– And besides, nobody tell you yet? You already died.

He coughs blood.

I drop a dish towel on him.

– Get your shit together. I want to hear about Tom. Tell me again how he was the one sponsored you. I want to hear about you and Tom.

The door busts in.

I hesitate for less than a second. That finishes me. I had time to get one round off. Trying to decide whether to use it to kill The Count or slow down Hurley finishes me. I do manage to get one in on him, one punch in the gut. It doesn’t do anything. You can’t fight Hurley. He puts me down, Tom right behind him.

They’re pretty surgical about it, almost as clean as Vandewater’s boys. They chill the girls, get me and The Count wrapped tight, and have us out and into a van before anyone in the building can take an interest.

Figure we’ll end up at one of Tom’s personal safe houses. Someplace private where he can ice The Count until they have their story straight. Me, I’m way past icing in Tom’s book. I’ll be lucky if this hood ever comes off my head. Actually, I’ll be luckier if it never does and they just put a couple in me and sink me in the river. Figure there’s a chance of it. Tom may have enough heat on him that he won’t take any chances, just waste me and get rid of me. Figure that’s wishful thinking. He’s had a hard-on for me for too long. He wants to get his licks in before the story’s over. He’s such an incredible dick he won’t be able to resist torturing me one last time. Figure that’s about the way things work out. I ain’t got any better coming to me anyway. I’ve done my share of this shit. What goes around, it comes around. Figure it’s my turn.

And figure I’m pretty fucking surprised when the hood comes off and the first face I see is Terry’s.

He’s not alone. Far from it.

They get me strapped to my seat. When the bag comes off my head, I’m expecting to see Tom’s fist coming at my face. Wrong. There’s Terry, sitting at the kitchen table in the Society headquarters, sitting there with some notes and shit in front of him, looking at the papers. There’s Tom, pacing back and forth behind him, a few of his partisans standing around the room. There’s The Count, taped up to a chair right next to mine. Looks like Hurley must have given him a good one ’cause he’s out. Dry blood covering his lips and cheeks and chin, snuffling through the scabs clogging his nose. He’s better off. There’s Hurley, right off my shoulder, making sure I don’t try to do fuck knows what. And there’s Lydia, sitting next to Terry, not looking happy to see me at all. Terry, Tom and Lydia in the same room. Me on the other end of their hard looks. Not the first time I’ve been here. But it’s never a good thing, having the senior council of the Society all in one place looking at you like your head coming off is a foregone conclusion and they’re just deciding who gets to swing the ax.

– Hey, guys. What’s up?

Terry takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, making a big show of how run down he is.

– I need your help, Joe.

Tom starts waving his arms around.

– Fuck that, his help. We don’t need his help, he’s already helped plenty, already fucked himself. It’s time for sentencing. I move waiving the inquiry and going straight to the sentencing.

– Yeah, Tom, once we’re officially convened and the whole council is here, that’ll be cool. But for now, I’m just kind of passing the time with an old friend here.

– Bullshit! That’s favoritism, Terry! That kind of crap, that shit is over! You can’t get away with, with protecting him anymore. He’s done. And, man, your time, your time is coming to a close. As soon as we’re convened, as soon as this spy has been executed, I’m calling for a referendum on your chairmanship. You harbored his ass, you kept this serpent in the garden, man. This shit is down to you as much as it is to him.

Terry starts to open his mouth. I get ready to enjoy seeing Tom put in his place, but it doesn’t happen. Terry just shakes his head and holds up one hand.

– Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. That’s right. And I, man, I thoroughly expect something like this, my chairmanship has to come into question. That’s, you know, that’s just the price. But I am going to invoke some privileges, I am going to serve as Joe’s defense in the inquiry.

Tom shakes his head, arms folded over his chest.

– Not gonna be an inquiry.

Terry nods.

– Yeah, OK, if you have your way, in the sentencing phase I’m still gonna serve as his defense. And, you know, as such, I have a right to talk to the man. Right here, in front of everybody.

Tom taps his index finger on the table right in front of Terry.

– No. Fucking. Way. No way does this guy get any more special treatment.

Lydia leans forward, putting her elbows on the table, her biceps stretching the fabric of her black sweater.

– You’re wrong, Tom.

He moves his eyes from Terry to her.

– What?

– It’s due process. He may be a shit, and Terry may be on his way out, but due process is due process. He can talk to him if he wants.

There’s a little stare-off. Lydia could tear Tom a few new assholes at will. If he didn’t have his partisans here. But it hasn’t come to that yet, it hasn’t come to an open coup of Society leadership. Yet.

He nods, throws up his hands.

– OK, OK, due process it is. But if Terry can ask questions, we all can.

Terry shrugs.

– Sure, sure, if that’s what it takes. Sure.

He looks back at me.

– So, like I was saying, Joe, I can use your help. As I guess you can kind of see, the shit’s been hitting the fan.

– No kidding?

– Sure has.

– How hard?

Tom sits on the edge of the table.

– Not as hard as I’m gonna kick your balls into your throat if you don’t stop being a smartass.

I look at him.

– How’s the leg, Tom? Get that bullet out?

He laughs.

– Yeah, be funny. Take it all the way. Sure, I got the bullet out. Got it in a plastic bag. Gonna be exhibit A when we sentence your ass. That alone, fucker, that alone is gonna get you executed. Before we do it, I’m gonna take that bullet and shove it through your ear.

I look at Terry.

– You gonna let him talk to me like that?

Terry fingers his papers, gives them a flip.

– Well, right now, like you kind of been hearing, there’s not much I can do. I mean, you ask how hard the shit’s hit the fan, let me tell you, hard enough to stick on everything.

– That’s pretty hard.

– Yeah, yeah it is. Hell, Joe, once we got tipped off you were on your way back down, the shit would have to be pretty hard to get Predo and us to agree to let you pass all the way without no one getting in your way. ’Cause, you know, no one wanted a big scene with you getting dragged off a train or anything. And still, getting Predo to agree to let us take you into custody, that took some doing. Wouldn’t you say that’s some shit hitting hard?

I don’t say anything. I don’t really have to. Because he’s right, that’s some shit hitting the fan pretty damn hard.

– You got to admit, whatever it was made you go wandering around the Hood, trailing one of Predo’s enforcers, whatever that was, it’d have to be pretty damn important to get you off the hook at this point. And, well, that’s even assuming the enforcer hadn’t gone missing. Then we got.

He looks at his papers.

– We got one of Digga’s people, Papa Doc, sending word through Predo that you escaped custody and beat on some guards. All and all…

He looks at the papers again.

– Looks like you’ve been making some noise all over. And, you know, shooting Tom, well, that was a bad call, too. So.

He drops the papers and looks up.

– So, I don’t know. You got anything to say about all this?

Anything to say? Anything to say about Terry being the one who set me off poking in the first place? No. Not yet.