know was that Bling knew his shit enough to be outside, with the money, no worries. Most of what Lennon knew about bank heists came from books he read as a kid in Ireland—stuff brought over by his American dad in a duffel bag. They were musty paperbacks with titles like How the FBI Gets Its Man and The Bad Ones and We Are the Public Enemies and I, Mobster and New York: Confidential. They sparked his adolescent imagination and led him to crime encyclopedias and lurid biographies and yellowed men’s magazines he nicked from bookshops in Listowel.

Lennon always knew his father was a bad guy, but Lennon’s mum never shared the details. She’d only spent a couple of weeks with him while on holiday in New York City in 1971. Freddy Selway made a few visits to see his boy later on, but only when he needed a place to hide overseas. It was during one of these visits, in 1979, that he’d brought along the duffel bag full of paperbacks. Freddy had to split, so he left the bag behind. Or maybe he’d left the bag behind on purpose. Lennon never knew. In late December 1980, Freddy Selway was killed trying to kill somebody else. Lennon’s daddy was a hit man.

Lennon kept his father’s paperbacks in a safe-deposit box in a small federal bank in Champaign, Illinois, along with $54,000 in emergency funds. The books were among his most prized possessions; he didn’t dare leave them somewhere that might be compromised.

Right now, his mind kept coming back to How the FBI Gets Its Man. It was one of the many books produced by the FBI, under the watchful eye of J. Edgar Hoover, meant to glorify the agency. The bad guys were punished; the G-men were always smarter and sharper and quicker to their guns. But Lennon, even at a young age, identified with the heisters and killers, who had cool names and led interesting lives. Lives he imagined his father leading.

He knew all about bank robbery from How the FBI Gets Its Man.

There were lone-wolf note jobs, and multiple-man takeover teams. Since Lennon lacked a team and a voice, a takeover was out. It had to be a note job. Quick and clean. He also knew that bank tellers were instructed to cooperate with bank robbers no matter what, lest the bank robber go crazy and start pumping the clientele full of lead. So the key was the note. The note had to be fucking scary. So scary, the teller had to think twice about an alarm, or a dye pack, or any other bullshit.

This is why Lennon thought a bank inside a supermarket was his best bet. There were moms and kids and old people and all kinds of innocent bystanders, there to buy milk and bread and juice and cereal. No teller was going to argue with a scary man with a gun.

Fuck. A gun.

He’d have to fake that … .

No. Wait.

This was America, post–9/11. He’d only have to fake a bomb.

Here’s a Suggestion

LENNON STOPPED INSIDE A MCDONALD’S AND BOUGHT A nine-pack of Chicken McNuggets—easy protein—with change he’d found in the stolen car. He sat down and wrote his note, using a pen ripped from the “Give Us Your Suggestions!” box and the back of a McDonald’s job application. When he finished eating his chicken, Lennon borrowed the gold token that would unlock the bathroom, where he used water to pat down his hair and straighten his tie and lapels and try to look as respectable as possible. Which was tough, seeing that his face bore the bruises and scrapes of a rough beating.

What the hell. Maybe that added to his scary factor.

Before stopping at MDonald’s, Lennon had walked into a junk shop and pocketed a plastic beeper toy meant for a toddler. God knows why toddlers needed to play with beepers, but that was something for Katie to figure out later. With Michael. Whoever the fuck Michael was.

Next stop: a Mailboxes, Etc., where he nicked a package in a metal bin meant for Herman Wolf in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Sorry, Herman. It was the right size.

On to SuperFresh.

Lennon flashed back to his favorite chapter from How the FBI Gets Its Man—chapter 7, which was a short history of Al Nussbaum, genius bank robber. Nussbaum kept a farm in upstate New York full of high-powered weaponry and bomb-making materials. He was the man who, in the mid-1960s, pioneered the idea that a mad bomber epidemic could distract police from bank heists going down.

Nussbaum probably never had to worry about stealing toy beepers or packages from mail services.

SuperFresh was like every other American supermarket he’d visited—bright, cool, crisp, white, frigid, and overstuffed with food neatly packed into every conceivable shelf, corner, and aisle.

Lennon placed the bomb on top of a stack of Fruity Pebbles—on sale for $3.99 this week—then walked over to the bank teller. He waited his turn, then slid the note across the Formica countertop.

Peanut Butter

SOMETHING ON THE SCANNER CAUGHT SAUGHERTY’S ear—a bit about a dead woman. A bunch of kids found her in an abandoned lot in Southwest Philly where neighborhood residents dump old furniture and trash.

Saugherty had holed himself up in the Comfort Inn up in Bensalem, right off Route 1, just out of the city limits. He took a corner room so he could see the highway. He didn’t want the flashing cherries and blueberries to come screaming out of nowhere. He was still under investigation, as far as he knew. He hadn’t made himself reachable.

The room was packed with the necessary supplies: the police scanner, of course, to see if his Irish bank-robber buddy had emerged. Two sixes of Yuengling Lager in a hard-case cooler. Three bottles of Early Times. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Two bottles of Ketel One—a buddy of his had turned him on to that stuff. Sipping vodka. Go figure. Six bottles of water. Two sticks of pepperoni; one block of sharp white cheese. Box of Ritz. Rye bread, liverwurst, mustard, fat red onion. He stuck the liverwurst and sharp cheese in the cooler with the beer. The rest could stay out.

He’d also paid a visit to his private armory over in Tacony, along the river. There was a bunch of stuff in a black canvas bag under the bed.

Saugherty had been listening for key words like “bank robber” or “heist” or “Wachovia” or “Lennon,” but then caught the police code for body dump. He called a friend on the force and asked for the skinny, which was: woman, late twenties, found naked at Forty-ninth and Grays Ferry, her wrists and ankles bound with brown extension cords and her body smeared with peanut butter. She was three months pregnant.

Wait, back up, said Saugherty. Peanut butter.

Yeah, confirmed the source. Peanut butter. People on the scene thought the killer—or dumper—smeared it on so rats from the area would eat the evidence.

You got a photo? asked Saugherty. Something nagged him about this.

After some back and forth, the source agreed to fax a photo of the woman’s face over to the Comfort Inn’s business center. Saugherty took another three sips of Early Times, then wandered down there.

He got the faxed photo.

Holy fucking shit.

SuperFucked

I HAVE A BOMB IN A PACKAGE IN ONE OF THE AISLES. GIVE me all your money—no dye packs, no alarms—or people will die. No sense fucking around with it, Lennon thought. This wasn’t an essay for a cash prize; this was a bank robbery demand note. He’d never written one before, but he surmised the most successful were direct and to the point.

The girl across the counter looked down at the note. She was pretty, in a geeky kind of way. Her brown hair was cut unflatteringly and she wore chunky glasses that her Goth friends probably thought were cool. But Lennon liked her look. He didn’t like that he was going to cause her some major grief this morning. This is why he enjoyed getaway driving: no personal interaction, no countermeasures, none of this at all.

She looked up at him questioningly. Are you serious?

Lennon froze his face, deadpan. Yes, I’m fucking serious. He let her see the toy beeper in his hand.

The girl nodded, then started to busy herself under the counter.

Lennon waited.

“We’re supposed to put a security packet in here,” she said, quietly. “But I’m not going to do that. I want you to know that, okay?”

Lennon nodded.

“It’s not much, either. Just a little over a thousand. But I’m not holding back.”

Lennon blinked at her. Come on, love.

“Just don’t hurt anybody, okay?”

Enough was enough already. He raised the toy beeper.

The girl slid him the money, tucked in a white plastic bag. She hadn’t asked if he’d wanted paper.

Lennon took the bag and walked toward the exit. There was a little boy trying to rattle a prize out of a small red machine in the aisle and a young couple pushing a cart full of bagged groceries. He stepped around them and through the automatic doors, which whooshed open at his approach. Through the vestibule, to the other set of doors.

Which refused to open.

As did the ones behind him, when he backed up. The young couple looked at him through the glass. What did you do?

Oh, fuck me, he thought.

Trapped.

Like a gerbil in a Habitrail.

At that moment, for the first time all weekend, Lennon was glad Bling had been killed. He wasn’t sure how he would have explained this to him.

A short while later, after the police had arrived and Lennon was in cuffs and ready to be led to the nearest squad car, the girl from the grocery store approached him. She looked at him through those clunky glasses like a curious schoolgirl at a science exhibit.

“Next time,” she said, “pick a toy beeper that doesn’t say Fisher-Price on the side.”

She didn’t actually say that. Lennon imagined her saying that. Because that’s how this story was going to end, when it was written up for the newspapers in a couple of hours. The bomb angle, the toy. Guaranteed coverage. And the early editions would wrap up a little after midnight, and sooner or later, a copy would wind up in that Italian bastard’s hands, and Katie would be killed.

The Second Fax

“LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE ALREADY,” HIS SOURCE whined.

“Come on. One lousy photo.”

“What, are you whacking off to crime photos over there? It’s just some stupid asshole who tried to knock over a bank with a phony beeper and a napkin from McDonald’s. Happens every day. Read all about it in tomorrow’s Daily News.”

“Come on. One lousy fuckin’ photo, Jonsey.”

“Am I bent over a desk? Are you tickling my colon, you asshole?”

“Come on.”

“You’re a son of a bitch, Saugherty.”

“I know, I know. You need the fax number again?”

A few minutes later, Saugherty knew that the Philadelphia Police Department had captured Patrick Selway Lennon, only they didn’t know it yet—unless the cops involved in Saturday night’s shoot-out happened to drop by the holding cell. Not likely. The buzzword on the Philly P.D.: understaffed, overwhelmed. The mayor had just whacked 1,400 jobs—among them, cops and firemen—from the city payrolls the previous winter. They made the best of what they had. The Wanted posters from Saturday night hadn’t even circulated, and the fingerprint hit wouldn’t come back for about an hour. If they could get to it.

Which gave him about an hour.

Shit. He’d barely recovered from the shock of the first fax and gotten another few sips of Early Times in when the scanner said something about a 211 down on South Street. Which made no sense whatsoever, but the last place Saugherty had seen Lennon had been only a few blocks south of South, at the Italian joint. So it did make a kind of cockeyed sense. Plus, his gut twitched the same way it had before. This was something.

He’d have to leave this tumbler of Early Times behind. Breakfast would have to wait.

Saugherty hopped in his borrowed car and drove down Cottman, hooked a left onto Princeton, hopped on I-95, and hoped the morning traffic snarls had figured themselves out. The roundhouse was all the way downtown, and he couldn’t be late. He had another quick stop first. He had a bag to pick up.

MONDAY p.m.

To a few, it’ll be grief

To the law, a relief

But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.

—BONNIE PARKER

Any Goodly Amount

“FIRST OF ALL, YOU CAN CUT THE SHIT ABOUT BEING mute. I KNOW you’re not, okay?”

Saugherty had tap-danced like Fred Astaire on uppers to get inside this interrogation room. And this mick bastard was still playing the Shields and Darnell shit.

“Just say hi, you asshole. We don’t have time for this.”

The bank robber stared at him, his eyes opened wide, as if he was trying to mentally communicate with Saugherty. His hands were cuffed behind his back, looped through the chair. Go ahead and threaten to detonate a bomb in the U.S., see what happens. Saugherty still couldn’t believe he was in here.

Now the guy was trying to mouth something.

“I can’t read lips, so quit it. Do-you-know-where-the-money-is?”

The guy sighed.

Saugherty wanted to crawl up the side of the room and shit nickels. But then he stopped. Had he made a mistake? Was it possible the guy didn’t actually speak before firing that gun and blowing up Saugherty’s garage? Did he imagine the whole thing? No. He had heard it. That Irish brogue, the word “arsehole,” as if asshole needed the extra consonant. So what was going on here?

“Let me make it plain. I-know-where-your-sister-is.”

The bank robber’s eyes snapped to attention.

“Yeah, I know she’s your sister. Katie Selway. I know she got caught up in this whole thing, and I know she’s in trouble. And I can help you get to her.”

Of course, Saugherty was completely fumbling around this one. And he had left out an important detail or two, but that could be ironed out later.

“That got your attention, didn’t it?”

The guy nodded. Slightly. As if to say, go on.

“I need to know you’re going to help me out at the end of this, then. We need to recover that money, and then I’ll help you recover your sister. Do we have an agreement?”

Lennon, the bank robber, actually seemed to be thinking it over. He knew where the money was, alright.

He nodded again. Just once.

“You know, we have the most revealing conversations, you and I,” Saugherty said. “I love that about us. In this business, it’s really hard to meet people you feel a connection with. Do you feel the same way? Okay. Get ready.”

The two men sat there in the soft pink room with the wire mesh on the opaque windows, getting ready.

“It’s about to go off.”

Silence.

“What’s about to go off, you ask? The suitcase nuke I put in a locker over at the bus station at Tenth and Filbert. Let’s go.”

I-95

THE EX-COP WAS A LUNATIC LOSER. BUT THEN AGAIN, Lennon had been sitting in a cell, plotting an escape, a way out, a way back to Katie, and he’d come up with nothing better.

Lennon needed to reach Katie if he did nothing else on this earth before he left it. So let the ex-cop’s greed lead the way. Lennon didn’t know where the Wachovia money was any more than he knew the location of the Holy Fucking Grail. But this ex-cop, Saugherty, didn’t need to know that yet. And dealing with one ex-cop was better than a stationhouse full of full-time police officers.

Besides, an extra man would come in handy when he went to the drop-off point and made those Italian fucks tell him about Katie. He could always just tell … or write, that is … Saugherty that this mob capo, Perelli, had the money. And they had to go through Perelli to get it back. Problem solved. Saugherty could be dealt with later.

Amazingly, no one gave a fuck when they just walked out the front door. Saugherty fed them some bullshit about “transferring the prisoner,” and that was it. No fuss, no muss. No one had identified him as the same guy who was taking shots at some cops over at Rittenhouse Square two nights before. Nobody blinked. Was this city for real? This guy Saugherty just flashed some old piece of plastic ID and they were out of there. Into a car. A blue Chevrolet Cavalier. They both climbed in without a word. Saugherty took them up one street, then turned right, blurring past some brick buildings with historical designations on them, then they were on I-95, headed north. America.

“Okay, you’re officially sprung. You can cut the shit and start talking.”

Oh Jesus. Here we go again.

“Look, you mick bastard. I know you can speak. I heard you. Right before you blew up my fucking house. You said something about arseholes. Which I really fucking love. The extra ‘r’ in there. Why not just say asshole? No fucking idea.”

Lennon, of course, said nothing. He couldn’t. Not that this cop would understand that. Just let him keep flapping his gums. It was more time to figure out a next move.

“Still the tough guy, eh? Look, really, cut it the fuck out. We need each other, otherwise you wouldn’t even be here. Here’s the deal. I’m taking us up to my hotel room. Now don’t get that look on your face. I’m not a fag. You’re not my type, anyway. I like men who can moan when I fuck them up the ass. Most you could do is scratch on the mattress. And frankly, that wouldn’t do it for me. It’s all about the audio.”

The white lane markers whizzed by at seventy miles per hour.

“Christ, you’re a humorless fuck.”

Lennon saw the city receding behind him and realized they were headed north. Or northeast. To the Northeast. Where this ex-cop used to live. If Katie were anywhere, she’d be south of the city, where those Italians operated.

He opened the glove compartment and a .38 snub-nosed revolver popped out. Lennon saw Saugherty’s eyes bug for a moment, but Lennon put up his palms to say, easy, now, not going for the blaster. With two fingers, he picked the gun up by the trigger guard and placed it on his lap. Then he rooted around until he found what he wanted: a pen and a stack of fast-food napkins. Well, the napkins weren’t exactly what he wanted, but it would do.

Find my sister, he wrote, and showed it to Saugherty.

“No, sorry,” the ex-cop said. “We gotta go back and get ready. We need hardware, and you need a fresh set of clothes. I need to finish my Early Times, even though the ice is probably all melted. Then we talk about the money.”

Lennon put the .38 to Saugherty’s head.

“It’s not loaded,” Saugherty said.

Lennon dry-clicked.

“See?”

Carrying Charge

WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE HOTEL, SAUGHERTY had to change his tighty-whiteys. He hadn’t actually known if that .38 had been loaded or unloaded; he’d borrowed the Cavalier from his bookie after his own car got torched. Could that Irish bastard tell the gun was unloaded from the weight? Who knew.

Lennon sat down in a chair by the window while Saugherty fished around in the black bag under his bed. He knew he had a spare set of clothes here somewh … yeah, here they were. Something he had filched from a drug dealer in Kensington. He threw the white bundle in Lennon’s lap.

It was a white tracksuit with gold piping. The logo on the front read, “I’m the Daddy.”

You’ve got to be fucking joking, said the look on Lennon’s face.

“Hey, least it doesn’t smell funny. Go ahead. Take a shower while you’re at it—you need one. I’ll get us some food. You want a drink?”

Lennon nodded and stood up.

“I’ve got Early Times, some fancy vodka, a bottle of Jack—”

Lennon nodded on the “Jack.”

“Jack? Coming right up. Neat or on the rocks? You’re probably a neat guy. I’ve got some liverwurst here, too. You in the mood for a sandwich? Probably. You don’t get a meal in the clink until late evening. I’ll make you one, hold the onion. You don’t need onion.”

By that time, Lennon was already in the shower.

Saugherty did some hard thinking. There were a lot of fancy ways around this; make this bank robber guy play along until he dug up the heist money. But why? Saugherty was honestly tired of thinking so damn much. His life usually ended up in shambles when he tried to get too cute. He looked over at the dresser and fished the faxed photo of the dead woman out of the pile.

The dead woman named Katie Elizabeth Selway.

No, no time to be cute. Let’s give honesty a spin, see where it takes us.

Right?

Hmm.

No.

No fucking way.

We gotta keep lying.

Saugherty pushed the faxed photo back into the stack. He scooped a handful of ice from the cooler to freshen up his Early Times, swirled it around, and drained the tumbler. Then more ice, more Early Times. He could use some coffee with this, to even things out. Food, too, though suddenly, he wasn’t in the mood for liverwurst sandwiches. Saugherty craved a Big Mac and large fries—cop food, his old drive-thru favorite. He knew he was somewhere in the twilight between a hangover and the next good hard drunk, and he had to stay there for a while. Maintain. Food would help him do that. Wait until this stuff was settled.

He needed to think.

“I’m going out for five minutes,” he called through the bathroom door. “I’d ask if you needed anything, but what would be the point, right?”

Stacks o’ Fax

LENNON SAT DOWN AT THE DESK AND IGNORED THE LIVERWURST sandwich. Instead he sipped his Jack. Not his usual drink—he enjoyed a good single malt when he was kicking back off the job. Even a little Jameson to cap off an evening. But it would do. Jack was in the same liquor family. And as far as being on or off the job, who knew? At some point he had crossed a line. The job had formally ended. This was recovery.

On the desk was a stack of file folders. Lennon took the top one and flipped it open. A police report. Interview with a suspect, a thermal fax of fingerprints, then pages of typed transcript. What was this stuff?

Saugherty was a cop—or an ex-cop. He knew that much. Was this stuff freelance? He started thumbing through the pages to kill time. A lot of stuff on drug dealers. Transcripts, evidence photos. Not just one case, either. A bunch of them, scrambled together.

There was a photo here. A guy in dreadlocks with scars all over his forehead and cheeks. Looked like Seal’s uglier cousin.

Another photo: a young woman with mousy hair and a weak chin. Even though the picture was black and white, her eyes looked like they glowed.

Another photo still: an older man. Bony and gray-haired. Looked like Terence Stamp. If Terence Stamp needed a shave and a hug.

Another photo …

Target Bag

SAUGHERTY KEYED BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM, mouth full OF Mickey D’s French fries, then for the second time that day nearly defiled himself.

The image before him unpacked itself in a fragmented, Dick-and-Jane style in Saugherty’s brain. See Lennon. See Lennon look at faxed crime photos. See Lennon look at dead Katie Elizabeth Selway photo.

See Lennon snap Saugherty’s neck.

The mute looked up at him. And while he didn’t smile, the way he curled his lip indicated to Saugherty that all was cool. Lennon didn’t know yet. If he had, it would have been obvious in his eyes. What’s more, Lennon would have probably gut-shot him where he stood. Saugherty would have bled to death with a face full of fries.

“Hey,” he said.

Lennon nodded, then turned back to the stack of papers.

“Got you a grilled McChicken sandwich. Figured you were into this Atkins shit, from the looks of you.”

Pause. Maybe he wasn’t Atkins after all. Maybe he should’ve bought the guy a Quarter Pounder. Or a Happy Meal.

Spin, Saugherty, Spin.

“What you’re looking at there is the sad remnants of a career in law enforcement. Yeah, it’s true. Took it right from the filing cabinets down at the roundhouse. No one cared. Everything fit into a plastic bag from Target. Walked them right out of there.”

Lennon was still flipping, idly.

“Thing is, my ex-partner was crooked. What you have in front of you there is the remnants of hundreds of broken lives.” Huh. That sounded good, Saugherty thought. “Planted evidence. Rigged trials. You name it. And the day he painted the inside of his Ford Explorer with his brains was the day I swore I’d try to set things right.” Damn, boy! You’re on fire! Hot-cha! I have to remember this shit for when I retire with the 650K. Sit down there in Cancún and write a police novel. Bank robbery loot, that was one thing. But write a cop novel? Being a retired Philly cop with some scandal behind him? That was like printing money.

Saugherty looked down.

Lennon was holding the photo of his dead sister, naked and smeared with peanut butter.

But he didn’t look down. He was studying Saugherty. Probably trying to figure how much of this was bullshit.

About ninety-nine percent, buddy, Saugherty thought.

Confessions of a Bank Robber

DEEP DOWN, LENNON KNEW HE COULDN’T TRUST Saugherty. And here he was, telling some story about crooked cops and helping people. Please. Who the fuck did this guy think he was talking to? But since the guy was in a soul-baring mood, maybe it was time to play along.

At the very least it would be a way to get out of this hotel room. Back into the city proper. Find Katie, shoot everything that moved, then light out of Philadelphia forever.

Lennon pushed the police reports back on the desk and …

(Slight Return)

THANK YOU OH MY GENTLE JESUS HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Confessions (Cont’d)

… MADE THE BY-NOW FAMILIAR PANTOMIME. PEN. PAPER. Bring them to me. Saugherty was a quick study. And he seemed awfully relieved that Lennon wasn’t flipping through his precious case files any longer. Probably enough police corruption in there to make a hundred investigative journalists cream their pants. Who cared? Not Lennon.

They made an odd-looking pair at the front desk: Lennon, with his beat-up face and white hip-hop tracksuit; Saugherty, with his high-school-math-teacher sport coat and wrinkled-beyond-redemption button-down shirt. Saugherty looked like a suburban dad with a nasty secret. The age difference was about right. Lennon looked like he enjoyed it rough. Whatever.

The request for the key to the hotel’s word-processing center seemed to take the clerk by surprise. Probably thought they wanted to surf for man-on-boy porn.

Again: whatever.

Once they were in the room and the busted-up looking Dell had booted up, Lennon started typing furiously. He’d learned to type by e-mailing Katie. It was the ideal way to communicate whenever work separated them, which was often. Granted, Lennon wasn’t going to win any typing awards. He used two fingers in a modified hunt-and-peck fashion, occasionally bringing the thumb and middle fingers into play.

Saugherty read over his shoulder. “Ah. Yeah. That I know. Wachovia.”

Lennon shot him a look.

“Sorry. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

So Lennon continued his rundown of the weekend, from the heist itself to getting arrested this morning. It wasn’t an emotional account. Pure business. Because that was what Saugherty wanted to hear, right? About the money. Because he knew that Saugherty just wanted Lennon to lead him to the money, at which point he’d be arrested or killed. Nothing had changed since Friday night. Actually, in a long weekend of turnabouts and backstabs, Saugherty’s consistency was refreshing.

“No kidding! Shit, your own partner? That son of a bitch.”

More typing.

“Yeah, the Russians. No surprise there. But how did the wops get involved—”

More typing.

“Ah. Gotcha. Which is why I got the shit kicked out of me when I followed you down to that restaurant. Somehow, knowledge diminishes the pain, don’t you think? Guy walks up to you out of nowhere, pops you in the kisser, you think, What the fuck? The question hurts just as bad as the punch. But say you find you were giving his baby sister the ol’ sloppy push from behind. Now it makes sense all of a sudden. Am I right?”

Lennon ignored him and continued typing. He wished the ex-cop would shut the fuck up and pay attention to what he was writing.

More commentary:

“Unfuckingbelievable.”

And:

“A cop—right there at the party?”

On and on.

The other reason Lennon was spilling his guts? He needed Saugherty’s help figuring out this shit. Where was the money? Maybe there was still a spark of a keen analytical mind somewhere in that ex-cop’s booze-addled brain. Maybe Saugherty could spot something Lennon had overlooked.

When Lennon finished, Saugherty let out one long whistle.

“Man. I almost feel bad shooting you in the shoulder and strapping you to a table. You’ve had one hell of a weekend, haven’t you boss?”

Lennon typed:

help me rescue my sister. we find the money, split it … deal?

“Nah. We look for the money first.”

NO TIME

Lennon stood up from the chair. He had options. Saugherty might have a gun, but it’d be tough to use in such close quarters. Lennon could hurl him through the plate-glass window that separated the word-processing center from the hotel lobby.

“Alright, alright. I’m not a prick. You want your sister safe. I’d want the same thing. And I know where she is; she’s going to be fine. These are wannabe Mafiosi. I know ’em. They’re lazy and greedy. They’re not going to jeopardize their meal ticket. But here’s the thing: we’re on a deadline for the money, too. So consider this counterproposal.”

Lennon nodded. Go on.

“Seems to me there’s only one option with the money. Your third partner—this Crosby guy. You haven’t seen him since the morning of the heist. You assume he’s down that pipe, but you don’t know.

“What you do know is that your other partner—the one who double-crossed you—doesn’t have the money. ’Cause he’d be sitting back with his feet up in Cancún about now, sipping a Mai Tai and getting himself an Oriental massage complete with a happy ending. Am I right? So Crosby is the missing link.”

Which is what Katie had said.

“So first we go to the pipe over in Camden and fish out the bodies. We find Crosby, fine. We got to look somewhere else. We don’t find him, though, he’s our guy. Then we get your sister and plan our next move. Deal?”

In the Bag

THE IRISH BASTARD NODDED. DEAL. SAUGHERTY smiled.

Of course, we’re probably not going to find your pal Crosby, so I’ll put you in that pipe in his place. Then I’ll go after him. The heister with the money. Sorry Katie—you’re beyond saving, sweetheart.

He watched Lennon quit Word and click the “Don’t Save” box. His weekend memoir disappeared.

Then he looked at Saugherty and made a pistol with his right hand.

“Yes. Guns. We’re going to need guns to get Katie, aren’t we? Well, brother, you just happened upon the right retired cop. Come on back to the room. Got a surprise for you.”

Not the faxed photo of dead Katie—Saugherty had already swiped it, folded it, and put it in his jacket pocket. No second mistakes.

The surprise was inside a green army duffel bag, the payoff for a favor he had done a Philly S.W.A.T. team member some years ago—covering up a wife-beating beef. In return, Saugherty had asked for a bag of tricks: heavy artillery stuff he could keep off the books. The bag certainly came in handy from time to time. This time being one of them.

Saugherty thought he’d be using this stuff in a standoff with some of his former colleagues, if it came to that. It was part of his exit strategy. But now it was looking like he had another option, after all.

“Isn’t this sweet?”

Lennon didn’t seem impressed. He chose two .38s, and it was obvious he didn’t know much about guns, as he didn’t do much in the way of shopping. He was like an amateur home owner grabbing the first available tool to stop the leaky kitchen faucet. Didn’t matter if it was a hammer or pliers or a screwdriver or a chainsaw.

Saugherty, on the other hand, chose carefully. He skipped the pistols and rifles. He wasn’t going to need them. Instead, he dipped into special ordinance: an oversized flare-gun-looking thing. It held two flashbang grenades, used by S.W.A.T. teams to disorient and confuse their targets. The sonic blast was enough to render ten men unconscious at close range. Eardrums would be burst. Nasal vessels would rupture. Eyes would bleed.

The bank robber was giving him a quizzical look.

“What? This? Flare gun. It’s a distraction. For when we go after your sister. This’ll confuse the hell out of the wops.”

That seemed to satisfy Lennon, who checked his pistols to make sure they were loaded. Of course they were. All part of the exit strategy.

And the other part was this: once they determined that Crosby was a no-show at his own funeral, Saugherty would dump a flash-bang grenade in Lennon’s lap. That might be enough to kill him, but probably not. Either way, he’d dump him and the pistol down the pipe, then hightail it out of there.

Track down Crosby. Squeeze him. Retire.

“Ready to go, brother?”

MONDAY P.M. [LATER]

Tell the boys I’m coming home.

—WILBUR UNDERHILL

Flash Bang Bang Bang

WHAT IMPRESSED LENNON MOST, THINKING BACK ON it, was how everything seemed blurred—dreamlike yet harried—after they left the hotel. Earlier in the day, the drive to the Northeast had taken forever. Now, I-95 was all but empty and they rocketed down the length of the Delaware River and crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge (yeah, again) to the Camden side within minutes. It was more like experiencing a fevered deathbed flashback than actual life.

Then they pulled up to a concrete parking pad within view of the pipes. And it got even worse.

Lennon couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

There were three people down there carrying two body bags toward the pipe. At first, Lennon thought he was watching a replay of his own near-burial from Friday night. But no, these were three different people, carrying—presumably—two different corpses to the mouth of the pipe. The one that was due to be covered with a thick slab of concrete in the near future.

Saugherty saw them, too. “What is this? A Mafia fire sale? Bury all of your dead now while prices stay rock-bottom? Who the fuck are these guys?”

Lennon squinted. He made one of them out.

Big guy. Pasty. Tortoiseshell glasses. Ugly moustache.

It was the guy from the South Philly basement. And his buddies. The ones who had held a gun to Katie’s head.

The body bag.

Plastic.

Sized just right.

Katie.

The blurring stopped. Everything seemed clear now.

Lennon turned, pointed one of the .38s at Saugherty’s armpit—not covered by Kevlar—then pulled the trigger.

The ex-cop had been distracted by the strangers. “What … ?” Then, upon looking down. “I … can’t fucking believe this.” A dark damp stain spread down across the sleeve of his shirt.

Lennon left the car and made his way down to the pipes. He heard the driver’s door creak open behind him. Saugherty was trying to crawl out. Let him. He’d finish him later.

The gunshot hadn’t alarmed the three guys down below. After all, this was Camden. But the creaking door was another story.

They all looked up in Lennon’s direction.

By this point, Lennon was racing toward them, a gun in each hand. He had only two thoughts. First: see Katie with my own eyes. Then: exterminate. The rest would fall into place.

“What the fuck?” said one of them.

“Hey, it’s him,” said the big guy with the tortoiseshell glasses. “The bank robber.”

Lennon shot him right between the lenses.

His two pals dropped the body bag and reached for their weapons, but Lennon stopped and aimed a pistol at each of them and shook his head. No.

This wasn’t the deterrent that Lennon hoped it would be. They drew their guns anyway. Pointed them at Lennon.

“He wants you to open those bags,” said a voice.

It was Saugherty, that crazy bastard. Staggering toward them with that oversized flare gun in his hand.

“Frankly, I’m just as curious as he is. So why don’t you do us all a favor and unzip ’em?”

The two henchmen, who looked like twins now that Lennon had a chance to think about it, appeared puzzled. But not for long.

Gunfire snapped to life everywhere.

“Oh, fuck me up the ass!”

Bullets sparked off the concrete slab, and ripped through fabric and flesh.

“Shit! Shit!”

Then came a phhhh-WOOM sound.

In the microsecond it took for Lennon to lose consciousness, he came to realize: Yes, this was it.

This was the death flashback.

All of it.

Pure White

THOSE S.W.A.T. GUYS DON’T DICK AROUND, SAUGHERTY thought, as the smoking flashbang grenade pistol twirled once and slipped out of his hand. It didn’t have far to fall. Saugherty was already flat on his back on the concrete floor.

He sniffed blood, briefly noted that his eyes felt like burning charcoal briquettes, then passed out.

But not before he had one more thought: Shit, I’d hate to see the other guy.

Here Comes the Groom

SAUGHERTY WOKE UP SOME TIME LATER. IMMEDIATELY, he knew that someone else had beat him to consciousness.

He could hear him moving around.

The best idea right now: play dead. Which wasn’t difficult, considering he had a bullet swimming around his armpit somewhere, and he was partially numb. Then, look for an opening. Take it. Just like he always did. Saugherty could imagine that sentiment etched on his tombstone.

Saugherty was used to playing dead and stealing peeks. He used to do it when he was eight years old, during sleepovers at his cousins’ house. His teenaged female cousins. The ones who slept only in panties. And who often grew thirsty in the middle of the night and bounced off for a cold glass of Delaware Punch. God, Saugherty missed those sleepovers.

But here, now, something bugged him. He’d blasted that flashbang grenade right in the middle of the three of them: Lennon, and his two Italian pals. If he wasn’t mistaken, the grenade actually nailed one of the wops right in the balls. No way he was up and about—checking bodies, smoking cigarettes, ordering pizza. Probably not his twin brother, either. Could be Lennon, but that didn’t make sense either. Saugherty had been standing a good ten yards behind Lennon. If Saugherty had been knocked out, Lennon’s head should have been knocked off.

He took a chance.

He peeked.

Nope. There was Lennon, sprawled on the concrete in what appeared to be a supremely uncomfortable position. Even for Tantric sex.

Which meant …?

A rough hand slapped him across the face. Saugherty’s eyes popped open.

“Hey there.”

The guy looking down at him … now this was a new character entirely. Saugherty tried spinning through his mental Rolodex but came up with a big goose egg.

“Who are you?”

“Michael Kowalski,” the guy said. He was thin yet muscular, with slightly beady eyes and razor-sharp black hair in a crew cut. He was wearing all black—even the gun rig strapped to his chest. “And you?”

“Saugherty. I’m an ex-cop.”

Then, playing a hunch:

“You look like you’re on the job, too.”

“I am. Sort of.”

“FBI?”

“Used to be. Bank robbery squad.”

“And now?”

“Something else.”

“CIA?”

“Something like that. It’s a department they don’t talk about much on the evening news.” Michael scanned the area around the pipe. “There are a lot of dead bodies. Some are already pre-bagged. What happened here, Saugherty?”

All of them dead? Including Lennon? Saugherty felt the white heat of hope burn in his stomach. It even eased the pain from the bullet.

“Guy in the white tracksuit is a bank robber. Did the Wachovia job on Friday. I’ve been pursuing him freelance. At the request of the mayor himself.”

Yeah, that sounded good. Even started out being true. In a way.

“The mayor? Really?”

“Yeah. Check with … well, Lt. Mothers is dead. But check with his replacement. You’ll see.”

Michael considered this.

“Are you sure the guy in the white suit is dead?” asked Saugherty. “He’s one tough fucker.”

“I checked for a pulse. Not much going on there. If he’s not dead yet, it’s a matter of minutes. So … wait a second. I can’t keep calling you Saugherty. That makes it sound like we’re in a bad TV cop movie. What’s your first name?”

A pause. “Harold.”

“Harry, is it?”

“No. Harold. That’s why it’s ‘Saugherty.’” He coughed up something wet. “Ah, shit, don’t make me laugh.”

“Harold, who are these other guys? They don’t look like bank robbers to me.”

“Some mobsters, I’m guessing. This bank robber, Patrick Selway Lennon, had a money-laundering deal with them.” Wow. That was good. Keep spinning, keep spinning. “There was even talk that they did the scouting for the Wachovia job. A pure moneymaker. They’re basically a bunch of washed-up losers trying to get back in the game.”

“Interesting,” Michael said, then walked over to the dead twins. Or what looked like the remnants of the dead twins.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“Those your guys?” Saugherty asked.

“Nah. My guy’s over there.”

“Who?” Oh no. What was this? Was he one of Perelli’s guys?

“The bank robber in the white tracksuit. He was my brother-in-law. Or was going to be, anyway.”

Even though he was numb, Saugherty could feel the icy-blast effect of a cold fusion bomb in his stomach.

“Which brings me to my next question, Harold.”

“Yeah?”

“Why is there a photograph of my dead fiancée in your jacket pocket?”

Saugherty didn’t have an answer for that one.

So Michael Kowalski picked him up and threw him down the pipe.

Family

KOWALSKI CLEANED UP AS FAST AS HE COULD—YEP, there were sirens approaching. And no cover would be adequate to explain his presence in the middle of a Camden, New Jersey, bloodbath. Not even his government creds. So his valediction would have to be on the short side.

He rolled his dead brother-in-law-to-be over on his back.

“Nice to finally meet you, Pat,” Michael said.

Lennon stared up blankly. Dark blood had leaked from his tear ducts, nostrils, and ears—as if his brain were a tomato and someone had squished it.

“This is not how I imagined our first meeting. I was looking forward to our time in Puerto Rico. A little baccarat, some steaks, some rum. Not this.

“Well, perhaps this. Eventually. A brother-in-law on the Ten Most Wanted list can be a liability to a guy in my profession, you know? But to be honest, I hadn’t made up my mind about you yet. Katie was so in love with you—she idolized you. I didn’t see how you could possibly live up to your reputation.

“And now that I see you, and now that I’ve seen my dead fiancée and unborn child on a slab in a police morgue … well, I’ve gotta say. I’m disappointed. Did you even know her? Did you know she’d do anything for you?

“Ah, maybe I’m being harsh. I don’t even know you. Maybe you tried your best.

“Maybe you didn’t.

“Maybe I’m going to have to finish what you started here tonight.”

Michael stared down at Lennon and, after some consideration, made the sign of the cross. The sirens were almost upon him.

“Okay, good talk, bro.”

Michael picked up Lennon, then carried him over to the pipe.

Lennon floated across the blood-splattered concrete slab, his lifeless body headed toward the pipe.

Had he been a smoker, Lennon would have savored a last few puffs before smashing the butt into the metal lip of the pipe. Just one cigarette—something for the geeks in khaki pants and navy blue windbreakers to pick up with tweezers, drop into a thick Ziploc bag, tag, log, then store in their evidence cases.

Maybe someone would have gotten around to analyzing the brand, try to pluck some DNA from the butt.

Maybe some part of Lennon would have lived forever.

A Beautiful Friendship

OH, IT WAS BAD. SAUGHERTY DIDN ’T HAVE ANY ILLUSIONS. The wound under his right arm was pumping blood like a kid’s water pistol. The impact of sliding down the pipe had snapped his spine, and he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. He was folded like a V inside a dank, fetid, slimy, and circular metal coffin. There were soft, squishy things beneath him. Bodies. He had been to enough crime scenes to distinguish the degrees of ripeness.

But at least he wasn’t upside down. Saughtery could look up and see the night sky through the opening of the pipe.

Things were looking up already, he thought to himself, and chuckled, which hurt.

Then a hand appeared in the opening, and an arm. Draping itself over the side.

A head, in shadow.

What the hell … ?

The opening of the pipe suddenly went dark. Saugherty heard a scraping sound that became louder and louder until—

Impact. A hard skull pounded into his chest. An elbow smashed his nose, and another slammed into the middle of his left shin.

That Michael asshole had pitched his own brother-in-law—well, his almost brother-in-law—into the pipe.

Which made no fucking sense whatsoever.

“You son of a bitch,” Saugherty finally mumbled, when the waves of shock and pain finally ebbed. He took his frustrations out on Lennon’s body. “Shouldn’t you be out collecting your money? Isn’t that what this is all about?”

Nothing.

“I know you’re still alive. I can feel your body breathing.”

Nothing.

“You’re trembling. You’re scared, ain’t ya?”

Still nothing.

“Goddamnit, I wish you could have held on to your voice a bit longer. ’Cause you know, I’m really dying to know what was going through your head the past couple of days.”

Saugherty felt the trembling increase. At first, he thought the mute bank robber was going through death spasms. His body finally giving out. After a while, he realized he was wrong.

Lennon was laughing.

NEWS BULLETS

Briefly … CITY/REGION

Cement foundation poured for New Jersey’s children’s museum

After countless political delays and bitter turf squabbles, the new Children’s Discovery Museum in Camden, NJ, took one step closer to reality as workers laid the museum’s thick concrete foundation. “The first kids will be running through the front doors in about seven months,” promised wunderkind developer Jeffrey Greenblatt. “This will breathe new life into the dead urban center that is Camden.”

Briefly … CITY/REGION

13^thdead Perelli associate … linked to mystery slayer?

The mob wars in Philadelphia continue to heat up this summer, even though members from both the Perelli and Barone families deny they’re feuding. The latest victim: 45-year-old Manny Namako, a suspected arsonist and bookmaker, found dead in the bathroom of his South Philly row home. “The police need to investigate this for what it is: a madman with a rifle preying on innocent businessmen,” mob lawyer Dan Behuniak told reporters yesterday.

Officially, police refuse to acknowledge the rumors that a vigilante dubbed “Mr. K” has been systematically erasing alleged wise guys for the past nine weeks.

But one law-enforcement insider confirms: “Yeah, there’s somebody out there. He’s pissed. And he’s a good shot, too.”

CITY/REGION

Strange odor disturbs summer visitors to NJ kids’ museum

“Like old fish and cheese … ick!” says Alison Eaton, 10, of her July visit to the Children’s Discovery Museum.

Kids are discovering things, all right. They’re discovering how adept their noses are at detecting foul odors.

For some unexplained reason, the brand-new museum is inundated with an odor that one security guard—a Vietnam War veteran—could only compare it to “the stench of bloated bodies floating along the Mekong Delta.”

“We have the best environmental forensic analysts in the country working on it,” responds Jeffrey Greenblatt, the young, troubled developer who has watched multiple projects fizzle at the last moment. This, however, could spell the breaking point for Greenblatt, real-estate analysts say, as well as the end of new development in Philadelphia or Camden for years to come.

Briefly … CITY/REGION

$100 from Wachovia heist recovered

LAS VEGAS, NV.—Police made an arrest today in the months-old Wachovia bank heist after a Philly resident used a hundred dollar bill to pay for beer and pornography magazines in a convenience store.

Dylan McManus, 20, aroused the suspicions of the clerk when he insisted he was a “high roller from Philadelphia” and didn’t need to be carrying I.D. for beer. The clerk took the bill, then called the FBI, who traced McManus to a motel in Laughlin.

Previously, McManus had been employed as a security guard at Park-o-Matic, a park-it-yourself lot based in downtown Philadelphia.

PRAISE FOR THE WHEELMAN BY DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI

“A bittersweet slice of noir … . Swierczynski’s novel, like those of [Elmore] Leonard, offers an undertow of humor beneath the churning sea of man’s inhumanity. His knowledge of both the City of Brotherly Love and the mind-set of bank robbers helps make The Wheelman the delight it is.”

—Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post

“Adrenaline-charged … fast-moving and funny, The Wheelman is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in an R-rated amusement park.”

—Booklist

“The Wheelman is as lean and intrepid as its title character, an assured and accomplished novel with a devilish sense of humor. In this, just his second novel, Duane Swierczynski puts the rest of the crime-writing world on notice. So learn to spell the last name. He’s going to be around for a while.”

—Laura Lippman, Edgar Award–winning author of Every Secret Thing

“A great heist story in the rich tradition of Richard Stark’s Parker novels and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing … keeps readers holding their breath to see what’s going to happen next. It is clearly the work of a maturing writer who is possessed of a keen style and abundant talent.”

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[A] promising debut … the gripping tale of a heist gone wrong.”

—Robert Wade, The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Dark stuff … hilariously funny at the same time. Swierczynski has come up with his own twisted and thoroughly enjoyable genre. Bring on some more, sir.”

—Rocky Mountain News

“Swierczynski has an uncommon gift for the banal lunacy of criminal dialogue, a delightfully devious eye for character, and a surprisingly well-developed narrative engine for a beginner.”

—Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune

“I cancelled a night out and stayed up all night reading. That’s how much I loved this book … at every turn, I was blindsided. Hilarious and bloody violent.”

—Ken Bruen, author of the Shamus Award–winning The Guards

“A double-joined plot that twists and turns so furiously he could take the gold if contortionists competed in the Olympics … . The Wheelman is twisted, funny, violent—and a blast.”

—Mystery Scene

“Astonishing! Duane Swierczynski has written one of the great all-time heist novels and this guy’s just getting started.”

—Jason Starr, Barry Award–winning author of Twisted City

“I loved it. Can’t wait for the next one.”

—Robert Ferrigno, author of Prayers for the Assassin

“An exciting, gritty, adrenaline-charged tale … . Swierczynski is definitely a rising star in contemporary American crime fiction; his oddball cast of characters is reminiscent of the Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder Gang—on steroids!”

—Lansing State Journal

“A blistering, edge-of-your-seat tale from a major new talent. This book was an absolute joy to read.”

—Richard Aleas, Edgar-nominated author of Little Girl Lost

“Heist novels don’t get any better than this. The Wheelman grabs hold of you and refuses to let go.”

—Allan Guthrie, Edgar-nominated author of Kiss Her Goodbye

“If Donald Westlake were on speed and in a nasty mood, the result might be a lot like The Wheelman … . A welcome throwback to a genre that was once prominent in American crime fiction.”

—The Flint Journal

“[A] fast-paced, violent yet funny book. Swierczynski may well be the future of crime fiction writing.”

—Bookbitch.com

“The Wheelman mixes the darkness, grit, and ultra-violence of Ken Bruen’s Irish noir with the bad-ass cool of Richard Stark’s Parker books … [it’s] a noir cocktail that’ll knock you on your butt and keep you up all night at the same time. This book rocks.”

—Mystery Ink

“The Wheelman is way more Pulp Fiction than “pulp fiction.” It’s brief and nearly absurd in its violence—Peckinpah animated by Warner Brothers.”

—Bookslut.com

“Swierczynski seems to get such a kick out of writing about eccentric crooks, it’s almost criminal.”

—J. Kingston Pierce, January Magazine

“I may have to go take back yet another online article, the one for Salon about how crime novels were bad. I give [Swierczynski] high props for avoiding the sentimental hero stuff that bugs me in so many books. The writing and the dialogue were great, the Philly details and bank-robber lore tasty.”

—Ben Yagoda,

author of The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing

“If you like the distracted, short scenes of Ken Bruen, the bizarre characters of Elmore Leonard, and can tolerate the body count of Lee Child, you’ll devour Duane Swierczynski’s book in an instant … . It’s super-duper fast noir pulp.”

—ReviewingtheEvidence.com

“Oh, what style!”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Duane Swierczynski is one of the best new things to happen to crime fiction in a long time. A kick-ass writer with wicked cool skills and the instincts of a seasoned veteran. Keep your eyes on him. He’s going places.”

—Victor Gischler, Edgar-nominated author of Suicide Squeeze

“Fast-paced.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Wheelman is a white-knuckle thrill ride that grabs you by the throat. Unable to put down from the opening sentence to the end.” —Brian Keene, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of

Terminal and City of the Dead

“I just plowed through The Wheelman like a senior citizen crashing through a farmer’s market. I loved it. Swierczynski’s sensibility’s so black, you’d need an ultraviolet light to see it. Lennon makes Westlake’s Parker look as soft as an Easter Peep.”

—Charles Pappas, author of It’s A Bitter Little World:

The Smartest Toughest Nastiest Quotes from Film Noir

Special Thanks to …

Sunshine, for debuting it.

The Pope, for inspiring it.

Tenacious DHS, for pimping it.

Marc, for buying it, editing it, vastly improving it.

Marsha, for believing in it.

Father Luke, for blessing it.

Meredith, Parker, and Sarah, without whom there would be no “it.”

And to My Heist Crew: Robert Berkel, John Cunningham, Becki Heller, Jessie Hutcheson, and the rest of Team Minotaur. J.T., K-Buster, Kafka, and the PointBlankers. Mark “the Man” Stanton. Simon Hynd and Micky MacPherson. Gary the Hat. Loren Feldman. Jason Schwartz. Rich Rys. Paul, Hickey, B.H., Lori and my co-workers at the CP. Mike “Rego” Regan. Tony Fiorentino. Deacon Clark. Mr. Aleas. Mr. Keene. Mr. Starr. The Other Mr. Smith (Anthony Neil). The Gischler. La Salle University. Wachovia Bank. And to all of my friends and family.

About the Author

DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI IS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE Philadelphia City Paper. A receipt for This Here’s a Stick-Up, Duane’s nonfiction book on American bank robbery, was found in the getaway car of a San Francisco bandit who’d hit at least thirty California banks. Duane lives in Philadelphia. Visit his Web site at www.duaneswierczynski.com.

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT OF

THE BLONDE

BY DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI

COMING FROM ST. MARTIN’S MINOTAUR

NOVEMBER 2006

9:13 p.m.

Liberties Bar, Philadelphia International Airport

“I POISONED YOUR DRINK.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Um, I don’t think I did.”

The blonde lifted her cosmopolitan. “Cheers.”

But Jack didn’t return the gesture. He kept a hand on his pint glass, which held the last two inches of the boilermaker he’d been nursing for the past fifteen minutes.

“Did you say you poisoned me?”

“Are you from Philadelphia?”

“What did you poison me with?”

“Can’t you be gracious and answer a girl’s question?”

Jack looked around the airport bar, which was done up like a Colonial-era public house, only with neon Coors Light signs. Instead of two more airline gates in the terminal, they’d put in a square bar, surrounded by small tables jammed up against one another. Sit at the bar and you were treated to the view of the backs of the neon signs—all black metal and tubing and dust—a dented metal ice bin, red plastic speed pourers stuck in the tops of Herradura, Absolut Citron, Dewar’s, and a plastic cocktail napkin dispenser with the logo JACK & COKE: AMERICA’S COCKTAIL.

For commuters with a long layover, this was the only place to be. What, were you going to shop for plastic Liberty Bells and Rocky T-shirts all evening? The bar was packed.

But amazingly, no one else seemed to have heard her. Not the guy in the shark-colored suit standing next to the girl. Not the bartender, with a black vest and white sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

“You’re kidding.”

“About you being from Philadelphia?”

“About you poisoning me.”

“That again? For the record, yes, I poisoned you. I squeezed a tasteless, odorless liquid into your beer while you were busy staring at a brunette with a shapely ass and low-hanging breasts. The one on her cell, running her fingers through her hair.”

Jack considered this. “Okay. So where’s the dropper?”

“Dropper?”

“The one you used to squeeze poison into my drink. You had to use something.”

“Oh, I’ll show you the dropper. But first you have to answer my question. Are you from Philadelphia?”

“What does it matter? You’ve just poisoned me, and I’m about to die in Philadelphia, so I guess, from this point on, I’ll always be in Philadelphia.”

“Not unless they ship your body home.”

“I meant my ghost. My ghost will always be in Philadelphia.”

“You believe in ghosts?”

Jack smiled despite himself. This was delightfully weird. He’d been delaying the inevitable—a cab ride through a strange city to a bland corporate hotel room to catch what little sleep he could before his dreaded morning appointment.

“Let’s see the dropper.”

The pretty blonde smiled in return. “Not until you answer my question.”

What was the harm? Granted, this was perhaps the strangest pickup line he’d ever heard—if that’s what this was. For all he knew, it was the opening bit of an elaborate con game that targeted weary business travelers in airport bars. But that was fine. Jack knew if this conversation led to him taking out his wallet or revealing his Social Security number, he’d stop it right there. No harm, no foul.

“No, I’m not from Philadelphia.”

“Goody. I hate Philadelphia.”

“You’re from here, I take it?”

“I’m not from here, and yes, you can take it.”

“That’s harsh.”

“What’s there to like?”

“The Liberty Bell?”

“Funny you should mention that. I was reading about it in the airline magazine. They have this back page where they tell the story of some famous national monument every month. Or however often the magazine is published. Anyway, the Liberty Bell cracked the very first time it was rung.”

“Back in 1776.”

“Wrong. You should have read this story, my friend. Philly’s been trading on a lie for, like, years. It wasn’t rung in 1776. And worse yet, the bell? It was forged in England. You know, uh, the country we revolted against? Like, hello!”

“You’ve just ruined Philadelphia for me.”

“Sweetheart, I haven’t even started.”

Jack smiled and finished the rest of the beer in his pint glass. There was no rush. He might as well order another—minus the whiskey. He’d already had two boilermakers, and it hadn’t helped any. The drama of the past few months hung heavy in his mind. Might as well take it slow for a while, check out the people in the airport. The ones with a purpose in life. With a clear idea of where they were going, what they were doing.

The only thing waiting for Jack Eisley was a night in a bland hotel room and an appointment at eight o’clock in the morning. He was in no hurry to get to either.

The blonde was looking at his hand. At first, Jack thought she was looking at his wedding ring. Which he was still wearing, for some dumb reason. But then he saw that she was focused on the glass in his hand.

“You finished your drink,” she said.

“You’re very observant. Still working on yours?”

The girl smiled coyly. “Why? You offering to buy me a drink? Even after I poisoned yours?”

“It’s the least I can do. What are you having? A martini?”

“Never you mind that. Though I think I should tell you what to expect. Symptom wise.”

“From the undetectable liquid poison.”

“Right.”

“Go ahead.”

“It works in stages. At first …” She glanced at a silver watch on her wrist. “Well, about an hour from now, you’ll start to feel a knot in your stomach. Not too long after, I hope you’ll be near a bathroom, because that’s when the power vomiting starts.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“Think about your worst hangover ever. You know, where you’re sitting on the cold tile of your bathroom floor, begging God to show mercy on your poor alcoholic soul? Telling him how you’ve seen the error of your ways, and you promise never, ever to touch the demon rum again? Well, that’s a tenth of what you’ll feel when this poison hits you. And in ten hours, you’ll be dead.”

Jack knew his mind was screwing with him—of course he knew—but damn if his stomach didn’t tie itself into a little knot right at that moment. Ah, the power of suggestion. The power of suggestion of death.

Okay, this girl was fucking psycho. Last thing he needed was another one of those.

“Um, can I ask why you did this to me?”

“Sure, you can ask.”

“But you won’t tell.”

“Maybe later.”

“If I’m even alive.”

“Good point.”

If this was a con game, she had strange ideas about running it. The bit about the poison would be enough to scare away most people. Which is not the reaction con artists want from their marks. They kind of have to be around for a scam to work.

So what was her game? Or was this a pickup?

“Okay, you’ve poisoned me.”

“You catch on quick.”

“Do you have an antidote?”

“Sweet Jesus on the cross, I thought you’d never ask. Yes, I do have an antidote.”

“Would you give me the antidote, if I asked nice?”

“Sure,” she said. “But I can only give it to you somewhere quiet.”

“Not here?”

“No.”

“Where, then?”

“Your hotel room.”

Yep, that sealed it. This was a con game—probably a bizarre variation of the old sweetheart scam. Take the woman to a hotel room, expect sex, get knocked on the head, wake up with your wallet gone, your kidney missing, your naked body in a tubful of stinky ice, whatever. Whichever way, you were fucked, all because you thought you were going to get a sloppy blow job in an airport hotel.

“That’s a kind offer,” he said, “but I think I’ll take my chances with death.”

Jack scooped up the loose bills on the bar—a ten, two singles. He reached down and grabbed his overnight bag, which had been resting between his feet.

“Good luck with that poison thing.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

After a second, it hit him.

“Wait. How did you know my name?”

The woman turned her back to him and started looking through her purse. She removed a plastic eyedropper and placed it on top of the bar. She then lifted her head and swiveled around to look at him.

“Weren’t you leaving?”

“I said, how did you know my name?”

Her fingers played with the eyedropper, spinning it on the surface of the bar. He leaned in closer.

“You tell me or I’ll bring airport security back here.”

“I’ll be gone by then. And even if they did catch me, it’s my word against yours about the poison. I won’t know what on earth they’re talking about.” She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. “Poison? An antidote?”

“We’ll see.” He turned to walk away.

“Oh, Jack?”

He stopped, turned around.

“Your name’s on a tag attached to your bag.”

He looked down at the carry-on in his hand.

“Paranoid much?”

He could feel it already—the knot forming in his stomach. It wasn’t sickness. It was anger.

After leaving the airport bar, Jack followed the signs to baggage claim. He didn’t have luggage to pick up—he made it a point to live out of one bag, no matter how many days he traveled. Lost luggage was too much a pain in the ass. But according to the airport’s Web site, the taxi stands were to the left of baggage claim, and sure enough, they were. Cabs to Center City Philadelphia were a flat rate—$26.25, so said the Web site. He climbed into the back of the first available taxi and tried not to think too much about the strange girl in the bar.

Strike that.

The strange, pretty girl in the bar.

It was just as well he’d left her behind. Considering his morning appointment with his wife’s divorce lawyer.

Poison me?

Sweetheart, I wish you had.

9:59 p.m.

Adler and Christian Streets, South Philly

ONE SQUEEZE. ONE HELL OF A MESS TO CLEAN UP.

But that wouldn’t be Mike Kowalski’s problem. These days, it wasn’t even up to the police. No, this pleasure would fall to one of the crime-scene cleanup outfits. For fifteen dollars an hour, they’d hose down the blood, mop up the bits of bone and tissue, return things to normal. Or back to normal as possible. In Philadelphia, crime-scene cleanup services were a booming industry. Thanks, in part, to guys like Kowalski.

And right now, he had his night-vision sights trained on a nice little head shot. Yeah, it’d be messy.

In fact, depending on how the bullet impacted and exploded, it could mean an extra couple of hours’ pay for the crew that worked this part of South Philly.

Which would be the Dydak Brothers. Couple of nice, strapping, blond Polish guys based in Port Richmond. They’d been cleaning up a lot of Kowalski’s scenes recently. Weird that they worked South Philly, traditionally an Italian stronghold, now full of mixed immigrants and twenty-something hipsters priced out of downtown.

But whatever. Kowalski liked seeing some of his own people get theirs. Sto lat!

He’d make this one a gusher. Just for the Dydaks.

See ya, cheeseball.

The guy whose head was covered by a professional assassin’s sights had absolutely no fucking idea. He was eating a slice of white pizza—uh, yo, dumb-ass, it’s the dough and cheese that make you fat, not the sauce—and sucking Orangina through a clear plastic straw.

Savor that last bite of white, my friend.

Steady now.

Index finger on the trigger.

Set angle to maximize blood splatter.

And …

And Kowalski’s leg started humming.

There was only one person—one organization—who had the number to the ultrathin cell phone strapped to Kowalski’s thigh. His handler, at CI-6. When they called, it usually meant that he should abort a particular sanction. He would feel the buzz and immediately stop what he was doing. Even if the blade was halfway through the seven layers of skin of some poor bastard’s neck. Even if his finger had already started to apply pressure to the trigger.

But this sanction was personal. There was nothing to abort. Only he could abort it.

This was capital V—Vengeance.

Still, the buzz troubled him. Somebody at CI-6 was trying to reach him. Ignored, it could mean more hassle. More explaining to do, which was bad, since he was supposed to be on extended leave of absence. No operations, no sanctions, no nothing. The last thing an operative like Kowalski needed was to explain why he’d been systematically wiping out what remained of the South Philadelphia branch of the Cosa Nostra. That was seriously off-mission.

The Department of Homeland Security kind of frowned on the idea that their operatives—even supersecret ops, like Kowalski—would use their training and firepower to hunt down ordinary citizens on a mission of vegeance.

They might secretly applaud it, get off on the details, but approve? No way.

So okay, okay. Fuck it. Abort.

Your lucky day, cheeseball. I’ll get back to you later. In the meantime, go for some sauce. Live it up.

Rifle down, glove off, roll over, pluck the cell phone from the thigh.

“Yeah.”

The voice on the phone gave him another cell phone number. Kowalski pressed the button to end the call. Added six to every digit of the new cell phone number. Dialed the result. A male voice said, “You mean to say you’ve got a thirst even at this time in the morning?”

Kowalski said, “It’s so hot and dry.”

Wow. It’d been awhile since a relay used Rhinoceros. Kowalski had almost forgotten the reply.

The voice gave him another number, which Kowalski memorized—after adding a seven-digit PN (personal number, natch) to every digit. He packed up, stashed the gear in a nearby warehouse, then made his way down from the rooftop and walked six blocks before catching a cab. A $3.40 fare took him to the nearest convenience store, a 7-Eleven, where he purchased three prepaid calling cards in the amount of twenty dollars each. He wasn’t sure how long the phone call would take.

Kowalski stepped outside the 7-Eleven and found a pay phone. He punched in the toll-free number on the back of the card, then dialed the number he’d memorized. By using a prepaid card and a pay phone, the call was untraceable, buried under a sea of discount calls being placed across the United States. Nobody had the technology to sort through all of that. Not even CI-6—a subdivision of Homeland Security they didn’t discuss much on the evening news.

A female voice on the phone told him to fly to Houston. Kowalski immediately recognized the voice. It was her. His former handler. They hadn’t worked together in months; they’d had an awkward falling-out. But it seemed they were to be paired up again. Ah, fate.

Kowalski thought he should say something friendly to break the ice, but she didn’t give him the chance.

A university professor named Manchette had died earlier that morning, and Kowalski’s employers needed to check something. She wanted Kowalski to bring back a biological sample.

“Some skin?”

“No.”

“Blood?”

“No, no. We need the head.”

“The whole thing?”

But of course. Pity was, Kowalski didn’t know any crime-scene cleanup crews in Houston. It would be a new city for him. Shame it couldn’t have been in Philadelphia. The Dydak Brothers would have had a field day with a head removal.

“We need something else.”

“Anything for you,” said Kowalski, but immediately he regretted it.

Keep things professional.

“We’d like you to pin down the location of a woman named Kelly White. Want me to spell it?”

“White as in the color?”

“Yes.”

“What do I need to know about her?”

“She may have come in contact with Professor Manchette within the past forty-eight hours. We’d like to know if this is true.”

Kowalski said fine, and thought about asking his handler to meet for dinner when he got back. Just to catch up. He wanted to say, Hey, it’s not as if I’m tied down to any broad. Not anymore. Nope, not as of a few months ago.

And I’m not going to be a father, either.

But he let it drop.

Kowalski caught another cab and told the driver to take him to Philadelphia International Airport. The interior was blue vinyl. It smelled like someone had sliced a dozen oranges and then baked them to mask the aroma of sweat. A square red CHECK ENGINE was lit up on the dashboard.

“There is no flat fee,” the driver said.

“What do you mean?”

“Only apply Center City. We are twelve block south. You must pay what’s on meter.”

“But South Philly is closer to the airport than Center City. Hence, it should be cheaper.”

“No flat fee.”

Kowalski considered asking the driver to take him to Dydak Brothers turf and then shoving him up against a wall and blasting his head off—that’d be a nice little cleanup job for the Polish boys. Bet you didn’t know you were messing with the South Philly Slayer, did ya pal? Too much to risk, though. Kowalski had to return to this city soon enough, and he didn’t need additional complications. The press was already writing stories about a psycho with a rifle hunting down gangsters. He had to finish this before he was caught and had to cash in too many favors.

“You know what? I’m not worried about the flat fee. Let’s go.”

THE WHEELMAN. Copyright © 2005 by Duane Swierczynski. All rights reserved.