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  “Roll around the back,” Cross said. “I know you can muffle this one down to a whisper, but we don’t want to start up those—”

  “Who said anything about starting them up? Let us handle this, boss. You take our car—we’ll meet you back at the junkyard.”

  “You worked it out?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll just move back and cover you.”

  “Sure,” Buddha said, turning toward the back seat of the Shark Car. “You guys all set?”

  “Yes,” Rhino answered, speaking for the others.

  BUDDHA, TRACKER, Rhino, and Princess poured out of the Shark Car. Tracker held a long-handled bolt cutter; Princess held Sweetie’s leash.

  “You stay, now,” Princess said. “Be a good boy.”

  Rhino knelt, grabbed the bottom of the chain link, and pulled gently. “We won’t need to cut our way in,” he said.

  “Gonna scratch the hell out of the cars, but what’s the difference?” Buddha said. “All we need is something to prop the fence up a few feet.”

  “We can just push them out,” Tracker said.

  “You and me?” Buddha said, incredulous at the idea of physical labor of any kind.

  “Me and Tiger,” Tracker said, nodding his head in the direction of the Shark Car, where Tiger had been sitting on Cross’s lap to save room. The Shark Car was designed to hold the entire crew, but that was before Tracker and Tiger had been added. Even with Ace absent, Rhino and Princess reduced its carrying capacity considerably. And Tiger herself was much bigger than Ace.

  “READY?” Buddha whispered.

  “Just like when we do curls,” Rhino said to Princess. When Princess grunted his assent, Rhino added, “Wait for Buddha.”

  “Go!”

  At Buddha’s signal, Rhino and Princess each pulled the chain link loose from the bottom and kept pulling until a nine-foot section was the height of Princess’s chest. Tiger and Tracker followed Buddha through the opening.

  The pudgy man opened the door of a Town Car and hissed, “Keys inside.” He pulled the gearshift out of “Park,” and released the e-brake. Tiger and Tracker braced themselves, one gloved palm on the headlight cluster, the other closer to the center. Without exchanging a word, they used their legs to push the Town Car out through the back of the fence where Rhino had elevated it to shoulder height. His shoulder height. The car passed through without a scratch.

  All three returned and repeated the same procedure. When the second car cleared the obstacle, Rhino and Princess slowly let the fence down. With Tracker and Tiger now behind the wheel of the two just-liberated cars, Princess and Rhino shoved them from behind until they were well clear of the lot.

  “Sweetie, come!” Princess called softly.

  The black-masked Akita hopped into the back of the Shark Car. Then three cars motored away from Oscar’s place of business.

  “CHANGE OF plans,” Cross said to the proprietor’s back. “We’re not taking anything except a couple of sets of plates. When we come back, we’ll have two more cars. Don’t try playing around with the VINs, just get them crushed.”

  “I won’t have a crew until—”

  “Morning, I know. Your records are going to show the two Town Cars sitting in your shop now were the ones crushed. You’re just crushing four instead of two. I’ll be back later to pay whatever that costs.”

  WORKING AS two teams, the crew had the stolen Town Cars covered in masking tape quickly.

  “Just the bottoms,” Cross told Buddha. “The tops have to stay black.”

  “You get outta the way, it’ll get done quicker.”

  “YOU KNOW where to leave the car?”

  “Yeah. But why don’t you tell me another three, four times, me being such a dimwit and all.”

  “Ace will get you and the others back.”

  “I understand,” Tiger said, making it clear that her patience tank was down to fumes.

  “Let’s ride,” Cross told Buddha as he climbed into the front seat of the Town Car. Tracker had the back seat to himself.

  TWENTY MINUTES later, Buddha pulled the Town Car into an empty spot at the curb. All three men pulled the black hoods over their heads.

  Two blocks farther down, Tracker said, “Six of them. Right side.”

  “They have to see the outfits first. Once we start popping, they’re gonna be running and ducking.”

  “How long a look they need?”

  “Doesn’t matter, as long as we start shooting before they do,” Cross said to Buddha. “Watch them close.”

  The Town Car came to a smooth stop right in front of the six young men, all wearing jeans that sagged at the waist. They immediately flashed their warning sign—pulling their matching pseudo-silk jackets aside to display their pistols—a choreographed maneuver it had taken them weeks to master.

  Cross and Tracker exited the Town Car, standing with their arms folded across their chests. Buddha took up a position behind the left front quarter panel, standing erect so his outfit was visible.

  The gang froze at the strange sight. Before their leader could finish his “What the—?” sentence, Cross and Tracker extended pistols from the loose sleeves of their robes and opened fire in the gang’s general direction. Four went down, two ran off.

  The Town Car motored calmly away, as if it had just dropped off a fare instead of a message.

  THE SECOND Town Car rolled up to the junkyard. Ace got out and walked over to the garage.

  “Man, I don’t see how those fool boys ever hit anything,” he said. “I couldn’t use my scattergun—too trade-marked—so they gave me a Glock. I couldn’t hit a damn elephant with that thing. But so what? All those fools are gonna remember is some men in these weird black masks opening up on them. I don’t think any of them are ever gonna forget it, in fact.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Probably not,” Ace answered. “Couple got hit, though.”

  “Two on our side,” Buddha said.

  “Meaning the two you shot in the head?”

  “Boss, you didn’t say otherwise. I just free-fired, but … it’s hard for me to miss, you know?”

  “Yeah. Okay, everybody in our car, while I square up with the guy who owns this place.”

  “HOW MUCH do we owe you?”

  “Is a grand okay? I mean, you know, it’s four runs through the crusher and—”

  Cross tossed a dozen hundred-dollar bills held together with a heavy paper clip onto the man’s desk.

  “In case you want to give any of your workers a tip,” he said.

  When the proprietor looked up, there was no sign of the Shark Car. Only then did he count the money the man with the tattooed hand had thrown his way.

  “TOMORROW,” Cross said, back at Red 71. “At Ace’s house. The one on So Long’s block, I’m saying. Say oh-nine-hundred—all the reports should be in by then.”

  “I’ll take you and Princess,” Buddha said to Rhino.

  “And Sweetie.”

  “Of course,” Buddha said to the muscleman, as if no other thought had crossed his mind.

  Tracker and Ace both got in their own cars and moved out.

  “So you’re gonna take me home?” Tiger asked Cross.

  “Right now?”

  “When, then?”

  “Whenever you say.”

  “That’s a good boy,” Tiger mock-purred into his ear, as she straddled him.

  “THEY WENT to the ER,” Rhino told the crew the next morning. “So the gunshot wounds were reported. That’s on the Latin side. On the other side, there’s nothing. Either they’ve got their own doctors or—”

  “They’re still running,” Ace finished Rhino’s sentence. “They got a good look at the outfits and all, but no way they take what we hit them with for white boys. They’re gonna figure it’s one of the major players, going on the down-low. Which means they already got the only warning they’re gonna get.”

  “The ones you guys hit,” Rhino said, nodding at Cross, “two were DOA. The oth
ers said it was some kind of Klan group, only with black hoods. One even said he saw some kind of markings on the hoods.”

  “You feel safe here?” Cross asked Ace. “Safe enough for Sharyn and the kids to move in, I mean. The heavy work’s already done.”

  “Safe from my side, no doubt,” Ace affirmed. “I can get the word around that this whole block is off-limits in a couple of days,” he went on, taking an ace of spades from his shirt pocket.

  “Good enough. So now we wait a couple of days, then we seal the deal.”

  “So Long said nobody was backing out.”

  “Not that deal, Buddha. The buffer zone’s only secure on one side, far as we know. So we stay around until we’re sure. And I know just how we’re gonna get that done.”

  “VERY NICE lady,” K-2 said to Cross two days later. “So … polite. I know you told us not to take any money from her, but she just stuffed it in my jacket when I wasn’t looking. Here it is,” the Maori said, handing Cross a wad of bills.

  “Keep it,” Cross said. “Divvy it up with the others. Sharyn’s not going to say anything to Ace. And neither am I.”

  “YOU UNDERSTAND?” Cross asked Princess. “All you’re going to be doing is taking your dog for a walk.”

  “Sure!”

  “Leave the pistol here, Princess.”

  “But …”

  “You’re just warning them. We’ll be close by, but we don’t want any noise that doesn’t sound normal.”

  “It’s the only way,” Rhino assured him.

  “Can Tiger come, too?”

  “No,” Cross said quickly. “We want them to run, not root them to the ground.”

  Tiger actually blushed.

  “Okay,” Princess said. “Let’s go.”

  “SO FAR, empty,” Tracker said, from his position high on a telephone pole. Too high for anyone at ground level to see that the goggles he wore were telescopic in one lens and a normal piece of plastic in the other. Anyone glancing his way would be looking at a repairman, so using the handset wouldn’t draw a second glance, either.

  “He’s on the block itself?”

  “Roger. Walking slow.”

  “Okay, just—”

  “Action!” Tracker spoke calmly. “Hold your positions. No danger. He’ll be off the block in less than—”

  “We got him,” Cross said.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?”

  “I was just—”

  “He’s asking Tracker,” Rhino explained.

  “All I could see was three of them. The Akita nailed one in the thigh. If it hit the femoral, he’s going to bleed out right there. If not, he’s going to need a lot of surgery—the dog tore off a big chunk.

  “One of them took off faster than Usain Bolt. The third, Princess grabbed his wrist and threw him against the side of a car. He didn’t get up. Probably won’t.”

  “They yelled a bunch of stuff, Cross!” Princess immediately went on the defensive. “And I didn’t do anything. It’s just words, like you always tell me. So me and Sweetie were just walking. But then they ran up on us. They had knives. I thought they were going to hurt Sweetie. So I just grabbed one of them. When I looked for the next one, they were all gone. Then I saw the one that Sweetie bit. It was self-defense! They had those knives and—”

  “Fools bought a ticket without checking the schedule.” Buddha chuckled. “Didn’t know the next stop was Dodge City.”

  “You did a perfect job, Princess,” Cross reassured him. Turning to the rest of the crew, he said: “If either of those two never make it to the ER, so what? I can’t wait for them to tell the cops that, this time, it was a dog they saw wearing the black hood.”

  “LET’S PUT it this way,” McNamara said, taking another sip of his blazing-hot Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. “You’re not exactly on the side of the angels, Cross.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Whenever you do the right thing, there’s always something in it for you.”

  “What’s in it for me sometimes is doing a favor for a friend.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the hard-faced man other cops knew only by reputation. And that reputation was only magnified each time another story made the rounds.

  “Sure” was all Cross said, reminding the cop he’d known for years that the long-distance round that ended the career of a predatory pedophile a while back had nothing to do with either of them. The predator had traded his intimate knowledge of a kiddie-porn ring for a lightweight sentence in a minimum-security federal prison, complete with plastic surgery and a full set of ID to match. His last kill had been the only child of a young couple whose home McNamara had visited, patiently listening as they sobbed out the pain of their loss. The fact that the grieving father was a cop was the kind of coincidence nobody would ever explain.

  “You know, I was talking with the detective who interviewed a couple of really out-there bangers last night,” McNamara said. “Those kids must have huffed a lot of paint. What a story: invaders with black hoods over Klan robes. Okay, so maybe some local skinheads were up to no good. But then they really went off the rails: now it’s a dog wearing the hood.”

  “What’s next, space aliens?”

  “Nothing’s next. I don’t know how many that gang started with, but every one of them is going back to wherever they came from. As far away from that spot as they can get.”

  “I don’t blame them. That rocket the aliens rode in on, next time it might have hit wherever they operate out of.”

  “Buddha does love fireworks.”

  “The Fourth is coming up. And we’re all patriots.”

  “What’s up with the new look, Cross? I’ve seen that one before,” he said, pointing to the back of the mercenary’s right hand, where a lightning-bolt slash had replaced the bull’s-eye tattoo. “But that thing on your cheek, how did you get it to—? What the hell? I could swear I just saw a little blue … something flare just below your eye.”

  “Probably just the sunlight—I haven’t changed anything. You getting bored, Mac? I heard you retired from fighting.”

  “Just taking a breather.”

  “Through what’s left of your nose? You think a torn meniscus, no rotator cuff in your shoulder, and that titanium U-bolt that’s keeping your neck straight, all that’s going to heal by itself?”

  “I can still—”

  “I know. That’s the problem. You look at the other guys competing and you say, ‘I can beat them with nothing but my left.’ You probably can. But you’re willing to risk spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair for … what? Another gold medal? You’ve retired that trophy, Mac. Nobody’s going to beat your record and you know it.”

  “It’s not about records.”

  “I know—you just like fighting. And you call some of my guys crazy.”

  “I was going to say, I can still train fighters.”

  “Any money in that?”

  “Probably not. But you never know.”

  “Yeah, you do. You got a lot of candidates up for the kind of training you’d put them through?”

  “Not yet.”

  “The old days are the old days, Mac. Remember when you used to spar with Princess?”

  “That I’d never do again. He could go five fives straight, twenty-five minutes, no rest, and he’d have plenty left. But you can’t train a guy like him—you’d have to antrain him first. Even with full pads, a helmet, and him wearing those sixteen-ounce pillow gloves, he almost killed me. I hit him with one of the best ridge hands I’ve ever thrown in my life and he didn’t even flinch. I’m not sure you could stop him with a handgun, never mind any kind of strike.”

  “I know.”

  “He just doesn’t get the concept of rules, Cross.”

  “Why would he? You know what kind of fighting he was doing when Rhino pulled him out.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Put him in some ‘MMA’ fight and he’d be arrested for homicide.”

  “There’s no chance of that. Rhino tells
him ‘no’ and that ends anything he even thinks about doing. Which is a good thing, because his idea of having fun is sometimes … felonious. But he’s not in this for money, either.”

  “Neither of them, I know. This ‘Tracker’ you added, he’s off the radar. Must have worked for the government.”

  “I did that. So did Buddha.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. And they shred all the documents after twenty years, just like they say.”

  “You know what I mean. The woman—‘Tiger,’ right? If she’s got another name, it doesn’t show up.”

  “She’s got—”

  “The name she used when she visited you in the MCC? Funny, that name belongs to a baby girl. Stillborn, thirty-some years ago.”

  “What are you talking about, Mac? I was never in federal custody.”

  “I know. Like I said, you’re not always on the side of the angels.”

  Cross felt the burn on his cheekbone, so he bent forward and lit another cigarette to hide what he’d never convince McNamara was a bit of reflected sunlight. “So why am I here?”

  “Because Ace owns a house now.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Ace? Come on.”

  “You think all cops are stupid? Okay, so his woman, Sharyn, she owns a house. Not very far from where a lot of mayhem has been going down the past few weeks.”

  Cross hit his cigarette a second time. “Chicago PD’s got a Gang Protection Unit now?”

  “You’re a laugh riot, Cross. But if there was such a unit, they wouldn’t have a lot of gangs to protect. Not on either side of this house we’ve been talking about, anyway. Men wearing hoods, no way to make an ID. But that dog, if anyone—”

  “Who? Animal Control? Where would they look? Besides, we’ve got a lawyer all ready with a SODDI defense.”

  “What’s a—?”

  “Some Other Dog Did It,” Cross answered, with no change of expression.