“There anything I can do for you?”
Now it was Fieuchevsky’s turn to lay on the fake warm smile. “No, no. Our business is done. Enjoy your chipped beef.”
“Hey, I wanna help.”
This dance continued throughout Perelli’s chipped beef—or, as he liked to call it, “shit on a shingle”—and Fieuchevsky’s tomato omelet and three orders of bacon and Stoli on the rocks. It was awkward and ingratiating and cautious. It finally wound down to a graceful conclusion when Fieuchevsky slid an FBI Wanted poster, folded in threes, across the table.
“If you, or any of your people, have occasion to see this man,” he explained, “I would be most appreciative to have a word with him first.”
Perelli took the poster and slid it into his pocket. “I’d be delighted.”
Fieuchevsky thought, Slovenly dago bastard couldn’t find his cock under rolls of his meatball fat.
Perelli thought, Russian pricks are losing it. Time to get back into the game.
A cell phone chirped. It was Fieuchevsky’s. He listened, then told Perelli that he had to be going. Perelli suddenly had to be going, too, and thanked Fieuchevsky profusely for the $8.95 breakfast.
Outside, in his silver BMW, Perelli ripped open the envelope. His jaw dropped. It contained a personal check for $650. In the memo line were the words: “College window bars.”
The fucking bars on the dorm window.
Three thick-necked Russkie goons come pouncing in on his daughter, and all the commie bastard has to offer is $650?
Perelli wanted to puke up his chipped beef. All over that Fieufuck-sky’s car windshield.
And then he had the nerve to ask for a favor.
Find this guy. Patrick Selway Lennon. A bank robber.
Ah, fuck you, you Russian prick. Find your own asshole, then finger it a few times for good luck. Those Russian bastards, sweeping into town, acting as if they’ve run things since forever. Smirking over the flurry of indictments in the crazy summer of 2001. Then there were the goofy antics, like the cops finding that one-legged bag man under the bed of the boss’s wife while the boss was on trial for his life. The Russians, picking over the spoils of a once-great empire.
Perelli drove away mad. Really fucking mad.
The Third Crew
WHEN THE BLACK GUYS WITH THE GUNS ENTERED the garage, Saugherty saw right away he had guessed right. There was Mothers, plus three other guys. Not that it made him feel any better.
Maybe the mute would get lucky and clip two of these guys. Leaving only two for Saugherty. Not great odds, but it could be done.
“Cut him out,” said a voice.
Two dudes with blades started snipping the bungee cords off the mute. The mute had obviously hidden the gun somewhere for the time being. Come on now, Saugherty thought. Start spraying. Pop pop. One guy, two guys down. Leaving two for Saugherty. His gun hand was already getting sweaty. It was hard playing dead while steeling yourself up for action at the same time. His chest hurt, bad. He hoped he wouldn’t have a muscle spasm at an inopportune moment.
Then, something unexpected happened.
The mute bolted from the table—an old thick wooden door Saugherty had found trash-picking in Mt. Airy years ago—and pulled it over on himself at the same time. He scuttled across the floor of the garage, the door on his back, looking like a crab trying desperately to hang onto his shell. The mute was trying to use the door as a shield.
The three guys with the guns laughed. They catcalled, “Hey, white boy. Where you going?” Who could blame them? It looked pathetic.
“That door ain’t going to help you, Mr. Lennon,” Mothers said, a smile on his lips.
The guys removed submachine guns from their puffy coats. Loaded clips. Switched off trigger guards. The two others had black semiautomatic pistols, which they yanked on to pump bullets into the chambers. The garage was full of the sound of clean sharp metal clicks. Just one submachine gun would be enough to cut Saugherty and the mute in half. Hell, these guys had enough heavy firepower to launch an assault on a police precinct.
“All we need is one arm,” Mothers continued. “The rest don’t matter. These guys here can surgically remove your limbs through that fucking door in seconds. You won’t live long, but you’ll live long enough to be useful to them.”
The door wobbled. Was the mute finally going for his gun?
And if he was, what the fuck was he hoping to accomplish with it?
The situation had gone from fucked to cluster-fucked. The only tactical advantage Saugherty had was that all four men now had their backs to him. He could try to stand up and get off six rapid, clean shots into each … no, that was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly take down more than two without the others spinning around and spraying him into pieces.
The door lifted a few inches from the floor of the garage. The business end of Saugherty’s Glock poked out.
The guys laughed even harder and readied themselves to take aim.
What the fuck was the mute thinking?
“Okay. Will somebody kindly remove this bastard’s leg?”
Saugherty traced the barrel’s aim. Across the floor of the garage, above Saugherty’s head, behind him, and into what? He stole a glance.
The tank of his gas grill.
Oh no.
“Remove this, ya fuckin’ arseholes,” the mute said. He fired the Glock.
Out the Door
THE EXPLOSION POUNDED HIM BACK INTO THE WALL OF the garage, but the door held. Lennon could feel the heat trying to blast through the wood. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer. It was probably already on fire. He slowly climbed to his feet with Saugherty’s gun in his hand. He looked over the wooden door.
Saugherty’s garage was an inferno. Pretty much everything inside was either blackened or ablaze, including the black guys with the guns. (Guess they weren’t Russian mob after all.) One of them squirmed on the floor, and Lennon pumped a bullet into him. He scanned for other stragglers through the smoke. This was no time to be uncertain. He was neck-deep in murder. He might as well make the most of it.
But the fire was out of control. He had to get out now. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it much longer without losing consciousness. His body screamed, and his shoulder screamed louder.
The easiest way out: use the door.
The aluminum garage doors were already buckling. Lennon could hear it. So he hoisted the wooden door—it was a heavy son of a bitch—and used it as a battering ram. The door went through the aluminum, and Lennon followed behind. He released his grip on the door before it brought him down with it, and tumbled off to the side.
Fresh pain spiked through every nerve. Get up, get up, he told himself. His hair felt like it had been crisping over a barbecue pit.
He climbed to his feet and quickly assessed his surroundings. It was madly disorienting. Jesus, this looked like a suburban cul-de-sac. A yellow plastic Big Wheel was perched on a lawn across the way. It was a bright, sunny spring day. The sun burned his skin.
And behind him were five barbecued men—three of them probably gangbangers and the other two probably cops, or excops. Lennon had a bullet in the arm, bruises and contusions all over his body. He also had a gun in his hand and $650,000 waiting for him in the trunk of a car in downtown Philadelphia.
Lennon started walking. He had to get away from the burning house, and away from eyewitnesses. Probably way too late for that. He already saw faces peeking from behind curtains, fathers stepping outside their screen doors.