“Keep the gun down, Cancerno,” I said, taking a step back, close to the wall, and shifting the gun quickly from Ramone to Cancerno and then back to Ramone as he started to raise his gun again. I had to get at least one of them disarmed, fast, or this was going to be over all too quickly. My choice was Ramone—he would be the better shooter, the better fighter, and he was closer.
Keeping an eye on Cancerno, who was walking around the bar toward me, I took a few shuffling steps toward Ramone. All the lights were off in the bar except for one thin fluorescent lamp above the mirrors, and behind Ramone the dining room was dark. I hoped they didn’t have more backups waiting there.
“Put it down, Ramone,” I said, and he stood completely still, looking unconcerned. In Ramone’s eyes, I had already lost this fight because I hadn’t shot him as soon as I’d seen him. He was a killer, and his mind worked in a kill-or-be-killed fashion. I had failed to kill him, and now he was sure that I would die before this was over.
I was about to repeat my command when I saw Cancerno lift his gun quickly to shoulder level. I jerked the barrel of the revolver away from Ramone and fired a quick snap shot at Cancerno almost exactly as he fired at me. Both of us missed. Even as I was pulling the trigger, through, I was diving to my left, into Ramone, knowing that I had to prevent him from getting that shotgun up and firing at close range.
I hit him in the chest with my shoulder, but he’d been prepared for my lunge, and rather than attempt to bring his gun up, he dropped it, wrapped one arm around my head, and went with my momentum. We fell together, Ramone clutching my head and neck, and landed painfully on the floor of the bar. I tried to roll onto my right shoulder immediately and bring my gun around on him, but Cancerno was running toward us, trying to get a clear look at me, so I leaned back and fired two rounds into the glass mirrors behind the bar, making him drop. That was too much time to give Ramone, though, and he was on his knees, swinging his fist at my face.
He caught me high on the side of my head, as I had just enough time to turn my face away. It was a hard punch, and the next one was even harder. I swung the gun at his mouth, but he blocked it with his forearm and the gun flew from my hand. I grabbed at his chest with both hands as he threw another punch, and another, both connecting with my forehead.
Then it was over, Cancerno standing above me with a Beretta 9 mm pointed at my face. Ramone threw one last punch, this one splitting the skin above my right eye, then climbed off me and retrieved his shotgun.
“Thanks for coming by,” Cancerno said, and kicked me in the ribs. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to push myself up, but he kicked me again and pushed the Beretta against my skull.
“Stay down,” he said, and then to Ramone, “Get him over with Draper.”
“No more handcuffs,” Ramone said.
“That’s all right.”
Ramone lifted me off the floor by my hair, pushing the barrel of a gun I assumed was Mitch Corbett’s revolver in my spine. He shoved me past the bar and then kicked me behind the knees, making me fall forward. I caught myself with my palms out, but he ground his boot into my back, shoving me down on my stomach again.
I looked up at Scott Draper, and it took a great deal of effort to keep my eyes on him. His face was a pulpy mess of blood and bruises. I saw his front teeth hanging loose and chipped behind torn lips, and his nose had been smashed flat against his face. Blood dripped from various areas of his face and fell onto the rubber mat below him in slow, steady drops. His eyes, though, were remarkably clear. Clear, and angry. More than once while we were growing up—and even a few times in the last week—I’d had the passing thought that Draper was a man who could take a hell of a lot of punishment before he stayed down. Now I had proof of that hanging in front of me.
Draper coughed, and a fine spray of blood flew from his lips and landed on the back of my hand, covering it with tiny crimson droplets. Ramone stepped away and Cancerno stood over me and kicked me again in the side. He hit me directly in the ribs, but he wasn’t a powerful man, and the blow didn’t do the damage he’d hoped to inflict.
“Glad you made it, Perry,” he said. “You’re the other one I wanted to see tonight.”
“You’re done, Cancerno,” I said, not bothering to twist my head so I could see him. “Padgett got shot, and the half of the police department that you don’t control is going to see Gajovich right now.”
“No shit?” he said. “Well, then, I guess that makes this encounter all the more important. Because I’d hate to go to jail with unsettled scores.”
Cancerno paced to the end of the bar where Ramone stood, then whirled back to Draper and me.
“You guys like fires, right?”
He reached up with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun and grabbed a bottle of vodka from the shelf above Draper. I started to get to my hands and knees when he did it, but Ramone stepped forward and pointed his gun at me.
“I know Draper likes fires,” Cancerno said, smashing the top of the vodka bottle against the bar and shattering the glass. He turned it upside down and poured the alcohol out on top of us. It splattered the floor and my legs and Draper’s bloody face. Draper rose up higher on his toes, the handcuffs still binding him to the heavy oak shelves. It was a massive, one-piece unit filled with shelves for liquor, with mirrors set behind the shelves, and stood at least eight feet tall. Draper’s cuffs were looped around one of the solid crosspieces that separated the two sides of shelves. The wood was not going to break, no matter how hard he pulled.
“Draper likes fires more than he likes his life,” Cancerno said, breaking another bottle and emptying it around us. “That seem like a good trade to you, Perry?” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “What about you, Ramone?”
“Doesn’t sound like a good trade,” Ramone said.
“I didn’t think so, either. But it appears this prick”—Cancerno threw a bottle that just missed Draper’s head before breaking on the shelves—“thought it was a good one.”
Cancerno stopped picking up bottles and stared at me. “I own this neighborhood. But I was done with it. Bigger things in mind. So you bastards had real, real bad timing. Gradduk could have been the only one to die. I didn’t need to send his friends to join him.”
“It’s done, Cancerno,” I said again.
“Exactly.” He nodded. “It is done. But I’m going to be the one to finish it. Understand that, Perry? And Draper here just designed your own graves. Because with all the fires in this neighborhood last night, one more isn’t going to stand out.” He poured a bottle of Crown Royal in a circle on the floor at my feet.
Ramone stood behind the bar, keeping the revolver pointed at us. Cancerno was still working his way down the length of the bar, grabbing bottle after bottle, breaking them, and then pouring the liquor on the floor.
I’d kept moving, still trying to turn my body and prepare to get on my feet when the time came, and apparently I’d gotten too close to that for Ramone’s liking. He fired a round into the shelves just above my head, the bottles exploding, glass and liquor landing on the floor around me.
I stopped moving, and Ramone smiled, showing his teeth.
Ramone’s round was one more in addition to those Cancerno and I had fired earlier, but I wasn’t too hopeful that they would have attracted the attention of the neighbors. The Hideaway’s ancient, thick walls absorbed noise better than the most expensive soundproofing panels. Draper’s dad used to brag about how loud he could turn the jukebox up before you’d hear a bit of it on the sidewalk.
Beside me, Draper shifted position again, sliding his heels across the floor until they actually rested against the bottom of the shelf unit. The chain on his handcuffs jingled softly as he pulled it tight on his wrists. I looked away from him, feeling pity. When Cancerno lit this place, Draper had nowhere to go. Not that I’d make it far—Ramone stood just ten feet away, and his gun was trained on me. At this distance, he’d kill me before I even came out of my crouch.