Spencer started removing the wire, an awkward task with crutches. McGrath stepped in to help. He handed it to Sheila to take out with her and signaled Cal to leave them to it. Cal grudgingly obeyed. McGrath closed the door of his office.

“What now?” he said.

“I’m going to disappear, Dom. I have nothing here now. No daughter, no friends, no one for you to use to get back at me.”

McGrath nodded, thoughtful. “Who’d have thought it, huh? Eddie.”

Spencer said nothing.

“Where is it?”

“In Cal’s trunk. He said he wanted to count it. Cops think you had it all along. Now you do.”

“You taken any of it?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Where you gonna go? Cops’ll be watching for you.”

“America’s a big place.”

“I could help you get to Mexico.”

“FedEx me in pieces?”

McGrath had the grace to smile.

My ride’s always runnin’, boy.

But Spencer wasn’t falling for it anymore. “Buy me some time,” he said, “and a way out of here onto Gibson that’s not in sight of Noble. That’s where they watch from. And Dom, if ever I so much as think you’ve put someone on my case I will come back and sell my soul to the DPD. There’s a man there who wants you more than he wants to breathe. If I’m going to die, I’ll do it in jail knowing I put your ass there too. And that fucker from Chicago.”

McGrath led Spencer into the reception. The wire lay on Sheila’s desk. He spoke for its benefit.

“Sorry, Mister Burnham, really busy here. Property deal going through. Be with you as soon as I can.”

Then he carried the wire into the restroom as if it were a rattler playing possum.

He came back out. “There’s a corridor at the far end of the loading bay. Take it.”

He watched Spencer lurch off on his crutches. “Sheila, get Johnny Boy.”

Spencer moved down the corridor so fast on his crutches that his feet were nearly coming up too far, like an overswung pendulum. It didn’t matter. The clock was ticking and the cops were waiting. His window was closing. The emergency exit was ten yards away. He went at full speed. Right into a fist that came from nowhere.

His body turned in the air. He landed on his back, crutches clattering around him, face numb, leg firing pain bolts through his nervous system.

Cal stepped out of a storage room, looked down at him and smiled.

48

48

On or Off the Train

In the loading bay, McGrath opened the trunk of Cal’s Porsche, took out the duffel bag, and carried it upstairs to his office, where he tipped its contents onto the desk. He and Sheila started to count.

The ops truck waited in an alley off Lincoln. Nothing had come through since McGrath had mentioned a property deal.