couldn’t explain later. “One guy got out—you see him, Jim?”
“Yeah—he went up toward Axe Factory. But he looked white.”
“You never can tell these days. Thanks, Jimbo.”
Axe Factory Road, which Colony Drive spilled into. From there, it was two choices: east or west. Saugherty thanked him and started jogging toward the end of the cul-de-sac.
Down toward the park: nada. Up toward Welsh Road: a glimpse of his guy, turning a corner.
Saugherty ran back for the car he’d taken from Lennon, then realized it had been parked in the garage.
A few turns, and he found himself on what looked like a main drag—Welsh Road. Ten minutes up the road, across from a main artery road, Roosevelt Boulevard, was a 7-Eleven. Lennon pulled in and entered the store. His shoulder ached; his skin burned. And Saugherty was right. He was beginning to smell a little ripe. When he put some miles between himself and that burning house, he’d have to do a little rudimentary first aid. Even if that just meant dumping some vodka over it, slapping a bandage on it.
The occupant of room 219 hadn’t kept any money lying around; college kids never did. So Lennon had to pull a little stickup. He was loathe to do it, since it was just the kind of thing to attract attention to himself. But the prepaid calling cards were behind the counter, and there was no easy way to do the five-finger discount.
Besides, he could use a little dough to hold him over until he reached the money in the car. And compared to the murders he’d just racked up, a 7-Eleven heist wasn’t shit.
Lennon selected a detailed map of Philadelphia streets from a spinner rack. He had a better fix on where he was when he crossed Roosevelt Boulevard, but a quick glance at the map confirmed it. He was up in Northeast Philadelphia, about twenty-five minutes away from downtown. Saugherty had taken him home. From the looks of the map, the quickest way back down was to take the boulevard, also known as Route 1, down to where it merged with I-76 headed into downtown. He replaced the map on the spinner rack.
He picked up a copy of the
The counter kid looked at him funny as he bagged the stuff. Chances were, he attended Father Judge High School. Lennon picked up the bottom of the sweatshirt and showed him the Glock tucked into the waist of his jeans. He pointed to the cash register, and then to the bag. The kid understood. He opened the register, scooped out bills, and shoved them in the bag. Next, Lennon pointed to the prepaid calling cards.
“How many?” the kid asked.
Lennon just curled his fingers into his hand.
“Okay.” The kid grabbed a stack and slid them into the bag.
Lennon took the bag.
“See you in class,” he said, smirking. From the looks of it, the kid looked completely thrilled. Lennon had probably just fulfilled a long-term work fantasy/running gag.
There was a security camera in the place, but at this point, Lennon reasoned, it was beside the point.
After fifteen minutes on Roosevelt Boulevard, Lennon fought his way to the outer lanes and turned into a large mall parking lot. He found a pay phone bank inside a Strawbridge’s department store and used one of the prepaid calling cards to dial Katie’s disposable cell phone. The emergency one.
Prepaid calling cards were the best thing to happen to planning heists since the invention of the road map. Absolutely untraceable—these rip-off companies bought long-distance minutes in bulk and sold them to people too poor to have home phones or with shitty enough credit to be turned down by long-distance phone companies or criminals who didn’t want their calls traced. There were no bargains to be had, even though the cards claimed significant savings per minute. But when you used a prepaid card to call a cell phone that would only be used once, then tossed away, you had a next-to-perfectly secure means of communication.
Katie’s disposable rang five times, and then an automated voice-mail message picked up.
Wait.
Only two people had this disposable number. One of them was Patrick. Which would make it pointless to continue negotiations with this tight-lipped Russian prick.
“Hold on a second, okay? Of course you will.” Katie fumbled in her bag, found the phone, and flicked it open one-handed, but it was too late. The call was gone. Fuck.
She removed the gun from the guy’s mouth and then proceeded to pistol-whip him into unconsciousness. He wasn’t going to help, anyway. Claimed he knew nothing. Katie dialed in to check her messages, wiping the pistol clean on the guy’s sofa.
The Russian hadn’t been difficult to find. Henry refused to name names, and begged her to come over to his apartment to think things through. But eventually, he relented, and gave her one: Evsei Fieuchevsky. “I don’t know that he’s involved, but he might know some people who might know.”
Fieuchevsky had claimed to know nothing, and it didn’t matter. A search of his desk drawer revealed an old- fashioned address book. Somebody down the line would know what had happened to Patrick.
No time to think about it now.
On to the next item on the agenda.
He was very anxious to leave Philadelphia.
Calling Mothers had been the mistake of the year. He wasn’t going to repeat that mistake.
He was going to follow Lennon to the money, then pop Lennon and take the money. Call a tip in to the FBI. Let them pick up their man, deal with the mess. Saugherty would still need a story, but that could come later.
Lennon left Strawbridge’s, but didn’t return to his stolen car. He simply strolled the length of the store, on the side away from the main bustle of the mall, and selected another vehicle—some early model Chevy. He was inside within seconds. Saugherty couldn’t even see how he did it. Amazing. It reminded him of a video game his son loved called
