Harry looked at it. He’d have to cross in front of Harrow to knock it off. A school yard game, a line in the sand.

  Harry let his breath out slowly, centering himself. He set the bottle upright on the roof, shifted the keys to his left hand. With his right, he reached out, plucked the butt off the trunk lid, saw the penny-size burn it left on the paint.

  Harry looked at the cigarette, turned back to Harrow.

  “Talk about a waste,” he said. “There’s plenty of tobacco left here.” And he flicked the cigarette at those blue eyes.

  Harrow jerked his head back, but not in time. The cigarette hit his left cheekbone, ashes flying. Harry grabbed the bottle, swung it backhanded as Harrow came forward. The bottle thudded into an upraised arm and Harry punched with his left, keys angled out from between his fingers. He felt them scrape flesh and then pressure exploded in his left knee, bent it inward. He went down, dropped the bottle, heard it shatter, took a knee to the chest that flung him back up against the car.

  He tried to roll away, caught a kick in the low ribs that stole his breath. Harrow loomed over him and Harry saw him pull something from beneath his coat. He heard the snick of metal, a slide being racked back.

  “Cock sucker,” Harrow said and pointed the gun at his head. Harry looked into the muzzle of a suppressor, smelled gun oil.

  Harrow touched the cut on his cheek just below his left eye. His fingertips came away bloody. His gloved finger tightened on the trigger.

  Harry turned his face away, the suppressor inches from his right temple.

  “I should,” Harrow said. “I fucking should.”

  When the shot didn’t come, Harry turned, looked up at him again.

  Harrow snapped his wrist and the steel suppressor cracked against the bridge of Harry’s nose. Water filled his eyes, pain shooting back through his sinuses. He put his hand to his face and blood came from his nostrils.

  The alley light flickered. Harrow’s face fell into shadow, lit up again.

  The suppressor touched Harry’s forehead, pushed his head back against the car. He could taste blood in his mouth. Harrow crouched, reached around and pulled Harry’s wallet from his jeans. He took the gun away, sat back on his haunches, looked through the wallet. He came out with Harry’s driver’s license, read it, looked back at him.

  “I should have known,” he said. “That lying bitch.”

  He dropped the license on the blacktop, the smell of wine rising around them.

  “Now I know who you are,” Harrow said. “I know where you live. I know the car you drive. I know every fucking thing I need to know if I want to find you.”

  Harry coughed, spit blood onto the blacktop.

  “So I’ll ask again. Are. You. Fucking. Her?”

  Harry looked at him, didn’t respond.

  “A gentleman,” Harrow said. He let the hammer down on the gun, slid it into a jacket pocket. From the other he took a folded Buck knife.

  “But you know what they say.” He opened the knife. The alley light glinted on the blade. “About virtue untested.”

  Harry watched the knife.

  “Open your legs,” Harrow said.

  “Fuck you.”

  Harrow’s left hand closed around his throat, pushed his head back. He jabbed him on the inside of his right thigh with the point of the knife. It punched through the material of his jeans, broke the surface of his skin. Harry’s leg jerked away involuntarily and he felt the warmth of blood on his skin.

  “That’s better,” Harrow said and pushed the tip of the blade into Harry’s jeans just below his scrotum, the blade angled up. The point broke through the material.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” Harrow said. “I wouldn’t even twitch.”

  Harry could feel the knifepoint against his skin.

  “I’ll ask a third and final time. Are you fucking her?”

  Harry looked into his eyes.

  “No,” he said.

  The knife jerked up, slicing easily through the material of the jeans, from seat to zipper. Coldness flooded in.

  Harrow took the knife away, closed it.

  “I’m not sure if I believe you,” he said. “But you should know this. She’s taken, partner. Trust me. I don’t know what she told you, what she wants from you, but you have to ask yourself if it’s worth getting your balls sliced off. Is it?”

  He put the knife away.

  “Because I promise you that is what will happen if I catch you around her again.”

  Harrow rose, took the gun back out. Harry could hear his knees creak.

  “Or maybe I’m making a mistake, letting you go,” he said. “Maybe I should tie this up right now.”

  He flicked Harry’s nose with the suppressor, then touched it to his upper lip, pressed until his head touched the car again, lip mashed back against his teeth. Harry could taste oil and gunpowder. The suppressor moved down, scraped against his teeth, pushed into them. He kept his jaws clamped.

  “Don’t want to give it up, huh?” Harrow said. “Good for you.”

  He took the gun away. Harry tasted fresh blood.

  “Next time,” Harrow said, “we won’t dance. We’ll just get to it.”

  The gun disappeared under his jacket again.

  “You may think you know me,” he said. “But believe me, you don’t.”

  Harry felt blood in his throat, gagged. He leaned to the side and vomited, a thin fluid of blood and bile and stomach enzymes. He coughed, spit. When he looked back, the alley was empty.

  He pulled into an Exxon station on Route 33, left the engine running while he got out, fed change into a pay phone next to the air machine. He dialed the number Sherry had given him, waited. The air hose hissed behind him.

  She answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, baby,” he said.

  Silence.

  He watched cars go by, heard her breathing.

  “Long time,” he said. “Nothing to say to me?”

  “Johnny.”

  “You knew I’d find you, right? That it was only a matter of time?”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Does it matter? One way or another I would have found it, found you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Close. We need to talk, babe.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You scared of me? You shouldn’t be. Everything that happened back then … it’s forgotten. You want to get on with your life, I understand. That’s fine. But you owe it to me, to meet me face-to-face. One time. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Johnny, I don’t have anything to tell you. Nothing I can say is going to change—”

  “Face-to-face, Nicole. You can’t deny me that. Seven years is a long time. How do you think it feels, after all that, coming back, finding the mother of my child with another man?”

  “Another man? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, Nicole. After all this time, please don’t fucking lie to me.”

  “Johnny, what did you do?”

  “Not much. He didn’t put up much of a fight. But I don’t think he’s going to be coming around anymore. Look at it this way: I did you a favor. You can do better than him.”

  “Why, Johnny? Jesus Christ, why?”

  “Because you and I need to have a serious conversation. And the last thing I need is some boyfriend of the moment running around with a hard-on, thinks he’s protecting you. I don’t have time for that bullshit, Nicole. This is between you and me.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Come on, babe,” he said. “You knew this day would come. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To talk, like I said. Get some things straight. Give me that. Then you can do whatever you want, with whoever. I’ll leave you alone, you’ll never see me again.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “Things to do. But once they’re done, I’m gone. I’ll call you tomorrow night at nine at this number. You make sure you answer. We’ll work it out, arrange a place to meet. If not, then I have to come find you, and neither of us wants that.”

  “Don’t stay, Johnny. Leave. Tonight. For your own sake. There’s nothing for you here anymore.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said and hung up.

  He got back into the Mazda, pulled out onto the highway. He was breathing normally again, his hands steady.

  One more stop to make.

  27

  “You need to go to the hospital,” Ray said. “X-rays.”

  Harry shook his head, limped into the kitchen and got the ice trays out of the freezer. He spread a dish towel on the counter, emptied the trays onto it.

  “There’s nothing broken,” he said. “I can tell. Are you sure she’s safe?”

  “I sent Errol and another man over as soon as you called me from the bar. “They’ll spend the night parked outside. No sign of Harrow so far. Tomorrow we’ll take her to a hotel, check her in.”

  He twisted the towel around the ice, pulled up a kitchen chair, rolled up the leg of the sweatpants. The ruined jeans were in the trash.

  “Sorry to wake you up,” he said. “But I didn’t want to wait.”

  “I understand. This changes everything, though. You know that, right?”

  Harry settled the ice pack on his swollen knee, held it there.

  “This looks worse than it is,” he said.

  “Well, it looks pretty bad. And you ain’t kissing anybody with that lip anytime soon either.”

  “He was just trying to scare me off.”

  “And did he?”

  “What do you think?”

  Ray pulled up a chair, sat down.

  “We should talk strategy here. She told Errol that Harrow said he was going to call her tomorrow. That he wanted to meet.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “Maybe we should let her take that call. Set something up.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can get the locals involved. Arrest him for assault, battery. Gun charge. Enough to send him back.”

  Harry shook his head.

  “What?” Ray said. “You want to take this further? Keep fucking around with him, see what he does next? Enough.”

  “I’m not going to the locals. Not for some bullshit assault charge he’ll walk on overnight.”

  “And then when he parks a bullet in your brain, you’ll leave it up to me to deal with, right?”

  “Like I said. He was just trying to scare me.”

  “You’ve got fingermarks on your throat. You know that?”

  Harry touched the tender spot under his jaw.

  “They’ll go away.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “He followed me from her house, that’s all I can figure.”

  “And how did he know where she lived?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And I’m not supposed to ask what you were doing there, ten-thirty at night?”

  “You can ask.” He put the ice pack on the table, got up and limped to the refrigerator, took a Corona out. He waved the bottle at Ray, who shook his head. He twisted the top off, sipped, sat back down.

  “I don’t know if I want to ask,” Ray said. “Because I’m worried what the answer is going to be. Are you nailing her?”

  Harry looked at him.

  “What?” Ray said. “That’s a simple question.”

  “He asked me the same thing.”

  “And we both hope the answer is no, I’m sure. What did you tell him?”

  Harry put the beer on the table, the ice pack back on his knee, didn’t answer.

  “Okay,” Ray said. “But you know I’ve got to take you off this now, right?”

  “Why?”

  “If you can’t figure that out, then I think he scrambled your brains as well. There’s Errol, and others. We’ll look after her.”

  “You’re missing the point. This makes things easier.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Now we’ve got bait. For him.”

  “Bait? What bait?”

  “Me.”

  “That is total bullshit,” Ray said. He stood up. “And you don’t get to call the shots on this anyway. I do.”

  “This guy isn’t going to wait around, bide his time, Ray. He’s got an agenda and he’s on the move. This was just the beginning.”

  “More reason to keep you out of the picture.”

  “He’s got to be stopped. One way or another.”

  “He will be.”

  “I’m the best chance we’ve got of finding him again.”

  “And that’s something you’re anxious to do? It doesn’t look like that first meeting went too well.”

  Harry touched the bridge of his nose, tested the soreness there. He hadn’t told Ray about the knife, or the wallet.

  “He had an advantage. Surprise. Next time he won’t.”

  “You hope.”

  “Well,” Harry said. “We’ll just see what happens, won’t we?”

  After Ray left, he checked the front and back door locks, then limped upstairs to the bedroom. In the closet, he pushed clothes aside until he found the leather gun case against the wall. He pulled it out, set it on the bed, unzipped it. Inside was the Model 1300 Winchester twelve-gauge pump he’d bought the year before.

  He got the box of shells from the top shelf of the closet, spilled them out on the bed. He took the sportsman’s plug from the magazine, fed five thick red shells into the receiver. Bracing the butt on his right thigh, he worked the pump to chamber a shell, slid another into the receiver to replace it.

  With the safety on, he carried the gun downstairs. There was a closet in the short hallway between kitchen and living room. He cleared the top shelf, set the shotgun there within easy reach, covered it with a folded blanket. He wasn’t sure if it made him feel better or not.

  Later, he lay in bed with the lights out, the whole thing playing through his mind again. There was a dull ache across the bridge of his nose, and when he touched it his eyes stung and filled with water.

  When he couldn’t take it any longer, he got out of bed, walked down the dark hall to the bathroom. He pulled the light cord, looked at himself in the mirror. There was a patch of purple bruise between his eyes, the skin around it still slightly swollen. His upper lip was puffy, scabbed with dried blood where it had split. He traced fingertips along the marks on his throat, remembered how Harrow’s hand had felt there, his grip like stone.

  He got the Percocet bottle from the cabinet, shook one out. He started to break it in half, then stopped. He swallowed it whole instead, washed it down with water from the sink. Then he switched the light off, walked back to his bed in the darkness.

  28

  “Scope,” Johnny said.

  The Russian unwrapped it from the chamois, handed it over, watching. Johnny fit it into the runner atop the AR-15, slid and locked it into place. He wore rubber surgical gloves, could feel the coolness of the metal through them.

  “Is good, no?” the Russian said. “Like M-16?”

  He didn’t answer. They were sitting on the floor of a storage room on the third level of an old house that had been converted into offices. The only illumination came from the parking lot lights.

  He pulled the black gym bag toward him, took out one of the loaded clips. With the rifle in his lap, he thumbed the shells out one by one, rubbed his thumb along the polished tips. They were 7.62s with full metal jackets, one-shot stops anywhere in the body. He tested the springs in the clip, then began to fit the shells back in. He’d never used the rifle before, but he knew what it could do. He slid the clip home again.

  “Have a look out the window,” he said. “See if they’re there yet. Be careful.”

  Viktor stood, went to the window that looked out on the parking lot, parted the blinds with a finger.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  Johnny stood up, his knees aching, leaned the rifle against the wall.

  “Help me with the desk,” he said.

  They hauled it from the center of the room, pushed it toward the window, raising dust. He felt the Russian’s eyes on him. When he looked down, he saw the patch of dried day-old blood on his jeans leg, the size of a half dollar. He hadn’t noticed it before. Had worn the jeans all day without knowing it was there.

  He pushed the blinds aside, looked out. Across the parking lot was the back door of the locksmith shop, one window lit. Snow flurries flew in the parking lot lights.

  There were metal folding chairs along the wall. He opened one, dragged it to the desk, sat down. Viktor took another, straddled it.

  “They come soon, I think,” he said. He tapped his watch. “Is time.”

  Johnny looked over the gun, engaged the safety, then set it on the desk, lit a cigarette.

  “One for me,” Viktor said. Johnny ignored him.

  Fifteen minutes later, they saw headlights in the parking lot. Johnny went to the window, parted the blinds again. A dull black Cadillac and a gray Lincoln Town Car cruised slowly through the lot, parked behind the locksmith shop, facing it. Their headlights went off.

  “Stay down,” Johnny said. He pulled the cord, raised the blinds halfway, then tugged the window up. There was no screen. Cold air swirled into the room.

  There were heavy plat books atop a filing cabinet and he carried two of them to the desk, stacked them, sat back down. As he watched, another light went on in the back of the shop.

  He rested the front stock of the AR-15 on the books, shifted his chair until he got the angle right. He fit the butt against his shoulder, looked through the scope. He twisted the focus dial until the scene below leaped into clarity. He tracked the crosshairs across the back door of the shop, lingered over the lighted windows.

  Car doors opened. He watched men get out, two from the Town Car, three from the Cadillac. One of the three was Tony Acuna.

  As he watched through the scope, the back door of the shop opened and someone greeted them from inside. The two from the Town Car went in while Acuna waited outside with the others. He spoke to a man with silver-gray hair combed straight back, a topcoat and scarf. Frankie Santelli.