What police figure happened was this: A truck came up behind Delmonico, a four-wheel-drive job, with plenty of traction, and shoved his Dodge right into the side of a fast-moving westbound freight. There were skid marks on the pavement, indicating Delmonico had stomped on the brakes, tried to hold his classic car in place, but the vehicle was no match for the four-by-four. Once his bumper was caught by the fast-rolling trucks of a tanker car, the Dodge was yanked off the road and dragged down the track, twisting and ripping apart along the way.

Delmonico was dead at the scene.

July 23, 2001: Sebastian Loone, loosely associated with the Slots, is found beaten to death out back of a Canborough butcher shop. This is assumed to be payback for the murder of Delmonico.

July 31, 2001: The Slots suffer another loss. This time, it’s the gang’s reputed second-in-command, Eldon Swain. The irony is, he dies in nearly the same manner as the Comets’ Delmonico, except Swain’s car doesn’t get pushed into the side of the train. It gets shoved into its path. The engineer was able to see the whole thing pretty clearly from the cab of the diesel, even though the incident happened at night. The headlight beam picked up the car, a small Japanese sedan, waiting at the flashing lights. With the engine only a few yards from the crossing, this big pickup appears out of nowhere, rams the sedan from behind, right in front of the locomotive.

Swain was declared dead at the scene, but they had to gather his various parts together before they could get someone to come look at the body for the purposes of identification.

April 9, 2002: The Kickstart, after hours. Someone bursts into the upstairs back room, where the night’s receipts are counted, and shoots Eldridge Smith, Payne Fletcher, and Zane Heighton. The shooter disappears, with the money. Gary Merker and Leonard Edgars, who were not in the building at the time, return to find the three men dead. Canborough Police steel themselves for an all-out war against the Comets.

It doesn’t happen.

The Comets deny any responsibility for the Kickstart massacre. As if they’d own up to it if they’d done it.

Police speculate that the Slots don’t respond because there aren’t enough of them left to mount a war. Merker lost his number two man a few months earlier. Now he’s lost three more. He hasn’t got enough soldiers left to go into battle.

But there are other questions, reading between the lines. Why was it that Merker and Edgars weren’t there? Merker, at least, was usually there to check the day’s tally. Was it possible he’d cut some deal with the Comets, that he’d set up his friends for some sort of reward from the other side?