He handed Farrow one of the two .45s he had copped on Sepul-veda, back in L.A. Farrow hefted the gun and checked the action.

"Where's your cousin?"

"Booker? He didn't come home last night and I ain't seen him all day."

Otis didn't want Frank getting angry over Gus's little accident. Once they got on the road and headed back west, Frank would never know.

"Just as well," said Farrow. "Leave some money on the table for him. That'll be good enough."

Otis pulled his hair back off his shoulders and banded it. He holstered his .45 into his waist rig and put on a ventless, checked wool sport jacket over his clean white shirt. He looked in the living-room mirror and smiled, admiring his gold tooth, the cut of his jacket, his hair. The look.

He left money on the table - a fifty-dollar bill on top of ten ones, so Frank wouldn't get suspicious. Wasn't any point in leaving too much for a corpse lying in the woods, even if the dead man was your kin.

"You ready?" said Farrow as he walked back into the room.

"Yeah," said Otis. "Let's go."

Dimitri Karras was waiting on the corner of 15th and U as Thomas Wilson pulled the Intrepid to the curb at eight o'clock. Karras settled in the pa.s.senger bucket and fastened his seat belt. "You finalized it with Farrow and Otis?" said Karras.

Wilson nodded. He drove east.

They crossed the city. They rode the Beltway for fifteen miles and exited at Route 4. Wilson slowed as they drove through old Upper Marlboro.

"Run through it again," said Karras.

"I'm meeting them behind a Texaco that's been out of business a couple of years. We'll be pa.s.sin' it in a mile or so. After I get you settled, I'll leave my car there and come in with them." Wilson swallowed. "Afterwards, we'll clean the warehouse, drive them back, and dump 'em behind the station. Get back into my car and split."

"It's simple. I like that."

"Yeah, it's simple. 'Cept the killin' part."

"You shouldn't have any problem with that. Just try to remember what they did to your friend."

Wilson's face was grim and strained in the glow of the dash lights. "Only G.o.d should do what we're plannin' to do tonight."

"You're scared," said Karras, "that's all. Don't cloud this up with talk about G.o.d."

"Yes, I'm scared. I don't want to die."

"Neither do I."

"You don't have to worry," said Wilson. "I'm gonna go through with this. But don't you tell me not to think of G.o.d or whether this is right or wrong. If I live through this, I plan to beg forgiveness every day for the wrong I've done. Knowing it's wrong is what separates me from Farrow and Otis." Wilson looked across the bucket. "What separates you?"

"Nothing. I hope to be just like them. I hope to kill them the way they killed my son."

Wilson spoke quietly. "You've lost your faith, I know. But if you make it tonight, believe me, you're gonna need to have something to help make you right. I was you, I'd look to G.o.d. Promise me you'll try."

"All right, Thomas," said Karras, staring straight ahead. "I promise that I'll try."

The road darkened as they went past the town. Wilson pointed to a boarded-up gas station with a pay phone out front. Then there was more dark road and signage for an industrial park. Wilson turned right, took the asphalt road that went along rows of squat red-brick warehouses starkly lit by spots.

Wilson drove straight to the back of the deserted park. He made a tight turn at a green Dumpster and went through the long narrow alley to the wide parking lot that ended at another set of identical red-brick structures. He parked in the middle of the strip, cut the engine, and removed the tarps from the trunk.

"What're those for?" asked Karras.

"Gonna try to keep my uncle's place clean. We'll roll 'em up in these when we're done."

Karras waited while Wilson opened the warehouse door and hit the lights. The two of them stepped inside. Fluorescents flooded the s.p.a.ce with an artificial glow. A single ceiling lamp flashed over a cheap desk.

Karras looked at the desk. "Doesn't this place have a phone?"

"My uncle uses a cell."

Wilson and Karras unfolded the blue plastic tarps and spread them out on the concrete floor. The warehouse was cold, and their labored breath was visible in the light.

"I better get goin'," said Wilson when they were done. "They'll be there pretty soon."

"Go ahead."

"Remember: You're the man who made me the key. You're looking for a payoff before they do the job. Don't complicate it more than that."

"I won't."

"Shoot Farrow quick."

"All I want is to look in his eyes."

"Don't waste no time, Dimitri. Shoot him quick, hear? I'll take care of Otis."

"All right." Karras shook Wilson's hand. "You all set?"

Wilson nodded. He turned and walked out the door. Karras heard the Intrepid drive away.

It was suddenly quiet. Karras stood on the blue tarp in the center of the warehouse and listened to the low, steady buzz of the fluorescent lights.

"You got the directions?" said Farrow.

"Got 'em," said Otis.

They walked across the yard to their cars.

"Smells like something died out here," said Farrow.

"Well, we are in the woods."

"Be glad to get back to civilization."

"I heard that, that," said Otis, dropping behind the wheel of his Mark V. Otis put the car in drive. He hit the CD player, rotated the disks to Slow Jams, Volume 2. Slow Jams, Volume 2.

"Oh, zoooom," sang Otis, "I'd like to fly away...."

Otis turned onto the two-lane. Farrow followed in the Mach 1.

Thomas Wilson sat in the idling Intrepid behind the Texaco station. He turned off the heater. He could smell his own sweat coming through his clothes.

He looked at his watch. Farrow and Otis would be way up 301 by now. Another half hour, they'd be pulling into the lot.

He'd been all chest out when he was with Dimitri, talking about how he was going to "go through with this," saying it strong, like there wasn't any kind of doubt in his mind. But now that he was alone, the fear had slithered back in. Truth was, if he was to pull a gun right now, it would slip right out of his hands.

And then there were Farrow and Otis. They had that way of theirs that made him feel small and weak, even back in Lewisburg, when they pretended to be his friend. Otis sometimes referred to him as his boy. Errand boy was more like it. He never was one of them, and they had always let him know it, too.

The .38 dug into the small of his back. He shifted in the bucket.

He and Karras needed help. There wasn't any sense in denying it anymore. Maybe Karras was strong and crazy enough to pull it off on his end. But Wilson knew he couldn't do it. He'd be punked out like he'd always been punked out. He'd get the both of them killed.

Wilson was out of the car and walking around the side of the gas station. He was walking to the pay phone, telling himself that this was not another betrayal, that he wasn't being a coward, that he was trying to help his friend. He was talking to himself, sweating and shivering in the cold, when he dropped the coins and dialed, and he was still muttering something when the phone rang on the other end and the line went live.

"h.e.l.lo."

"It's Thomas Wilson."

"Thomas -"

"Ain't got no time to bulls.h.i.t, Nick. I need your help."

Jonas handed the phone to Dan Boyle. "It's Stefanos again. For you."

Boyle put the phone to his ear and listened intently. Jonas watched his face as Boyle nodded and spoke excitedly.

Boyle said, "See you then," and handed Jonas a dead phone.

"What's up?" said Jonas.

"I'm goin' out."

Boyle went back to the guest bedroom, grabbed a pair of gloves from his overnight bag and shoved them in the pockets of his khakis. He unzipped a canvas gym bag, drew his Python, and checked the load. He holstered the Python, reached into the bag, and withdrew his throw-down, a .380 double-action Beretta with a thirteen-shot magazine. He examined the magazine, slapped it back into the b.u.t.t, and dropped the gun in the side pocket of his Harris tweed. He looked over his shoulder, then went back into the gym bag and extracted a Baggie holding confiscated snow-seals of powdered cocaine. He slipped the Baggie into the other pocket of his jacket and walked back out to the living room with the holstered Python in his hand.

"You gonna tell me what's goin' on?" said Jonas.

"When I get back. You got your piece?"

"It's in the drawer over there."

"Get it," said Boyle, lifting his wrinkled raincoat off a chair. "Until you hear from me, you keep it in your lap."

The two-tone Continental and the red Mach 1 pulled into the back lot of the Texaco station. The Mustang skidded on gravel as it came to a stop. Otis killed the engine on the Mark V, stepped out, and walked to the Intrepid. Wilson opened his door.

"T. W.," said Otis.

"Roman." His mouth spasmed as he tried to smile.

"Come on, man. We'll go in Farrow's short."

Farrow rolled his window down as they neared the car. "These brakes are shot again," said Farrow. "If you just push the pedal in, you get nothing. You got to pump the h.e.l.l out of these things to bring it to a stop."

"Booker put the fluid in," said Otis. "I seen him do it."

"I'm tellin' you, Roman, they're f.u.c.ked."

"Let me drive over to the joint, man, so I can see my own self."

"Suit yourself."

Farrow did not greet Wilson as he stepped out of the car. Wilson climbed into the backseat, and Farrow went around to the pa.s.senger side. Otis got under the wheel and put the car in gear.

"Where to, T. W.?"

"Pull out," said Wilson, "and make a right onto the road."

Otis tested the brakes both ways as they hit the asphalt. He pumped the pedal and managed to bring the Mustang to a stop.

"You're right, Frank. These brakes are are f.u.c.ked. Have to use the Mark when we do the job for real." f.u.c.ked. Have to use the Mark when we do the job for real."

Farrow looked over his shoulder to the backseat. "What's wrong with your face, T. W.? How'd you get marked?"

"Got stole in the face in a bar," said Wilson.

"Let yourself get stole, huh?" said Otis. "Imagine that. You look a little tight, too."

"Got a minor problem, is all it is."

"What's that?"

"The inside man, the one who got me the key? He thought about it and now he wants an extra grand."

"He's already been paid," said Farrow.

"I told him as much," said Wilson, noticing a catch in his voice, wondering if they noticed it, too.

"And what happened?"

"Couldn't talk him out of it," said Wilson.

"I guess I need to talk to him myself," said Farrow.

"You're going to," said Wilson as they neared the industrial park sign. "He's waitin' on us at the warehouse right now."