All right, he told himself, you have to do this. He looked at the corpse of Stepanovich. Concentrated. He had a chance to make the death look like an accident.

Stepanovich had fallen fairly close to the fence.

Beck walked hunched over, and grabbed Stepanovich’s right foot. He pivoted the body around so the feet faced the fence and dragged the body just a foot or so closer, estimating where Stepanovich would have landed if he had fallen back off the fence, and how far he might have staggered back. The blood everywhere could make sense, because it would have taken some time to collapse and bleed out.

He positioned the body. Looked at the fence one more time. Close enough.

Beck quickly made his way to the far end of the fence.

The cops now had spotlights glaring into the lot at the Reed Street end, illuminating everything for about twenty yards out into the field, but leaving the Beard Street end well in the dark.

At that end of the lot, it looked like one of Stepanovich’s men had surrendered. Beck could see him laid across the hood of a police car. Hopefully, that would keep their attention off what he was about to do.

Beck climbed up at the far corner where the razor wire ended. He managed to pull a bit of wire free, and used the serrated edge on the top of his knife blade to bend and rip off a piece with a razor edge attached to it.

He dropped off the fence. The impact sent pain through his bruised knees and body. The cold was making his hands numb. He was already stiffening up from the blows Stepanovich had landed. He crouched low and quickly made his way to the body. He didn’t have much time.

He went down on one knee and bent over to examine the wound in Stepanovich’s neck. His knife hadn’t gone in too deep. He took the razor wire, tried to picture the angle. There were rips on the right side of Stepanovich’s coat from the razor wire. Beck’s knife had punctured the left side of his neck. Beck imagined the tall man at the top of the fence, trying to push the razor wire away, stepping over the top of the fence, which would turn his left side toward the wire that had cut the right side of his coat. Beck pictured him falling sideways and backward, catching the left side of his neck on the razor wire.

Beck placed the sharp edge of the barb in the wound and carefully pulled the edge through the flesh.

He then laid two fingers in Stepanovich’s blood, again painfully climbed the fence just high enough to dab blood on the razor wire to make it look like it had cut the dead Bosnian.

Done.

A searchlight from the police cars over on Reed flashed across his end of the lot.

Beck dropped down from the fence and crawled out of sight. Crawling was about all he could do.

Black smoke rose over the buildings on Conover. Flashing lights illuminated the area. Two more cop cars raced past up on Van Brunt.

Beck told himself, Got to get the fuck out of here, now.

He pocketed the piece of razor wire he’d used to cut Stepanovich, stood up, but the quick move made him suddenly dizzy. He had to go back down on one knee. He felt exhausted, enveloped by pain now, stiff and weak.

He cursed, forced himself to stand again, determined to make it down the block to where the Mercury was parked. And then he saw the black car, backing up toward him, all the lights off, coming for him like a dark ghost vehicle in the night.

69

Beck slid into the open passenger door of the Mercury.

“I was about to climb into that lot and pull out your body,” Demarco said.

“No. I wouldn’t want you to risk hurting yourself.”

Demarco sped away, steering the Mercury straight through the intersection of Beard and Van Brunt. He avoided turning on Van Brunt. He kept the car headlights off, racing along the dark street until he was well past the intersection.

Beck sat back in the passenger seat, closing his eyes, pressing his shoulder against the seat back to help stop the bleeding from his knife wound. The warmth in the car making him sleepy.

Demarco wore a light down jacket. Black. Black wool pants and black suede shoes with rubber soles. He had a black Kangol fur cap turned backward on his nearly bald head so the brim wouldn’t bump into the windshield as he peered out, finding his way along the dark streets with his lights off.

He asked, “Whose blood is that on you?”

“His, except for in back.” Beck turned so Demarco could see the slice through his coat.

“Bad?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t want to look just now.”

“I take it you won?”

“You take it right. If there’s a hell, that bald bastard is in it.”

“What happened to the rest of them? The cops get them like you planned?”

“I saw them arresting one of them. Hopefully, they wounded or killed the rest. Cops arrived way too late. Ciro came back and saved my ass.”

Demarco smiled and shook his head in admiration.

“He get away?”

“I hope so. If he could climb that fence in front of the food store, he did.”

“Good. Where’d the bald fucker end up?”

“Out on Beard Street. I tried to make it look like he ripped his neck open getting over the fence. How’d you and Manny do?”

“Got ’em all. I think Manny wounded one guy. I don’t know how many of them got burned up. Hopefully, all of ’em.”

“And Manny got away?”

“Far as I know, he and Ciro and Joey followed the plan. Left all the guns in the Porsche. Left the Porsche parked in the food store lot, then went down to the warehouses on Van Brunt to make believe they’re unloading trucks. The crew there will cover for them if the cops come looking.”

“Good.” Beck felt himself succumbing to the exhaustion.

He relaxed now. He knew if anybody could maneuver the confusing streets of Red Hook to avoid whatever cops were descending on the neighborhood, it was Demarco. He tilted back his seat and stretched out. It felt like the wound in his back had stopped bleeding, but if the cops stopped them, there’d be no hiding the blood on him. Demarco would just have to deal with it. It was in his hands.

Beck took a last look out his window. They were already on Bay Street. If Demarco could maneuver around and get on the Gowanus Expressway, they’d make it out of the neighborhood.

“You okay?” asked Demarco.

“Yeah. Just let me close my eyes.”

“We got some killing to do, James.”

“I know. Wake me when we get there.”

70

Alan Crane took another Ritalin and continued scrolling through his positions for what seemed like the thousandth time. He pushed himself, knowing that in these last hours the difference in working every trade rather than giving up and closing out positions could amount to tens or even hundreds of thousands.

He checked his watch. Three in the morning.

Markov’s minders were working in shifts. The one with the beard was up now, watching him while the other two slept.

Fucking ridiculous, thought Crane, but who cares. Let Markov waste his money, and these bozos waste their time. At least they had enough sense to keep their mouths shut while he worked. Crane wondered what their exact orders were. Probably something simple, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere and keeps working.

As if I weren’t going to do that anyhow.

Crane sat back and rubbed his face, trying to focus on a one-minute-interval candlestick chart showing the creeping spread between the U.S. dollar and the euro.

He stared at the Bollinger Bands beginning to bulge in the direction he wanted. Crane found himself pleased that he was still able to maintain his discipline. At this stage, Crane believed ninety-nine percent of traders would be pulling the trigger too soon, too weary to eke out the last bips. But he had a big position to close out and right now the bips were going in his direction. He willed the next candlestick to turn green.