Behind John, Quentin Glass stood, his own face a mask set in stone, one foot on the rear veranda, one foot in the mansion proper. As always, the perfect soldier, waiting to execute Howard Saint’s orders, whatever they were. And behind him, Saint saw Dante and Lincoln, Cutter and Spoon, and T.J., all waiting for his commands as well.
How had tonight come to this?
Up until a minute ago, it had been the perfect evening. His talk with Chadwick at Saints and Sinners had been everything he could have wanted, and more. The party was prepared to throw its full weight behind him, to make him their candidate in the upcoming primary, and in the general election beyond that, in exchange for his support on a single issue. A promise to kill the Everglades Reclamation Project.
Saint had asked for a copy of their position to be faxed over to his downtown offices tomorrow morning so he could study the problem, but really, what was there to think about? What did he care about a bunch of fucking alligators? Chadwick knew it, and so did he. They talked in supposed hypotheticals for another half hour—when and where to announce, campaign personnel, basic issue strategy—but both men knew that this was the first of many meetings they would be having, en route to the governor’s mansion next January.
He and Livia had returned here, to his estate on the Tampa waterfront, to celebrate. Which they’d only just begun to do—a drink on the veranda, a passionate kiss, the promise of a more passionate evening to come—when Howard Saint had heard the front door open, and had looked up to see John and Quentin heading straight for them.
And with the news they’d brought, everything else seemed suddenly, and perhaps permanently, insignificant.
His son was dead.
And no matter how much of the fault for that death could rightfully be laid at Bobby Saint’s own feet, that was beside the point, for the moment. The only thing that mattered now was finding out what exactly had happened to queer this arms deal his boy had gone in on, and why.
Making sure that somebody paid for Bobby’s life in equal coin. Their blood, for his. John had supplied a lead. That was where they would start.
Howard Saint told his son—his sole remaining son— where to begin. He saw John relay his instructions to Quentin, and then the two left together.
He turned back to Livia then and, as gently as he could, helped her find her feet.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” he said.
She nodded wordlessly. He put an arm around her waist and guided her to their bedroom. She would need drugs to sleep, he knew that for a fact. She would need them more than once during the night.
He, however, would not. Howard Saint was not intending to sleep. Not that night, certainly. Perhaps not for some time yet to come.
There was work to be done.
It was what you might call puzzling, Micky thought. His current status. The fact that not much more than three hours after he’d been in the middle of a shoot-out between some international arms-dealing wackos and the Federales, Micky Duka was standing on the curb outside the downtown Tampa lockup, a free man.
He looked around and shook his head.
“Hey—who took care of the bail?”
There was, unsurprisingly, no response.
“Geez.” He smiled to himself and shook his head again. This was one helluva night.
He thought back to what had happened after the Feds— that was who Micky assumed they were; Christ, with those haircuts and those 1970s suits, who the hell else could they be?—had marched him right off the dock and into a waiting paddy wagon, jawing in his ear ninety miles an hour about how he was a threat to national security, and they were gonna lock him up for the rest of his natural-born days, unless of course he told them absolutely everything he knew about Astrov, Otto, and what had just gone down on the pier.
Morons. What did they think, he was born yesterday?
“I ain’t sayin’ squat,” Micky had promptly informed them. “Until whereupon such time as my lawyer is contacted and a deal is procured.”
Fed No. 1 had tried to tell him that there wasn’t going to be any deal, that they had no need to make any kind of deal, given that the target of their investigation—Astrov—was already taken care of, that Micky’s only chance at avoiding a long, long, long stretch in prison was to be 100 percent cooperative right now, this instant.
Micky knew he was bluffing, of course, so he’d just sat back on the bench in the rear of said paddy wagon and waited for Fed No. 1 to make his offer.
Somewhat to his surprise, that offer had not been forthcoming.
Instead, Fed No. 1 had simply shrugged and sat back in his own seat. Hadn’t even turned around when the paddy wagon stopped right in front of this very lockup, the back doors swung open, and two of Tampa’s finest began marching him toward the prison entrance.
“Hey!” Micky had called out, trying to get the Fed’s attention. “You know I know things. You want to know what I know, you know what you gotta do!”
Instead of responding, the man had simply motioned to the driver, and the paddy wagon had pulled away.
Fine, Micky had thought. So that was how they were gonna play it. Let him stew awhile. That was all right. He’d been in the system before; he knew how to do time.
So he wasn’t surprised when, after an hour or so of sitting in his dark cell, he’d heard footsteps. He’d looked up, expecting to see Fed No. 1 with the paperwork to get a deal started.
But instead, he saw a beer-bellied old prison guard standing at the control panel next to his cell.
“What’s goin’ on?” Micky had asked.
“Somebody posted your bail,” the guard responded, and opened his door.
The question, of course, was who.
One of his old man’s buddies? They liked to look after him, liked to pretend that Micky was still little Mikey Duka, tagging along after Daddy. Or maybe . . .
Could it have been his mom? That would not be good. She’d whip his ass seven ways to Sunday if she found out he was back walking the wrong side of the tracks. Except . . .
If it had been his mom, she’d have met him right outside the cell and let him have it then and there. So . . . not his mom. Then who?
Micky looked up and down the street again. Still no one.
Oh, well. He’d find out sooner or later when they came around looking for the bail money. In the meantime . . .
He had things to do. Number one on the list was to call Bobby’s family and let them know what had happened. The second thing was to get hold of his parole officer and put the right slant on the evening’s events. And the third . . .
He was hungry. Actually, maybe that should be first. There was a greasy spoon a couple blocks down that—
He heard the sound of an engine. Micky spun and saw a dark sedan round the corner, heading straight for him. Not good. A car like that, out this time of the morning . . .
He walked a little faster. That would be ironic, right? Survive a shoot-out with AK-47s and get mugged outside the police station? Why did these things seem to happen only to him?
The sedan pulled up right alongside him and slowed. Micky tensed. The glass was tinted—he couldn’t see in at all. His heart began to beat faster. He wished he was better with his fists—he was tired of getting hit on all the time, getting the crap pounded out of him. His cousin Joey was always on him to take karate, and that’s just what he was going to do, starting next week, only—
The sedan moved past him then, and Micky let out a long, slow breath of relief.
You got a hyperactive imagination, Duka, he told himself.
At which point, the sedan came to a sudden halt, and the doors opened.
Bobby Saint’s personal bodyguard, T.J., and two other men—bouncer types whom he’d seen at the club more than once—stepped out.
Micky took one look at their faces and suddenly realized who it was who’d bailed him out.
