'My point exactly, Father,' said Danny as he slipped the gun back into his pocket and stood up. 'Father Anthony, how you doin?'

Al Ballantine stood at the same time and pulled his jacket closed. The colour had drained from his face. He edged his way to the end of the pew and walked in silence towards the exit.

The priest was now standing level with Danny.

'I don't know what this is all about and I don't want to know, but not in here, d'you understand?'

'No problem, Father.'

'Was that a friend of yours you were threatening to shoot in the neck?'

'A member of the RUC on a close-surveillance outing.'

'Interesting!' replied the priest.

Danny heard the large church doors slam shut.

'My, my, everyone seems in a hurry to leave: a Protestant and a ghost from the past, not my usual congregation. Was that the wee shite Lep McFarlane scurrying out the door there too?' asked Father Anthony.

'It used to be,' replied Danny.

Danny bent over and picked the crumpled scrap of paper from the floor underneath Lep's pew.

On one side it read: 'Finn O'Hanlon, Apt B Four, The Glades, Cottondale 180218, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA.'

Danny turned the paper over and frowned.

'You all right?' asked the priest.

'No,' replied Danny.

On the other side Lep had scribbled: SEAN WARNED ME ABOUT THE AMBUSH.

Chapter 5.

Tuscaloosa Maundy Thursday

He'd waited long enough.

Vincent floored the gas pedal and simultaneously released the handbrake, sending the blue Fleetwood lurching in a tight arc as he sped off down the road.

The car turned left onto Black Warrior Drive and slowed as it moved past a crowd of onlookers spilling onto the road outside McHales bar. At the centre of the throng was a body lying motionless on the sidewalk and although Vincent couldn't see a face, he convinced himself it was Cola. If he hadn't been in such a hurry he would have noticed the regulation banker-grey suit and the polished shoes of the deceased.

Not that it mattered: Cola's limp corpse was just a few yards away inside the bar.

'Guess your career in crime ended right where it started, asshole,' Vincent muttered to himself. 'That I do call a coincidence.'

Vincent was trying to make himself feel better: saying out loud everything he'd been thinking in the bar. But the adrenalin was starting to wear off and the only thing that could really make him feel better was a saline drip and a shot of morphine.

His left arm was swollen and sore: the skin around his elbow felt tight, like it was about to split. Vincent had been standing directly behind the fire-exit door when the first shot blasted through and hit him in the arm.

It was an amateur's error on his part. He should have come at the door from one side like the cops did in the movies. Luckily for him the impact knocked him backwards out of the way of the other two shots, or he could have been sharing a body-bag with Cola.

Vincent could hear sirens wailing in the distance. It was time to get out of Tuscaloosa. He reached into his jacket and grabbed a pack of Lucky Strike, flipped the box open and using his good hand tapped out one of the sticks. Pulling the cigarette from the packet with his teeth he clicked the lighter on the dashboard into place, cursing as the traffic lights changed to red.

He was only a hundred feet further up the road and in his rear-view mirror could still see the commotion surrounding the body lying on the sidewalk.

Vincent cursed again. Casually strolling down the opposite sidewalk, like he was out shopping for groceries, was O'Hanlon.

'Zippity-fucking-do-dah mister cool! Don't look like you got a care in the world.'

Vincent reached for his gun and looked over his shoulder to get a better view, but he was too late: O'Hanlon had already disappeared. There was no point in giving chase.

In his present state Vincent knew he'd never catch up with him, and even if he did, the streets were too crowded to start pinging lead. The whole area would soon be swarming with cops.

All along he'd argued with Cola that they should hit the guy in his own home: do it in the middle of the night when no one was around. But Cola had it in his big, thick, coked-up head that the bar would be better. Make a show of it. 'The guy lives in Cottondale man, he could be lying there dead for a couple of years before anyone would notice. Why make a show of it? We gonna put it on Broadway?' Vincent's argument was sound, but Cola wasn't having it: wanted to do it his way.

Except now it was all fucked up.

O'Hanlon was up and walking around. Cola was no more. And if that wasn't enough shit to clog up the sewer, Vincent was dripping blood all over his brand-new trousers.

'Ain't a show I'd buy a ticket for, bro' he said to himself.

The lighter popped.

Vincent picked it out, pressed it to the tip of his cigarette and took a series of short puffs until the tobacco burst into a bright orange glow.

When the lights changed he jammed his foot to the floor again and looked in the mirror to see if there was any tyre-smoke as he pulled away, but there wasn't.

'Car can't even pull a goddamn wheel-spin man. Cola got something right: this ride is a biscuit tin on wheels.'

Vincent hadn't travelled much further along the road when he came to a stop in a long queue of traffic waiting to turn right onto McFarlane Bridge. An early Easter rush of commuters heading for Highway Twenty, travelling north out of town. Now that he was on his own he figured he might as well go home and get cleaned up; maybe keep an eye on the news channels to make sure he wasn't one of the headlines.

He checked he had enough gas for the journey then took another deep drag on the cigarette: the last thing he wanted to do was have to stop at a gas station in the condition he was in.

Suddenly a thought struck him. Shit. He was going to have to stop anyway.

Vincent scanned the street ahead and a few seconds later pulled the Fleetwood over to the kerb and got out of the car. The sidewalk was busy, but despite the fact he was covered in blood, no one seemed to be paying him much attention.

He fumbled in his pocket for some coins and made his way over to a bank of call boxes sitting adjacent to a well-stocked news-stand. Vincent lifted one of the receivers and thumbed in a number.

It was answered straight away.

'Yeah.'

'Yo. It's Vincent.'

'Vincent who?'

'Vincent Lee Croll.'

'Who?'

'Cola Conrado's partner.'

'What you want? You finished already?'

'Yeah. All taken care of.'

'Then why the fuck are you ringing here?'

'Cola asked me to call see where he's supposed to pick up the money. We's still in Tuscaloosa, but we could swing by whenever's convenient.'

There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

'What d'you mean where's he pick up the money? We already paid half to the little cokehead, prick. You tell the drugged-up little asshole he's losing his fucking mind. Put him on.'

'He's not with me right now, he asked me to call and check on his behalf,' said Vincent.

'Well tell him on my "behalf", he does any more "shit" he's gonna change from an Italian into a fuckin Columbian.'

Vincent heard people on the other end of the phone laughing in the background.

'If he's holding out on you Vincent: that's your problem. We paid him three thou, and that's all he's getting till we confirm for ourselves the job's done. He knows the routine. One other thing Vincent.'

'Yeah.'

'Fuck off.'

The line went dead.

Vincent slammed the phone back on its lever.

Three thousand?

Six thousand altogether!

Cola had told Vincent two thousand in total.

When he'd asked the lying little asshole why it was such a small amount Cola started spinning Vincent all sorts of shit about the economy and how things were so bad it had even affected the price of whacking: told Vincent it was better to be working than sitting round playing with your dick all day.

'Half of something's better than half of nothing,' he'd said with that big thin-lipped grin that made Vincent want to smack him in the mouth.

'Yeah, and half of six thousand's a lot better than half of two, you little fucking dick-squirt,' said Vincent out loud. A woman pushing a pram past him on the sidewalk gave him a look.

Vincent scowled back at her then hobbled painfully over to the car and clambered back in.

He pulled out into the stream of traffic and joined the queue again for Highway Twenty.

Cola was on his way to the morgue and Vincent had an idea where the little prick kept his cash. The more he mulled the situation over the better it looked. Vincent remembered a conversation he'd had with Cola when the two of them were stoned. Cola said he gave all his cash to his mom. Told Vincent it was perfect cause no one would ever think to look over at his mom's place, she being so old and frail and all. Said she was the only person on this earth he trusted. The deal was she kept it hidden somewhere even Cola didn't know: so he wouldn't go blow it all on drugs. Couple of times he'd flipped out on her when he was high: threatened her with all sorts, but she still wouldn't let on where the money was kept. That's why she'd stayed loyal, hadn't given up on her son, she knew that even in his worst, coke-fuelled rages he'd never lay a hand on her.

But Vincent was different.

He didn't give a shit about the old bitch: it wasn't his mom.

He smiled to himself. A plan was beginning to come together in his head. Vincent checked his gun: trying to remember how many shots he'd fired at O'Hanlon in the alleyway. He was using his fingers to count and steering at the same time.

One, two, three . . . so he should have seven left. Hopefully he wouldn't have to waste any of them on Mrs Conrado but if he had to, seven should be more than enough.

First thing he'd do when he got to her house was get cleaned up that would save him having to go home. He could borrow some of Cola's clothes, maybe even lie low there for a few days. Act all dumb about where Cola might be. Make up some story about Cola telling him to wait there for him: make sure he remembered to unplug the television just in case the old bitch watched the news. It'd give him a chance to find out where the money was kept. Might even be a bonus in it for him on account of the extra running round he'd had to do. No point leaving any of it for the old lady. What'd she need money for at her age?

Once he had the cash he'd head back down to Cottondale and finish off the O'Hanlon guy, then go pick up another three thousand from De Garza's boys. All he had to do was remember where he'd put the piece of paper with O'Hanlon's address. Then he'd go do the job right. Whack him in his own home, the way it should have been done in the first place. He'd finish off Finn O'Hanlon: keep the money for himself, all six thousand of it. Zippity-fucking-do-dah.

Trouble was if O'Hanlon went on the run which was the most likely scenario that part of the plan would be 'my-oh-my, not such a wonderful day'. Also, if word got back to Hernando De Garza that the job hadn't been finished properly then Vincent'd be in a whole lot of shit: he'd be better off whacking himself.

'Pheeew! There's a lot to consider, man,' mumbled Vincent as he headed up the ramp onto Highway Twenty.

As the traffic thinned out he started to pick up speed.

Maybe he wouldn't hang around too long at Cola's mom's. Probably best just shoot her straight off, find the money by himself then drive back to Cottondale as quickly as possible before O'Hanlon took off.

Vincent nodded to himself: plan was sounding good. What did he need that sly little fucker Cola for anyway?

He'd have proved to De Garza he was capable of handling jobs on his own. He could tell the greasy Mexican fucker that from now on Vincent Lee Croll would be taking over Cola's workload. He'd be all set up.

'Yeah man.'

He reached over to wind the side window down before remembering it was jammed closed. The heat was unbearable and the smell of stale blood and sweat was starting to make him nauseous. He needed to get some air.

Vincent picked the gun off the passenger seat, screwed his eyes tight and pulled the trigger. The passenger window made a dull pop and filled the road behind him with thousands of tiny fragments of dancing glass.

It didn't feel any cooler.

Only six bullets now: that should still be enough.

He squeezed the trigger again.