Hardin guy still on the deck, reading his damn book.

Another hour until Hernandez was supposed to show. Supposed to watch for a black Escalade. Hernandez said he would come down Warren, turn off on Main, park out of sight of the condo. Meet up with them there. Meanwhile, Seephus was just supposed to keep an eye out.

After a bit, he was done with his drink, already read what he could out of the paper, reading not being a big thing with him. He was starting to get looks from the ponytail chick, it coming up on lunch, people waiting for tables. So he went across to this pizza place, got a slice. Couldn’t see the condo from there, so he took it back over by the station, found another bench, ate it there.

Then that Hardin fuck went back inside the condo. The door on the side of the building, on Main, Seephus could see that. But a big-ass building like that, there must be a lot of doors. Couldn’t watch them all. So he started walking around, watching the front, watching the side. The cha-ching sounds in his head were gone now, replaced with thoughts about what Hernandez was gonna do to his ass, he shows up and this Hardin had booked on him. The pizza and the damn coffee shake were rolling around in his gut now, on top of the malt he’d throated last night.

Wilson raced back to her condo after the meeting, unlocked the door and walked in; saw Hardin standing by the sliding door to the patio, looking out across the tracks.

“How well do you know this Lafitpour guy?” she asked.

“I don’t,” said Hardin.

“Somebody sold you out. We’re going to grab you tonight, at your meet.”

“We?”

“Interagency deal, us and the Feebs. Some kind of War on Terror bullshit, the cartels and Al Qaeda cozying up to launder money or some shit.”

Hardin nodded, still looking out the sliding door. Black guy in the red shirt was still out there, wandering around, kept looking at the condo, getting real twitchy. “We might have a more immediate problem,” he said.

Hardin told her what he’d seen, the black kid hanging around, watching the condo. Wilson opened her closet, reached up on the top shelf. She came out with a couple spare clips for her S&W and dropped them in her pocket.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“You’re not in this yet,” said Hardin. “Not to where you can’t back out.”

She froze. Then she turned and looked at him, her face set hard. “You son of a bitch. After eighteen years, you come back, I bring you home, I spread my legs for you and you say that to me?”

“I just don’t want to assume–”

“Fuck assume. We’re together or we aren’t,” she said. “I thought you understood that.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither moving.

“We’re together,” he said.

She nodded, reached up and touched his cheek, then turned for the door.

He grabbed his duffle and they left through the garage. Didn’t see the guy in the red shirt.

CHAPTER 45

Hernandez sat in the passenger seat of the Escalade. Julio was driving, Miko, Gomez, and Roberto in the back. They were dressed to mix, but Hernandez worried a little about them all being in long sleeves, it being pretty warm. But the ink the rest of them had up and down their arms, anybody knew how to decode that, they’d have Five-O up their asses in a heartbeat.

He had a picture of Jones from the guy who ran his West Side crew. Julio was cruising down Warren, a little under the limit, starting to back traffic up behind them. Hernandez saw Jones, off to the right. Told Julio to turn down Main. Saw Jones get up, start to follow. Julio cut into a little alley on the left. Hernandez and the three in the back got out, and Julio got ready to drive on, start circling, wait for Hernandez’s call. Jones turned the corner, jogged up.

“I’m Jamie,” Hernandez said, putting out his hand. Seephus reached out and Hernandez took his hand, grabbing Seephus’ forearm with his other hand. “I owe you, brother. You ready to do this?”

Seephus nodded. “Got my nine in the bag here. Thought maybe I should toss the bag in the car, though. Got that brick in it still and all.”

Hernandez nodded. Seephus shucked off the backpack, dropped it on the passenger seat, unzipped the top, pulled out his Browning Hi-Power, and shut the door. Julio took off.

“What I want,” Hernandez told them, “is to spend some time with this guy. So we go up to his place, show him he got no chance. Then we call Julio, he pulls up, and we walk the fucker out.”

Seephus nodded. “What if he don’t play, though?”

Hernandez shrugged. “Time with him is what I want. What I need is the fucker dead. He don’t play, we put his ass down.”

CHAPTER 46

Bobby Lee’s brain was racing, trying to think of something he could give this guy that might keep him alive.

Bobby’d been taking a little break. He’d made a good chunk running a quick background check. It was a nice day out, and he’d run up to that Italian joint on Washington, one that made the good sammies. Got himself a beef-and-pepper combo he’d brought back to his place. Figured he’d sit out on the patio in back, watch the whiteys golf for a bit.

Which was when the skinny guy in the linen sport coat walked around the corner of his place, a .22 along his leg with a silencer on it, asking if they could step inside and have a word.

Now he was in his boxers, duct-taped to his office chair, blood pooling on the floor, and his left foot hurting like hell where the guy had cut off his little toe with a pair of pruning shears.

“Man, makes no difference if I tell you anything, you still gonna fucking kill me,” said Lee.

“You know that’s not true,” said Husam al Din.

“You already cut off my fucking toe. Whaddya mean I know that’s not true?”

Husam sighed. Americans. No experience with this sort of thing, he supposed. “Precisely because I cut off your toe. The psychological impact of a finger is far greater – and the nerves in the fingers are more sensitive. But you need your fingers to do your work. And my employer values your work. So I will leave you alive and relatively intact if you give me that option.”

Husam was actually a little surprised. He didn’t have faith in MOIS to do much besides identify his targets and wire his fee. But he knew the Mafia people who had tried to kill Hardin must have gotten intel from the same source he had. They, too, had found Hardin’s car. So he had called MOIS and asked them to find the source. They’d gone back through their middle man; someone had hacked through some complex security and tracked down the IP address. And here he was.

“Employers?” Lee blurted. “Who you working for, man? Let’s get ’em on the phone, sort this out.”

Husam shook his head. “You don’t deal with them directly.”

“OK, OK,” Lee said, thinking maybe he’d get out of this just down a toe. “Just tell me what you need.”

“I need to know everything you have given out on Nick Hardin, and everyone you have given it to.”

Lee quivered. “Jesus, buddy, you gotta know I can’t be ratting out people like that, or they’ll be by, start cutting parts off, too. I mean, whoever your guy is, you think he wants me telling anybody who shows up what he got?”

Husam al Din reached down and slid the blade of the shears around the fourth toe on Lee’s left foot.

“Fuck you doing, man?” Lee shouted. “You don’t gotta… JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST!”

Husam cut off the toe. These were fine shears. He’d bought them at the Home Depot store on Route 59 and they cut through the bone with almost no resistance at all. He would have to pack them when he left. He liked these shears.

“I’m not negotiating,” said Husam. “You can give me answers or body parts. And I have done this sort of thing before, many times. I know the people who will tell me what I need and those who won’t. You already know you are going to tell me. You are just wasting toes.”