I slung the bag off my back, letting it thud down on the rock. My eyes were adjusting and I could see that hers were puffy, but moist, almost gleaming in the pale glow of the city sky. She was stoned.

  I saw the bulge in her coat pocket and reached for it. She slapped my hand away, but it hit her package and I heard the rattle of pills.

  "How the hell can you think straight with that stuff?" I asked.

  "I'm fine," she said, crouching to the bag. The angry look that flashed across her face made me think that maybe she was.

  "I've got a car coming, but we have to pay for it," she said, counting out the bundles of money until she had ten thick wads of it. "We'll go to Canada. Buy passports. Try to get Tommy. Where is Tommy?"

  "My mother."

  "Good. You did good. They might watch him. Yeah, but we'll get him. We'll have the money.

  "Okay," she said, rising and handing me the bundle of money. "You take this."

  I did and she bent down, zipped up the bag, and put it over her shoulder. Then she stepped past me, heading for the place we met, and asked, "What time is it?"

  "Eight."

  "Time," she said.

  My heart was pounding good. There was a charge in the air I couldn't explain. Maybe because we were going to make it, together.

  We kept close to a thick oak tree. I wrapped her in my leather coat and hugged her from behind, warming my nose in her soft hair, still able to smell the hint of shampoo. She continued to softly sing. Something I couldn't make out. We kept our eyes on the road and it wasn't two minutes before we saw a set of headlights and a gold El Camino pulled over next to Shakespeare's circle. We saw a man get out and march past us, to the middle of the path at the head of the walk. He stood there with his feet apart, his hands jammed into the pockets of his coat, glaring down the walkway as if daring someone to approach him. We eased out behind him.

  "Hey," Jessica said, weaving only a little.

  The man spun. It was Pete. He wore an evil grin and his eyes darted all around us.

  "Where's the money?" he asked, holding out his left hand.

  I nodded and held out the bundles.

  "Where's the keys?" she asked.

  "Set the money down," Pete said.

  "Set the keys down," she said.

  "You don't trust me?" Pete was grinning and I didn't like the way he kept one hand in the pocket of his coat, but he took the keys out with his free hand and jingled them in the gloom. I set the money down and backed away.

  "Toss them over," she said.

  Everything happened fast. Pete tossed the keys into the air and bent like he was going for the money, but when he was halfway over, he straightened up quick, the long ugly pistol in his hand, coming our way.

  I had the sense of motion in the distance behind him, but it only registered like a shadow, shifting in the dark corner of a wood. I heard the shotgun at the same time Pete's face exploded. I spun and dove, rolling and scrambling up in a crouch, moving for the trees. In the corner of my eye, I saw Jessica sprinting for the car. Coming down the walkway at a full run was the dark figure of a man with a sawed-off shotgun--the man who blew Pete's head apart had been aiming for me. I stayed low, dodging between the trees, working my way toward the road so I could cut Jessica off. I heard the car start and the engine rev. A shot sounded behind me. I dove to the ground as the slug whizzed past my head, thudding into a tree above me. I rolled again and came up out of it on the move. I sensed the car moving my way fast, I was almost there. I bolted from the trees into the light. Jessica swerved and slowed just a bit. I grabbed for the door handle, but she kept going. I held on, my feet dragging on the pavement until it burned right through my shoes. I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

  The car was swerving, but accelerating fast. She veered, and my legs swung wide and nicked a lamppost. I thought I'd been shot and the shock made me lose my grip. I skipped across the pavement on my back and rolled to a stop. Slowly I got up, feeling for broken bones. The pain in my knee was excruciating, my pants and the flesh were torn and I thought the white gleam in the midst of the blood was the bone of my kneecap. But, it seemed like I could walk. I moved slowly after the car, then began to limp, then hobble. Finally, I regained enough control over my legs to jog. I was almost to the bend in the road when I heard another gunshot. This time it came from far away up the road and the slug ricocheted off the pavement with a twang. I didn't look back. Whoever it was, they were still coming after me. I bolted into the trees and wove my way back across the Literary Walk, across another road, and into some thick stuff. I felt safe there. In the dark. I knew that park and I knew there were plenty of places to hide.

  73

  BUCKY KNELT BESIDE THE LAMPPOST and passed the beam of his pocket flashlight over the metal. He saw the fresh scrape, the white flesh, the blood. He allowed himself a small smile. The roadside was full of grit and he could actually follow the man tracks out and up along the road, even seeing where they went back into the trees. By that time, there was blood enough for him to follow. Nothing more than a pinprick every six or seven feet, but it was fresh and it gleamed bright red under the beam of light.

  He stopped to reload the shotgun and tuck it back into his coat. He didn't know where people might be in this maze of paths and woods and open grass, and it wouldn't surprise him if the shots had raised some excitement. He wasn't upset with himself. A gun of this ilk couldn't be counted on to shoot too well, and he would have had him but for the other man popping up like an arcade target. He had reached a wide swath of open field by the time the sirens got close to where the dead man was. Too distant for him to waver in his quest.

  The helicopter was another problem.

  Bucky heard its chopping grunt before he could locate it. It swept out over the park from over the buildings to the west and kept going past him, he presumed for the crime scene. Nothing to worry about at the moment, so he refocused his attention to the grass. The faint white frost left clear man tracks, and Bucky jogged its length aware that Thane was beginning to drag his right leg, and picking up the pinpricks of blood on a far path. They took him over a wood bridge, smooth and bowed up in the middle.

  A mallard quacked at him from the water, angry at being disturbed. It sounded right. He kept going until he could actually hear the waterfall again. It lifted his spirits. Up ahead in the darkness, he heard voices. He waved the coat aside and gripped the gun with both hands, letting the laser play along the winding path up ahead.

  Someone was coming. He crouched into a shadow and let his shoulder rest against the smooth bark of a beech. He could smell the distinctly sweet scent of its decomposing leaves all around him. He could hear the footsteps now. Close. He took a breath and held it.

  The man rounded the bend, and Bucky laid the red dot on his nose. The man swatted at it and reared back. Bucky relaxed his finger. Not his man.

  Whoever it was, he had his cell phone out, crashing down through the woods like an idiot, yelling into the phone.

  Not good. Not with a helicopter about.

  Bucky set his mouth and kept on up the path without bothering looking for blood. The man had been ruffled before the laser sight. Probably at the sight of Thane, dragging his bloody leg. Bucky jogged with his mouth open, stepping softly, the better to hear. Something loomed up ahead. There were lights. Not many. A stone building.

  Bucky remembered the map. Belvedere Castle it was called. The high point in the park. He recollected there were stairs going down, but only on one side, past a garden and some kind of theater. Bucky stopped going up. He turned to the left and slipped through the woods, keeping what lights the castle showed to his right, circling the hill, cutting off the escape. He circled the castle, past the theater and through the garden and up the rough-hewn stone steps. Up the rock cliff, the castle sat, waiting. Bucky crouched over the path and scanned it hard for a sign in case he'd already come down this side. Nothing.

  He started slowly up the steps, quiet. He knew he had him, it was a matter of time. But the helicopter was coming his way. It was back there, buzzing like a chainsaw on a fall day when you wanted to listen for the step of a hoof. It couldn't be helped.

  Neither could the sound of car engines, moving fast through the park, brakes screeching and tires squealing.

  "Sumbitch," Bucky said, allowing himself that luxury in all this noise. He began to hurry. He heard shouting on the far side. The copter was above him, piercing the night with its brilliant beam, adding to the light of the iron lampposts on the rampart. And in it, Bucky saw the dots of blood. They led across the stone courtyard, and he saw to where. A dark, hidden corner of the rampart. Crouched down, his hands over his head, was Thane.

  Bucky stood straight and swept aside the long coat, raising the gun. His chest heaved with the effort of his run, and he paused an instant to gain his composure for a certain kill shot. The red dot fell on Thane's center. It was an instant too long. The figure of a woman stepped between him and his mark. She was pointing a pistol at him, double-clutched.

  "Drop it!" she yelled.

  The red dot from his shotgun's sight settled just above her Adam's apple. The shot would punch through her neck and smash her brainstem, killing her instantly. She'd never pull the trigger. He could put her down and then kill Thane. Bucky took a deep breath, then let it out, his shoulders sagging.

  "Hello, Agent Lee," he said.

  His finger came off the trigger and he let the gun drop.

  74

  "But they got her?" he asks.

  I nod and say, "They picked her up getting on a bus in Massena and busted her for the drugs. Ten years, they told her she'd get that for sure, taking that much across the border. Half the time in New York, you do more time for drugs than killing someone. Like Bucky. Five years' probation he got for killing that guy."

  "She turned on you too?"

  I smile at him and say, "You think because of what she did that she didn't care?"

  He shrugs.

  "She didn't know I had ahold of the door handle," I say. "I believe that. I also know that she was always one step ahead. Her stop for a Dictaphone before she found Johnny G at the Met? She had what they wanted. Johnny G on tape, taking credit for Milo."

  "But you're here," he says.

  "Not for the three life sentences they wanted," I say, watching his face. "She lawyered up the minute they put the cuffs on her. Total immunity, for giving them Johnny G. I cut my own deal. Pled guilty to manslaughter one. Twelve years. That meant six."

  "But she never testified," he says.

  I look away, squeezing the ducts in the corners of my eyes.

  "She kind of left that to me, right?" I say.

  "The money?"

  "I think she figured they'd blame me since I was the man."

  "Who?"

  "The union."

  "But they didn't?"

  "Apparently not."

  75

  THE MAN RUBBED HIS EYES and shook the sleep from his head. He put his seat up, pushed off the thin airline blanket, and looked out the window. The misty clouds gave way to the lush green hills outside Milan. It reminded him of the Catskills.

  Inside the airport, he looked for a sign. The guy was a kid, practically. Long dark hair pushed behind his ears, a dark leather coat with a lime green button-down shirt underneath. He spoke English and as they traveled north toward Como, the two of them smoked up a storm and the kid told him what he knew.

  "She buy Apuzzi Palace two year. Seven million," he said. "Call it Black Hole now. Old palace. One day, very nice."

  "The fuck is that?" the man asked.

  The kid rumpled his brow.

  "Why?" the man said, speaking slowly. "Why Black Hole?"

  "Like a spider," he said, nodding to make the man understand. "Everything go in. Nothing out."

  "Spider?"

  "Spider hole. Black hole," the kid said, shrugging and lighting up another cigarette. "Many packages. Many deliveries. Food. Furniture. Clothes. Jewelry. Even cars. Much much money. But nothing come out. No people. No garbage. Nothing."

  "The fuck?"

  The kid shrugged. "Big. Very big palace. You'll see."

  When the road from Milan split at the south end of the lake, they went right, into the town of Como. The sun came out. Narrow streets. Old stone buildings. Churches. Shops. Men in suits riding Vespas. Kids wearing colorful sneakers. Dogs hunched down and hurrying between cars. They twisted and turned, finally catching sight of the lake nestled between the ancient mountains. The piers of the town extended out into the glittering water, welcoming tour boats, classic wooden Chris-Crafts, an occasional Scarab.

  There was only one road on the east side of the lake, a winding course that followed the curve of the precipitous hillside. Below, between the road and the water, nestled in ancient trees, were the stone mansions from another age. The Apuzzi Palace was surrounded by a white stone wall. Like the palace itself, the wall was chipped and worn, black at the seams, gray on its face. Impressive, but only from a distance. Grand.

  When they pulled in through the great iron gates, the man saw the damp weeds, the rotted window sashes, the cracked panes, the missing roof tiles, and the dark green mold that crept up out of the earth to stain the crooked shutters. They came to a stop in the cobblestone circle and mounted the sweeping steps. The doors were bound in rusted iron, rotted timbers with cracks big enough to look through. They got out and the man nudged the kid, holding out his hand.

  "Oh," the kid said, digging into his pocket and producing a small switchblade. "Here."

  The man opened it and shaved some of the hairs off his arm, then closed it and put it in his own pocket, keeping his hand there. On the way around back, the man stopped to peer through the dirty windows of a ten-bay detached garage. Inside, the cars were three-deep and coated in dust. Mercedeses. Volvos. Porsches. One was a Bentley. He pursed his lips into a silent whistle. Out back, there was a series of terraces that descended to the water's edge. Rotted poles, painted with fading barber stripes, suspended the skeleton of a dock. The hedges were overgrown and the pool was empty except for a few inches of green slime in the very bottom. They looked up at the palace. Two three-story wings extended off to either side of the main structure. The only sign of habitation was the boxes and furniture crowded against many of the windows.

  The kid led him to a locked door, but when the man pushed his hand against it, it bowed inward.

  "Shit," he said, and kicked it in.

  Inside, he twitched his nose.

  "You smell that?"

  The kid pinched his nose and rolled his eyes.

  "Like a fucking dead animal or something," the man said, putting his hand over his face. The room was filled with boxes stacked halfway to the sixteen-foot ceilings.

  "Look," the kid said, running his hand along the edge of one of the bigger boxes, "Subzero is good, no?"

  The man gawked at the boxes. Lamode china. Lalique figurines. Stuff that was like gold if you could get it off the docks in Newark.

  There was electronics, cookware, furniture, luggage, clothes. All new, in unopened boxes. They wove their way through the maze of narrow lanes that reminded the man of the streets they'd come through in Como. One smaller room was completely filled with shoes and purses. Prada. Gucci. Louis Vuitton. Even the man knew about that shit. Another room was filled to the top with boxes of food, most of it canned, some spilled open. Peaches. Spaghetti. Soup. Pudding.

  "The fuck?" the man said.

  The deeper they went into the palace, the more it smelled. The man put his sleeve to his face, pressing his arm tight to his nose.

  One doorway had a set of stairs that descended into a basement. The smell wafting up out of it was excruciating. The man poked his head through the doorway and started to retch, backing up and bumping the kid.

  They staggered away and rounded a corner where they found a grand curving staircase that led to the upper floors. There was a dirty track up the middle of the faded green carpet and they followed it. There were fewer boxes upstairs, but the rooms were uninviting, each one crammed with dusty furniture the way the man remembered his grandmother's attic in Howard Beach. Toward the end of the hall, the bedrooms on either side were overflowing with catalogues and newspapers. It looked like a recycling center with stacks that spilled out into the hallway and only the narrow track that cut through the center to what was obviously the master suite. The smell got stronger there, but it was a different smell than the basement. It was the ripe smell of a human being, sour, pungent, but not like the sewage smell from below. The man thought he heard someone babbling, and he flicked out his knife. His heart pounded. It sounded like a monster movie in there.

  He pushed the kid aside and gripped the ornate door handle.

  It was locked.

  The mewling noise from behind the door rose and fell, then went silent. He stepped back and kicked it in. The door sprang open, then bounced back at them, giving him just a glimpse of ragged hair and a dirty white bed canopy.

  Jessica lay face up on the bed, her skin white and pasty. Glassy-eyed. Her lips quivering in rapture. Her hair was matted and dirty. Her emaciated arms were webbed with pale green veins and spotted with tiny bruise marks. A heroin needle hung limp from her flesh. Bony fingers pawed feebly at the dirty bedspread.

  The man breathed through his mouth and stepped up to the bed. He put one palm on her forehead and slit through the side of her throat. The carotid artery spewed blood. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she smiled. Something about it made the man look around for something heavy to smash her face in with, but by the time he had wrenched a marble lamp free from the desk, she was dead. 76

  I look away, letting him know that I'm finished, thinking back to the winter day in the yard when I first heard the story told to me by a guy in here for armed robbery whose cousin was connected to the union.

  "I'm sorry," the shrink says.

  "Yeah, well."

  "Does that worry you?"

  "Them?"

  "For your son? You?"

  "They don't bother with people's kids. And they never got anyone in a Witness Protection Program before. It's a hundred percent."