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  “Hey, eat your own goddam fries.” The driver wore a charcoal suit with a muted grey tie. “First, you dress like some kind of idiot longshoreman with constipation, and then you—”

  “What does that even mean? I’m dressed so nobody will recognize me if they see me.”

  “There’s not a person on earth who won’t recognize you in that get-up.” The driver shook his head again. “The boss is gonna be so pissed. One squirrely-ass lawyer and you couldn’t hit him.”

  “My scope was out of alignment. It wasn’t my—”

  “Who uses a scope from ten feet away? Anyway, we’ll head back to the hotel and figure out what to do from there.” The man looked at his partner for a moment. “Hey, Susan still making those lemon bars?”

  “Yeah; makes me a batch every Saturday morning. I have to take them out sometimes when she leaves for her shift. You want me to have her make some for you?” The passenger reached to the back and lifted the gun from the back seat. “Desert Eagle Mark IV, .357—you know I almost got the fifty.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The .50 caliber. They got a .44, the .357, and the .50. I got the .357 because I figured there wouldn’t be as many looks when I bought the ammo.” He reached down and unscrewed the scope from the gun’s barrel. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “I had the scope on backwards. That’s why I missed that guy.” He reached in the back seat again and pulled out the combination lock carrying case in which he stored the gun, worked the numbers, and put the gun in the foam nook designed for it. He put the scope in its nook as well and closed the case. “You know that the chamber of the Desert Eagle stays open after you fire the last bullet?”

  “What?”

  “The slide. It stays open. That’s so you can throw a new magazine in and when you close the chamber it’s already good to go.” He tossed the box in the back seat and reached back to the Hardees bag where he found a paper wrapped cheeseburger. “It’s important in a battle to save every second you can.”

  “Hey, gimme one of those, too.” His partner handed him the one in his hand and reached back into the bag. “All automatics keep the slide open when they fire the last bullet.”

  “No they don’t.”

  “Yeah they do. Who the hell ever gave you a gun in the first place?”

  “My dad gave me my first—”

  “Oh, fuck. It was a categorical question?”

  “A what?”

  The driver shook his head. “Categorical. It means it was said for effect. It wasn’t meant to be answered.”

  “I think that’s rhetorical.” A neon sign caught his eye. “Hey, let’s pick up some booze; make it easier to call the boss.”

  “Yeah, alright.” The driver pulled the SUV toward the exit ramp. “The boss is gonna be so pissed.”

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Once the blood was all washed away, it turned out there were only four or five pieces of the window embedded in his forehead after all.

  It hurt like a son of a bitch to get them out, but he dug them out with tweezers he found in Sammi’s medicine cabinet, poured hydrogen peroxide over his head, and took a shower.

  It wasn’t until the water hit his head that he thought about the peroxide. Isn’t that the crap women used to bleach their hair? Fuckin’ great. My head looks like a sixteen-year-old soda jerk’s and I’m gonna have hair like a California whore. He stayed in the shower longer than he normally would and washed his hair four times with a shampoo that smelled like peaches and gave him a craving for schnapps.

  He stepped out and toweled off in the bathroom. Before long the fog on the mirror dissipated, and – good, his hair was still jet black. The gashes on his forehead looked smaller than he would have thought, and he smiled.

  There he was, Rodney Crane in all his glory. Ladies and gentlemen, my client is the victim of an organized effort to discredit him for reasons motivated by politics, race, and general police misconduct.

  It always worked. You turn on the charm. You get a little indignant. The jury acquits. Of course the little fanny packs filled with Nero’s money that he usually arranged for the jurors to receive might have had an impact, but Crane preferred to believe in his skills as a lawyer. It’s the little lies we tell ourselves, right?

  He pulled his clothes on, slipped into his shoes, and tossed the towel on the floor. The laundry hamper was two feet from him. He reached for the towel and stopped himself. Let Sammi clean the damn thing up. It used to irritate the hell out of her when he left stuff lying around. He felt good about irritating the hell out of her.

  Out of the bathroom, Lolly walked up to him. She was a six-year-old Jack Russell Terrier. They’d picked her up as a puppy the week after Sienna was born, wanted to give her a dog to grow up with. The dog wagged its tail and nuzzled at his leg. Visions of Sienna fluttered through his mind, and he sighed. “Hold on, girl.”

  He walked back to the restroom, picked up the towel, and put it back in the hamper. Then he withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He pulled one out and lit it in front of the mirror.

  As the smoke curled up and away, he thought of his little girl. He used to tell her the smoke was from a Genie and she could wish for things and get them. Worked like a charm on her when she was four, but he stopped smoking around her when she was five.

  Stopped talking about wishes, too.

  Sammi, please tell me you have something to drink in this fucking place.

  He walked out to the kitchen and started searching cabinets, but all he could find was a small bottle of amaretto. It would have to do. He unscrewed the cap and drained half in one drink.

  It was too sweet, and he could barely feel the burn he was seeking, but the second drink polished it off and he felt a little of the alcohol’s effect.

  But only a little – definitely not enough.

  “Alright, Lolly. Let’s get you walked.”

  The dog padded into the kitchen and wagged her tail furiously when she saw that Crane was reaching for the leash hanging on the wall by the refrigerator. He stopped halfway, though. Sammi still had Sienna’s picture, the one from her wake, on the refrigerator. He felt the tears coming and shook them off, grabbed the leash and attached it to the collar.

  Lolly sat while he did, staring at Sienna. You lost your sister, didn’t you, girl? I lost everything. “Let’s go, dog.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Hello?”

  Crane felt the familiar thrill, the one he felt every time he heard Noelle’s voice. The one he’d felt time and time again and somehow had convinced himself was a special feeling reserved just for him and would always be available to him, despite his faults, his losses, and his spectacular failure to be worthy of it.

  “Noelle.”

  “Rodney. How are you, sweetie?” Sweetie. That’s what she called him, like some high school girl talking to her prom date. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling.

  “Hey there. I have a job and I could use your help.”

  Noelle was a research librarian. He didn’t even know what that meant until he left the bar—You mean got kicked out of the bar, loser—last year and started his private investigation company.

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “Can we meet for coffee in a while?” He could see her face, picture the way her hair, almost blonde, almost red—hell, even almost a chestnut brown sometimes—would fall over half of her face in that incredibly sweet and sexy way and make him feel like it was a prom date and he was back in school doing just what he had to in order to make the grade and trying to shake off the teachers and students who compared him endlessly to the two brothers and one sister that came before him.

  Football star, lacrosse star, gymnast. Straight A’s. That was the Crane family. Not him, though. All Rodney ever accomplished was Noelle. And even Noelle didn’t come until college, when he finally gave in to his father’s unending pressure to become a lawyer and somehow redeem himse
lf from obscurity to become another Crane child worthy of attention and love.

  “I’m going out for dinner with Ty tonight, Rodney.”

  Crane’s heart sank. The bastard. Ty was his old law partner.

  When the shit hit the fan, Crane got disbarred, lost his family, and almost went to jail. Ty got new contracts with government agencies. He also got Noelle.

  “I don’t know why the hell you’re with that guy, Elle.”

  “Well, gee, Rodney. I had a great man, rising star lawyer, and when I went to school out west, he called me up and said he was busy fucking a stuck-up law student and we had to break up. So, I took the nearest lawyer I could find…” She stopped. “Oh Jesus, Roddie. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” Crane could hear her breathing on the other side of the line.

  Crane didn’t say anything. The words stung – because they were true. He’d met Ty in college; they’d been roommates randomly assigned by the student housing department. Ty was flashy and popular, and they’d spent the entire time at the university planning a law practice. Criminal defense. Change the world. Fight the power.

  Six months. That’s how long it took before their client list looked like a casting call for the Godfather Part V. They were paid well – hell, paid more than any lawyer had a right to be – but they were paid well because there was no way in hell their clients were going to wait around while they played by the rules.

  “Rodney, you there?” Noelle’s voice was plaintive. “I said I was sorry, Roddie. I guess I’m still a little sore about everything. Say something.”

  “I’m not mad, Elle. I was just thinking about things. Look, it’s a weird case, and I think you might really be able to help.” He was nearly at the house now. Five minutes away from the scotch.

  “I can meet for coffee if we do it soon.” Bingo.

  “Alright, let’s meet at Muddy’s in fifteen – no, make it twenty. I need to drop Lolly off at my place.”

  Chapter Eight

  This was bad. Fucking bad. The two idiots had screwed the hit. No surprise, really. There was a reason he kept those two in the states. God, the moment Andy dies I’m firing them. The thought of his old friend, the one who’d pulled him out of the line of fire and taken the Vietcong bullet meant for him, brought another shake of his head. They were Special Forces together, and when his boy couldn’t make the cut, Andy had come to his old friend for help.

  He sighed. Maybe I’ll just reassign them to a desk job. He couldn’t get any of the other operatives back into the country for at least a week. They were all tied up in Afganistan, Pakistan, and other hot spots. The closest were in Guatemala, but they were so deep under that he couldn’t even contact them, wouldn’t hear from them for nine more days.

  What the hell was Sage up to?

  When he first heard of the books, they seemed like the typical drivel you could get at any WalMart for $4.95. Selling them digitally, independently, made for an interesting angle, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that would usually get his attention.

  Then the analyst from the third floor had shown up in the office. The plotlines were real operations. Old operations; twenty-five, thirty years old … but operations nonetheless.

  It was the book about the Columbian cartel raid, where the children had been caught in the crossfire, that convinced him. Someone was publishing books about the company’s jobs.

  Then the picture showed up—Jesus! Sage was back now, after all these years. It didn’t make any sense at all.

  He called his secretary in and told her to bring him a drink, something strong. She nodded at him. God, Gladys was almost fifty now. His secretary since, what—1987? Maybe ’88, but it would’ve been right before he took over the company. She was a looker back then, too. Why the hell hadn’t he hit that when it was worth hitting?

  Don’t lose focus. That’s what happened when a situation started moving out of control. He had about a week, ten days at the outset until he could bring in real talent. He had to get rid of this Crane piece of shit, find Sage, and contain the situation. Ten days.

  Gladys was back. She’d brought him something caramel colored and cold. Condensation covered the glass. He took a sip. It was good. Bourbon or maybe rye. Very good.

  “Gladys, would you please get Aiken on the line?” William Aiken was his information officer. The man spent all day in front of a computer, the kind of pencil-necked geek that was taking over the world with Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Cisco. Worse, he had the smart-ass attitude that so many of the tech kids got. Still, he had his uses.

  “I have Mr. Aiken on the line.”

  He sighed and picked up the phone. “Aiken. What do we know about Crane?”

  “He appears pretty harmless. Divorced, no kids. Had a daughter who died right before the divorce. Disbarred last year but not convicted of any crimes. Stayed on with the firm to do some investigative work and then struck out on his own.” Gladys deftly lifted the highball glass and put a coaster beneath it. “Not particularly threatening, but he has a bunch of mob connections from his work.”

  “Mob connections?”

  “Small time hoods. You don’t get a lot of big time guys in Maryland, at least not in Marbury.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “You mean as a PI? He seems competent enough. Mostly, he’s just following cheaters, you know. Or setting them up. The guy’s never done any real investigative work. He’s a loser.”

  “You think he could find Sage?”

  “From what I’ve seen in the files, nobody could find Sage if he didn’t want to be found.”

  Chapter Nine

  Muddy’s was trying desperately not to be Starbucks. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t trying to be different; it was trying hard to still be the dive bar it used to be four years ago, before Tony lost the liquor license for running numbers and cheap whores out of the back room. Crane kept him out of jail, but there was no way to keep the license. That was the state, and there were new commissioners not yet on the payroll at the time.

  Tony waved to Crane as he walked in and motioned him to a booth. He stopped at the jukebox on the way. It was filled with sixties and seventies country music; nothing hugely interesting most of the time, but he was feeling nostalgic so he dropped a few quarters in and pressed a few buttons. Folsom Prison Blues. Hell of a song. By the time he got to the booth, Tony had a cup of coffee in a chipped mug on the table for him and a tall glass of something much better next to it.

  “Thanks, Tony. You’re a life-saver.”

  “Anyone asks, it’s iced tea.”

  Tony was a huge man. He wasn’t muscular; just huge. He looked like an extra in every mob film ever made. He was unconnected, though. At least, he wasn’t part of any organization, anyway. To this day, Crane had no idea why Nero Sr. had let him operate independently.

  Tony tossed a menu on the table. “You eatin’ anything today?”

  “Maybe in a little bit.”

  Crane sipped the ‘iced tea’. It was some kind of Canadian, harsh and strong. It felt like heaven had dropped in for a visit.

  “I got a new redhead in the back. You want me to send her out for you?” Crane received this same offer every time he walked into Muddy’s without fail, or one with a blonde or a brunette or an Asian or a new Black girl. “I also got this chubby little blonde, if you go for big girls.” The fat girl was new, though.

  “No thanks, Tony. I’m meeting Noelle here.” He took another drink. The second wasn’t nearly as harsh as the first, and he felt it warming his throat as it went down. “You getting any more shit from downtown?”

  “No; I got a cousin in the department now. He tells me when there’s talk and I lay low.” The big man stretched, and Crane got images of elephant seals sunning themselves from some Discovery Channel documentary he’d watched while drunk a week or so before. “In a few more months I’m gonna apply for the liquor license again. Then I can stop buying all this crap under the table.”

  Crane took another sip. “Tony, I don’
t think I’ve ever had a finer drink.”

  “Yeah? Coming from you that means diddly shit. You’d drink paint thinner if I gave it to you.” The big man studied him for a moment. “You look like hell, Crane. You alright?”

  “I’m fine, Tony. Had a tough day.”

  “Tough coupla years.”

  “Yeah.”

  Johnny Cash sang the last note and the song faded out.

  “I’ll go get some coffee for your girl.”

  He waddled off and Crane took another good pull on the whiskey, started to put it down, and took another. The opening notes to Loving Her Was Easier drifted over from the jukebox. Why the hell had he picked that one? That was their song, him and Noelle. God, how did he lose her?

  He lifted the glass and drained the whiskey remaining.

  “Well, I can see you still drink your coffee the same way.”

  He looked up. Noelle was here.

  Chapter Ten

  She sat down across from him. If she noticed which song was playing, she didn’t let on.

  I have seen the morning burning golden in the mountain in the sky.

  Aching with the feeling of the freedom of an eagle as she flies.

  “Thanks for coming, Elle.”

  Crane looked into her face. Stil beautiful. He felt the familiar thrill, the electricity that started at his eyes and coursed through his chest and arms, every time he saw her.

  Turning on the world the way she smiled upon my soul as I lay dying.

  Healing as the colors of the sunshine of the shadows of her eyes.

  “You know I can’t say ‘no’ to you, Rodney.” She studied him back, her eyes edged with concern. “You don’t look good. Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer right away. She was there in front of him again, and he wanted to tell her all about the towel, about Lolly, about the picture on the refrigerator. Instead, he just looked at her.