Marcus Sakey - At The City's Edge

Truth time. "I don't have the evidence anymore." Said it fast and sure, staring Kent in the eyes. "We found it in the basement of Michael's bar. But Playboy came after us as we left. They drove our car into the river. We couldn't get the briefcase out in time."

"That's not what you told the alderman."

"I didn't tell him I had it, either. I just sort of hinted at it." He kept his gaze perfectly level. "I wanted to win him over, and I was afraid if I told him the truth, he wouldn't listen."

Kent slowly ran a tongue around the inside of his lip. "You're sure of that?"

"I swear to you." Sweat soaked his body, and his skin felt tight enough to tear.

The fire's flickering light cast dark pits across Kent's eyes. His hands were folded in his lap, one finger tapping a metronome beat as he weighed Jason's words. Finally he shook his head. "I need to be certain." He sighed, then nodded at DiRisio.

The man made the SIG vanish, then reached into the pocket of his tux pants, came out with something. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped a four-inch serrated blade open, then winked at Jason.

Jason closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Michael, I need you. Give me strength. Please . Kent would want him to scream loud and long and tell the same story every time. He couldn't pretend he was somewhere else, couldn't try to think of his body as meat. He would have to embrace the pain, let it push him past his breaking point. It was the only way to make them believe.

But when Jason opened his eyes, DiRisio wasn't leaning over him.

He was by the couch.

With Billy's tiny arm in his hand.

Despite the sickness in his legs andthe pain sloshing in his head, he fought to his feet. Scarface came off the desk, raising his pistol. Jason didn't care, wouldn't let a little thing like dying stop him now.

Then he saw DiRisio touch the knife to Billy's soft wrist. A tiny motion could open the boy's arm to the bone. Jason stood trembling ten feet away, a gulf that may as well have been an ocean, and watched DiRisio smile at him.

His mind raced and darted. A thousand plans and possibilities stampeded past, none of them enough. He could pick up tiny details, Cruz's awkward posture on the sofa, half up, half down, locked in place the same way he was. Washington's face screwed into a wince, his hands reaching sideways. Billy's eyes bugged white, the tension in his shoulder from the angle DiRisio twisted.

A thin ripple of silver dancing along the ridged blade as it pushed into flesh.

"Stop!"

The voice came from behind, an order that ripped the air. A voice as a weapon, a cop's voice. Galway.

DiRisio froze, the knife just breaking the skin of Billy's arm.

"Stop." Galway spoke again. "Stop this now."

Jason craned his neck back to look at Galway, the weary face with its sagging jowls and stern chin. His suit was rumpled, hair unkempt. He looked a hundred years old. No match for a monster like DiRisio, a trained and eager killer.

The moment hung, delicate and pregnant. Finally, Kent said, "Tom, why don't you go have a cigarette?"

Galway shook his head. "When it was just bangers dying, I could live with it. They would have killed each other anyway. But I never should have let you murder Michael Palmer. And I won't let you do this. Not to a child."

DiRisio's eyes narrowed. "You're going to stop me?"

Everything seemed stuck in amber. Emotions flickered across Galway's face: fear, guilt, responsibility, disgust. Then he drew his gun with a whisper of metal on leather, and said, "I guess I am."

Jason looked over at Cruz, saw her staring at her partner, the tiniest of smiles playing on her lips.

"I understand how you feel," Kent said, voice honey. "This is more than you signed on for. And you know what? No problem. You want out, fine. I'll even give you the bonus we discussed, enough to put your son through grad school. But for now, be reasonable. Turn around, walk out the door."

Galway didn't answer. Just rocked the hammer back and steadied his aim. Scarface held his own gun level on the cop's chest. Jason dared a step forward.

DiRisio's eyes beamed hate like a wave of heat. He looked back and forth between Scarface, Kent, and Galway. Finally, he shook his head and pulled the blade from Billy's arm. Jason let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Okay, Tom." DiRisio straightened. He folded the knife, then slid it into his right pocket, a metal clip holding it in place. His eyes were flat and unreadable as he raised his hands to chest level. "You win." He turned to Scarface. "Drop your gun."

Galway glanced over at the other mercenary. Just a split second. A tiny twitch of his eyes. But in that moment, Jason saw DiRisio gesture with his left hand, a flamboyant sort of wave.

"Look out!" Jason threw himself at Scarface, knowing what was coming.

DiRisio's first shot took Galway in the arm, the impact a hammer blow, spinning him. The second bullet punched his chest. A third and fourth rode the echo of the second.

Jason didn't wait to see him fall. He barreled into Scarface, using his momentum as a weapon. The mercenary started to twist, but Jason threw a knee, and the connection bent his opponent over just as Jason jackhammered his bound hands up as hard as he could. He felt something snap in the mercenary's neck, saw the muscles around his eyes go limp.

Then everything exploded. The world fell to fragments, sight and sound out of sync. Snippets of scenes flickered past his eyes.

Cruz launching herself off the couch toward him.

Galway's face framed in a flash of sodium white, teeth clenched and chest blooming red as he fired a wild dying shot.

The bullet cracking drywall like the finger of an invisible giant.

DiRisio turning with a funhouse grin, weapon raised, sniper eyes.

Scarface falling, drooping like a child's doll, his weight and mass a lead blanket.

Kent rising behind the desk. Shirt impeccably white.

The dark hole of the SIG, a chasm he could lose himself in.

Billy squirming on the couch.

Jason's hands fumbling for the gun Scarface held, the grip slick, his hands slow, so slow, he could see the pistol dropping, knew that he wouldn't make it.

DiRisio's finger tightening on the trigger.

A blur of pale skin and brown hair connecting with DiRisio's arm. Oh God. Billy, trying to help.

Fire jerking sideways.

DiRisio's snarling growl, mouth wide and feral. Left hand reaching for Billy's neck.

Down, down, Scarface's gun falling, rebounding off the polished hardwood as Jason dove for it.

DiRisio plucking Billy off the couch and tossing him like a pillow. All fifty pounds of the boy flying, his hands spinning wild pinwheels as he tumbled through the air.

Billy's head connecting with the wooden back of a chair.

His body falling.

No.

No.

No!

With a final shove, Jason threw Scarface away from him and stretched for the gun with his bound hands. The grip was sticky. He jerked it upwards, realizing even as he did that he was too late, that DiRisio had him. He stared at the man who had killed his brother, wanting his last emotion to be hate, waiting for death even as he tried to fight. Wondering if he would hear the bullet.

An explosion.

DiRisio spun sideways. His left arm flew to his shoulder. The SIG-Sauer slipped from his right in slow motion. He staggered, and another blast tore a hole in the wall where his chest had been. With a growl he gripped the edge of the doorway and threw himself out of the room.

Not understanding, Jason turned.

Elena Cruz stood perfectly straight, arms together in front of her. A ribbon of smoke drifted from the singed corner of her clutch purse.