Gatac

  Sean knew more than most people about time, which is to say he had at one point read one of those Isn't That Interesting type of articles about the history of timekeeping, elevating him above the baseline of pragmatic indifference. These bits of knowledge came to mind unbidden whenever he looked at the face of Detective Berkovitz's living room clock, which wasn't actually that easy from his position as a crumpled little heap of self-pity on the carpet in said living room. Did you know, he might have said at a party if he was ever invited to a party, that people invented time-keeping to help them get things done? Well, all this clock showed for Sean was how long it was taking him to not get anything done and let the situation slip right through his fingers. He had entered into a fatally self-defeating cycle of thinking, one where he was going over his screw-ups again and again, then noticing how much time he was wasting on this, then beating himself up for it, further robbing him of both the concentration and motivation to get up and get on with it.1Write what you know. Feeling incredibly shitty about this was easy, and going down the easy path was a cssic Sean Collins move if there ever was one. He was no stranger to failure in general, but it was even easier and more comfortable to fail while he was down on the ground, to let events continue their shitward trajectory from his fetal position, because at least this way he had the leisure to fantasize about a competent Sean who had gotten off the ground and fixed things. Instead of getting up himself, attempting to do something, failing at it and thereby conclusively proving that the competent version of Sean did not exist, or, if it did, it wasn't him. And with the action continuing in front of this emotional canvas, he stayed on the ground when he heard someone unlock the front door and stomp into the house.

  Whatever.

  “Kid?” Berkovitz called from the hallway, apparently stopping just to strip off his shoes. “You still here?”

  Whatever.

  “Sean?” Berkovitz said. He walked into the living room. “Holy Hannah, kid,” Berkovitz added. “You alright?”

  Whatever.

  Berkovitz stomped up to Sean and took a knee, grabbing Sean's arm and attempting to roll him on his back. That spurred Sean to — well, not action per se, but at least he resisted.

  “Get off me,” Sean said.“She didn't hurt you?” Berkovitz asked, scanning Sean for injuries.“No,” Sean said.“Damn, kid,” Berkovitz said. “For a moment there —”“I'm fine,” Sean said.“Could’ve fooled me,” Berkovitz said. “Come on. If you’re gonna steal my clothes anyway, there’s better in the garage.”“Leave me alone,” Sean said.“Okay,” Berkovitz said, standing up again. “Okay, you continue being fine down there, then. I'm gonna make coffee. Do you want some coffee? It’ll do you a world of good.”“Hate coffee,” Sean muttered.“Of course you do,” Berkovitz said. Then he started walking into the kitchen. “You got any idea what's happening out there, kid?”

  Whatever.

  “You know I'd never seen Simmons actually do her thing?” Berkovitz said, shoveling coffee grounds into his coffee machine. “Sure, I met her a couple times, heard the stories, we both saw the results of what she did at the warehouse, but it's hard to believe it until you actually see her do it.”“You were watching,” Sean muttered to himself.“What's that?” Berkovitz called. “You say something?”“You were watching,” Sean said. “You were watching, Joe.”“Well, yeah,” Berkovitz said. He filled the water reservoir on his coffee machine and switched it on. The milky pstic switch clicked over with a nice, positive sound, glowing amber to indicate that it was now powered up, that the journey toward hot, bitter comfort had been set in motion. “You went to the pier with her, I stayed in the car and watched you through my field gsses. What did you think I was gonna do, clip my toenails?”“You were watching the whole time,” Sean said.“Okay, I see where this is going,” Berkovitz said.“Oh, no,” Sean said, motivated enough to sit up. “You don't say that. You don't get to say that, Joe. You don't I-see-where-this-is-going2Verbing weirds nguage, and I like to think I’m at the forefront of it. me. I was out there with my ass on the line and you were watching the whole fucking time. You see where this is going? This is going straight to 'you set me up to walk into a trap and watched me almost get fucking killed'. That's where it's going.”“Well, I had to bait the hook somehow,” Berkovitz said. “And you pretty much jumped right on it.”“What,” Sean said.“You're the…mealworm? You use mealworms to bait fishing hooks, right?” Berkovitz said.Sean nodded. “Sure.”“Okay, you were the mealworm,” Berkovitz said.“You think this calls for a fishing metaphor,” Sean.“Yeah,” Berkovitz said. “We were out fishing. And you were a good mealworm.”“Maybe save the comedy bit for after you expin this to me,” Sean said.“Look, it ain’t complicated,” Berkovitz said. “I got the call Sidorov was back in py. Doesn’t matter if he wanted to give himself up or if he wanted you dead, because if he wanted you dead, he first had to get you off the pier. Heck, the way you jumped on it, I thought I got it through to you and you were hamming it up for Simmons. Who, by the way, I'm pretty sure also got it.”“Oh, okay, honest mistake,” Sean said. “I mean, really, my mistake, how could I miss I was tacitly agreeing to walk into a deathtrap.”“To have a nice cruise,” Berkovitz said. “Look, I was sure they wouldn't rough you up if you just went along. And I know you, Sean. You would’ve gone along. And Simmons wasn't gonna make a move with so many people surrounding her, she waits for her moments. I was sure of that, too.”“Well,” Sean said. “Nice to hear you were sure. Real nice.”

  Berkovitz said nothing for a moment.

  “But you didn't think,” Sean continued, “that at some point in the ten minutes it took for the shooting to start, that maybe, maybe, you might have wanted to come in there and arrest those Russian assholes? That I wasn’t standing there talking my ass off because I like the sound of my own voice but because I was giving you a chance to save us?” Sean paused, grimacing at pying into the fishing metaphor himself. “So what the fuck were you waiting for?”“For starters, kid, all the backup I had were the coasties, and their price was getting the colr themselves,” Berkovitz said. “They were waiting just around Manhattan Beach. Didn’t you see them roll in when you got here?”“Oh, right, of course,” Sean muttered. “Coasties. No, I didn’t see them. I was kinda busy not drowning.”“Yeah, well, the coasties showed, because this was the deal,” Berkovitz said. “While you were running after Simmons like a lost puppy, I talked to them. And I talked to them real nice. They were gonna spill their guts to IAB about the wild goose chase after the mansion attack, by the way. But I managed to sell them Sidorov. The man’s never failed a safety inspection but they were dying to tear his yacht apart in detail. So they get the idea. You go out and meet him, and once we get a visual on him abducting a police officer or anything else that’d indicate you were about to be in real danger, they come in with a cutter, seize the yacht and get the colr. Maybe even score their own coke bust in the process. Press, photo ops, keeping America's waters safe. Coasties get to book it as their win. We take Sidorov off the board, we get Anne fucking Simmons as bycatch, plus it woulda squared you with them. That’s like a whole fucking flock of birds with one stone. And if it means you have to py damsel in distress for once, well then you put on the fucking pink dress and grow your hair out, Rapunzel.”“One, please stop abusing figurative speech,” Sean said. “Two, that’s sexist. And three, I didn't need the fucking Coast Guard to roll in with a Coast Guard cutter and wave their Coast Guard dicks around. I just needed you.”“Is that right,” Berkovitz said. “Just me and Smith and Wesson against a half-dozen Russians, with Simmons on top? Or did you think you're gonna Supercop your way through everything by yourself? Newsfsh, kid, it doesn't work that way.”

  Sean's mind eye theater pyed a short movie of him jumping up and socking Mean Joe Berkovitz with a hammer-blow right that would haul the old man straight off his feet. Then Fantasy Sean would say what he had always wanted to say and use all the bad words and instead of furthering the animosity, it would make Berkovitz capital-R respect Sean, once and for all. Then Fantasy Anne would bust in the door, tears in her eyes and wearing an oh-so-much sexier outfit than a second-hand tracksuit, telling Fantasy Sean how very sorry she was for everything and how she’d change for him if only he would have her. Then the very brief credits rolled and Sean was left facing the reality that this was yet another version of him he would never be. Suitably self-chastened and ashamed of himself for fantasizing about all this, Sean began the journey to standing on his feet.

  “You’re right,” Sean said, straightening up. “I'm sorry.”“Save it, kid,” Berkovitz said. “I don’t need my ass kissed. I just want us back on the same page so we can get this case closed.”“No, no,” Sean said, not looking at Berkovitz. “I…I should have asked. I should have had a better fucking pn than walking up to Sidorov and asking him to pretty please put on these cuffs and come with me to the station. I mean, I had the whole drive to come up with a better pn. Hell, I should have thought this whole mess through even before that. I should have…I should have done a lot of things differently.”“Like not leaving a hot weapon with what I’m gonna guess are your prints lying around at a crime scene?” Berkovitz asked. Sean had just enough time to try and drop dead from a heart attack before Berkovitz reached under his jacket and produced a pstic-bagged Beretta. The Beretta. Sean's Beretta. Berkovitz handed it over to him. “Oh, and this,” he added, withdrawing a white cassette tape from another pocket. “Any time you sit on your ass and watch, might as well get the shotgun mike out and listen, too. Figured you might want to hang onto it and scan it first before we talk about what we can use from it. I already told the coasties I don’t know what the fuck Simmons was doing there, so you’ll have to storytime that one. Just lemme know so I can back you up.”“You’re gonna put your neck out for me like this?” Sean asked, taking the tape. “Why?”

  Berkovitz nodded. Good question. Sean felt reassured in ways he didn't want to feel reassured, but couldn't keep himself from rexing anyway.

  “Kid,” Berkovitz said, “there are two things in this job that are worth a damn. One's a good head on your shoulders. The other's a good partner. Make sense?”“Yeah,” Sean said, as if it made sense.“We're not drinking buddies and that's okay,” Berkovitz said. “You've made it plenty clear we're not friends, that's okay, too. I give you enough shit to deserve you don't like me. Fair. I'm not the kinda guy people like. Even Ethel figured it out after a few years. So, I ain't got a lot to be proud of. But I don’t shit where I eat. I don't care what they teach you boys at the academy, procedure this, guideline that. Out here, all you got is me, and all I got is you. I gotta trust you and you gotta trust me, or else we're both done. Right?”“Right,” Sean said. “It's just, you're always acting so familiar with these criminal types, and with Anne —”“You're a fine one to talk, Romeo,” Berkovitz threw in. “Sure, I know her. But she ain't my partner.”

  Sean said nothing. He didn’t look at Berkovitz, either.

  “Well?” Berkovitz asked.“Well what?” Sean said.“Did you get too close?” Berkovitz said.“No!” Sean said, whirling around to face his partner. “God, no, no, I — no! We didn't, I mean, it's not like that. It's not like that at all, between us, it's…no, it's not.”“Really,” Berkovitz said.“Really,” Sean replied. “You’re disgusting. We’re…we barely even liked each other before she went and blew everything up. There is absolutely zero chance of anything happening between us.”“But you want it,” Berkovitz said. "That's what's twisting you up about this, ain't it. You can’t get your head in the game because it’s stuck in the clouds on this one. You think there’s a heart worth fixing in that icebox under her Kevr, a heart you can fix with tender words and kisses. You and her, you're some kinda pair, star-crossed true love?" He snorted. “You know Romeo and Juliet aren’t supposed to be role models, right, Mr. Lit 101?”

  Sean caught a rerun of the ‘Punch Berk In The Face’ short movie in his mind's eye theater. This was the director's cut with an alternate ending, though, where Fantasy Anne showed a modicum more self-respect and just agreed to go on a dinner date with him. It would be pretty great, Sean imagined. She would wear a nice dress and heels and a push-up bra, because she would want to look like a good girl just that once. And her nose would be straight, her arms softer, all those pesky little reminders of who she was would be conveniently gone, to be repced with a bright smile. Girlfriend material. And they wouldn't be blowing several of Sean's paychecks at some snobby French brasserie on the isnd. No, he took her for a woman who would appreciate a proper hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurant where they served five-dolr wine. And he'd have the proper setting to tell her about fishing and his taste in alt-country music and how he kinda wanted kids, in the abstract ideal of a charmingly well-behaved toddler or two popping into existence in a cloud of pixie dust, but had never considered it worth the trouble to start a retionship with anyone. Well, ‘never’ as in the dreary, pre-Simmons ages, before he met her and fell for her Amazonian charms. Wait, was beling her ‘Amazonian’ too cliché? It seemed like she would call him on it if it was.

  “I’m not interested in her at all,” Sean said.

  Sean Collins: Runner-up Worst Liar, New York Regionals. Berkovitz stared him down.

  “I mean, even if I could make all the bad things just go away and change her, a retionship with her would never work,” Sean added.

  Sean Collins: Bronze in Laziest Rationalization, Pan-America Cup. Berkovitz continued to stare.

  “And I couldn't think of a criminal suspect that way,” Sean said. “That would be unprofessional on every level.”

  Sean Collins: 1989 Special Award of the Golden Excrement for lifetime achievement in the field of self-serving bullshit. Berkovitz switched up his strategy by shaking his head.

  “As long as we're clear on that,” Berkovitz said. “Now, come on. Let's get to the precinct and talk to the Captain, see if we can't figure this mess out.”

  Sean had forgotten how to open the front door at the 64th, or at least he made a pretty good impression of someone who had. Three times he pushed down without the proper commitment. He was forced aside by someone whose day was more productively spent not waiting in line behind Sean's inability to get his shit together. Sean trailed them into the lobby. At least he looked like a human again. The dark blue three-piece suit he’d borrowed from Berkovitz was a little too wide at the shoulders and a lot too wide at his gut, but that’s what belts were for, right? In any event, Sean was in the building, where the next punishment on his charged scroll3With apologies to William Ernest Henley. were 26 steps up to the elevator. It was enough to make him seriously consider just turning around again, but Step One was the full extent of his Pn B, and even as frazzled as he was he knew it wouldn't help anything.

  “Hey, Detective!” he heard a woman's voice call for him, and even though it didn't sound like Anne and she had entirely stopped calling him that and there was no good fucking reason whatsoever for her to set foot inside a police precinct, he turned around somehow expecting to see the criminal behind him. Instead, he came face to face with Carmen Vera as well as a brown-skinned man with a twenty-something smile but a forty-something hairline, whose suit and tie — actual knotted tie, not a clip-on — combined with a little pel pin impressed upon Sean exactly how much he didn't want to have a conversation with those two. Still, Sean had turned and looked, so they walked over before he had a chance to flee. “There you are,” Vera said. “We've been trying to reach you since yesterday.”“We?” Sean asked. The man extended a hand, looking entirely guileless despite having every reason to be, well, guileful, and Sean didn't have the heart not to shake it.“Mike Lively, IAB,” the man said. “I'm sorry to bother you, Detective, I know you’ve been through a lot and we're dead st on your priorities list right now, but if you could just call me when you have a moment so we can set up an appointment —““Yeah,” Sean said. “Sure.”Lively nodded, then released Sean's hand from the shake just quick enough to pce a business card in it. “Then I won't keep you,” Lively said. “Oh, I don't know if you've already retained a wyer, but if you haven't yet, we’ve worked with one who has a lot of experience representing the interests of officers in your circumstances. He’s a wily bastard, you’ll love him!” Lively ughed, but then his head snapped down to where his belt-mounted pager was beeping. He didn't check the dispy as he seemed to know who was calling. “No rest for the wicked,” Lively said, taking a step back and half-turning away from them. “We'll talk ter, right? Call me!”“Will do!” Sean called after him, then looked to Vera. “I don't mean to be a jerk, but can this wait? I need to go talk to the Captain.”“Figured you would,” Vera said. “But you'll want to hear what I have to say before you make any more decisions.”“This is a really bad time, ADA Vera,” Sean said.“Figured that, too,” she said. “I'll be down at Records. Catch me on the way out and we'll go chat over coffee.”“I hate coffee,” Sean said.“Trust me, you'll want some,” Vera said. “And Detective?”“Yeah?” Sean said.“Sorry to be so blunt, but you stink,” Vera said.“Uh, yeah,” Sean said. “Thanks for the…for the hint. Later?”“Later, Detective,” Vera said.

  Berkovitz was already waiting outside Whitton's office, of course, and to hell with what Sean thought he knew about the ws of time and space. He had to be there, because it was the best way to maximize Sean feeling like a scolded schoolboy called to the principal's office as he passed his partner. Sean paused in the doorway as he reflected that a) this metaphor was a disgusting way to py down the extent of how far he had gone wrong, and b) he had, in fact, never been sent to the principal's office in school, making the image even less applicable to his situation. It was a mental roadblock that could only be resolved by an outside voice, and Captain Whitton was happy to supply it.

  The first thing he said was “Sean, step into my office” and Sean did that. The second thing he said was “Sean, close the door” and Sean did that, too. Then, the third thing Captain Whitton said was “Sean, tell me how you're going to unfuck this situation” and Sean didn’t do that.

  Sean didn’t freeze up, not exactly. His eyes swept the small office as if trying to find Berkovitz or Anne or even the somehow-still-able-to-talk corpse of Ilya, just to have somebody else there to expin everything and make a speech for Sean to look serious and solemn to, but put on the spot, Sean found himself without a good story to spin, fpping his lips like a fish waiting for the cleaver.

  “That's what I thought,” Whitton said. “Let's see if we can figure this out, then.”

  He walked over to his desk and sat in his chair, opened a drawer and pulled out two gsses together with a half-empty bottle of vodka. Sean's eyes attached to the bel for a moment. ‘Russkaya’ read the letters floating over a pair of medieval knights, one flying a green banner, the other bearing a strikingly white, teardrop-shaped shield. Sean briefly wondered how long Soviet vodka had been produced with English bels.

  “Here's where we are, Sean,” Whitton said, grabbing the bottle off the desk. As Sean’s eyes followed, Whitton poured a finger's worth into each gss, then pushed one over to Sean's side of the desk. “CSU found shells on the pier, nine mil and forty-five. Common as bird shit. We also pulled bullets that ended up lodged in the wood. On top of the pistol rounds, we got one steel-cored, about a thirty caliber. Could be any good rifle, we're up shit creek without the weapon. Then a couple of guys apparently killed with a bded weapon.” Sean held his breath — they hadn’t turned up her knife! — while Whitton continued. “No useful prints anywhere, obviously. So, let's talk casting for this shitshow. We've got Simmons down at the pier, she dropped some of those bodies. One of her buddies up on a rooftop with a rifle. Sounds correct so far?”

  Sean swallowed hard.

  “That sounds correct,” he said. His eyes fixed on the gss he didn't dare touch. “Viktor Raikov,” he said. “I’m sure it was…it was Raikov, with the rifle. Fuck, they told me it was the pn. One of them, anyway. Simmons tried to feed me some bullshit about not being sure after the fact but —”“Who's the third shooter?” Whitton asked. “Pencil in Raikov for number one, but he’s not going to climb down and run all the way over to the pier to shoot off a pistol. We can peg Simmons for number two, makes sense, professional killer, obvious murderous intent going in. She did the knife stuff?”“Yeah,” Sean said, still looking at the gss. Knife stuff…they should have the cinch knife. Had she lied about losing it? Just a little slipped-in admission that she was indeed fallible, to make it sound better to his ears? How much of the fight choreography she had spun out for him had been actual, and how much yet another yer of obfuscation?“Jesus,” Whitton said, taking a sip from his gss. “All of them?”“…yeah, I think,” Sean said. He raised his head again. “Look, Captain, I was…I was not in a position to watch her. But that's how she told it to me. And Joe…he saw it, too. Yeah, she had the knife. And she shot the forty-five. It’s hers.”“So, a knife in one hand, gun in the other?” Whitton asked.“Exactly,” Sean said.“Jesus,” Whitton repeated. “But we still need a third shooter. Who's our guy for the nine mil?”“…I don't know,” Sean said.“Then I’ll give you a hint,” Whitton said. “Expin to me why it’s not you.”“Uh,” Sean said. “Uh, she…I mean, Simmons, she…kidnapped me and forced me to take her along to the meeting.”“We're pying it like that?” Whitton asked.“Yeah,“ Sean started. “I mean, Joe had a good pn with the coasties but we can’t expin why I’d be working together with her, so —”“Okay, good enough for now,” Whitton said, waving him off. “She wasn’t part of the pn. Got it. Go on.”“So, why would I have a gun on me?” Sean said, looking around the room and scanning the pinned-up files for inspiration. “I'm the victim here. She would have searched me. No way I could have a gun with me. Right?”“It's not bad for a start, but let's not lean too much on the kidnap thing,” Whitton said. “It's flimsy enough as is, we don't need that questioned. Heck, I'd prefer if we could take you out of the picture entirely, but you’re the VIP guest here, so that puts the spotlight on you. I think it's best if we can come up with a likely third shooter so you can get out of the spotlight. Do you have a candidate?”“…no,” Sean admitted, his eyes back on Whitton.“Think, Sean,” Whitton said. “Anybody. Give me a name.”“Ah…uh…Yan?” Sean said. It was not exactly the smartest answer, but the only name that came to mind.“Are you asking me?” Whitton said. “I can’t help you with the answer. That’s the first I’m hearing of Yan. I don’t know shit about Yan. You seem to think he would shoot people, though.”“Yan,” Sean said. “…I don't know his full name, but I think we can find out. He was there. He works…worked for Sidorov.”“Tell me your story about Yan and what he was doing there,” Whitton said, taking another sip from his gss.“Okay,” Sean said. He took heart, grabbed his gss and took a swig, too. He managed not to wince. “Okay, so, Yan. He's…he watches Sidorov's offices when the boss is away. He's…some kind of lieutenant?”“Sean,” Whitton said, “are you asking me or are you telling me?”“He is a lieutenant,” Sean said. Another swig, another not-wince. Sean was rolling now. “Sidorov trusted him to hold down the fort but he wasn’t happy with that, no, so…okay. Okay, so, Yan…well, all gangsters want to be bigger gangsters, right? Especially the Russians. And there's blood in the water from the warehouse shoot and Sidorov is running away on his yacht, he left some of his people behind to face the heat, it's gotta get them thinking. So Yan…no. Shit.”“What?” Whitton asked. "Talk to me, Sean. Your story isn’t done."“Was gonna say he made a deal with Simmons, but it doesn't work,” Sean said.“It would expin why Sidorov risked the meeting in the first pce, if Yan set it up,” Whitton said. "Ties the whole thing up with a neat little bow. What's the problem?"“It only sounds neat,” Sean said. “Why would he do it? I mean, yeah, he wants to be rid of his boss, but doing it together with Simmons, nobody in their right mind would do that. He’d have to see it coming from a mile away, she was there to just kill them all given half a chance.” Sean thought. “I mean, maybe she forced him to do it. But I can’t…we can’t put everything on her, can we?”“What we can’t do is read Yan’s mind,” Whitton said. “I don't know why Yan would serve up Sidorov, you don’t know if that’s why Sidorov was there to begin with. Nobody cares. Gangsters aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. If they were smart, they wouldn’t be gangsters, they’d be stockbrokers.4Literally more uncomfortable for me to write than any of the violence in this book. There’s just so much wrong with this attitude that it’s hard to unpack, but I’ll try to boil it down to a hot take: the world isn’t fair, pretending it is is bullshit, fighting against attempts to make it fairer is peak bullshit. Gangsters make shortsighted deals with the wrong people. Yan could be a patsy for Simmons. She proposes to help him get rid of his boss if he sets up the meet, but she has one of her guys in overwatch for an ambush. Boom, showdown. But here’s the trick, Sean. We’re not gonna come out and say that’s how it went down. Because we don’t know. We just y out a few relevant facts, let Vera and the jury put it together. So what if it’s bullshit, it’ll be their story, not ours. You know people. Once they clear the hump, they’ll fight ten times as hard to keep believing.”“Could work,” Sean said."But again, nobody cares about Yan’s reasoning," Whitton said. "He's dead. That's gonna make it hard for him to contradict you.""I guess," Sean said, pondering the story. Pondering it included taking another swig from the gss of vodka. Sean was starting to wish for some ice cubes in there. "No, actually…no. No, we gotta…we can't do this.”“What’s the problem now?” Whitton asked.“I shot Yan,” Sean said. “With the Beretta. The nine mil. He can't be the nine mil shooter if he was killed with the nine mil.”“Except it wasn’t just ‘the’ nine — we’ve got four pistols already bagged, plus divers checking the pier for anything that might have gone into the drink,” Whitton said. “We'll say he killed a guy and Simmons killed him. Crossfire with more than two guns firing, everyone's stabbing everyone in the back, it's confusing.”"I don't think any of Sidorov's men even got a shot off," Sean objected."And that matters how?" Whitton asked."Well, I mean, for starters, there'd be no residue on anyone's hands," Sean said.Whitton shrugged, finishing his drink. "GSR is hardly make or break," he said. "It's not like anyone there dumped a whole magazine. So if Yan took just one shot? If whoever killed him took one, too? They'll buy that it left no big obvious powder residue."5This is one of those things thrillers frequently get wrong — the idea that just because you’ve fired a gun, you’ll have obvious GSR on your firing hand and thus be identifiable as the shooter. Rather than a binary GSR/No GSR switch, just consider that GSR accumutes on anything close to the weapon’s ejection port the more you shoot a weapon, that the amount deposited on the shooter’s hand depends on several factors such as the weapon, the ammunition used and just pin chance, plus it might be smudged by the shooter trying to wipe it, washed off after the fact or — as happened to Sean after the warehouse shootout — somebody might have simply touched a recently fired gun and gotten some residue on their hands.tl, dr: It’s complicated."They'll all have full magazines," Sean said."Plus one in the chamber," Whitton said. “One round’s no problem. A couple, we can fudge. It works.”“But the wound channels —” Sean tried to say.“Who died and made you ME?” Whitton snapped. “Nine mil, forty five, close enough.6Just as an illustration of how far we still have to go with forensics before we get to CSI level magic, the period-accurate method of determining the direction from which a bullet entered the body would be to shove a metal rod into the entry wound and see where it points. You can imagine that it’s difficult to divine precise calibers from GSWs, then, especially considering bullets love to deform and fragment inside the body — in fact, many are designed to do so, particurly in pistol calibers, to improve energy transfer. Which is to say, you generally want the bullet’s kinetic energy doing damage in the target, not for it to punch a little hole through and keep going. Whether or not the bullet has to be designed to also punch through a ballistic vest first complicates matters further. Anyway, you can probably tell the difference between, say, a .22 and a 9mm and a .44 Magnum in rough terms of how big the remains of the bullet are and how much damage it did to the surrounding tissue. You can maybe match bullet fragments to a gun, if you have said gun, but beyond that things get really tricky really fast.And not to footnote the footnote, but I do mean actually having the gun that was used to create the GSW — from what I hear, the effectiveness of techniques like ‘ballistic fingerprinting’ is rather overrated. But then again, so is fingerprinting itself, as it turns out that’s still rgely down to expert interpretation of the often significantly damaged or distorted prints versus a reference. Plus, fingerprints are not as unique as was long assumed, further increasing the risk of mismatches. DNA evidence, while not 100% reliable, fares much better when it comes to false positives, though it still shares a problem with fingerprints: you may be able to say that someone was in a particur location or touched something, but it’s hard to tell when and why that took pce. By the time anyone is in a pce to get a second opinion, the bodies will be too decomposed to tell shit. No, this is gonna be fine. Yan is fine. We're gonna do some police work, find out what we can on Mr. Ambition. We'll serve him up on a silver ptter. Hell, for all we know he was scheming, I'd put money on that. Makes it all the easier to paint the picture we want.”“Okay,” Sean said.

  Whitton shrugged. Sean's mouth was getting numb to the taste of the vodka.

  “Yeah, the ballistics are gonna be fine,” Whitton said, pouring himself another two fingers of vodka. “The real kicker's gonna be why this is the third shootout in two days you were in the middle of.”“No, I…I haven't thought about that part, yet,” Sean said.“Don't, then,” Whitton said. “You don't know, it's fine, God didn’t sit you down and give you the slides. Don’t overthink this one. That’s how stories get a little too cute.”“What does it matter?” Sean asked. “I don't think IAB will believe me anyway.”“Exactly,” Whitton said. “You want to give somebody who already suspects you more details to work with? First rule of lying, keep it simple. Simmons kidnapped you from your home and brought you to the pier. You don't know why. Shooting starts, you break free and make your escape the only way that seemed safe to you, into the water. Next thing you know, you’re at your partner’s house, where we find you. The end. That's all you're gonna tell.”“Okay,” Sean said. “I mean, with the stress and all, it's no stretch that my memory would be foggy at best. I was — I was afraid for my life, I mean this killer just shows up at my door with a gun drawn and frog-marches me down to her car —”“There's the too cute part,” Whitton said. “Just stick to your line. You don’t know. You were scared to death. You can’t remember any details, so sorry your Honor. Give ‘em some stares, a couple of tears if you have to. Heard you were good for it.”“Okay,” Sean said.

  This was so not okay.

  “Next question,” Whitton said, “why were you at the mansion yesterday? You told Officer Miller you were there to see Arkady Ignatyev. What for?""I thought that was already handled," Sean said."We stalled it, but we didn't put it to bed," Whitton said. "Nobody's gonna buy you don't remember exactly why you did that and how you did it. This is not heat of the moment, no coercion, you made the decision to go there, presumably you had a reason for it. So this one's trickier. Tell me a story about the mansion, Sean.”“Uh, well,” Sean said. “I still had my mind on the case. Went to do a little digging on my own, figured I’d tap a known Thief big shot for information. And I came prepared for anything. I pulled over when I heard the shooting start, I grabbed the gear and rushed in, but it was already too te. Nothing I could do to stop the shooters. I tried to render first aid to the people inside the house, nothing I could do there, either, so then I came out just as Officer Miller arrived. And they know how it went from there.”“Pusible answer, I certainly believe it,” Whitton said, taking a sip and smacking his lips, as if the vodka had a taste worth savoring. “So, do you want to turn in your badge right now or do you want to wait until IAB crawls up your ass and yanks it out that way?”“I was just going there to ask questions,” Sean said. “I mean, sure, I was supposed to be at home, so rap my fingers, but —”“Sean, you don’t seem to understand exactly how much trouble you’re in here,” Whitton said. “You’re already suspended and you still went there, on your own, without telling anyone — no call to dispatch, no partner, no backup, just a Kevr vest and a shotgun. Neither of which are department issue, lucky me, because otherwise IAB would be coming after us, too. Though you certainly let Officer Miller think they were, just like you made him think you were there on police business. So, where'd you get the hardware? Are you a viginte type, Sean? You know, no service weapon no problem, you just grab another heater from your private unregistered arsenal and keep right on going? A little birdie told me about you going to several out-of-state gun shows st year. Did a little more than window shopping, huh?”“I wasn’t!” Sean protested. “I didn’t —““Knock on a few doors with your heels?” Whitton continued. “Maybe bring a phone book because you heard they don't leave bruises when you beat people to shit with them?”“No —” Sean said.“Tell me how this sounds, Sean,” Whitton said. “A cop who's already being investigated for a triple shoot — and it’s looking good for him so far, sure, but he’s not home free yet — this cop rolls up to a gangster mansion strapped for war. A couple of minutes ter, he walks out, there's another half dozen bodies inside, he tells the first responder some wild story about a different crew of Russian gangsters shooting everyone and running off to a boat the Coast Guard completely fails to find. And one of the bodies inside the mansion was dropped by a 12 gauge shotgun, a weapon nowhere in evidence at the crime scene, but I bet you had one with you, didn't you? Doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think you’re the one who killed that man, so how much of a leap is it to think you did the rest, too? Especially after you went and told Miller about going in with your gun when you should not have had access to any firearms whatsoever, period. IAB might have found it in their hearts to pencil-whip the warehouse shoot and let us get on with our lives, but they want you for the mansion, Sean. They want you bad and they’re gonna do a hell of a lot more than rapping your fingers. That was before your little stunt at the pier, by the way. You absolutely, positively cannot be responsible for any of the bodies in either pce.”“Okay, okay!” Sean said. “Okay, it's a shitty answer. But…I mean, yeah, I had the shotgun at the mansion, I shot one guy there, it was him or me, simple as that. Self-defense. It was self-defense! I mean, he had his, his…his Mini-Uzi, and he came at me, I shot him, stone-cold self-defense! What else can I say?”“Anything but that,” Whitton said. “Especially naming the victim’s weapon, that’s not gonna py when you’re trying to convince us you don’t remember any details of your ‘kidnapping’ in the next breath. Tell me your story about the mansion, Sean. And make it good.”“Fuck,” Sean muttered. “Okay. Okay. He didn't see the shotgun. Miller. I mean, I wasn't swinging it around, I didn't show it off. I didn’t even have it with me, Simmons took it.”“Alright,” Whitton said.“And I didn't say 'shotgun',” Sean said, “I didn't tell him I had a shotgun. I said 'my gun' and 'my vest', no details.”“Go on,” Whitton said.“Okay!” Sean said. “Okay! Okay, so…so, he doesn't know about the shotgun.” Sean finished his drink with a big gulp. "And I didn't say I shot anyone in there, either. For all he knows, I didn't come in until after the shooting was all done."“That's good,” Whitton said, “because then there's nothing linking you to the body in the mansion. And the rest killed each other. Simmons in the mix, too, makes it easy enough. You say she had the shotgun in the end?”“It was one of hers to begin with,” Sean said. “I mean, not much of a leap to say she killed the guy.”“Maybe we can find a witness to say they saw her come out of the mansion with it…shit, I'm pretty sure we could pin a nuke on her at this point,” Whitton mused. “And the fleeing attackers, well, maybe they did get away clean before the Coast Guard got there, maybe you just got it wrong. It happens. You saw something, maybe even a couple bystanders running away from the shooting, your mind jumped to a conclusion, you made a call.”“So,” Sean said, “obviously, when I mentioned my gun, I was just talking about my backup —""What backup?" Whitton asked.

  Sean stared at him.

  "Detective Collins, do you own an authorized handgun suitable as an off-duty firearm as id out by department policy?" Whitton asked. “Last we talked about it, the answer was ‘no’.”"…I don’t," Sean admitted."Officer Miller must have misheard you, then," Whitton said. "I'm sure he did. Because why would you tell him you had a gun when you were in fact unarmed? See, I'd love to see them prove you did have a gun. You just told me Miller didn't see it. And I took the liberty of browsing your file while you were out. No record of you ever even applying for purchase authorization on anything but your service weapon, which has been safely locked up since the first shoot. Nothing at the scene that looks like it was yours. If IAB try to run it down, they're gonna waste a lot of time, aren't they?""Yes, Captain," Sean said."They are, yes?" Whitton said."Yes!" Sean said. "God, yes. I mean, I'll cop to a few rentals on a range in Jersey, you know, familiarization, but I never bought a second gun. Never considered it, never applied for it. Absolutely, that's the truth, and there's nothing to find there. Absolutely. They can't nail me for that."Whitton nodded. "And what better way to prove you weren't there to kill anyone than showing up unarmed and rushing into a firefight to save lives nonetheless. Of course, somebody who did that would need their head checked, even if they had a good heart.""Shit," Sean said. "I mean, can we convince Miller? He's the only witness, they're gonna lean on him to spill everything. It…it can't be that hard to just get a stamped form and a little mousegun, right? I mean, no offense, Captain, but you could get a gun for me, right? It’d square the story.""We're not doing that," Whitton said. "You having a gun makes things worse overall, it’s not worth it just to sort out one thing you told Miller in the heat of the moment. You had a brainfart. Any officer would grab his gun in your situation. It makes sense. And if it comes down to it, it’s you versus Miller. If he won’t come around, we can always paint him as a small town cop in over his head. Not to fault him, but how sure can he be of every little st detail he thinks he heard or saw on that stressful, terrible, once-in-a-lifetime day of tragedy? We're not faking the PA or else this is just going to keep snowballing and involve more people. The ME's a gimme, we'll have to get to Miller or discredit him, but that's where I'd like to stop it. Second rule of lying, Sean, don't involve people you don't have to. No, you having a backup is out. Not happening. You know what a drop gun7A drop gun is a colloquial term for an unregistered weapon secretly owned by a w enforcement officer. This can take two forms: a ‘clean’ gun with no criminal history or a ‘dirty’ one possibly even stolen from a crime scene. There’s a couple of ways to use that, then. You can brandish and shoot it in situations where you don’t want to use your service weapon, you can pnt it on someone to justify your actions (whether its a search, an arrest or even a shooting), or you can leave it at a crime scene to manipute the evidence and possibly implicate someone or at least confuse the investigation.Needless to say, don’t get caught having a drop gun. The best way to do this is to not have one in the first pce. is?"Sean nodded. "Yeah, I know what a drop gun is.""But you don't have one," Whitton said, taking another sip from his gss."No," Sean said. "Well, I mean — the Beretta, from the assassin. But Simmons forced it on me and I did not use it at the mansion.”“…but you did use it at the pier,” Whitton concluded.“Yeah,” Sean admitted. It didn’t feel terrible or freeing or any other particur way. “And now I’m gonna get rid of it.""Do you know how to?" Whitton said.8The only advice I’m willing to offer on this is that whatever you’re thinking of, it’s not a good idea. So is whatever crime you want to commit that’s got you considering how to dispose of the weapon afterwards.

  Sean said nothing. Instead, he nodded slowly.

  "Get it done," Whitton said. “I want the Beretta gone and gone for good. And then we all forget you ever had it.”"Okay," Sean said. "Okay, so I was unarmed when I showed up at the mansion. I was confused when I said otherwise to Miller.” Sean thought about it. “It’s messy.”“It’s not the best story,” Whitton admitted. "But a little messy is fine, it’s pusible enough. What about the vest? You said you showed him the vest.”Sean pondered that. “…well, I like being prepared,” he said. "And I did have a price on my head."“Undercover vest or tactical?” Whitton asked. “One says 'I like my blood inside me', the other says 'door kicker'.”“Uh, it was a light one,” Sean said, “but…I don't think Miller's gonna stand on that detail.”“We can try going with it,” Whitton said. “It was a vest. Anybody presses, it was some surplus from the 70s, we'll convince Miller if we have to. You own one because you had to get a souvenir from all those gun shows, and you wore it because you heard about the a price on your head. You pulled up your shirt and showed it to Miller to reassure him you were fine. I’m sure it made sense in the moment.”“Yeah,” Sean said. "And I had no problem with Ignatyev, I mean he didn't put the price on my head, I was just…well, he's the only one of these guys that’s not directly in bed with Grandpa. I figured I might be able to…convince him to smooth things over. You know, stop the senseless bloodshed. Appeal to his self-interest."“Works for me,” Whitton said. “It makes you a clown on several counts, but there’s a consistency, I guess. And I think we can sell you weren’t out for street justice. You saw a chance to do the right thing and went off-book for it, a move I’m sure you deeply regret now. Good intentions, bad judgment, we’ve all been there. You’re not gonna come out of this smelling like roses but you’ll be in one piece and that’s what matters.”“Okay,” Sean said. “But, uh, if they put you on the stand —““Everything I say is going to be 100% factual,” Whitton said. “Just like everything you’re going to say. Do you understand?”“…yes, Captain,” Sean said.“Then that's all I need out of you for now, Sean,” Whitton said. “You can send Berkovitz in, we'll straighten out the other details.”“Okay,” Sean said. After a moment, he added “Thank you for this, Captain.” Sean surprised himself with how genuinely grateful he sounded.“Save it,” Whitton said, then smiled. “You know, Sean, I'm not mad at you. Believe me, I'm not. I’m asking you these questions now so you’re ready for the people who want to sp cuffs on you. All this could have gone better, but what matters to me is you're back here with a pulse. Keep it that way. We'll figure out the rest in time."

  Sean nodded while Whitton finished his drink.

  "I've got a feeling we'll be breathing easy soon enough," Whitton said. "Lots of bad people getting what's coming to them, thanks to you. Sure, we didn't arrest anyone important, but we took a heck of a bite out of organized crime with a tiny nudge, no dead babies or women, strictly inter-gang warfare. Nobody feels bad there’s less Russian gangsters today than yesterday, good riddance, right? Arrests that’ll stick would have been a clear win, but I'll settle for a draw. And Vera will see the light on this, I'm sure. We'll just have to keep at it, come at them from another angle. But you go on, take a break, you need one. Go have a…tea, or something.”“…or something?” Sean asked.“Well,” Whitton said, “you hate coffee, don't you?”

  Sebastian was too early to the meeting arranged at Pigeon Park. Anne couldn’t fault him for that; she was there too early, as well. Sneaking out past Pattie and the bus ride back to Hamilton Point had been the easy parts. Watching the towncar pull over on 5th and stop by the little Chinese pce got her heart pumping, though, not just because she still had their empty box with the remains of her te lunch held between her cold fingers. Pin fried rice, no sauce no meat, just starches and fat for energy. She rose off the bench — one of the semicircle around the granite obelisk — and wandered across the tiny pza, dumping the box into the least overstuffed trash can as she went. She tried counting the cars parked by the side of the street as she passed them, summoning some focus after an altogether uncomfortable amount of time spent letting her mind drift on the bench. That hadn’t helped at all.

  As she got close to the towncar, Badrick got out of the car and intercepted her. He favored her with the barest nod of a greeting as they closed the distance. His hands stretched to feel under her coat. Anne held her tongue and spread her arms slightly. Neither of them wanted the patdown to be too obvious out here. Badrick relieved her of the Colt and her rge knife with a minimum of fuss. Still no words exchanged as he opened the door to the rear for her and waited as she climbed in, closing it behind her. Sebastian sat on the left side, gss with seltzer banced in his hand. He didn’t look at her, not when she got in, not when Badrick took the driver’s seat, not even when they drove off. Sebastian wore one of his suits, but on this one the pants didn’t sport his usual Italian cut. These were fred out at the bottom instead.

  So that was where things stood.

  “Tell me what happened, Miss Simmons,” Sebastian said. Anne wondered how angry he was.“Mr. Morrison kept your confidence and now lies dead,” she said. “The weapons sale was an ambush. Rusn Romanovic was indeed not to be trusted. He is now dead as well.”Sebastian sipped from his gss. “I need to hear more,” he said.“I have said all that pertains to our business and our favors,” Anne said. “Unless you have a new deal to propose.”

  Sebastian thought about that.

  “You are in trouble,” he said. “I can offer you shelter.”“What is the price?” Anne asked.“You are price and prize, Miss Simmons,” Sebastian said. “You would do much better working for me. You know the strength of my operation. You know my appreciation for you.” He put on a smile. “It is the logical choice.”“Not a choice I am free to make,” Anne said. “Nor would I make it if I was. You have already used me poorly. ”Sebastian looked away. His smile was slow in leaving his face, but leave it did. “I asked you to kill one man,” he said. “I paid what you asked.”“Then I suppose the name Nikoi Dolzhikov is unfamiliar to you?” Anne asked. “And Rusn made no mention of the cocaine in the weapon crates he wanted to sell you? Should I have insisted you py me an unedited tape of your conversation?”

  Sebastian said nothing.

  “I can confirm there were twenty bags in one crate at least,” Anne continued, “each looking to be a half-kilo, though I had no opportunity to weigh them. I saw four crates. Supposing the deal was on the level, that would leave you with forty kilograms of cocaine among the weapons. How much did you lose in Newark, Mr. Reid? If memory serves, thirty-seven kilograms and a few men, perhaps three. I cannot begin to guess what they were worth to you but I am struck by the simple symmetry of the calcution, should it indeed be the formu you and the Dolzhikov scion agreed upon.”“You’re just throwing numbers around,” Sebastian said. Yet she could see his hand tremble as he moved the gss for another deep draw. Had the gss not been half-empty, he might have spshed some of his precious carbonated water on himself and the upholstery.“I suppose I am,” Anne said. “I also remain ignorant of how exactly Nikoi could have acquired this amount of cocaine and weaponry. How measureless must his wealth be that this is what we was willing to part with? It would make him a powerful man, far beyond even the Captain he presented himself as. But if that is the case, why approach the city with this degree of trickery? Why endanger himself at all? Surely you knew the answers before you struck any bargains. Finally there is the matter of the fee you paid for my services. In hindsight, how quickly you agreed to our offer should have troubled me more. You strike me as a man who well knows the value of money. Especially when you paid Mr. Morrison with the same money. You did notice it was marked, did you not?”Sebastian said nothing.“A loop was added to the side of the ‘T’ in ‘Tender’,” she expined. “Turning it into a ‘dje’, as in ‘djedushka’. Now, I consider you a man fond of certain…affectations, but I do not believe you would go to this trouble. Whoever provided you with this money might have, if they thought it might serve as a way to ensnare you and gain leverage for future operations.” She paused. “Of course, it could mean any number of other things as well. Perhaps I am wholly misinterpreting it as well. You can see I am quite a ways off from making sense of it all. Yet one thing does appear clear now. Mr. Dolzhikov accused me of being too trusting with you. I fear he was entirely correct.”

  Sebastian’s hand kept shaking. He preempted spilling water by emptying the gss. The carbonation did not agree with his haste. Anne looked away as he tried to swallow a coughing fit. She was willing to preserve that much of his dignity, at least.

  “What do you want, Miss Simmons?” he asked. “Are you taking my confession? Is that why you py the policeman?”Anne considered it. “…what did you gain by all this sound and fury?” she asked. “You lost the drugs, the weapons and the money.”Sebastian looked at her. “You know my profit,” he said. “I wanted dead Thieves and dead policemen. Vacuum.”“Dead policemen?” she asked. “How could you possibly —”Sebastian put on a dead-eyed smile. “You think too small,” he said. “Just like the Russian. Yes, I know Nikoi Dolzhikov. Nikoi Dolzhikov did the same math. Forty is a good number, he said. He offered me cocaine and guns. I don’t care about either. You cannot miss what you never had. I never trusted him. But he believed I believed. He believed I think small. What are forty kilograms, Miss Simmons? Nothing.” He sipped again. “Pass up forty once, pass up forty twice.” He looked at her. “I needed a reason. A good reason for you. Forty was enough. Forty twice was enough again.” He smiled at her. One more try to impress her, she figured. “And you were right about the money. It was not my own.”“…and you sold out your own men in Newark just to have an excuse to hire me?” she said. Her voice was thin and strained for it. It had to be either a whisper or a scream. “And Berkovitz,” she continued. “You fed him the information about the warehouse deal. You sent us both there —”“Both were needed then,” Sebastian said. “I only need you now.”

  He emptied the gss. As far as talking to Sebastian Reid went, this was almost too straightforward. Her engagement had ensured Bob Morrison could remain the scapegoat for the blown shipment to Newark; everyone who knew the truth was in the towncar with her. For a moment she wondered if Arkady’s death had been necessary to hide this as well, but it seemed unlikely. That attack was easy enough to bme on Nikoi’s own desires, even if the outcome was convenient to Sebastian. The Newark loss seemed altogether too much, but perhaps he had had no choice in the matter and everything that followed was his revenge for the sacrifice. In any event, her survival up to here had not been by Sebastian’s design, no matter his posturing now. Surely he would have sought common cause with whoever survived the encounter. ‘Vacuum’ was the wrong word, she figured. What he truly meant was chaos9Chaos is a tricky term. Greek cosmogeny held chaos to be the absence of things, which would be quite close to a vacuum in meaning, but it ter became confted with formlessness. As we move toward modernity, we add the further meaning of disorder/confusion. Depending on your reading, this gives quite different accounts of creating the world from chaos: did it come from nothing, was it there but needed to be shaped, or was it disordered and needed to be sorted out?Now that I’ve successfully undercut the narration’s crification with a pointer towards ambiguity, let me clear things up again: Anne’s thought process hinges on the third meaning., leaving him free to sift the wreckage for the weakened survivors and come to an all-new, all-favorable agreement with them. But did chaos align with the agenda of whoever backed Sebastian’s scheme? And Badrick’s part? Knowing of all these maneuvers, what kept him on Sebastian’s side despite all? Maybe he dreamed himself the one indispensable confidante and maybe this was actually true, but it mattered little now. Her mind sorted through some options of her own. They had her obvious weapons but the gss carafe with the seltzer was right there. Bash that against his skull —

  “Hand over your weapon,” she said, not moving from where she was seated.“…what?” Sebastian said.“Hand over your weapon, Mr. Reid,” Anne repeated. A sneer passed over her face, briefly. “The one hidden on your right ankle. I cannot be accountable for what happens when I take it from you.”

  Badrick twitched, but not towards drawing a weapon — difficult at the best of times when operating a moving car. No, it looked more like he was deciding which direction to try to duck in. Sebastian also arrived at the obvious question: what would happen? Just asking the question made the ground under his feet shift. Without words, he drew up his right leg and pulled on the cuff to reveal an ankle holster. From that he produced a small, thin pistol10Beretta 950BS ‘Jetfire’, a subcompact holdout pistol in .25 ACP. and held it out to the side. Anne snatched it from his hand before anyone could think further on what was happening. The heel release popped the magazine from the bottom of the grip without it dropping free. She pulled the magazine out, then racked the slide, finding the chamber empty. Well, she figured, at least nobody would have ended up shot. Was it worth the relief she felt over it? Perhaps Sean was right about her and her very low bar for favorable outcomes.

  “I have had my fill of your cleverness, Mr. Reid,” she said. “We will keep driving while I conceive of how I can best use you.”

  How could she use him? Sebastian using her as a pawn to weaken the Thieves expined much, yet he was still worthless to her cause in ending that strife. The council would hold no truck with him and even believing this much would only convince them there could never be peace with the posses. And he was not the prime mover of all this chain of events, even if he had angled to extract his best benefit from it. Nikoi was still at the core of it all and she had no way to produce him for the council. That only left one man to turn to: Dolr. Perhaps after all those times he had insisted on his neutrality, his word would have some weight in the council’s eyes. If he would testify to the circumstances of Kyrill’s death, if she could nail Nikoi down on one obvious act of duplicity, they might be swayed to at least investigate further. Might. It was barely anything, but it wasn’t nothing.

  “I have business at the clinic in Astoria,” Anne announced. She decocked the pistol and repced the magazine, seating it with a tiny clicking sound. “Deliver me there and then depart from me and mine for good.”“But — “ Sebastian tried.“We will be rid of one another after this conversation, Mr. Reid,” Anne said, “but quite how depends on your appetite for disagreement with me.” She looked over to him and made darn sure he looked her in the eyes, for the moment he could stand to do so. “Do we have an understanding, Mr. Reid?” she probed. “Let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”11From Matthew 5:37, wrapping up Jesus’s admonition to swear no oaths as part of his Sermon on the Mount.After this, incidentally, comes the admonition to turn the other cheek.“Yes!” Sebastian said, turning away. “…yes.”