Jason Pinter - The Fury

I couldn't let him get away.

As Scotty began to run, I got to my feet, dived forward and tackled him from behind. His legs gave out, and Scotty screamed again as his knee slammed down on the ground. By this point I could see several

pedes trians watching us, hands over their mouths in shock and terror. A few were on their cell phones, no doubt calling 911.

A little late, but I appreciated the gesture.

Scotty was still writhing, and I managed to turn him over, placing my knees in the crook of his elbows. Just like I had to the guy who tried to jump me at the apart ment. Scotty's head was bleeding from where I'd punched him. There was a ragged hole in his pants by his right knee. There was a nasty cut that was bleeding pretty heavily. I could feel the slow, hot trickle of blood running down my neck, where he'd clipped me with the lid.

I raised my fist, ready to exhaust all the rage and fury of the last few days. To get payback for my brother's murder, for my father's incarceration.

This man, this killer, this hired dealer. The world would be better off without him.

Yet as I stared at my own fist, poised and ready to strike the helpless murderer, suddenly my hand went slack. My fingers uncurled. I couldn't do it. Justice wasn't about taking an eye for an eye. I was above that.

I had to be.

So I sat there, knees on his arms, the man below me in terrible pain, tears streaming down his face.

"Please," Scotty blubbered, "let me go. You don't know what you're doing…"

"I know exactly what I'm doing," I said. "I'm giving you the chance you never gave Stephen. I'm going to let you live."

The sirens grew closer. I could see the red and blue flashing off the windows on the street. The air was hot, swirling around us as I waited, my breathing heavy, angry.

"Get the hell off of him."

I didn't recognize the voice. The sirens screamed all around us. I hadn't heard a car pull up. It wasn't a cop talking. The voice did sound familiar, though…

Turning my head, from the corner of my eye I saw Kyle

Evans standing two feet from our sprawled bodies. He was holding a gun in his hand. It was pointed right at my head.

I heard more screams, and anyone who had been on the street watching had run off when the gun was pulled.

It was just the three of us.

I took my knees off Scotty, who scooted backward.

He clutched his knee, biting his lip.

I stood up. Air was coming back to my lungs, but I was still doubled over slightly.

"He's a killer," I said, the words coming out in bursts. "He's-"

And then I saw it. And whatever breath had found its way back into my lungs vanished.

Kyle was holding a black pistol. And attached to the end of it was a thin metal tube. And I remembered what

Leon Binks had said to me the night I identified Stephen

Gaines's body in the medical examiner's office.

"The killer was using a silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kinds of professional silencers you see in movies, that screw on like a lightbulb. Usually they're homemade, a length of aluminum tubing filled with steel wool or fiberglass."

"It was you," I said. "You killed Stephen."

Kyle went over to where Scott Callahan was lying on the ground. He was still holding his knee, but smiled when he saw his friend approach. Kyle knelt down, put his hand on his friend's shoulder. Scotty tried to prop himself up, but he was too weak. I stood there, my body rigid with anger and dread.

Kyle looked back at me. Then he said, "You gotta do what you gotta do to survive."

Then he placed the gun under Scott Callahan's chin and pulled the trigger.

"What the fuck!" I shouted. The gun blast was more of a meek pfft, like compressed air escaping from a puncture. Gore sprayed out the top of Scott Callahan's head. His body twitched once, then fell to the ground and lay still.

My hands wouldn't work. I stared slack-jawed at

Kyle. He was still on the ground, the gun loose in his hand. He looked at his friend, a sorrow etching across his face for an instant. Then his eyes turned cold and his gaze came to me.

"You have no idea," Kyle said, "how surprised I was to get to Stephen's house and find a gun already there.

I had this one all ready. Instead, all I needed was the capper." He pointed to the silencer.

"You used my brother's own gun to kill him," I said.

"But he wasn't the last one to use it."

"No, I really should have bought a lotto ticket that night. When I heard that Stephen's dad got popped for it? I nearly pissed myself laughing. See, that night I wore gloves, figured it would slow the cops down, but

I had no idea about your dad's shenanigans. I was there to take out Stephen, but I kind of took out the whole family. As long as they had someone else pinned for the murder, we were in the clear."

"We?" I said.

"Scotty was supposed to do it. He knew Stephen better than I did. They were pals, man."

I thought back to our conversation in the deli. Scotty pretending to barely know my brother. That's how they got so close to him.

"When your dad got popped, we were in the clear.

We even took the casings just in case. Turns out we didn't even need to. Now, though, Scotty here's gotta take the fall. Can't have anyone thinking the killer's still out there."

"You son of a bitch."

"On a normal day, I'd get pissed at you for talking about my mom like that, but I'll let it slide. Besides, when I meant nobody could know, I meant it." Kyle turned the gun to me. He had me less than five feet away, dead to rights. There was no tremor in his hand.

By the time I even thought about running, he could pull the trigger.

"Why?" I said. "Why did he have to die?"

"You said it yourself," Kyle replied. "The man just had to. When you're the top dog in anything, you're gonna get bitten."

"But Stephen was so young."

"There's no one guy," Kyle said. "It's like Ronald

McDonald. Every now and then someone new steps up to the plate. Call it a coup d'etat, call it whatever you want, but every company needs a regime change. Some new blood at the top. Now it's my turn."

Curt Sheffield had told me that five people connected to 718 Enterprises had been killed recently. Add to that number my brother and now Scott Callahan. Helen

Gaines told me that Stephen had wanted to leave the country, that he feared something terrible. Clearly he'd gotten wind that there were rivals who wanted to take him out. So, was Stephen systematically wiping out his competition? Is that why Kyle killed him-just to beat him to the punch?

If what Kyle said was true, and Stephen and Scotty had been friends, Stephen trusted them both. That's how Scotty and Kyle talked their way into my brother's apartment. They were couriers for him, yet he didn't fear them. My brother had been betrayed by his own friends.

When Stephen came to the Gazette that night, he'd wanted to come clean. He knew the chances of getting enough money to hide were slim. So my guess was that he was going to spill on the whole operation. He didn't fully trust the cops to protect him, but he figured if it made the papers first he couldn't be killed without the public being aware of it. His only hope was to cause a big enough story that he would be forgotten. That he could disappear in the maelstrom.

But he was killed before he could ever come clean.

And his story was about to die as well.

Kyle then took the gun and placed it in Scotty's dead hand. He wrapped his own finger around Scotty's in the trigger guard and aimed it at me.

Just then a car sped onto the block. It was a black

CrownVictoria. Kyle's attention turned from me to the car.

The door opened. And out got Detective Sevi Makhoulian.

"Freeze, police!" the officer yelled. Kyle couldn't turn away from Makhoulian. A strange look crossed his face, and I swear the gun began to lower. He was going to give up.