Nobody said anything. They drove past Grant Park to the museum campus, took a curve at Roosevelt then south again past Soldiers Field; McCormick Place sliding by between them and the lake. The driver stayed in the right lane, keeping the car right at fifty, cars flying past on the left. These guys didn’t look like Hezbollah. They looked more like something out of a Sopranos episode. And this chat the guy talked about, Hardin had a bad feeling he’d already had all the chat he was going to get.

“This about the diamonds?” said Hardin, trying to find an angle.

“Shut the fuck up,” said the fat man.

“Just drive the damn car, Beans,” said the skinny guy.

Hardin heard a squishy burble from the fat guy, and then the odor hit him.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Beans,” said the skinny guy.

They kept heading south, past the Museum of Science and Industry, Lake Shore Drive turning into South Shore drive, heading down toward the abandoned US Steel plant. The fat guy farted again. The skinny guy cracked his window.

“Mind if I open this side?” said Hardin.

“Shut up,” said the skinny guy.

“So you aren’t after the diamonds,” said Hardin.

The skinny guy didn’t say anything.

Finally the skinny guy said, “Tell me about these diamonds.”

“Better than $150 million in uncut stones. Gotta be about the diamonds,” said Hardin.

The fat guy turned his head. “Don’t listen to this guy’s bullshit, Snakes.”

“Shut up, Beans,” snapped the skinny guy. “There’s a reason I’m riding in the back and you’re driving. It’s cause your colon works a hell of a lot harder than your brains. Just drive the fucking car.”

The skinny guy twitched the gun at Hardin. “Some reason I should believe you ain’t full of shit?”

Hardin shrugged. “From the smell of things, there’s only one guy in this car who’s full of shit.”

Skinny guy snorted. The fat guy turned his head. “You ain’t gonna be so funny in a few minutes, asshole.”

Hardin said, “I’m going to get something out of my coat, so don’t get excited, OK?” Hardin had maybe five grand of his cash in an envelope in his inside jacket pocket.

Skinny guy lifted the gun up a little. “Slow and easy.”

Hardin nodded. He shifted his hips so he was facing the skinny guy, and then he slipped his hand in his coat, grabbing the envelope and the Air France ballpoint he’d pocketed on the flight over. He dropped the envelope on the seat between him and the skinny guy, top down, so the money spilled out.

The skinny guy’s eyes tracked down to the cash, the gun leaning a little away from Hardin.

Hardin did two things. He shot his left hand out and clamped it down on the barrel of the pistol, pushing it away. With his right hand, he backhanded the Air France pen into the skinny guy’s trachea. The pen went in deep.

Skinny pulled the trigger, putting a bullet through the back of the passenger seat and into the dashboard, blowing up the radio. Skinny tried to hold on to the gun, but his mind was on getting some oxygen, which wasn’t going so well, what with a pen through his windpipe and blood running down into his lungs.

Hardin twisted the gun out of Skinny’s hand and slammed it hard against his forehead. Skinny slumped against the passenger door, a little blood bubbling out around the pen in his throat.

The fat guy was squirming, trying to drive the car with one hand and pull a gun off his belt with the other, but his gut was in the way. Hardin put the Glock to the back of the fat man’s head.

“OK, Beans. Get the piece out real easy and hand it back here.”

The fat man worked the gun loose and handed it back to Hardin.

They were coming up on 86th Street, where it cut across the railroad tracks and onto the old US Steel property.

“Turn in there,” said Hardin. “Looks like we’re going to have that chat after all.”

“OK,” said Beans.

“And if you fart again, I’m gonna kill you.”

Hardin had the fat man park the car behind a pile of rubble most of the way down toward the lake. The whole US Steel plant was gone, ripped down, nothing but gravel, weeds and empty concrete slabs. Hard to believe. Hardin had an uncle who had worked at US Steel back in the Seventies. He remembered going down to the plant, the sprawling parking lot full of Oldsmobiles and Chevys. Dirty, hulking buildings puking gray-black smoke out over the lake. Clanging noises, thudding noises, the big-ass ore ships in the channels at the south end, and everywhere slope-shouldered men with meaty faces in dirty coveralls. Now it was just a flat expanse, grass poking up through the stone and rubble. It was like the civilization that needed the steel had been gone a thousand years.

Hardin nudged the Glock into the back of the fat man’s head. “Gimme the keys,” said Hardin.

The fat man tossed the keys onto the back seat. Hardin put them in his pocket.

“Give me the phone, too.”

The fat man unclipped the phone off his belt and handed it to Hardin as well.

“Get out of the car, go around the front and get your buddy off the back seat,” Hardin said.

The fat man climbed out, went around the hood to the passenger side. When he had most of the car between them, Hardin got out, too, keeping the Glock on the fat man as he opened the rear passenger door, grabbed the skinny guy by his track jacket and dumped him out on the gravel. There was a little gasp out of Skinny when he hit the ground.

“Jesus,” said the fat man. “He still alive?”

Hardin came around the back of the car, circling wide, keeping a good five yards between him and the fat man. Hardin looked down at Skinny. Looked dead to him. Probably just some left-over air forced out of his lungs when he hit the ground.

“If he’s alive, he’ll get over it,” Hardin said. “He’s got a phone on him somewhere. Get it.”

The fat man went through the skinny guy’s tracksuit, found the phone, and tossed it to Hardin. Hardin wiggled the gun at the fat man, and then pointed it at the pile of rubble.

“Let’s head over there.”

As soon as the fat man turned, Hardin took three quick steps and kicked him hard behind the left knee, buckling his leg, and then put the sole of his foot against the fat man’s ass, shoving him face down on the ground. Guy seemed docile enough, but at his size, if he got a hold of you, it was all over. Hardin wanted him on the ground. Big as he was, it would take the fat man a week or so to get to his feet – plenty of time to shoot him.

“What the fuck you do that for?” said the fat man, rolling over to sit on the ground.

“Shut up,” said Hardin.

Hardin stuck one of the pistols in his belt, stuffed the other one in his jacket pocket. He walked over to the rubble pile and picked up a fist-sized rock.

“So, who you working for?” asked Hardin.

“I can’t tell you that,” said the fat man.

Hardin took a short wind up and zipped the rock off the fat man’s right thigh.

“God!” the fat man shouted.

Hardin grabbed another rock. “So, who you working for?”

“They’ll fucking kill me,” the fat man whined.

Hardin threw the rock into the fat man’s gut. “Been in Africa a long time,” said Hardin. “Don’t play much ball over there, so it will take a while to get loose Seen this done, though. Get up in northern Nigeria where they’re big on Sharia law and they’re always stoning someone to death. Usually some skinny-assed chick they think’s been sleeping around. Even then, it takes a while. Don’t know what your boss has planned for you, but this,” Hardin grabbed another rock and hit the fat man in the chest, a little harder this time, “this is one nasty fucking way to go. Big guy like you, I’m gonna get through most of this pile.”

The fat man started crying.

Hardin didn’t want to do any real damage, at least not yet, but he had to make sure he had the guy’s attention. He found a smaller rock and bounced it off the side of the fat man’s head, opening up a decent gash. The blood started flowing down the fat man’s face and onto his shirt. The fat man put a hand to his head, and then looked at the blood on it.