"No." He hesitated. "I don't know what I was going to do. I'm figuring this out as I go. All I know is that someone killed my brother and is trying to kill my nephew, and I'm not going to let that happen."

She nodded slowly, her forehead wrinkled, like she was thinking carefully. He let the moment stretch. Heard a car and glanced back at Lower Wacker, but didn't see anything. A soft wind carried a whiff of her perfume, something spicy and good, over a faint clean smell of sweat. "So now you know everything I know." He stared at her. "Thanks for hearing me out." She nodded, and he locked the safety on the Beretta and slid it into the back of his belt.

The moment his hands left the gun, Cruz kicked him in the balls.

He saw the move late, managed to shift position a little, but her foot still hit hard and square enough that the bottom fell out of his stomach and he gasped for breath, living that quarter second when his brain knew what was coming before his body felt it, and then wham!, ice-cold nausea flamed through his whole body, and he cupped his hands on his testicles and dropped to his knees, thinking shit, oh shit, and it took all his strength to process what he saw, her pulling her own gun, a businesslike automatic.

"Put your hands on your head."

He sucked air through his teeth. His last second shift in position meant that she hadn't connected fully, and he knew the worst of the agony would ease soon, but that was small comfort now.

"Hands on your goddamn head!" Cruz had the cop voice down: Firm, commanding, a weapon. His hands moved without him meaning for them to, the left and right finding each other, interlacing and squeezing hard to block out the pain. Cruz stepped behind him, gun never wavering.

He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. "Jesus Christ, that hurt." Gasping the words.

"Shut up." She moved, and he felt his gun tugged away from his belt, heard it clatter against the earth. "Face forward."

He obeyed, his eyes on Lower Wacker, vision blurry. Knelt there, waiting to feel the cuff snap on his wrist, angry and frustrated and aching.

Which was when he saw headlights coming down the ramp.

CHAPTER 24

Jason turned his head as best he could, fighting through the icy core of pain from his testicles. Cruz stood behind him, her gun holstered now, cuffs in one hand, the other reaching for his wrist. He could see that she was staring over him, past him, to where a black Odyssey was pulling down the ramp to the cul-de-sac. It was hard to tell from this angle, on his knees with his balls on fire, but she looked kind of spooked.

"Get down," he hissed, and pulled his hands from his head.

She saw him move and reached for her own gun. He froze with his hands up. "Look, arrest me later, okay?" He met her eyes, pleading. "That's the guy who killed my brother." Jason heard the engine grow closer, saw the sweep of headlights moving across the dead grass. "Get down."

She narrowed her eyes, and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. Then she drew her pistol, and, training it on him, dropped just as headlights washed above them. The guard rail and fence on the side of Lower Wacker cast enough shadow that he doubted they'd been spotted.

The van was a couple of years old, dusty and dinged up in the way city cars tended to get. The driver pulled it in a circle, the front facing out, engine running. Ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Tactically sound. The windows were smoked, and he couldn't make out anyone inside.

Jason looked over at Cruz. "Now do you believe me?"

She glanced back at him. "All I see is a van," she said, but her voice had lost its gruff edge.

"Wait."

"For what?"

As if on cue, a second set of headlights bounced off the drab concrete. "The buyers."

A lowered pickup, bright purple, with a spoiler, rolled next to the van. Two men got out, the echoes of the car doors hollow and flat. At this distance, he couldn't make out much about them beyond Hispanic coloring, shaved heads, and tattoos.

Cruz turned, her gaze appraising. "How did you find out about this?"

Before he could answer, the door to the van opened, and the world stopped turning.

The man stood six-two, with the stocky build of a dockworker, heavy slabs of muscle that came from labor. Balding and in need of a shave. The unmistakable bulge of a shoulder holster. Carriage at once rigid and languorous, the way career soldiers could make standing at attention look as comfortable as a sprawl in a hammock.

His were the last eyes Michael had seen before he died.

Jason knew it, knew it beyond doubt. It wasn't just that the guy looked the way Billy described him. There was something elemental, something that shivered the air between them. He tasted bile, a dark brown that burned his mouth. His brother was dead. Michael, with his good laugh and bad temper, who had bought Jason his first beer, who had told him what to expect under Mary Ellen Jabrowski's bra, and what to do with what he found there. Murdered and burned and his son hunted, and this man, standing right here, was responsible.

"Anthony DiRisio?" Cruz whispered.

Jason nodded. Reached for the gun. His hand found nothing but belt and shirt, and he remembered she'd taken it off him. He looked over, found her watching, eyes narrowed and weapon ready.

"Don't make me regret not cuffing you," she said.

He took a deep breath, blew it through his mouth. Fought a wave of nausea that was only partly to do with her kick. Turned to look at his enemies and tried to steady his thinking.

The two gangbangers headed for the rear of the Odyssey. DiRisio waited like they were gardeners he was ordering around his yard, acknowledged them with a nod and a smile that looked fake even from here, then turned and opened the back of the van. Inside, Jason could see what looked like wooden shipping crates. Then he realized what had to be in those crates, and ice chips flooded his veins.

The taller gangbanger, a mustachioed muscle-boy with a barbed-wire tattoo, hooted and slapped his partner on the shoulder. Looking like a kid on Christmas, he stepped toward the van.

DiRisio casually put a hand against his chest and shoved.

The guy flew, all stunned expression and swinging arms. The other banger yelled, reaching behind his back. He froze when he saw what DiRisio had taken from the van. Jason had never carried one, but knew it on sight. One of the world's most recognizable weapons, preferred by military and special ops teams in Christ-knew how many countries. Two feet of blued-steel capable of firing eight hundred rounds a minute.

A Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.

The passenger door of the van opened, and another man stepped out, sighting down the barrel of another MP5. A trim suit and a stern expression beneath neat salt-and-pepper hair.

Cruz gasped, cut the sound off with one hand over her mouth. Jason felt his fists clench. Even knowing what this was about, it wasn't something he'd been ready to see. For some reason, he thought of the gang house earlier, the kids playing video games.

Under the threat of 1,600 rounds a minute, the standing gangbanger had taken a step back, raised his hands. His partner on the ground had the dazed expression of a a kid who'd fallen from his bike.

"Money first," DiRisio said. His voice bounced oddly off the concrete.

The gangbangers nodded, began moving slowly toward the pickup. Jason turned to Cruz. She stared straight ahead, her face slack.

"This is why Michael was killed. Those have to be the guys Billy saw in the bar."

She nodded numbly.

Suddenly an idea occurred to him. A beautiful, simple, perfect idea, and the weight of the world lifted off his back. This was the perfect opportunity. He couldn't have planned it better: Gangbangers, arms dealer, and weapons all in one place. No need for personal campaigns, and he'd be able to keep his promise to Billy. Both his promises.