“Nope,” Frankie said. “I’d’ve said if it was. You got him wrong, you know. That jail thing, he had it worse’n I did, his family and all.”

“He’s not gonna have to do it again,” Cogan said.

“He stood up,” Frankie said. “He could’ve blamed it all on us.”

“In a way,” Cogan said, “he did.”

“He did not,” Frankie said. “He never said shit.”

“He didn’t say shit about you, maybe,” Cogan said. “He still called somebody up.”

“About what?” Frankie said. “What’d he call up?”

“He knows how you do things,” Cogan said. “He knows how you’re supposed to, anyway. He knows.”

“What’s he know?” Frankie said.

“Ever hear of the Doctor?” Cogan said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Frankie said. “Dillon says he’s dead. I know.”

“When’re you talking to Dillon?” Cogan said.

“I didn’t talk to him,” Frankie said. “Johnny told me that, said Dillon said the Doctor’s dead.”

“He is dead,” Cogan said.

“Okay,” Frankie said, “you and Johnny and Dillon, the whole bunch of you say the Doctor’s dead. Big deal.”

“The Squirrel says he’s dead,” Cogan said.

“Johnny said Dillon told him, the Doctor’s dead,” Frankie said.

“That shit,” Cogan said. “That fuckin’ shit.”

A brown Maverick Grabber passed behind the Duster.

“Still not them,” Frankie said. “Why?”

“Because he knows it himself,” Cogan said. “He knows very fuckin’ well, the Doctor’s dead.”

“How’s he know?” Frankie said.

“He paid a man,” Cogan said, “he paid a man, five thousand dollars, get the Doctor dead.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie said.

“What’s his wife’s name,” Cogan said, “you want me to tell you, tell you what she looks like and everything, used to wear them big gold-hoop earrings? Connie.”

“So what?” Frankie said.

“That’s the broad that delivered the money,” Cogan said. “For the Doctor’s ass. Think he’d pay that if he didn’t know it was done?”

Frankie did not answer.

“You know why, Frank, he got the Doctor?” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Frankie said, “I know.”

“Sure,” Cogan said. “Doctor made a mistake, did something he wasn’t supposed to. That’s why.”

“Well,” Frankie said, “he did.”

“Sure he did,” Cogan said. “So’d he.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Frankie said. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

A maroon Monte Carlo passed behind the Duster.

“Sure it is,” Cogan said, “the Doctor got taken out for getting everybody in the shit. And that’s what him and you did. You just thought, the only thing that was different, you thought Trattman’d get blamed for it.”

A red Capri passed behind the Duster.

“That’s what I mean,” Cogan said. “You don’t get away with things like that. Trattman was the same way. Thought he was gonna get away with it.”

“He did,” Frankie said. “Once.”

“That’s what I mean,” Cogan said. “You don’t get away with nothing once, it happens again.”

The bronze Riviera passed behind the Duster.

“That’s him,” Cogan said.

“I’m not sure,” Frankie said.

“Yes you are,” Cogan said. “If you’re not you got the first all-over hard-on in the world.” He opened his eyes and watched the Riviera. It pulled in beyond the back door of the complex.

“How long’s he gonna be, kid?” Cogan said.

“I dunno,” Frankie said.

“Okay,” Cogan said, “I asked you nice. Now, does he fuck her here or does he fuck her some place else?”

“She’s got a roommate,” Frankie said. “He knows a guy’s got a motel in Haverhill.”

“Okay,” Cogan said, “he’s just gonna be friendly, then.” He watched as the door of the Riviera opened. He watched the long white leg of the girl. He watched Amato emerge from the building shadow and walk around the rear of the car. He watched Amato assist the girl from the car and shut the door.

Cogan reached down on the floor of the Duster with both hands and picked up a five-shot Winchester semiautomatic shotgun. He put it across his lap, steadying it with his right hand. With his left hand he took the key out of the Duster’s ignition.

“Hey,” Frankie said, “I mean, I was gonna start it and everything, we could get a start.”

“I know,” Cogan said, “but, it’s probably gonna get noisy around here, and I known guys, heard a lot of noise, they got too good a start and left somebody standing around with his thumb up his ass.”

Cogan watched Amato walk the girl to the door of the apartment complex.

Cogan opened the passenger door of the Duster, exposing the masking tape he had used to seal the interior light switch off, and slipped out of the car. Amato and the girl were thirty-five yards away, embracing at the door. Cogan crouched against the car, his left elbow bracing against the top of the Duster’s hood, the stock of the gun tight against his right shoulder.

Amato broke the embrace. The girl opened the door with a key. Amato waited on the step until the door closed behind her. She turned and waved at him, using only the fingers of her right hand. She was smiling. Amato waved back, in the same way. He turned away from the door. The girl vanished up the stairs.

Cogan fired the first deer slug at Amato. It caught him low on the abdomen and hurled him backward against the building. Cogan waited until Amato hit the top of his low arc. Then Cogan fired the second slug. It hit Amato higher, slightly above the belt on the left side, and went through him, taking an angle through his body which sent it through the glass panel of the door at his left. Cogan fired the third shot as Amato hit the wall of the building and started to sag down. It hit him in the middle of the chest, close to the base of his throat, and blew his chest apart. Amato toppled off to his own right in the low shrubbery.

Cogan backed up fast and got into the car. He shoved the shotgun into the back seat and stuck the key into the ignition. “Now gimme that start,” he said.

The Duster leaped out of the space, taking the curves of the drive with the small tires screaming.

Three and one-half miles from Stuart Manor, Cogan said: “You’re going too fast.”

“Jesus,” Frankie said, “they’re gonna have all kinds of cops up here.” He held the Duster steady at seventy on the two-lane road.

“And one of them’s gonna catch us,” Cogan said. “Slow down.”

“I can’t,” Frankie said.

“Kid,” Cogan said, “look, slow down, all right?”

“I can’t,” Frankie said. “Honest to God, I can’t.”

“Kid,” Cogan said, “my car’s in Massachusetts. We got a long way to go. I don’t wanna get caught.”

“You wanna drive?” Frankie said.

“Yeah,” Cogan said.

Frankie pulled the Duster off on the shoulder of Route 64. He opened the driver’s side door quickly and got out and trotted around the back of the car. Cogan slid across the seats. Frankie got in on the passenger side.

“Okay,” Cogan said, putting the Duster in drive, “now, this means, you’re gonna have to dump the gun.”

“Okay,” Frankie said.

Cogan stopped the Duster on the overpass at the Shawsheen River in Andover, Massachusetts. Frankie opened the passenger window and launched the gun out into the darkness. He started to close the window.

“Wait,” Cogan said.

There was a splash.

“Okay,” Cogan said. He put the Duster in gear again. “Grass and stuff don’t take care of prints,” he said. “Water does.”

Cogan wheeled the Duster into the parking lot at the Northshore Plaza west of Salem. Behind Jordan Marsh’s there was a blue LTD.

“You know what you got to do, now,” Cogan said, driving toward the LTD.

“Sure,” Frankie said. “I go back down to where my car is and I leave this one and I go home.”

“You just leave it,” Cogan said.

“Oh Christ,” Frankie said, “I wipe it down.”

“You’re all right and everything,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Frankie said.

“Where’s your car again?” Cogan said.

“For Christ sake,” Frankie said, “it’s down at, it’s inna lot at Auburndale.”