"You're a cop," he said. "Call for backup."

But Cruz turned to look at him, shook her head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because," she said, her voice matter of fact but her face slapped, "one of those guys is a cop."

It couldn't be.

It just couldn't fucking be.

Cruz lay on the ground, the sun-baked dirt painful against her pelvic bone. Stared at the scene, something from a movie, men with suits and submachine guns doing deals in the ghastly yellow of sodium lights. Only it wasn't a movie, it was real, and one of the men was Tom Galway. Her partner.

Earlier she'd had the feeling that this whole case was like a train off the rails and hurtling through space. Now she felt the impact.

Then from behind came the most precise sound she'd ever heard. Perfect and sharp and clean, like God snapping his fingers.

A pistol cocking.

The veins in her neck throbbed, and the skin on her face seemed to tighten. She looked back, the move pure reflex. A man's silhouette blocked the glowing lights of the convention hotels on the other side of the river. She could only make out one detail, the only one that mattered, the gun held in both hands.

Beside her, Palmer had rolled up on his shoulder, bracing himself against the ground with his knuckles. He looked like coiled springs about to snap. It reminded her that she had a gun too, and she started to raise it. Not really thinking, just not wanting to die right here, on the shitty banks of the shitty Chicago River.

The silhouette said, "Don't."

She froze. The voice had been cool and unemotional, the kind of voice that belonged to someone comfortable dropping the hammer on his weapon. Her palms went dry. How deep had she gotten herself in here?

"Lose the gun."

She grit her teeth, looked around.

"Damn it, you stubborn cunt, drop it." By the reflected light she could almost make out his features, cruel lips with a white ridge of scar tissue cutting across his cheek from the corner of his mouth. If he was a cop, she didn't know him.

She set the Smith down on the dead grass, feeling her whole life falling away with it. Like the earth was tilting and she was unable to hold on. Arsons. Conspiracies. Mysterious callers. Gangbangers with submachine guns. Dirty cops and deadly voices.

Cruz looked over at Palmer, found him staring back at her. Cursed herself for taking his gun. She'd yanked it from his belt and tossed it, intent on getting the cuffs on, and there wasn't enough light to make out where it had fallen.

"I'm police," she said, pleased to hear her own voice come out steady. "No matter how bad you think you are, believe me, you don't want to be pointing a gun at a cop."

Scarface snorted. He cleared his throat with a long gargle, then leaned forward and spat phlegm on the grass between her feet. "Be quiet, cop." He straightened, raised his voice. "Hey." The sound was lost in the traffic noise from above. "Hey!"

"What?" Oddly, she could hear the response clearly. The concrete of the cul-de-sac must have bounced and amplified his words.

"Company."

"What?"

"Com-pan-y."

Cruz risked a glance back. The Italian-looking bruiser in the cheap suit, the one Palmer had said was named Anthony DiRisio, had the two gangbangers in the killing arc of his submachine gun. His stance was perfect, his posture calm. He reminded her of a cobra, hood flared, gentle rhythmic sway, ready to strike faster than you could see. Staring down the barrel of all that death, the gangbangers were posturing children.

Galway, meanwhile, had walked toward the fence, the MP5 still dangling from one hand, the other up to shade his eyes. "What have you got?" He reached in his pants pocket, then slung the submachine gun over his shoulder by its strap. Fumbled with something in his hands. A flashlight, a mini Mag-Lite.

The beam lanced out through the fence to stab Scarface in the eyes. He winced, raised one hand to block the light.

Cruz glanced at Palmer, saw the same thought in his face, and then they were scrabbling for their feet. Scarface whirled, his gun swinging over until she could see right down the black barrel, but she kept moving, twisting her body as she stood. The roar surprised her, the gunfire much louder than the muffled crack she heard through ear protection on the firing range. A gout of orange flame tore a chunk of turf not two inches to the right of her thigh. She froze, fear and sounds and revelation all combining to crush her, saw the gun coming up, this time the man aiming at her chest, a kill shot, no way he could miss. She watched his finger tighten on the trigger, knew she was dead.

Then Palmer hit Scarface in a rushing tackle, his shoulder driving hard into the man's gut, the guy gasping, gun flying wide, Palmer pushing like a linebacker on a tackling dummy, driving him back ten feet to the river's edge. They hit the railing, and for a second Galway's flashlight held them both in its beam, Palmer jumping back as the gunman flipped over the railing, arms pinwheeling like he was trying to swim upward through the light.

The drop to the river was only about five feet, but it seemed to take a long time for the splash.

The beam of light swerved crazily, spinning off of them, and Cruz wondered why that would be. Then the answer occurred to her, Galway probably reaching for his MP5 with both hands. She couldn't believe he would shoot her, that her partner and friend would fire on them, but didn't want to find out. She started running, yanking at Palmer's arm. He turned away from the water, and she could smell his panic, feel the tension in the muscles of his arms, and then they were sprinting, her leading the way and him fast behind, pounding up the bike path toward the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

There was a cluster of explosions behind them, like firecrackers.

Jesus Christ.

No pain. Her breathing came hard, pulse slamming in her wrists and neck, skin tingling. Her footsteps fell firm and true, and she heard Palmer's echoing behind her. Another set of firecrackers, but the bike path was good footing, and ahead of them loomed a stairwell up to the bridge. She took the stairs three at a time, one hand on the railing yanking herself up, knowing they were safe now. That there was no way their pursuers had been able to get around the fence fast enough to chase them. Michigan Avenue lay two flights up, and even at midnight, there would be people on the street, cabs prowling. She didn't slow, kept pushing, and from behind she heard Jason Palmer, his footfalls heavier, and above the ringing of the breath in her own ears, she heard him laugh, the guy somehow enjoying this.

"I guess," he said, panting, "you won't be arresting me tonight."

September 23, 2003

"So these three kids, Mexicans, they get it in their head to start robbing nail salons." Tom Galway sips his beer and shakes his head. "Fucking nail salons. They come in waving shotguns, clear the register, grab jewelry, purses, cell phones from the customers. In and out. Smart. No security, no cameras, and it's all women, so they scare easy – right, Cruz?"

There's laughter, but there's more when she tells her partner to check out her manicure and flips him the bird, so it's all good, just cops on their sixth pitcher of Budweiser laughing at the whole goddamn world.

"Anyway, these innovators, they're hitting two places a week, but it's Chicago, so no telling how long that could roll. Except they have the bad luck to pick the salon where the wife of the state congressman gets her mani-pedi, poor bastards. She wasn't even there at the time, but word comes from on high, these three have got to go down, top priority, bar none. I'm not kidding. Whole area is on the lookout for the goddamn Pedicure Bandits." That breaks them up, and Galway pauses to drain half his beer in a go. "So one evening we get a tip that they'll be in a bar down the West Lawn. We roll in, but we don't know what these guys look like, right? They've been wearing masks. So my partner and I, we're in this dump Mex bar, and we're thinking what, we're supposed to search all these steroided cholos? No thank you."