“There’s nothing you can do now, August,” she said. “Sorry, Danny. It’s time we said goodbye.”

“You—you said we’d go—” Danny slurred.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Jackie said. “I’ve never really been good with sharing. But you can have the gun back once the cops are done with it, right, August?”

“I don’t give a shit about turning you pieces of shit over to the cops,” I said. “Right now, I’ve got bigger problems—like Mr. Sloane and three killers he’s set loose on me. I am, however, betting Sloane sprints like a white-tailed deer with an ass full of buckshot when he sees me here. Then you get fuck all.”

A look of panic washed over Jackie’s usually stoic face.

She stood and said, “It’s time for you to leave, August.”

“And miss the look on your face when millions go up in smoke?”

“Shoot him, Jackie!” Danny said. “He’s an intruder. Shoot him!”

“Oh, she’s not gonna shoot me, Danny,” I said. “She’s always liked me more than you.”

“And I like financial independence quite a bit more than either of you,” Jackie said, cocking the .38’s hammer. “So, move to the goddamn hallway.”

The ding of an elevator reaching Danny’s floor.

A slight, balding white man in his forties wearing a black car coat and towing a reinforced wheeled suitcase stepped out of an elevator and headed toward Danny’s office. He saw the three of us.

Saw me.

He ran back to the elevator.

“No!” Jackie screamed.

I wrestled the gun from her. Gave her a hard push. Landed another right cross on Danny’s already-bruised jaw. He tumbled onto Jackie.

I ran for the elevator.

Too late.

Mr. Sloane was in the wind.

14

14

“It needn’t have gone this way, Mr. Snow,” Sloane, having somehow acquired my mobile number, said through my new SUV’s speakers. He may as well have been explaining why a particular stock in my portfolio was down an eighth of a point. “You could very easily have enjoyed a bit of profit yourself. A finder’s fee, if you will. Your personal investment in business that isn’t yours seems less than rational.”

“You hire some showboating guns out of Jersey to smoke me?” I said. “Does that sound rational to you?”

“No. It does not,” Sloane said. “Unfortunately, that was not my decision.”

I was navigating the tonnage of my new GMC Yukon through slush, drifting snow and hipsters in North Face in search of the perfect cappuccino. Tatina was right about my new ride; I felt as if I were driving my living room.

“So, what’s the endgame here?” I said. “You buy a lot of real estate for cash—so what?”