Danny looked around, like he wanted to confirm nobody else was listening. Nervous as ever. “Yeah.”

“Someplace quiet. Where even if something goes wrong” – that got Danny’s attention – “and he makes some noise, it won’t trip us up.”

Danny nodded, didn’t say anything.

Evan took another sip of beer. “I’m thinking an even million.”

“Too much.”

“Bullshit. You see that house?”

“It’s a five-bedroom, not the Playboy Mansion. Man doesn’t have stacks of hundreds in a suitcase.”

“How many bedrooms you have growing up?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Bullshit.” Evan put the bottle down hard, and Danny looked up at him. “That’s exactly the point. Don’t you remember how it works? Guys like that, they make sure that the rest of us stay where we are. They hire us to work shitty jobs at minimum wage so we can rent one-bedroom tract houses with no windows. Tell us the world needs ditchdiggers, but bundle their kids off to private school. And they build jails for when we get upset about being on the shit side of that bargain. Fuck that. I’ll play it my way. You used to, too, before you started pretending to be somebody else.”

Danny snorted. “What, because I have a job I’m supposed to vote Republican? Fuck you, man. It doesn’t work that way.”

“How does it work, then?”

“It doesn’t work.” Danny leaned back. “Your way. It doesn’t work. You think putting window dressing on it makes it okay? You’re a thief, Evan. Blame society, or the cops, or your father, that’s all fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a criminal. And at the end of the day, criminals get caught.”

Evan felt the vein in his temple throb, the purr and rush of blood. He fought to keep his voice cool. “My father was an asshole. This has nothing to do with him.”

They held the stare for a moment, then Danny put his hands up for peace. “Yeah, all right.”

Evan leaned back, poured the rest of the beer down his throat. Lukewarm, it tasted like mop water.

“Listen, though,” Danny said. “I’m right about the money. We ask for too much, he’s going to call the cops.”

“So how much?”

“Two-fifty would be the safe play.”

“Half a mill,” Evan said.

Danny nodded reluctantly. “Also, we need somebody else. To watch him.”

“Why not just tape him up and leave him be? Come in once a day to give him some water, let him take a leak.”

“Jesus, Evan. He’s a little kid.”

“So? It’s only a couple of days.”

Danny glared at him, a look that started the old smoldering, that made Evan want to reach across the table and smack the lips right off his face. “I said nobody gets hurt. Leaving a twelve-year-old kid duct-taped in the dark counts, all right?”

“So you watch him.”

“I can’t. I have to act like everything’s normal. And you can’t either, because the biggest risk is going to be when we take him. It’s best that after that, he not be around either of us. Make it harder to describe anything useful to the cops once we let him go.”

“So who?”

“I don’t know. Patrick, maybe.” Danny shook his head. “I hate to bring him into this.”

Evan held his gaze level, gave nothing up. Danny wasn’t the only one with a game face. He’d find out about Patrick sooner or later, but no point queering things now.

The man had a point, though. He didn’t need to spend three days babysitting a brat. But they’d want someone they could control. Not anyone who might try to play them. Boom. There it was. “I got it.”

“Who?”

“Girl of mine. I’ve known her awhile.”

“She’ll be okay with this?”

Evan nodded. “She’s getting desperate. She’ll do what she’s told.”

“All right. I think I know a place.”

“Yeah? Quiet?”

Danny nodded. “Let’s check it this weekend. Sunday morning.”

“Why not now?”

“Because now I’m going home.” Danny stood and put on his jacket, soft black leather that looked new. “Good night.”

Evan nodded to him, watched him walk out the door. Danny paused and looked both ways, like he was taking snapshots of the street, and then strode across the parking lot toward Belmont.

“Welcome back,” Evan said, his voice low.

20

“This is Patrick. Give me one good reason to care that you called.”

Danny cursed. He’d tried three times already with no luck. If he knew Patrick, the man was right now curled up in a bed with too many pillows, plotting his escape from the girl sleeping next to him.

He leaned forward to hang up the phone and overreached, scraping his bruised knuckles against the wall. The sudden sensation made him wince, and then smile. Popping Evan had felt good.

Not half so good as what he’d like to do to the guy, though.

Thursday night, when Karen had come in crying, Danny had been ready to beat Evan to death with a fucking baseball bat, damn the consequences. For her sake he’d kept his cool. Said soothing things. Put her to bed and crawled in beside her, stroking her hair until she fell asleep.

Then he’d turned to face the red glow of the alarm clock and imagined shooting his childhood friend in the face.

No, not imagined – planned. Figured out how to do it. Funny, all that time spent trying to find a loophole and he’d never really considered the most direct option, the one Evan would have come to first. But he considered it that night.

That night, a dark alley and a pistol with a grip-taped handle seemed like the answer.

But by morning he’d known better. The last time he’d held a gun he’d been thirteen, wilding with a rust-spotted piece Joey Biggs had snuck from under the sweaters in his dad’s closet. They’d strutted the alleys popping at crows and beer cans and the occasional factory window. Kid’s stuff a thousand miles from pointing at a human being and pulling the trigger. From watching Evan’s head explode.

And in truth, it didn’t matter. Because once he got past the anger and actually thought about things, killing Evan wasn’t an out anyway. The moment the cops found his body, Detective Sean Nolan would look up from his desk and wonder who might want to be rid of Evan McGann. About five seconds later squad cars would be rolling up to their condo, and the rest would just be foreplay to the fucking Danny would take. No, killing Evan wasn’t an out.

Nor could he go to the cops, confess everything, and take his chances. At this point, all they had on Evan was maybe a parole violation. A weapons charge if Danny got lucky. Whereas Evan could place Danny at the pawnshop, where a man had been shot and crippled, a woman beaten half to death. His new life would disappear like smoke.

If he did the job, he protected Karen. Hell, he protected Tommy and Richard, too, by controlling the situation, making sure no one got hurt. And at the end of it, he could go back to a regular life.

It was a lousy option, but it was the smart play.

A door opened down the hall, and he heard the hardwood squeak as Karen walked toward the kitchen. He’d been hoping to leave while she was in the shower. He scooped up his keys, turned as she walked in.

“You going?”

“Work.” The lie stung him. There had been too many lately, but what choice was there?

“It’s Sunday. You’re working too hard, baby.” She smiled at him, one hand going up to adjust a bra strap. Seven years they’d been together, but every time she did that, he lost his concentration. And odds-on she knew it.

He turned around, fumbled in the cabinet, wanting a moment to get his story straight. “Yeah, you know. The winter and all.” He grabbed a glass from the second shelf, held it under the faucet.

“Danny,” her voice serious, “what’s wrong?”

“Huh?” He flashed a forced smile over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”