"I hear nothing hurts worse than being gut shot," the guy said in a cold, dead voice. "I hope I heard right."

Richie watched through eyes blurred with pain and tears as the guy turned back to the desk and began shoving all the photos into an envelope. The negatives as well.

The room got gray around the edges and he thought he was going to pass out—if only he would!—but then things came back into focus.

Richie began to sob from an excruciating spasm, the noise snuffling in and out through his nose. Felt like someone had a pitchfork in his gut and was twisting, twisting…

And now the guy was stuffing everything into his shoulder bag.

Richie wailed into the gag. He wasn't going to leave him like this! He couldn't!

Then the guy picked up the cushion and the gun again and stepped up in front of Richie.

"You don't deserve this," he said in that dead voice as he placed the cushion over Richie's chest.

What? No! NO!

17

After putting two Hydra-Shoks into Fatso's chest, Jack stepped back and watched him buck and spasm, then go still. His wide, bulging eyes lost focus and his lids dropped to half mast.

The only regret he felt was at not being able to leave Cordova alive. He'd heard it sometimes took three days to die of a gut shot. Three days of constant agony. Barely a tenth of what he deserved.

But sooner or later, when Cordova didn't show up at his office tomorrow morning, and didn't answer his home phone, his receptionist would call someone to check on him. And that might give the fat man a chance of surviving.

No survival for Cordova. Jack not only wanted him dead, he needed him dead.

He stared at the fat, bloody corpse a moment longer. Maggie… she hadn't died because of some mistake on Jack's part, she'd died because of her own good heart. Despite Jack's warning, she must have felt a duty to let Metcalf know that he didn't have to pay any more blackmail money. And Met-calf, not knowing the level of scum he was dealing with, had opened his yap.

All of this… so unnecessary… so goddamn unnecessary.

Jack reholstered the Beretta, then retrieved two of the three ejected shell casings from the floor. He kicked the third into the darkroom. He hefted his shoulder bag and did one more sweep of the area. All clean. Nothing to identify him.

All right.

He loped downstairs and headed for his car. On the way home he'd call 911 and report hearing what sounded like gunshots from Cordova's house.

MONDAY

1

Jack paused outside the front entrance of the Dormentalist temple.

He'd stopped home and dropped off all the photos he'd taken from Cordova's house. Then he'd changed into the third-hand clothing store rejects he'd picked up yesterday after his visit to Roselli. He'd used rubber cement to attach scruffy black hair to his face, then pulled a knit watch cap over his head down to the tops of his ears.

He wouldn't fool anyone who knew Johnny Roselli; he doubted even a stranger would be fooled by the beard if he got close enough.

But he wasn't planning on letting anyone that close.

His main concern was whether Roselli had skipped his camping trip and returned to the temple since Jack had left him. If so, his entry card wouldn't have worked and he'd have been issued a new one. Using his old card now could raise an alarm and wreck Jack's plans.

His other concern was Brady. Jack had no idea how long he usually carried on with his hired boys, or if he came home when he was through. The later the better, as far as Jack was concerned. Best case would be if he slept over till morning, which would be the wise thing to do after a night of Scotch and ganja.

But it was all guesswork at this point. He hated it when a fix depended on something he couldn't control, and could be sent off track by someone's whim.

Only one way to find out…

Jack took a breath and opened the door. As he stepped into the unmanned security atrium, he bore right, away from the metal detector and toward the members-only turnstile. The deep-shadowed lobby was deserted. A few bulbs in sconces lit the periphery and the elevator area where one set of doors stood open, waiting. A dozen feet beyond the turnstile a lone burgundy-uniformed TP sat in a pool of light behind his marble kiosk.

Jack gave the guard a friendly wave as he made a show of fishing the card from a pocket. The TP gave a wary, noncommittal nod, watching him.

Jack kept the EC in his left hand, leaving the right free to go for the pistol nestled in the small of his back. After positioning it at the end of the slot, he trained his eyes on the guard and swiped the card through.

He waited as the TP checked the computer. Hopefully a photo of Johnny Roselli was popping onto the screen with the message that he was a lapser—thus explaining his scruffy attire. If the guard's expression changed or he reached for the phone, Jack was out of here. He did not want to be placed in a situation where he'd have to use his weapon.

But the TP's expression didn't change. He looked up from the screen and gave Jack a perfunctory smile and a wave. The turnstile's mechanism clicked, allowing Jack to push through.

Jack released the breath he'd been holding as he waved back and headed straight for the elevators. He kept his head down as he stepped into the open car. Before pressing 21 with a knuckle, he glanced back at the guard and saw him reading from a tabloid newspaper. Probably not The Light.

Okay, he thought as the doors pincered closed, I'm in.

Now came the tough part.

He looked at the unlit 22 button and wished he could make the elevator take him there without leaving a record of the trip in the computers. That was something he needed to avoid at all cost.

Still… it would be so much easier than what he had planned.

Jack figured he was pretty much in control from here on in. Success or failure depended on him, not chance or circumstance. Even so, he knew he had a hairy hour or so ahead of him.

2

Jensen sat in his third-floor office gazing over Tony Margiotta's shoulder. The only light in the room came from the computer screen. These things were a pain in the ass but in the right hands, they were amazing. Margiotta had been doing an online search for anything—anything—about John Robertson. Even though the guy had been dead two years and retired for years before that, this Google thing had come up with almost a thousand hits. But the hits, a thousand or not, weren't proving very useful.

"This is all shit," Margiotta said.

"Maybe, but keep at it. I want every one of them looked into.

"But what am I looking for?"

Margiotta hadn't been told any more than he needed to know. He already knew that Jason Amurri had been an impostor, and Jensen had told him that an outside investigation had linked him to Robertson. Any connection or reference to the missing Jamie Grant had been left out of the story.

"Find me something, anything that connects Robertson to New York City—and I don't mean just Manhattan—or to our Church or to any other church or organization that might have it in for us."

Margiotta looked up at him with an anguished expression. "This could take me all night."

Poor baby, Jensen wanted to say, but resisted. "It's already taken half the night. Consider yourself on the homestretch. Besides, you're getting time and a half."

"Yeah, but I've got a wife and a kid—"

"Who'll be glad for the bigger paycheck. Now keep at it."

Margiotta grumbled something unintelligible as he returned to the keyboard.

Jensen gave him a comradely clap on the shoulder as he rose.