They were meeting in a private dwelling, one of half a dozen Vargas rented for his floating games. He rotated locations on a regular schedule, helping the Vice cops save face, keeping up the charade. For their trouble and the inconvenience of having strangers, often drunks, arrive and gamble in their homes, the actual tenants made a hundred dollars daily.

It was cheap insurance, a damn sight cheaper than his pad with the local sheriff's department. If there had been a way to eliminate the cops and politicians with their hands out, Vargas was convinced he could rake off another twenty-five percent of gross each month to keep for himself and to invest in other projects.

He dismissed the thought, half smiling to himself. The system had existed for two centuries, and it resisted the way a slab of granite stood against the wind and rain. In time, it might be altered, but to observe the changes in a single lifetime....

The handler was shaking his bag again, and bets were going down around the room. The writers were working quickly, pretending the handler was likely to throw before they had a chance to siphon every nickel from the audience. The all-male audience was noisy now, each man calling out his bets, some of them digging deeper for the cash than they had earlier, but still coming up with it just this one tune.

And the next time, right. And the next.

Vargas knew his people, knew they loved bolita and the lottery the way black people were supposed to love the numbers, or the rich old Jewesses their slot machines up north, around Atlantic City.

Everybody gambled, and the fact that it might be against the law would never alter human nature. In the back of his mind Ernesto Vargas saw himself as part of some great public service, giving men and women what they wanted, something that the heartless politicians had decreed was out of bounds.

He was a hero, right. A man of his community, of the people.

The handler swung his bag overhead, released it, aiming with precision at a different catcher, salted in another corner of the room. Vargas watched the burlap sack as it was airborne, tumbling gracelessly, a dark misshapen blur against the backdrop of the parlor windows.

Windows that were suddenly imploding, collapsing inward in a shower of fractured glass. Someone screamed, then everyone was babbling at once, turning to gape at the windows.

The catcher was turning with them, missing the bag and never really noticing as it struck him on the shoulder and tumbled to the floor. Its ties became unfastened, and the numbered balls were spilling everywhere — all except unlucky thirteen, fastened to the burlap with a tiny patch of Velcro for the catcher's convenience.

A wasted play now, but Ernesto Vargas had his mind on other things, momentarily forgetting lost profits as he stood up, kicking over his folding metal chair and shouldering past his handlers toward the front of the dais.

"What the..."

And he saw an oval object in the middle of the parlor floor, still spinning from the force of impact, spewing colored smoke now in a blinding cloud. The bettors were scattering away from the grenade, seeking out the available exits as they ran. Some of them were dropping money all along the way, and Vargas made a mental note to pick it up as soon as he could get a handle on exactly what the hell was happening.

It could not be police, he was confident of that. They had been greased, and anyway, they always called ahead. Whenever it was necessary to sacrifice a game for the sake of appearances, Vice made certain that Ernesto was not in, and that the lion's share of his daily take was safely evacuated before they rolled in, arresting handlers and bettors on various misdemeanor charges.

No, it would not be the cops.

But who?

A burst of automatic fire erupted from the direction of the home's adjacent kitchen. There was a sudden scream, cut off abruptly, and Vargas imagined that he recognized the voice of his back-door lookout, Esteban.

He saw his gunners, Ramon and Paco, moving fast in that direction, digging at the handguns they wore underneath their jackets. They were young and quick, and whoever had the frigging nerve to crash this party would regret the day that he had met them.

Vargas circled, putting the wooden podium between him and the kitchen doorway, sliding one hand down in the direction of the pistol that he carried in his belt. Ramon and Paco were almost to the door when it burst open, to reveal a tall dark figure dressed in camouflage fatigues, a smoking Uzi submachine gun in his hands.

The gunners peeled off to either side but the intruder was faster, and his weapon cut a blistering arc across the smoky room.

Vargas saw Ramon and Paco twisting, pummeled by the stream of 9mm parabellum rounds. Neither one of them got off a shot before he died, and now the master of bolita in Coral Gables was alone.

He took a breath and, half gagging on the smoke, made his move. The commando saw it coming, pivoted, and stroked another short burst from the Uzi. The podium took most of it, but Vargas caught a bullet in his shoulder, then another in the hip, spinning him around like a blow from some giant fist, dumping him facedown upon the dais.

His gun was gone, consciousness fading fast. He felt the rough hand on his shoulder now, turning him over onto his back. He clenched his teeth against the pain but made no sound beyond a whimper.

The barrel of the Uzi was inches from his face, and he could feel its heat, see little tendrils of smoke curling up from the flat, staring eye.

The gunner loomed above him like a giant in the colored, swirling smoke, bending over and speaking softly, barely loud enough for Vargas to make out his words.

"I'm back. Somebody knows why. Spread the word."

Something dropped onto Vargas's chest, making him flinch and close his eyes, ready for death, but when he opened them a moment later, he was all alone.

Alone with the dead.

Straining, fighting off the pain from his shoulder, he craned his neck and glanced down, squinting at the object glittering on his bloodstained shirtfront, trying to make recognition through the haze that fogged his mind.

And in an instant Vargas knew precisely what it was, although he could not hope to grasp its meaning.

The object on his chest was a marksman's medal.

LeRoy Withers — alias Mustaffa ben-Keladi — lounged behind a battered desk in his back-room office of the Club Uhuru. He studied the briefcase on his desk top as he cracked his knuckles nervously.

He was waiting for a man that he had never seen before to take the satchel off his hands... and to leave something else in return.

The Club Uhuru was closed and one of his men was positioned out front to meet the contact when he showed. Another gun was close by Withers, in the office — just in case.

A guy had to be careful these days, he mused, what with all that bad shit going down in Miami. It was getting so that businessmen could not conduct their deals without an escort any more. As a man with many deals in progress, he had much to fear.

The hit on Tommy Drake had been a shock, but Withers was used to rolling with the punches as they came. He learned that early, growing up on ghetto streets, and he had been an avid student of survival. There were new connections everywhere, and it had not taken long to find a new supplier.

Not long at all.

In fact the hit on Drake might wind up being good for business — at least for his own business. A resourceful man could move up quickly in a vacuum, and LeRoy had been considering for some time now that all that Cosa Nostra crap had outlived its usefulness. It might be time for a righteous brother to assert himself, kick some ass and bring in the respect he had deserved for so damned long.