In the s.p.a.ce of a second, the muzzle left his cheek, slammed against his nose, and then rammed into his cheek again.

Richie let out a yell as pain shot straight through his skull and bright flashes sparked in his vision. "All right! All right!"

He dropped the gun.

"Sit."

He eased himself back into the chair. He looked up and saw Gorcey staring at him. He realized that the murderous look he'd thought was for Brady was for him.

"W-what's going on, Lou?"

"Name isn't Lou. It's Jack."

Jack? Oh-no-oh-G.o.d-oh-no! The nun's Jack!

But he couldn't let on that he knew.

"Jack, Lou, what difference does it make? You didn't have to lie about your name. All secrets are safe with me."

He saw Jack's face twist with fury, noticed that he'd reversed his grip on the pistol and was holding it by the barrel. Richie watched it rise above him, then swing down, saw the nubs of the rear sights falling toward his scalp. Tried to duck but wasn't fast enough.

Pain bloomed in his skull and the world swam around him as he heard an echoey voice say, "Shut up."

The icy, matter-of-fact tone made his bladder clench.

Another blow wiped out all sight, all sound.

16.

"Hey!" someone was saying. "Hey, wake up." A foot nudged his leg. "Wake up, Fatso."

Richie forced his eyes open. The room did a half spin, then settled, then spun again. His head felt like it had exploded and then been put back together by someone who'd never seen a human skull before.

He groaned and tried to raise his right hand to his aching head but it wouldn't move. He looked and saw that it was wired to an arm of his chair. So was his left.

And then he saw that his chair had been wheeled away from the desk.

"Whuh...?"

Jack glanced at him. "Oh, good. You're awake. About time."

It looked like he'd divvied up the prints into a couple of piles. The negative strips lay tangled among them.

"What're you doing?"

"Sorting."

He stepped over to Richie's chair and stood staring down at him. The room spun again as Richie looked up. He looked away real quick when he saw what was in the guy's eyes.

"What're you gonna do?"

"If I had the time and inclination, I'd like to do to you what you did to Sister Maggie. Remember her? You threatened to ruin her life, and you did."

So here it was, right out in the open.

"You're the one she hired to mess up my computer, right?"

The guy nodded. "And you're the one who messed up Maggie."

"You gotta lemme explain. It's not how you think. I didn't-"

A black-gloved hand backhanded him across the face. "Don't waste my time."

Richie spat blood. "Okay, okay."

"How'd you find out?"

"About what?"

"About Maggie hiring me."

"Why do you care?" Another backhand across the face made Richie's head spin. "All right, all right. It was her boyfriend, Metcalf. He cracked wise about me being outfoxed by a nun. That's when I knew."

The guy sighed and said something under his breath that sounded like "n.o.body listens." But he looked like he was relieved or something. Maybe this was Richie's chance.

"So it's not all my fault. It's Metcalf's too. I shouldn't take all-" He cringed as he saw that gloved hand wind up for another shot. "Don't, please! Just answer one question, will you?"

"What?"

"You her brother or something?"

Please say no, he thought. Please say no.

The guy shook his head. "Never met her before she hired me."

Relief flooded him. Maybe he could reason with him, operative to operative.

"Then why?"

"Why what?"

"Why come back? You got hired, you did the job-did it real good, I gotta tell you-and that's it. You walk away. It's over. Done. End of story. No reason to come back into the picture."

The guy stared at him like he was looking down at a splash of fresh vomit. After too long a time he took a breath and pointed to Richie's wired wrists.

"I wanted to use duct on you like you did on Maggie, but I couldn't risk carrying a roll in case you searched my bag again. Wire takes up much less s.p.a.ce." He held up a silvery roll of duct tape. "But look what I came across in one of your drawers."

With a single swift move he ripped off a piece and slapped it across Richie's mouth.

Panic ripped through him. He tried to kick out with his feet but his ankles were wired down as well. When he saw the guy pick up the pistol from the desk Richie began to scream, but nothing got through the tape and the noise coming through his nose sounded like baby pig squeals.

"Let me introduce you to Mr. Beretta." He put the shiny barrel oi the pistol against Richie's palm. "Shake hands with him. You're about to interface."

Richie wrapped his fingers around the barrel. No way he could get it away, but if he could just keep a grip on it- The guy twisted it free like he was taking a rattle from a baby. Then he stuck it in Richie's other hand. "Feel that? Like it? You and Mr. Beretta are going to get real friendly."

Richie screamed again as the guy picked up a beige cushion. Where'd that come from? Looked like one from the couch downstairs. What was he gonna- Oh no! The cushion pressed against Richie's stomach as the guy buried the muzzle in the fabric.

NO!.

A slightly m.u.f.fled BLAM! BLAM! and then searing pain shot through his gut. He screamed against the tape and writhed in agony. He'd never imagined anything could hurt like this. Never. Vomit rose in his throat but he swallowed it back. If he puked he'd suffocate, though maybe that wouldn't be so bad. At least it would stop the pain. and then searing pain shot through his gut. He screamed against the tape and writhed in agony. He'd never imagined anything could hurt like this. Never. Vomit rose in his throat but he swallowed it back. If he puked he'd suffocate, though maybe that wouldn't be so bad. At least it would stop the pain.

"I hear nothing hurts worse than being gut shot," the guy said in a cold, dead voice. "I hope I heard right."

Richie watched through eyes blurred with pain and tears as the guy turned back to the desk and began shoving all the photos into an envelope. The negatives as well.

The room got gray around the edges and he thought he was going to pa.s.s out-if only he would!-but then things came back into focus.

Richie began to sob from an excruciating spasm, the noise snuffling in and out through his nose. Felt like someone had a pitchfork in his gut and was twisting, twisting...

And now the guy was stuffing everything into his shoulder bag.

Richie wailed into the gag. He wasn't going to leave him like this! He couldn't!

Then the guy picked up the cushion and the gun again and stepped up in front of Richie.

"You don't deserve this," he said in that dead voice as he placed the cushion over Richie's chest.

What? No! NO NO!

17.

After putting two Hydra-Shoks into Fatso's chest, Jack stepped back and watched him buck and spasm, then go still. His wide, bulging eyes lost focus and his lids dropped to half mast.

The only regret he felt was at not being able to leave Cordova alive. He'd heard it sometimes took three days to die of a gut shot. Three days of constant agony. Barely a tenth of what he deserved.

But sooner or later, when Cordova didn't show up at his office tomorrow morning, and didn't answer his home phone, his receptionist would call someone to check on him. And that might give the fat man a chance of surviving.

No survival for Cordova. Jack not only wanted him dead, he needed needed him dead. him dead.

He stared at the fat, b.l.o.o.d.y corpse a moment longer. Maggie... she hadn't died because of some mistake on Jack's part, she'd died because of her own good heart. Despite Jack's warning, she must have felt a duty to let Metcalf know that he didn't have to pay any more blackmail money. And Met-calf, not knowing the level of sc.u.m he was dealing with, had opened his yap.

All of this... so unnecessary... so G.o.dd.a.m.n unnecessary.

Jack reholstered the Beretta, then retrieved two of the three ejected sh.e.l.l casings from the floor. He kicked the third into the darkroom. He hefted his shoulder bag and did one more sweep of the area. All clean. Nothing to identify him.

All right.

He loped downstairs and headed for his car. On the way home he'd call 911 and report hearing what sounded like gunshots from Cordova's house.

MONDAY.

1.

Jack paused outside the front entrance of the Dormentalist temple.

He'd stopped home and dropped off all the photos he'd taken from Cordova's house. Then he'd changed into the third-hand clothing store rejects he'd picked up yesterday after his visit to Roselli. He'd used rubber cement to attach scruffy black hair to his face, then pulled a knit watch cap over his head down to the tops of his ears.

He wouldn't fool anyone who knew Johnny Roselli; he doubted even a stranger would be fooled by the beard if he got close enough.

But he wasn't planning on letting anyone that close.

His main concern was whether Roselli had skipped his camping trip and returned to the temple since Jack had left him. If so, his entry card wouldn't have worked and he'd have been issued a new one. Using his old card now could raise an alarm and wreck Jack's plans.

His other concern was Brady. Jack had no idea how long he usually carried on with his hired boys, or if he came home when he was through. The later the better, as far as Jack was concerned. Best case would be if he slept over till morning, which would be the wise thing to do after a night of Scotch and ganja.

But it was all guesswork at this point. He hated it when a fix depended on something he couldn't control, and could be sent off track by someone's whim.

Only one way to find out...

Jack took a breath and opened the door. As he stepped into the unmanned security atrium, he bore right, away from the metal detector and toward the members-only turnstile. The deep-shadowed lobby was deserted. A few bulbs in sconces lit the periphery and the elevator area where one set of doors stood open, waiting. A dozen feet beyond the turnstile a lone burgundy-uniformed TP sat in a pool of light behind his marble kiosk.