A sharp pain caught his attention. He looked all over, finally pulled a long sliver of glass out of his elbow. It was easy to grab, now that his hands were sticky. Ray’s blood had already started drying in his fingerprints, the grooves of his palms.

At some point, Tony glanced at his watch and coughed out a laugh.

It hit him like a knife in the ribs, but he couldn’t help it. It just seemed so utterly, impossibly fucked up.

All this, and it wasn’t even eleven-thirty yet.

Standing there, numb, trying to decide what to do, Tony finally followed the only real urge he had:

He stripped out of his gore-soaked clothes and got back in the shower. Cranked the water on hot as it would go.

Tony Briggs hung his head in the gathering steam. He let the water run over him. Watching the runoff turn red and swirl down the drain, he thought of Ray, dead in the living room. He thought of Eddie in a tray at the morgue.

As the warm water slowly loosened the aches, Tony thought of the fake identities all three of them had kept on hand. Just in the unlikely event that everything went to hell in a hurry.

He thought of other things.

Pretty soon, he grabbed the soap and started scrubbing.

32

The Homey Inn sat askance in the bend where Saddle Creek turned, a lone cracker box with a covered porch and neon eyes.

It was the kind of bar Worth’s dad would have liked on a Sunday afternoon: a dark smoky nook with lacquered tables, low ceilings, and newspapered walls, where they served warm peanuts in dog bowls and cheap champagne on tap.

An hour before last call on a Thursday, the place was half packed with college students, slumming office types, and the barflies who had been there since lunch.

They lucked into the booth least visible from the door. Back corner, half tucked behind a vertical air shaft and the scratch card machine. Worth took the view of the bar; Gwen wriggled out of her coat and hung it on one of the booth-side hooks.

“This still doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“Don’t worry.” He had to raise his voice over the thump of the jukebox. “Everything’s set.”

“Well, I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m ready for a drink.”

She headed for the bar before he could ask her to sit tight. Worth kept his eyes on the door.

While Gwen was gone, he reached under his shirt and pulled the concealed microphone plug half out of its jack in the transmitter. He gave the plug a wiggle, just for a second. Then he jacked the line back in again.

His cell phone vibrated on the table. Worth flipped it open and said, “I’m here.”

“What’s going on with the wire?” Neil Granger said.

“What do you mean?”

“You keep cutting out.”

“Really?” Worth moved around in the booth. His clothes would be rustling down the street, behind the coin laundry, where the tech van was parked. “I don’t know. Nothing looks wrong. Is it off or on now?”

“It came back on a second ago,” Granger said. “Look, just, I don’t know. Sit still or something.”

He hung up.

Worth folded the phone.

Gwen returned with two beers and two shots of whiskey, somehow carrying it all in both hands.

“I took the liberty.”

“Clearly.” He smiled, even though he was thinking of her injured kidney. “Dr. Mandekar wouldn’t approve.”

She crossed her heart. “I’ll drink lots of water tomorrow.”

Somebody from the YWCA had brought a few of her own clothes to the safe unit. Tonight she’d dressed in a baseball-style T-shirt, running shoes, and a pair of frayed jeans that rode low on her hips. The shirt fit tight and short, showing the name of some band he’d never heard of, a hint of belly button, a glimpse of thong underwear, and the difference in their ages.

At the SaveMore, Worth had noticed that guys didn’t really seem to look twice at Gwen Mullen. Personally, he’d always considered her pretty but plain, beautiful underneath the surface in some way only a sensitive soul like his could appreciate.

Here, almost every male in the bar took some form of notice as she crossed the floor. A few females did the same, for clearly different reasons. For the briefest moment, Worth couldn’t decide if he wanted to tear all her clothes off or ask her to put her coat back on.

Then she slid into the booth carefully, her movements slow and measured. He caught a look at the remnants of her bruises and remembered what they were doing here.

Gwen arranged the drinks in front of them. She raised her shot and said, “Here’s mud in your eye.”

Worth grinned, but he left the alcohol on the table. It was almost midnight. He unplugged the wire and watched the door.

Gwen knocked down her shot and placed the empty glass quietly on the table. She winced, ground her teeth together, and blew out a breath. Whoo.

She turned and dug in her coat, pulled out a cigarette, and lit one with a book of matches somebody else had left behind. While he watched the door, Gwen took a drag and sat back, sighing long and content, sending a jet of smoke toward the ceiling.

“God,” she said. “Do you know, this is the first cigarette I’ve had in almost a week? I almost forgot I smoked.”

His cell phone buzzed again.

“I’m here.”

On the other end, Granger said, “So, just kinda look around. You don’t happen to be sitting near a giant electromagnet, do you?”

“Not that I know of,” Worth said. “Why?”

“Completely lost you now.”

He fiddled, moved around, slowly easing the microplug back into the jack on the transmitter unit a little at a time.

“Okay, you’re back. What did you do?”

“I just wiggled it,” Worth said. “There must be a short.”

Gwen pointed toward the bathroom and slid out of the booth. Worth tried to grab her hand, but she was already out of reach.

“Gwen,” he said, but she didn’t seem to hear him over the jukebox. Even though a few people at nearby tables glanced his way.

Granger said, “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Worth told him. “What should I do about the wire?”

“Okay, hang on. Maybe we have time to…shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Incoming,” Granger said, and hung up again.

Tony Briggs pulled into the cramped, crooked lot of the Homey Inn five minutes before midnight.

He spotted Grocery Boy’s Ranger sitting alone, beyond the reach of the streetlamps. He parked alongside, killed the engine and the headlights, and sat tight for a moment, surveying the area.

For the time he sat there, nobody came in or went out. No traffic passed by on the street. All was quiet.

Tony hauled himself out of the car.

He felt like he’d been thrown off a balcony. His ribs were sore, hands bruised. Joints already starting to stiffen. His lower back felt loose and creaky from grappling with Ray on the floor. Salcedo had wrenched the shit out his shoulder, and Tony thought there might still be a piece of glass in his elbow somewhere. His torn stitches felt like barbed wire under the ball cap he’d put on.

On top of that, he couldn’t breathe through his nose. The cold night air hit his broken tooth like a dentist drill. Tony instinctively covered the jagged socket and sliced the bottom of his tongue.

He took a deep breath. Clenched his fists. Spat a mouthful of blood.

Maintain.

Ten yards away, music thumped faintly. Neon buzzed in the windows.

Eddie had brought them here. Tony and Ray. They’d held down a dark corner booth and heard all about these Polacks in Chicago, a direct supply of Turkish heroin, and a franchise opportunity.