Cappy lay on the floor and closed his eyes, and Barakat went to work, cutting off wounded muscle and skin, nipping off a piece of shattered toe bone, leaving a neat but tiny stump just above the joint closest to the foot. When he was done with that, he carefully wrapped it with gauze soaked in an antiseptic gel, covered that with more gauze, wrapped the fourth toe separately, and then wrapped the corner of Cappy's foot with medical tape.

"I'm done. Just lie there for a while," he said. "I'll clean up. You don't want to stand up in a hurry."

"I've got to stand up pretty soon, though," Cappy said. "They'll get a fix on me sooner or later. I need to get my ass out of here. Down to Florida, I'm thinking."

"Why not back to California?"

"I've never seen Florida."

"What you think best, but it's snowing like crazy out there," Barakat said, slapping him on the knee. He picked up the operating debris, got a plastic garbage bag from under the sink, and dumped it inside. He'd throw it in a public trash can somewhere, he thought.

He went to the bedroom for another hit. WHEN HE CAME BACK, he gave Cappy a bottle of penicillin pills and told him to take the rest of the oxycodone. "If you drive all the way to Florida, your foot will hurt bad the whole way. Better if you got out of here, one day, maybe to Kentucky or somewhere, where there won't be all the cops looking for you, and then find a motel to stay in for a couple days. Watch TV and keep the foot up high."

They talked about the foot, and then about the chase at the hospital, and Cappy said, "I don't know if I dinged either of them, but I don't think so. I tricked them at the end, though…"

"Do you think they might know your name?" Barakat asked.

"I don't know what they know. They might know my name. The woman in the operating room… it sounded like she said, 'Cap,' like my name."

"Hmm. If they don't know your name, it would be best if you could stay overnight, leave in the morning, after this snow goes through. The highways will be impossible tonight. You don't need to get in an accident now."

"But I need to get back and load up my stuff," Cappy said. "I need to get my bike in the van."

"Do you need me to help?"

"Naw. I've got a ramp, I'll ride right up it. I don't have anything else heavy," Cappy said. And, "What are you going to do?"

Barakat said, "I am going to ask the hospital to give me time to fly home to Lebanon to see Shaheen's parents and talk to them about what a fine fellow their son was. I don't think they can say 'no,' so I will be out of sight. I will stay one hour there, and then go to Paris, maybe for a month. You should see Paris someday…"

"Don't think I'll see Paris," Cappy said.

"When I come back, I will think some more about this Karkinnen woman, and what she has done to us. If not for her, we would be done here."

"Good luck on that," Cappy said. "She reminds me of this dude out in California. He was the foreman at this company I worked for, and he used to give me shit all the time. I was going to kill him, but when I was ready to, he was always off somewhere. I couldn't find him. When I could find him, I wasn't ready. Just luck. Maybe this bitch is one of those."

"This is not a good thought," Barakat said. AT NINE O'CLOCK, Cappy couldn't stand lying on his back anymore, managed to get to his feet without help. He couldn't walk on the front of his damaged foot, but could stump along on the heel. "Not as bad as I thought," he said.

Barakat was heavily stoned, flying: "You still have residual effect from the local anesthetic. It will get worse, believe what I say."

"That's great," Cappy said.

"One thing more," Barakat said. "We have not talked about Joe Mack. Joe Mack is the other threat. I believe that sometime he will call me again. If I find out where he is, it would perhaps be better if Joe Mack died."

"I think you're right. He is a dumb guy who'll get caught sooner or later," Cappy said.

"I will try to find out where he is, and will call you. Perhaps you could deal with him."

"If I can," Cappy said.

"And I will deal with Karkinnen. I will think of something." THEY WERE STILL rather pleased with their friendship, and Barakat helped Cappy keep his balance as he stumped out to his van, where Barakat gave the younger man a quick Lebanese hug with a backslap. "I will call you. I will pack the drugs from the hospital, I will send them to you wherever you're at. You can make the connection, and sell them. I trust you for my share."

Cappy was embarrassed about the hug and the trust, but smiled and said, "Keep on truckin', dude."

As his van rolled into the night, Barakat turned back to his house and began to think about talking to the cops about Shaheen's funeral, and talking to the hospital about compassionate leave.

Cappy's taillights winked at the corner, and he thought, That might be the end of Cappy.

Now, he had to spend some time thinking about himself.

But first, he could use another twist. He had to think clearly.

21

LATE, DARK, SNOWING. Lucas kept the speed down, watching the nav screen, and Jenkins said from the backseat, "It should be right around here."

"Hope the guy hasn't left for work."

"He doesn't have to be there for three hours, so… might be out getting a drink," Shrake said from the passenger seat.

"Night like this?"

"Night like this tends to make me drink," Shrake said. "It's snowing so goddamn hard you can't see your own feet."

The car spoke up: "You have reached your destination. "

The house was a dark tuck-under that Lucas thought might be red in daylight, when it wasn't snowing. He pulled into the driveway and said, "Wait," and hopped out, with a flashlight from the storage bin under the armrest. He walked up to the house and shined it on the house number: 1530. He walked back and said, "The car's right, this is it." He killed the engine, and they climbed two short sets of stairs to the front door; five inches of snow on the ground, Lucas thought, and coming down at two inches an hour.

There were lights in the front window, above the garage, but nothing on the left side of the house. Lucas rang the doorbell, and knocked, and somebody came to the front window and looked out at the porch, and a minute later, a man with a short, neat Afro looked out and asked, "What?"

"Are you Dave Johnston?"

"Yeah? What happened?"

Lucas held up his ID. "We need to talk to you about your employees. We're with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The people at your office said you'd be the guy to talk to."

The guy looked at them for a few more seconds, then unlatched the door and pushed it open. "Come in… who is it?"

Lucas, Shrake, and Jenkins all stepped into an entry hall, and the guy's wife, a heavyset woman with skeptical eyes, came and looked at them, her arms crossed nervously under her breasts.

"A guy named Cappy-that's all we know," Lucas said.

"What'd he do?"

"We need to talk to him about several murders, and attempted murders. If you've seen the stories on television about the attack at the hospital this afternoon-"

"That was Cappy? Ho, shit," Johnston said. "I knew he was one crazy cracker."

"So-you know his last name, anything about him?"

"Caprice M. Garner," Johnston said. "He came in from California, rides a big expensive BMW That's about it. He doesn't talk much to anybody. Comes in, does the job, goes away."

Shrake said, "Garner. G-A-R-N-E-R."

Johnston bobbed his head: "Yup. Caprice, like the car."

Shrake said, "I'll be in the truck," and left.

"Hard worker?" Lucas asked.

"Does the job. Doesn't bitch about it, doesn't seem happy about it. Just does it."

"What else?" Lucas asked. "You know where he lives? We're really kind of hurting here. The guy doesn't leave much of a trail."