“So they made me wait for it to happen. And after three weeks I’m just about ready to call for help, to tell the precinct captain exactly how it is. But I do that, I lose the badge, and then face trial for aggravated assault and battery, four counts. I’m thinking what I should do. I’m eating away at myself with the thinking. And then, before I can decide, the Dragons decide it for me. But it ain’t McDermott they get. It’s McDermott’s girl.”

There was a long pause. Then Corey said “D’ja hit back?”

McDermott smiled dimly, somewhat contently.

“How many?” Corey asked.

“Five,” McDermott said. “One at a time. Over a period of years.”

“Dead?”

McDermott nodded.

“Slow?” Corey asked.

“Very slow,” McDermott said. “And they were gagged. I used pliers. When they fainted I brought them to with smelling salts. It was very, very slow.”

Again in Corey’s brain the screen was lit and it showed McDermott with his shirt collar open and his sleeves rolled up. He was holding the pliers. The pliers were bloody. Nearby a man was sitting in a chair, his wrists and ankles tied and a gag across his mouth. On the floor, between the man’s naked legs, there was a pool of blood, and more blood was dripping down. The man’s eyes were closed and his head sagged to one side. McDermott used the little bottle of smelling salts and the man regained consciousness and then McDermott smiled softly and resumed the business with the pliers.

“All right, I got five,” the detective-sergeant said. “I was out to get all nine, but two of them died a natural death and one fell in the river and drowned.”

“That’s only eight accounted for.”

“There’s one still alive,” the detective-sergeant said. The dim smile was fading. He gazed at the wall across from the bed. “The leader,” he murmured. “The leader of the Third Street Dragons.”

And then he turned his head and looked at Corey. His eyes said, only now it ain’t the baseball caps. And the meeting place ain’t Third Street, it’s been shifted to Second. It’s the corner of Second and Addison. Specifically it’s the back room at the Hangout.

The detective-sergeant looked away from Corey Bradford. He sat up on the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, moving toward the door, opened it and started to walk out. Then stopped. He turned slowly and gazed at Corey for a few moments. There was a certain sadness in his eyes. After that the door was closed and Corey was alone in the room. He shivered. A blade of ice was stabbing him, going deep, very high on his thigh, near his groin.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8