Verona

Eight

Friday, July 15

Present Day

Andy Nagle unscrewed the silencer from the Sig Sauer. He slipped the gun and the hot accessory into his pocket. He glanced with no particular emotion at Jimmy’s collapsed body.

Yes, he and Loi were planning a wholly up-to-date crime syndicate. Still, it was wise not to discard all aspects of the past — especially those that had proved reliable over the years: for instance, 9 mm slugs and cinder blocks to keep a body at the bottom of the deep.

Footsteps in the corridor.

“Hey.” Loi Yung walked into the office, glancing down at Jimmy’s corpse, untroubled at the sight. She examined the wall behind the corpse. “No blood on the walls.”

“I aimed carefully. And used hollow points. Max’s on his way. He’s going to take out the trash.”

“Ah.” She doffed her jacket and slung it over the back of a chair across from the desk. She kissed Andy then dug through her backpack. “How’s this?” She held up a sketch of the proposed logo for their company.

A name that echoed their new approach to organized crime, as opposed to, say, the antiquated: “Transportation and Storage.”

He said, “Nice typeface. Classy.”

She said, “What if somebody asks who R and J are?”

“We’ll tell them they’re our silent partners.” Andy’s phone chimed and he read a text. It was from Pete J, the late Donald Lark’s son. “He’s agreed to a sit-down.”

Loi said, “Can’t wait to see his expression when we tell him he can keep on with business as usual.”

She had come up with the idea, a good one. It would be best to make sure the Panhandle remained the hotbed of traditional organized-crime operations — to keep White and the other cops and law enforcement agencies diverted, unaware of the empire that Andy and she were building.

Max appeared in the doorway. He nodded to the couple. He wasn’t smiling but then he never smiled. He walked to Jimmy’s body, studying it while pulling on blue latex gloves. The big man emptied the scrawny guy’s pockets and dropped everything in a plastic bag. He then began to wrap the body in the blood-spattered drop cloth.

Loi cocked her head and gave a laugh.

“What?” Andy asked.

“We’ve got a new ending for Romeo and Juliet.”

He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.

“They survive, okay?”

“That’s good.”

“And they go on to form Montague-Capulet, Inc., a front for a syndicate that controls all the organized crime in Verona.”

Andy nodded slowly. “Shakespeare meets Bonnie and Clyde. I like it.”

A faint smile blossomed on Max’s face, the first Andy had ever seen. The man’s crescenting lips soon returned to their flat state and he proceeded with the duct taping.

Andy said, “I’ll help you get him in the SUV.”

“Thank you, sir.” Sounding like a BBC period-drama butler, minus, of course, the accent.

Andy rose and pulled on latex gloves too.

Max said, “You get the feet. The lighter end.”

“You sure?”

The big man grunted once more.

On “three” the men hefted, then started down the hallway with their load, Andy calling to Loi, “I’ll be right back.”

She blew him a kiss.