“If there’s no brawl, it’s pretty safe,” I say. “Let’s go.” The truth is, at least half of the fanatics who show up at the fights and scream for blood are women.

We book a date for this coming Friday. I’m thrilled because there is another young fighter I need to evaluate. His manager has contacted me and needs some financial backing.

8.

Not surprisingly, Doug Renfro has not done well since his wife was murdered by one of our SWAT teams. The civil trial is two months away, and Doug is not looking forward to it. He’s had his day in court and he’s not ready for another one.

I meet him for lunch in an empty deli, and I’m startled by his appearance. He’s lost a lot of weight, pounds that he needed. His face is gaunt and pale, and his eyes convey the pain and confusion of a defeated and lonely man.

He nibbles on a chip and says, “I’ve put the house on the market. I can’t stay there, too many memories. I can see her in the kitchen. I can feel her sleeping in the bed next to me. I can hear her laughing on the phone. I can smell her body lotion. She’s everywhere, Sebastian, and she’s not going away. Worst of all, I can’t help but relive those last few seconds, the gunfire and screams and the blood. I blame myself for so much of what went wrong. I often leave at midnight and go find a cheap motel where I pay sixty bucks and stare at the ceiling until sunrise.”

“I’m sorry, Doug,” I say. “It certainly wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. But I’m not rational. Plus I hate this damned city. Every time I see a cop or fireman or a garbage worker I start cursing the City and the fools who run it. I can no longer pay taxes to this government. So, I’m outta here.”

“What about your family?”

“I’ll see them whenever I need to. They have their own lives to live. I gotta take care of me this time, and that means I need a new start somewhere.”

“Where are you going?”

“It changes every day, but right now it looks like New Zealand. As far away as I can get. I’ll probably renounce my citizenship so I won’t have to pay taxes here. I’m a bitter old man, Sebastian, and I have to get away.”

“What about the civil trial?”

“I’m not going to trial. I want you to settle it as soon as you can. Hell, the City’s liability is only a million. They’ll pay that, won’t they?”

“Yes, I assume. I haven’t talked settlement with them, but they don’t want to go to trial.”

“Is there a way to get more than a million?”

“Maybe.”

He slowly takes a sip of his tea and stares at me. “How?”

“I’ve got some dirt on the police department. Some crap that’s pure filth. Extortion is what I’m thinking.”

“I like it,” he says with a smile, the first and only. “Can you move fast? I want to get outta here. I’m sick of this place.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

9.

When my cell phone buzzes after midnight, it’s never a call I want to take. At 12:02 I pick it up and see that Partner wants to talk. “Hey, Boss,” he says in a weak voice. “They tried to kill me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really. I’ve got some burns but I’ll be all right. I’m at the hospital, Catholic. We need to talk.”

I strap a Glock 19 under my left armpit, put on a heavy coat and a brown fedora, and hustle down to the parking lot to retrieve my worn-out Mazda. Ten minutes later I enter the ER wing of the hospital and say hello to one Juke Sadler, one of the sleaziest lawyers in town. Juke roams the City’s emergency rooms trolling for injured clients. Like a vulture, he loiters in the hallways watching for distraught relatives too panicked to think clearly. He’s been known to have lunch and dinner in hospital cafeterias while passing out cards to those with broken bones. Last year he got in a fistfight with a tow truck driver who was hustling the family of a fresh car wreck victim. Both were arrested but only Juke got his photo in the newspaper. The bar association has been after him for years but he’s too slick.

“Your man’s down the hall,” he says, pointing like one of those retired hospital volunteers in pink jackets. They actually caught him once wearing that jacket and posing as a greeter. They also caught him wearing a white collar and black jacket and pretending to be a priest. Juke is an unrepentant slimeball, but I admire the guy. He operates in the dark, murky waters of the law, where we have much in common.

Partner is in a gown, sitting on an exam table, his right arm covered in gauze. I take a look and say, “Okay, let’s have it.”

He was leaving an all-night chicken carryout restaurant with a snack for him and his mom. He got in the van, put it in reverse, and the damned thing blew up. A bomb, probably of the gasoline variety, probably stuck to the fuel tank and remotely detonated by someone sitting in a car nearby. Partner managed to scramble out and remembers hitting the pavement with his jacket on fire. He crawled away and watched the van turn into a fireball. Soon there were cops and firemen everywhere, a lot of excitement. He couldn’t find his phone. A medic cut his jacket off and they loaded him into an ambulance. As they rolled him into the ER someone handed him his phone.

“Sorry, Boss,” he says.

“Not exactly your fault. As you know, that van is heavily insured, for occasions just like this. We’ll get a new one.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, grimacing.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, Boss. Maybe we get something that’s not quite so conspicuous, so easy to spot and follow. Know what I mean? Like, just the other day I was driving along the expressway and I got passed by a white cargo van owned by a flower delivery service. Standard white job, about the same size as ours, and I think to myself, ‘That’s the way to go. No one ever notices a white van with lettering and numbers painted on the sides.’ And it’s true. We got to blend in, Boss, not stand out in the crowd.”

“And what exactly do we paint on the side of our new van?”

“I don’t know, something fictitious. Pete’s Parcel. Fred’s Flowers. Mike’s Masonry. Doesn’t really matter, just something to go with the flow.”

“I’m not sure my clients would appreciate a generic white van with a fake name painted all over it. My clients are very discerning.”

He laughs at this. The last client to step into my van was Arch Swanger, a likely serial killer. A young doctor suddenly appears and steps between us without a word. He examines the bandages and finally asks Partner how he feels. “I wanna go home,” he says. “I’m not staying overnight.”

This is fine with the doctor. He loads Partner down with bandages, gives him some samples of painkillers, and disappears. A nurse has the discharge instructions and paperwork. Partner puts on his unburned pants, socks, and shoes and walks out with a cheap blanket wrapped around his upper body. We leave the hospital and drive to the fried chicken restaurant.

It’s almost 2:00 a.m. and a police cruiser is still parked near the crime scene. Strands of bright yellow tape surround the van, which is nothing but a smoldering, blackened frame. “Stay here,” I say to Partner and get out of the car. By the time I walk forty feet and stop at the yellow tape, a cop is coming toward me.

“That’s far enough, pal,” he says. “This is a crime scene.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Can’t say. It’s under investigation. You need to back away.”

“I’m not touching anything.”