Jason blinked. "So this guy, he hired you to hijack-" almost said me, caught himself at the last second-"Jason Palmer? Why?"

"Like I said, that was Playboy's deal. All's I know is he was supposed to grab the dude and wait for a call."

"And what about the other night, breaking into Michael Palmer's house?"

"After Jason got away, DiRisio wanted Playboy to make good. He called, gave us an address."

"And you sent people to kill everyone there."

Dion shrugged. "I didn't say that."

Jason smiled, a thin expression, his heart raging. Wanting to tear Dion apart, even knowing he wasn't the real problem. "I need to find DiRisio."

"Who you really after, cop? You trying to arrest a couple of brothers, or you want the dude who gave the order?"

Both. I want all of you rotting in the depths of the earth for a thousand years. "All I want is the man who gave the order."

"DiRisio was in here talking like a punk this morning." Dion shrugged. "Said he's got a deal going down tonight."

"Where?"

"Don't know for sure," Dion said. "But our last couple meets were downtown. Wacker Drive."

"Upper or Lower?"

The man smiled. "Lower Lower Wacker. The drive under the drive, down on the bottom level where they was filming that Batman movie. There's a spot there by the loading docks for the Hyatt. That's where we done it."

Jason nodded. He didn't know the specific spot, but knew Wacker. A three-level artery for the city, following the river's curve from Lake Shore Drive to the highways. The top levels were fairly busy, but the bottom was mostly used by service vehicles and delivery trucks. Smart. Private and easy to secure, but with plenty of exit options. It was the kind of location a trained soldier might choose. He felt twisting in his belly, acid in his throat. What in the hell had Mikey gotten himself into?

"Now, Po-lice." Dion glared at him. "How about you get the fuck outta my house."

Jason nodded. He'd gotten as much as he could expect. More. Time to go, before some stupid mistake gave him away. "All right." Jason backed away, eyes on Dion. He risked a quick glance to find the doorknob, then turned back.

"One more thing." He paused. "You said this guy sells submachine guns, military hardware. What do you need firepower like that for?"

"Ain't you noticed, cop?" Dion's voice was soft, his gaze weary, and for the tiniest second, Jason almost felt sorry for him. "There's a war goin' on."

CHAPTER 22

"I'm kind of busy," Jason said, cell phone pinned between ear and shoulder as he glanced back. An SUV pulled past him, and he switched to the right lane.

"Doing what?" Washington's voice was ice.

"You don't want to know."

There was a long pause. "You're right."

"Look, just tell Billy that I love him and that I'll call him later."

"He wants to talk to you. Boy's scared."

"I know, it's just that – look, I left him there so that I could be a soldier instead of an uncle."

"Only one of those things is worth a damn." The disapproval couldn't have been clearer if Washington had been shouting, instead of speaking in measured syllables. "But if you have to be both, be an uncle first."

"Jesus, we been friends how many years now? You can't just do me this favor, take care of my nephew for a little while?"

"Play soldier all you like. But you can't park Billy in his foxhole and expect him to keep his head down. Maybe you forgot, but that boy lost his father."

Guilt fed the Worm, always. "I didn't forget."

"So act like it."

"All right. All right, old man, I get you." Jason sighed. "Put him on."

The exit from Lake Shore Drive swung him onto the far north end of the Magnificent Mile. Tourist heaven, the shop windows bright against the twilight, a slow tide of women in shorts and men with sunburned faces. He turned onto Oak before he got lost in the crush of cars, double-parked in front of a designer boutique and flipped on his hazards. Took a breath and tried to gather his thoughts.

Combat he could handle. An eight-year-old he was less sure about.

"Uncle Jason?"

"Hey, kiddo."

"Where are you?"

"Nowhere, buddy." A breeze came through the open window, and Jason closed his eyes, smelled the lake on it. "I'm just out taking care of some things."

"What things?"

"Just, you know, errands." Errands?

A sigh came over the phone, long and theatrical.

"What?"

"You can tell me the truth. I'm not a little kid, you know."

Jason started to laugh, caught himself just in time. "You know what?" He bit his lip. "You're right. I'm sorry."

His nephew sounded properly mollified. "That's okay."

A long pause, and then Jason realized that it was his turn to talk. Only, what was he supposed to say? Well, earlier I pretended to be a cop to bluff my way into a drug house, and now I'm on my way to ambush a meet between gangbangers and an arms dealer. And neither one scares me half so much as the idea of suddenly being responsible for someone else. "I'm downtown."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm… well, I'm trying to find out what's going on, buddy. I need to know why those guys came into your house."

"Oh." His voice sounded faint and far away.

"But," Jason spoke quickly, "it's going good. I think I'm starting to figure it out."

"Have you found the bad guys?"

"Some of them. Not all yet, but I will."

"What are you going to do then?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I'm not sure."

"Are you going to kill them?" Billy's voice hard to read, a mix of sincerity and fear.

Jason had felt bullets chip cinderblock above his head, heard the ragged screams of wounded men, the raw prayers of desperate mothers. But he'd never heard anything quite so horrible as that question falling from eight-year-old lips. And all the worse because he didn't know the answer.

Did he want revenge? Oh, hell yes.

Would he murder for it?

He flashed on a class room in Basic, a lecture from a soft-spoken captain with sharp features. He had been talking about what defined a soldier, and a line had stuck in Jason's head even then. The difference between a thug and a soldier, the guy had said, was the moral courage of his cause.

"No," he said. "I'm not." He paused. "But I'll make sure that they can't hurt you ever again. I promised you that, and I meant it."

There was a long pause, and then Billy said, "I believe you."

Water spattered down the wide pipe, a constant chattering like autumn rain, like the dripping of ancient stalactites. A ragged man with dirt-pocked skin stooped, cupping his hands to catch the dark liquid. Splashed his face, moving calm as a suburbanite preparing to shave in the comfort of his own bathroom.

Jason slowed the Caddy, rolling down the ramp at a bare crawl. He'd never been down here before. What most people thought of as Lower Wacker was actually the second level, a throughway that wrapped along the river and provided a shortcut to dodge the traffic lights and gawking tourists of the surface streets. Everybody knew that Wacker, but he doubted many had taken the ramps down one more level, to the bowels of the city, a bleak lost place where service trucks moved between exhaust-stained roll doors under the timeless haze of yellow sodium light.

This world belonged to people the one above tended to forget. Garbagemen, repair crews, delivery drivers. Scores of homeless huddled under iron girders. They all had the same blanket, which baffled Jason until he realized where the blankets came from. They were hotel linens, grown too ratty for paying customers. Tossed in the Dumpster and repurposed by an army of the forgotten that slept shoulder to shoulder in the street beneath the Hyatt. The lowest tier of hotel guest.