“Hold on. I’ve got you.” Jung sputtered, coughed, and I slowly steered us both toward the nearest boat.

“Somebody pushed me out of bed,” he croaked. “Now my feet are cold.”

“That’s the least of your worries.” The cops had extended a long pole that I was apparently supposed to grab hold of to maneuver our way in. Fat chance. Jung was deadweight and I was running on empty. My legs, treading beneath me, felt strangely detached, numb, like they belonged to someone else.

Jung’s eyes popped open. “What’s that knocking?”

“That’s my heart beating. Stop . . . talking . . . to me.” A cop from the boat steadied the pole, pointed it in our direction.

“‘I hear you knocking,’” Jung muttered, “‘but you can’t come in’.... That’s Fats.”

I kicked, my legs about to give out. “Shut it!”

I grabbed the pole and held on. The cops pulled Jung up, and then it was my turn. I’d never been so happy to be out of the water in my entire life. I watched as the cops boarded the Magnifique and put Spada in handcuffs. I could see him talking a mile a minute, trying to explain himself. Self-defense, my ass. Jung was beside me, loopy as all get-out. “We got him,” I said. “And thank God he’s a lousy shot.”

Jung shot me a drunken grin. “Told you I could help.”

I turned to face him. He looked like a drowned cat. I likely didn’t look that much better, but I got Nick Spada, so I was okay with it. “Pop-Tarts?”

Jung smiled, his eyes glassy. “Strawberry frosted. The. Best.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how you get by in the world, I really don’t.”

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

I was seated in the backseat of an unmarked car, the back door open wide, sipping a weak hot chocolate from a thermos top. It took all I had not to stretch out across the seat and go to sleep. Holding the cup was tricky. The paramedics had applied some kind of ointment to the angry welts on my palms and forearms and then wrapped several inches of gauze around them, and I was cloaked in an itchy wool blanket that smelled like someone had died in it. There were shoes on my feet that I’d acquired from somewhere, but I was too exhausted to check them out. They’d taken Jung off to the hospital, but it looked like he’d be okay. I’d refused to go, which was why I was in the back of the police car.

“You look like you went over Niagara Falls in a busted barrel.”

I looked up to find Ben standing there, Weber beside him. “I feel like I did. Where’s Spada?”