Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

Termino said, “Maven, you’re being an asshole.”

Maven didn’t dispute that. He was acting out on his fury for Danielle, his guilt about screwing Royce’s girl, his fear of Lash and the DEA — trying to blow up the crew rather than deal with these issues.

Royce said, “You know what? Walk if you want to. Go. Termino says you’ve been flaking off anyway. You’re a fucking mess to look at, you’re never around. Spending so much time with this girl, playing real estate agent. Go ahead.”

Suarez said, “You going to ditch us now? You’re leaving us a man down.”

“Biggest haul of our young lives, Mave,” said Glade. “Why you pick now to flake?”

Their words were nothing compared to what Maven saw in Royce’s face. Maven had ruined what they’d had, and he wondered what it would look like from here.

Tricky sat all the way to the left in back, up against the tinted window so he couldn’t be spied through the windshield — so far over that he disappeared out of Lash’s rearview mirror altogether.

Lash took him down the street past the Black Falcon marine industrial park. The Edison plant was across the channel to the right, Logan Airport ahead of them across Boston Harbor. Lash said, “What about this blond guy here?”

The guy was well built, athletic, wearing a green tracksuit and jogging slowly with white speaker buds in his ears.

“Naw,” said Tricky. “Don’t know him.”

“He’s been hanging around. Did this loop three times yesterday.”

“This is still Southie right here. Lotta fools dope up and go exercise. White guys, mostly.”

Lash followed the road left around the turn. “We’re gonna unplug this thing today.”

“Today?” Tricky sat up a bit. “You sure?”

“Never sure. Never, ever sure.”

The light, repetitive thumping was Tricky’s fingers paradiddling on the back of Lash’s headrest. “Damn.”

“What?”

“Just... did I make the right decision, you know? For me.”

“You made the right decision.”

“If things go wrong, then what? Where am I then?”

“Nobody on my end knows about you yet. No one’s known this whole time, and there’s no point in bringing them in now. But people will know you after.”

“Fuck,” Tricky said. “That’s dangerous shit. They gonna put me and my money on a beach somewhere?”

“Not likely. But someplace safe.”

“Nowhere’s safe for a snitch.” Lash heard a sigh come out of Tricky. “I must be out of my Negro mind. You always said you wanted me out of the game.”

“And you better stay out.”

Foot tapping joined the thumping, a riff of nerves. “Where is this place anyway? I never been down here.”

“Just passed it.”

Tricky turned to look, his fingers stopping. “Bandits profit from inside info — why not me?”

“First smart thing you’ve done since I’ve known you. Just keep thinking about the money.”

“Exactly right,” said Tricky, his fingers resuming their patter. “You just read my damn horoscope.”

Glade called in. “Movement up in the windows, but nothing by the door. Guess I’m in for another loop.”

Maven thought that Glade’s jogging around the Black Falcon in a tracksuit was way too obvious, but couldn’t say anything to Termino and Suarez. They sat together inside a van in a lot at the head of the loop. They were having trouble getting their eyeballs on the stash house — the “house” in question being the office of a seafood importer sandwiched between freight terminals.

Maven said to Glade, “What about that Sequoia that went by?”

“Didn’t see it.”

“Silver. Tinted windows in back.”

Glade said, “Lotta cars out here, Mave.”

Maven hung up on him. Over on Dry Dock Avenue, an Edison crew worked their second day on a streetlight, with no cop detail. Maven mentioned it earlier, but Termino only thought he was looking for a way out.

Maven said, “This loop is essentially a dead end. Only one exit.”

Suarez said, “We could go into the drink.”

Termino said, “First of all, and come up where? We’d have to swim two miles — and they’d still find us. Second — I, for one, don’t love that dirty water. Syphilis down there.”

Maven said, “We don’t even know how many doors we have to go through.”

Termino said, “So we have to get fancy. We’ve done it before. Stop shitting on this, Maven, and man up.”

The passing rumble was that of the Edison truck surging down the street, pulling up just out of sight — right about where the seafood importer’s office was.

Two SUVs followed it at a high rate of speed.

They heard the loud banging of a door being rammed open.

Termino said, “What in the goddamn—”

Maven picked up the ringing phone. Glade said, “Shit, I’m fucking bailing.”

Three gunshots — muffled, from inside the building — were followed by yelling.

“A setup,” said Termino.

Maven broke apart the work phone and reached for his backpack.

More gunfire. Glade went jogging past them, toward Summer Street. Suarez jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but Maven pulled on his arm. “Leave it. Bail.”

Termino was already out the side door and walking away. Maven went out the other door, then Suarez, heading off in different directions.

People exited the adjoining marine park buildings, fleeing toward Maven as he crossed onto Dry Dock Avenue. He saw the Edison truck and the SUVs with police lights flashing in their taillights.

Automatic gunfire blasted down from the second-floor windows, spraying the vehicles. Agents wearing body armor and DEA vests crouched behind them, pinned down.

Maven watched the action from behind a skinny, city-planted tree. The feds were taking heavy heat, outflanked and overmatched. Then he saw a long-limbed DEA agent ducking behind a vehicle’s front end, yelling into a mobile phone.

Agent Lash. Calling in more backup. He evidently couldn’t hear anything from his phone and took a chance, ducking and running behind a pickup truck.

It was a raid. It had gone wrong, and fast. This was an ambush.

Lash pulled a sidearm and peeked over the bed of the pickup, squeezing off shots at the building — ducking back when retaliatory rounds plunked the vehicle.

Maven dug into his backpack. He carried an all-black Beretta 92, an instrument of his paranoia. He slipped it out of its nylon bag and slid off the safety, holding it low against his leg, starting down the far side of the road, moving from car to car as more people fled past him.

One of the SUV’s gas tanks exploded. Not a spectacular ball of flame, but a concussive burst that lifted the back of the vehicle and threw back the men behind it. No one was on fire, but they were hurt, rolling from side to side in the road.

Maven came up beside a black guy sitting with his back against a blue Honda, biting the neck of his navy blue Champion hoodie and saying over and over, “Shit, shit, shit.”

Maven peeked through the cracked window glass and saw Lash reloading, the pickup not thirty yards away. He moved up one more car, not wanting to be seen.

In the second-floor window above, Maven saw a shirtless blond guy wearing a gun strap across his bare chest. The shooter aimed down at Lash. Maven straightened and fired over the Honda’s roof — too far away to be accurate, but enough to break the glass and send the shooter ducking for cover.

Maven spun back down and wondered what sort of insanity had caused him to do that. His lack of judgment turned him ice-cold, and he ducked away to the previous car as a hail of rounds came whistling near.

Lash flattened out and slid underneath the pickup. They were surrounded. Lash heard fire behind him.