Perhaps thirty feet from me, at the edge of a pool of light shed by the last streetlamp on the road, a cloud formed and then disappeared. Something moved in a startled, frightened gesture. A face scanned to the left, then to the right, and a figure peered from behind a tree. It was Mifflin, one arm still shrouded in a sling. As I drew nearer, shielded by the shadows and my footfalls silenced by the snow, I saw blood drip thickly from his fingers and join a growing pool at his feet. I was almost upon him when some small sound caused him to turn. His eyes grew wide and he rose swiftly, a knife flashing in his good hand. I shot him in the right shoulder and he spun, his feet twisting beneath him, falling on his back and loosing a loud cry of pain as he landed. I moved forward quickly with the gun trained on him. He blinked hard and tried to focus as the light illuminated my features fully.

"You," he said at last. He tried to rise but he had no strength. Only his head moved before the effort proved too much and it fell back into the snow. As I looked at him, I saw that a long gash had been torn across the front of his coat. Something shone wetly within.

"Who did this?" I said.

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough and blood sprayed from his mouth and flecked his teeth with red. "An old man," he said. "A fucking old man. He came out of nowhere, slashed me, then took Contorno before we even knew what was happening. I fucking ran, man. Fuck Contorno." He tried to move his head, to look back to the town. "He's out there now, watching us. I can tell."

Maybury was quiet, and nothing moved on the street, but he was right: there was a watchfulness about the darkness as if, somewhere in its depths, someone held his breath, and waited.

"There'll be help here soon," I said, although I was unsure even as I spoke that things had gone our way back at the police department. At least we had Louis, I thought, otherwise we'd all be dead. "We'll get you to a doctor."

He shook his head once. "No, no doctor," he said. He glared at me. "It ends here. Do it, you fuck, do it!"

"No," I said softly. "No more."

But he was not going to be denied. With all the strength left in his body, he reached into the breast of his coat, his teeth gritted with the effort. I reacted without thinking and killed him where he lay, but when I drew his hand from his coat it was empty. How could it be otherwise, when he had only a knife to defend himself?

And as I stood back something seemed to flicker in the darkness across the street, and then was gone.

I headed back to the police department and had almost reached it when a figure appeared to my right. I twisted toward it, but a voice said: "Bird, it's me." Louis appeared from the shadows, his shotgun cradled in his arms like a sleeping child. There was blood spray on his face, and his coat was torn at the left shoulder.

"You tore your coat," I said. "Your tailor's going to shed a tear."

"It was last season's anyways," said Louis. "Made me feel like a bum wearing it." He stepped closer to me. "You don't look so good."

"You are aware that somebody shot me?" I asked, in a pained tone.

"Somebody always shooting you," he replied. "Weren't somebody shooting at you, beating up on you or electrocuting you, you'd be listless. Think you can hold it together?" His tone had changed, and I guessed there was bad news coming.

"Go on," I said.

"Billy Purdue's gone. Looks like Ressler collapsed from his wounds and Billy dragged him by the cuff of his pants over the cell while Angel and the others were distracted. Took his keys from his belt and a shotgun from the rack, then let himself out. Probably left the same way we did."

"Where was Angel? He okay?"

"Yeah, Angel and Walter both. They was helping Jennings to reinforce the back door. Seems like the last of Tony's guys made a second attempt on it after we left. Billy just walked out, clean and free."

"After we'd helped him by clearing the way." I swore viciously, then told him about Mifflin and the eviscerated man in the snow.

"Caleb?" asked Louis.

"It's him," I said. "He's come for his boy, and he's killing anyone who threatens him or his son. Mifflin saw him, but Mifflin's dead."

"You kill him?"

"Yes," I said. Mifflin had given me no choice but to kill him, yet there had been a kind of dignity to him in his last moments. "I have to get out to Meade Payne's place."

"We got more immediate problems," said Louis.

"Tony Celli."

"Uh-huh. It's got to end here, Bird. His car's parked maybe half a mile east, just on the edge of town."

"How do you know?" I said, as we began walking in that direction.

"I asked."

"You must have a very persuasive manner."

"I use kind words."

"That, and a big gun."

His mouth twitched. "A big gun always helps."

A black Lincoln Towncar stood on a side road, its lights dimmed, as we approached. Behind it were two other cars, big Fords, also with their lights dimmed, and a pair of black Chevy vans. In front of the Lincoln, a figure knelt in the snow, its head down, its hands tied behind its back. Before we could get any closer a gun cocked behind us and a voice said: "Put them down, boys."

We did as we were told, but didn't turn around.

"Now walk on."

The driver's door of one of the Fords opened, and Al Z stepped out. As the interior light came on I saw another figure, fat and silver-haired, dark glasses on his eyes and a cigarette in his hand. Then he faded into the gloom again as Al Z closed the door. He walked to the kneeling figure as three other men appeared from the second Ford and stood, waiting. The kneeling figure raised its head, and Tony Celli looked at us with dead eyes.

Al Z kept his hands stuffed firmly in the pockets of his gray overcoat and watched us as we approached. When we were ten feet from Tony Celli he raised a hand, and we stopped. Al Z looked almost amused.

Almost.

"I asked you to stay out of our business," he said.

"Like I told you, it was the 'our business' part that I had a problem with," I replied. I felt myself swaying, and willed my body to remain still.

"It's your hearing you have a problem with. You should have picked somewhere else to start your moral crusade."

He withdrew his right hand to reveal a Heckler & Koch 9mm, shook his head gently, said, "You fucking guys," in his soft, clipped tones, then shot Tony Celli in the back of the head. Tony slumped face first on the ground, his left eye still open and a hole where his right eye used to be. Then two men came forward, one with a plastic sheet over his arms, and they wrapped Tony Celli and placed his body in the trunk of one of the cars. A third man ran a gloved hand through the snow until he found the bullet, then slipped it into his pocket along with the ejected case and followed his comrades.

"He didn't have the girl," said Al Z. "I asked him."

"I know," I said. "There's someone else. He took a blade to two of Tony's men."

Al Z shrugged. The money was now his primary concern, not the ultimate fate of those who had chosen to follow Tony Celli. "The way I figure it, you've done worse than that," he said.

I didn't respond. If Al Z decided to kill us for what we'd done to Tony Clean's machine, there wasn't a whole lot I could say that would make him change his mind.

"We want Billy Purdue," he went on. "You hand him over, we'll forget what happened here. We'll forget that you killed men you shouldn't have killed."

"You don't want Billy," I replied. "You want your money, to replace what Tony lost."

Al Z took his left hand from his pocket and moved it in a gesture that indicated: "Whatever." Discussing the circumstances of the money's retrieval was just an exercise in semantics as far as he was concerned.

"Billy's gone. He got away in the confusion, but I'll find him," I said. "You'll get your money, but I won't hand him over to you."