"The arms dealer? Here?"
"Yes. Mr. Alderman, we have to get my nephew and get out of here."
"Your nephew?"
"My brother's son. He's here." Jason clenched his lips, risked a quick glance over his shoulder. DiRisio had vanished in the crowd. "Sir, we have to go. Can we continue some place more private?"
"All right." Owens looked at his second, who frowned. "Daryl's right. I should probably say a few good-byes. It will look strange if I don't. Twenty minutes?"
Jason nodded. "Fine. Where can we regroup?"
"My car is in the service garage. A black Towncar. But how will you get past your man?"
"We'll figure something out."
The alderman smiled. "I'm glad a soldier is on the job." He turned to Thomas. "Let's make the rounds quickly, shall we?"
Jason watched them go. He'd done it. Joy bubbled up within his chest, and he turned back to his friends. Cruz grinned a hundred-watts worth. Washington put a hand on his shoulder. "Good work, son. I'm proud of you." He looked Jason square in the eye. "Your brother would be, too."
Something swelled in Jason's chest, something fluttery and luminous, and he felt the muscles of his cheeks pull into a too-wide smile. He held out a hand, and Washington took it, then pulled him into a hug. The familiar tang of Old Spice filled his nostrils, a safe, comforting smell. He wanted to linger, to laugh and toast their success.
But DiRisio was out there.
Jason stepped back, grimaced. "I'm sorry, but we should-"
"I know, son. Go."
Jason squeezed his shoulder, touched Cruz's arm, the skin soft and warm, and then he stepped into the thick of the crowd. Where would Billy be? The air had the recycled smell of a too-full party, cut by the chaotic tinkling of women's laughter. There weren't any other children around. It was too crowded for DiRisio to try anything, or at least he hoped so. Still, he wouldn't feel better until he found his nephew. He started for the buffet, where Ronald had last seen Billy.
But there was no sign of the boy. He felt his heart quicken. He couldn't risk calling out. DiRisio could be stalking this same ground. But where would the boy be?
Then he had a thought, and dropped to a squat. A small pair of shoes were barely visible beneath the table. Jason parted the tablecloth. Billy looked up, his smile blooming like a flower. He wore a tuxedo and a clip-on bow tie. Now in robot form, the Transformer wreaked havoc on a landscape of baguette slices and gouda cubes.
Jason's heart climbed his chest, buoyed by a wave of pure warmth. If this was what responsibility meant, he could get used to it. "Hey, kiddo."
"Uncle Jason!" The boy leaned forward and threw his arms around Jason's neck. "I missed you."
"Me too." He tousled Billy's hair. Part of him wanted to crawl under the table with him, but there wasn't time. Soon, though. They were almost finished. "We gotta go, buddy. You ready?"
Billy nodded, released his arms, and climbed out, carrying the toy by one robotic arm. Jason stood, trying to at once scan the room and remain inconspicuous. At least DiRisio didn't know Billy was here. He kept to the fringe of the crowd, moving against the windowed walls.
Ronald stood in the corner, Cruz beside him, her features drawn with worry. She brightened when she saw him. Jason spotted Washington, nodded toward the others, and he joined them.
"Now what?" Cruz had moved so her back was to the room. "Out the front door?"
Where would DiRisio be? Jason put himself in the other man's position. "No. He doesn't know we spotted him, and the crowd is tough to move through. His best bet would be to watch that door."
"So what then?"
A harried server pushed past him, balancing a tray of desserts. He saw Cruz looking at it, met her eyes, both of them smiling. "Let's go."
The servant's entrance was marked by a set of swinging kitchen doors. Beyond lay a bright white hallway, the lush atmosphere of the ballroom replaced by rubber-mat floors and fluorescent lights. A row of six-foot service carts held the remnants of dinner, half-eaten steaks in pools of béarnaise, abandoned vegetables. Two Hispanic guys in spattered aprons and hairnets leaned against the wall, laughing at something. They froze as the doors opened. One of them said something in Spanish, then, "Bathroom other way."
Cruz pulled her badge from her purse. "Policía." The men looked at one another nervously, and she let them. "¿Dónde está el elevador?" The larger of the two waved down the hall. She nodded curtly.
The service elevators were built for functionality, with worn linoleum floors and scuffed walls. The five of them stepped aboard, gestured away a pretty maid who started to follow, pressed the door close button.
Jason leaned against the back wall. Let himself breathe. They'd done it. Somehow, against all odds, they'd done it. He felt a smile creeping onto his face, and a weird sense of lightness in his limbs. He looked up to find Cruz smiling, too. That good smile, the one he liked.
"Come here," he said, not caring that the others could see.
One side of her lips curled higher than the other. "You."
They met halfway.
"Why aren't you coming home now?" Billy looked up at him with guileless eyes.
"I will soon, buddy. We're almost done."
"Did you get the, the uh-"
"Briefcase?" Jason glanced in either direction down the empty hall. They'd gotten off on the second floor rather than ride it all the way to the kitchen. "Yeah, we did. Everything's under control, buddy. You're going to be okay."
"What about you?"
Jason smiled. Dropped to one knee. "I'm going to be okay, too."
"That's good." The boy sounded tired. "So you'll be home soon?"
"Very soon."
"Good." Billy hesitated. "Will you come to see me when you do?"
"Sure thing. But you'll be asleep."
The boy shook his head, looked at the floor.
"You having trouble sleeping, buddy?"
Billy nodded.
"Bad dreams?"
"Uh-huh." Billy's voice little boy earnest.
Jason felt the weight of the moment. An everyday moment of fatherhood, the kind of thing Michael probably had dealt with effortlessly. But Michael was gone now. It was up to him.
"You know what you do?" Jason put one hand out, took the Transformer from Billy, started to fold it. Surprised to find his muscles remembered exactly what to do with his long-ago toy. He turned it into a gun again, and passed it back to Billy. "Take this to bed with you. No bad dreams will come near you then."
"That's silly. You can't kill a nightmare."
Jason laughed. "Maybe not. But I bet you feel better anyway." He stood up, looked at Washington. "You'll watch out for him?"
The man nodded. "We both will." He took Billy's hand. "Ronald's probably got the car pulled around – you ready to go see him?" Billy nodded and let Washington lead him away. Jason stood and watched them walk away. Felt a tug in his chest.
"You okay?" Cruz touched his arm.
He nodded. "Just realized I have a family." He turned to her. Smiled, and kissed her again. She returned it, her lips soft with promise, not the fever of earlier, but something lasting, the kind of kiss that might go for years. Finally, he broke it, glanced at his watch. "We better get moving."
In the lobby, men and women waited with valet tickets, or kissed cheeks in final good-byes. A table of tourist chicks sat sipping Cosmos and playing at Sex and the City. The uniformed cops were gone; he supposed they'd probably been clocking overtime.
"What if DiRisio came down?" Cruz asked.
"He couldn't be sure we would come through the lobby. My bet is he's still watching the ballroom exit, hoping to bottleneck us." Jason had a twinge of that same feeling he'd had upstairs, something about DiRisio that didn't fit. Shook it off and stopped to study a fire evacuation map. "Looks like the service garage is this way."
The volume turned down with every step away from the lobby. They passed a restaurant, the air heavy with the smell of french onion soup and filet mignon, and took a side corridor to a door marked "Employees Only."
The garage was dreary, the buzzing sodium lights draining color. Several panel trucks were backed in against the wall, followed by rows of staff cars, Hondas and Fords, most a couple of years old. The air was stale with old exhaust and cigarettes.
The alderman's car sat twenty feet away, beside a delivery truck. The Towncar was running, a trickle of exhaust rising from the tailpipe. Lightly tinted windows screened the interior, but he could make out a man in the rear seat. "Right on time," Jason said. They started toward the car, Cruz's high heels clicking on the concrete. "Let's get this over with, get home. I could sleep for a week."
Jason opened the car door and leaned in, opening his mouth to say hello.
In the splinter of a second it took to process the man pointing a gun at him, a thin face marked by a white ridge of scar tissue, it hit Jason what had been nagging at him.
Anthony DiRisio had been wearing a tuxedo. If he'd followed them here, where would he have come up with a tux?
Then something hard and heavy cracked his skull, and the world shivered into night.