“Let me make it weirder for you. You got a church near there, Holy Angels?”

“Not far away, yeah.”

“I’m gonna fax you a picture of some electronics. You may want to take a look over there and see if you can find anything like them in or near the confessionals.”

An hour later, Buttita called back. “OK, Lynch,” he said. “It’s officially weirder.”

It was dark when Lynch left the station. When he was halfway to his car, Cunningham stepped out of the shadows and into the blind spot created by Lynch’s eyepatch.

“Let’s take a walk. You and me gotta talk.”

Lynch turned. “Reason you couldn’t call me?”

“Maybe.”

“You gonna keep being real mysterious like this?”

“Till we get up on the street, in with some people and background noise where I’m pretty sure nobody can keep a parabolic on us and get anything, yeah.”

“Being a little paranoid, aren’t you?”

“Bet your sweet ass,” Cunningham said.

Lynch and Cunningham walked up onto a main drag, mixed in with the evening pedestrian traffic.

“OK, Cunningham, what’s up?”

“That casing. I did see something, but I had to check a few things before I talked with you. Especially on top of seeing that guy on the street.”

“So what do you have?”

“Ghost story,” Cunningham said. “Or maybe a spook story.” He told Fisher about the Dragon.

When Cunningham was done, Lynch stopped, turned and eyeballed him for a minute. “You wanna explain why it is you have to talk to your old Corps friends before you talk to me?”

Cunningham held Lynch’s eyes, didn’t look away, didn’t blink. “I get to where I think I gotta explain myself to you, I’ll let you know.”

The two men stood like that a minute, then Lynch turned and started back up the street.

“That guy you saw at the Riordan scene? Was that this Dragon guy?”

“Don’t know. Heard about the Dragon, never saw him. But I got passed around a little today through the Corps grapevine. Guy I finally talked with – and I’m not giving you any names here, so don’t ask – he’s a little freaked. Some weird shit happening in DC. Lot of churn all of a sudden over on the spook side of the street, chain of command getting juggled, and suddenly there’s a big market for shooters. Somebody needs triggermen ASAP. Don’t know who, don’t know why. Also, that shit downstate? Word is that was our boy. Guy I talked to says Fisher – can’t remember his first name, some kind of weird biblical thing he thinks, but he’s pretty sure on Fisher.”

“We got a hit on the prints from the Riordan scene,” Lynch said. “That guy you saw, his name’s Ferguson. He’s ex-Corps, too. Thing is, system says he was KIA in 1973.”

“Heard they do that sometimes – clear the history on somebody.”

“So maybe somebody wiped this Ferguson’s record, changed his name to Fisher?”

Cunningham walked for a minute, thinking, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Timeline seems off. This Ferguson, he goes back in Nam a-ways. The Dragon, he would have still been a little green then. And if the shooter’s Fisher, I don’t picture him hanging around after he takes his shot waiting for us to eyeball him.”

“You telling me we got two Agency sniper types running around?”

Cunningham nodded. “Two yeah, but not Agency. Whatever’s going on is totally black. This isn’t going to trace back to anybody with a government business card. I think maybe this Fisher’s slipped his leash. An old lady? Some half-ass city pol? Not the type of targets you waste that kind of talent on. And both of em you could have taken out without the sniper shit. That kind of thing attracts attention. Sniping is always plan B. You got another option, you use it.”

“So you think Ferguson’s here for Fisher?”

“Yeah.”

“Which leaves one question.”

“What?”

CHAPTER 38 – CHICAGO

 

Lynch drove back to his place, whipped, just wanting to sleep. When he stepped through the door, Ferguson was sitting in the leather chair across the room holding a slim automatic with a sizable suppressor.

“Little gun,” said Lynch.

“Hush puppy,” said Ferguson. “I could shoot you from here and you’d barely hear it. Just a .22, but there are ten in the clip, and I can put all of them inside a quarter from this distance.”

“Good thing I’m not carrying any change,” said Lynch.

Ferguson smiled. “Couple things. First, take off your jacket, take the nine out from under your arm, left hand, carefully. Take out the clip, rack the slide, and set everything on the table by the door. Don’t worry, I wanted you dead, you’d be there. I just don’t want your mind cluttered up with any how-do-I-get-my-gun-out thoughts while we’re chatting.”

Lynch took out his gun, emptied it, set it down.

“You don’t carry some cheap-ass little throw-down in an ankle holster or anything, do you? You say no and I see one when you cross your legs, I’m gonna take exception.”

Fisher hiked up his pants legs and flashed the argyles at Ferguson.

“Nice socks,” said Ferguson.

“Trying to up my sartorial game,” said Lynch.

“Christ, you start dating a writer and look at the shit comes out your mouth.”

Lynch tried not to show anything.

“Yeah, I know about the reporter,” said Ferguson.

“Know a few things myself, Ferguson.” Lynch throwing the name out, looking for a little edge. “Like how you died back in ’73.”

Ferguson let out a little snort. “That or how?”

“Both. Friendly fire. Nice touch.”

“OK, we all through impressing each other, or we gotta get our dicks out?”

“Hey,” said Lynch, “it’s your meeting.”

Ferguson twitched the gun toward the couch on the far wall. “Why don’t you go on over have a seat, get comfy, so I can set this thing down. Really don’t need to keep it on you the whole time, do I?”

“Sure,” said Lynch. “Nice and friendly, except for the whole B&E part. But what’s a felony among friends, right?”

“I knew you’d be a reasonable guy. OK, we – we being you and us – have been butting heads over a little matter, and that’s not productive. Some guys I work with – it’s not just me, and you know that – were maybe a little hard-assed about this whole thing. But, gets down to it, we’re on the same side. You’ve got a shooter you’d like off the streets. We’d like him off the streets, too.”

“This we, do I get an antecedent to go with the pronoun?”

“Let’s just say elements of the national security apparatus, shall we?” Ferguson pulled a pack of Dunhills from an inside pocket. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Actually, yes,” said Lynch.

Ferguson shrugged, flicked open a well-used Zippo, and lit up. “Mind if I do anyway?”

“Since you put it like that,” said Lynch.

Ferguson took a long pull, blew a stream of smoke up toward the ceiling.

“How’d you get my name? Cunningham spot me?”

“Down by the church. We pulled your prints off the Dr Pepper can you dropped.”

Ferguson nodded. “Fucking prints. They were supposed to swap those out years ago. Let me ask you this. You work out who you’re looking for yet?”

“Getting close.”

“You get close to this guy, you’ll get dead.”

“I’ll give you he’s a scary SOB. Still gonna run him down, though.”

“And then?”

“And then it’s his play. We bring him in or we put him down.”

“And that’s where maybe we can play ball,” said Ferguson.

“Play ball how?”

“Let’s just say the put him down part sounds good. The bring him in part? Not so much.”

“Surely a guy who’d break into a cop’s apartment and hold him at gunpoint isn’t suggesting that we subvert a citizen’s constitutional guarantees? You guys have heard of due process, right?”

“Got our own version. Look, it’s your town, and you’re good. You’ve gotten way closer to this than I would have guessed, and you’ve gotten there fast. Fact is, if you bring him in, you’re gonna have to put a hole in him first. No way in hell he just gives up. So it’s ninety to ten the thing goes our way anyhow. I’m just asking you to give up the ten percent so that we can pool our resources and get this thing over with. He’s not going to stop, you know.”