Dan O'Shea - Penance

“He hasn’t been using these since the shootings started. He has to be using something.”

“Paravola theorizes that Fisher has established some one-offs, accessing the cash lines for some, using the others for one or two days, then switching. We are researching that now.”

“But if he feels us getting close, he’ll switch to McBride.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lynch stopped by Bernstein’s desk. “Getting anything?”

Bernstein looked up. “I’ll give you a printout, pictures of semi-auto sniper rifles. Helps that it’s semi-auto, because as far as I can tell most of these things are bolt action. Germans have a few, couple different H amp;K models. Swiss have a couple Sig Sauer models. Then you’ve got your Israeli Galils, and there’s a Russian gun, Dragunov, though these last two are maybe less likely. Accurized assault rifles, not sniper rifles per se. Anyway, you’ll know what you’re looking for. I’m pulling up a list of guys who have won this or that for target shooting at your range or better. Probably a waste of time, though. I mean, you’re still thinking this is some kind of hit, right? For-hire job?”

“Best I can do for now.”

“I can’t figure somebody who hires out wants his name on a trophy.”

“Still…”

“Yeah, I know. Gotta run it out. Also getting you a list of anybody official that uses this kind of talent. FBI HRT guys, Special Forces, SEALs, Marine scout/sniper. Overseas you got your SAS… Hell, you start looking overseas, and we’ll be at this awhile. Of course, most of the semi-autos are from overseas.”

“Any restrictions on these or can anybody buy one?”

“None of them are fully automatic, so as far as I can tell, you got your FOID card and you know where to shop, you can pick one up. I don’t think you’re going to find any of these up at Farm and Fleet, though.”

Lynch nodded. “OK. Let’s start with the domestic groups. Find out who to call. See if anyone washed out or got pushed out for being hinky.”

“OK.”

“What about Marslovak?”

“Did get some interesting shit there. Couple years back he finished a big-ass roll-up in the waste hauling industry.”

“What is this roll-up crap? Heard him say that on the phone.”

“Find an industry with fairly standardized operations but that’s segmented geographically. Waste hauling is perfect, right? I mean, picking up garbage is picking up garbage. Do it the same in Miami as you do in Seattle. You start buying out a couple big players in major markets, consolidate your back-office functions — HR, marketing, finance. Probably set up an HQ somewhere and shut down admin facilities everywhere else. Now you’ve got economies of scale, so you start undercutting the market on price, even working at a loss at first if the Feds don’t get after you for going predatory. Cripple all the local mom-and-pops cause their cost structures are top-heavy, then you buy them out cheap. Also inverts all your vendor relationships. Suddenly, GM or whoever is selling you a thousand trucks instead of two. So you get to beat them up on the price. Once you own the market, you ratchet your prices back up where they were, and bingo. Guy like Marslovak? He’s not interested in running the thing. Face it, operations is too much like work when you’re used to being the house in a roulette game. Probably sells as soon as he hits critical mass.”

“So you make a pile and put a lot of other people out of business and out of jobs?”

“Not quite that simple. Companies that catch the wave early usually sell at a premium, so they do OK. But yeah. Basically you’re driving inefficiencies out of a fragmented national or regional market model, one of those inefficiencies being people’s jobs. You also wipe out a lot of companies.”

“So that’s gotta piss some people off.”

“In this waste hauling gig, it’s interesting who he might have been pissing off, too. People equal garbage. Businesses equal garbage. So the Big Apple is sort of the Shangri-La of trash. Biggest market in the country. Also, mobbed up to its frontal lobes. Cost structures there were completely out of whack because mostly you had the mafia taking out your garbage, and they don’t work cheap.”

“And Marslovak rolled it up anyway.”

“Big time.”

“That’s good work, Slo-mo. Get what details you can. We’ll go down tomorrow and drop this on Marslovak, see how that shakes out. Get your butt out of the office for a while.”

“What, no ice cream?”

“Buy you a cone on the way back.” Lynch took a step away and then turned back. “Hey, Slo-mo. You dress nice. Think you could maybe give me some pointers?”

Bernstein turned in his chair, gave Lynch a careful look.

“You look OK. Little GAP-commercial generic maybe, but OK.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking of upgrading a little. You seem like you put some effort into this.”

“I’m a Lilliputian Jew, Lynch, not an ex-jock. We’re supposed to use money to get chicks, and I went with the cops instead of the investment bankers. If I don’t at least dress up, bris would’ve been the last time anybody touched my unit. So, you want to push the old sartorial envelope? You got a date or something?”

“Something like that.”

“OK. When?”

“Tonight.”

Bernstein laughed, shook his head. “It’s almost 4.00 Lynch. How much time you got?”

“Picking her up at 7.00.”

Bernstein pulled a planner out of his desk. “I’m going to call my guy at Barney’s, over on North Michigan. Andre. And yes, Lynch, he is gay, so don’t sap him or anything when he measures your inseam, OK? He’ll set you up nice. You’re at least gonna have to get some pants hemmed, which means he’s gonna have to push it through alterations for you, so slip him a little something. Otherwise I look like a schmuck.”

“What, like a five?”

“Like a twenty.”

“Jesus, Slo-mo. Maybe you should be working there.”

“Be a twenty-grand bump in pay if I did.”

March, 1971

Lynch jerked awake in bed, looked at the clock. A little after 3am. Dog barking. Not Missy, neighbor’s dog. Somebody shouting, Lynch not able to make it out. Tires squealing in the alley.

Julie sat up in bed.

“What’s going on?”

Lynch getting out of bed, grabbing his short.38 from the nightstand.

“Don’t know. Get downstairs, keep the kids in their rooms.” Lynch stepping into his slippers and heading for the stairs.

Lynch stepped out the back door, wearing his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. His next-door neighbor was out on the porch, trying to calm his mutt down, the mutt still yapping.

“What’s going on?” Lynch asked across the fence.

“Mess of coloreds out back by your garage, Declan. They jumped in some red beater when I come out, hauled ass down the alley.”

“Get a make on the beater?”

“Dodge, it looked like.”

Red Dodge. Lynch headed down the fence toward the garage, whistling for the dog. Nothing. Let himself out the gate, walking around the side of the garage into the alley.

Missy lay on her side in front of the garage door, throat cut, blood pooling around her head and shoulders. Someone had dropped a blood-soaked wad of newspaper next to the dog. Lynch looked up at the garage door. “Butcher the Pigs” smeared in blood on the door.

And just on the edge of the pool of blood, part of a heel print. The distinctive diamonds from the bottom of a pair of All-Stars.

All sorts of things going through Lynch’s head. Like if everybody’s playing this so tight, how come some radical asshole knows who I am, where I live? Like if he does, and he’s such a fucking warrior, what’s with knifing an old, half-blind dog? Like either way, Lynch and this Simba fucker, they were gonna talk. And depending on what Lynch got, he was either gonna take down this Simba and his fist-pumping friends, or he was gonna take down somebody else. He didn’t care how Junior Hurley felt about it, Lynch was about done taking it up the ass.