Wheelman, The

IT WASN’T THAT KATIE ESPECIALLY MINDED BEING HAND- cuffed to a pole all day. She could deal with that. She didn’t even mind the tender bruising on her face from where that Russian had punched her. She could deal with that, too.

What she couldn’t deal with: how badly she needed to pee.

It was a pregnancy thing.

Katie was in Henry’s bedroom, that much she knew. She’d been in here once before, when he’d given her and Patrick the grand tour. She didn’t expect her next visit to Henry’s bedroom to involve loss of consciousness, handcuffs, and a support column, around which her arms were secured backward, behind her back. Henry didn’t seem like the kinky type.

After the Russian had decked her, she’d woken up on the couch. The Russian had a black revolver pressed to the back of Henry’s head. “They want you to make a tape recording,” he said calmly, his eyes trying to communicate something else. “I suggest we do what they say, then sort this out later.”

Katie didn’t argue the point. She had felt bad—she obviously had led the Russian right here and gotten Henry tangled up in this. Patrick would have never involved Henry. Not for a million bucks. She was disgusted with herself. There was so much she needed to learn.

Michael kept telling her that. Not in a snide way. Just in his typical, nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact way. Michael was a real professional. It’s what had attracted her to him in the first place.

Katie spoke the words Henry gave her into the tape recorder, trying to reassure Patrick by how calm she could sound. As if nothing were wrong. She tried to think of a code word, something to let Patrick know where she was, but couldn’t think of anything. It all happened too fast.

There was a knock at the door. The Russian forced Henry up to answer it. It was two young-looking white boys who desperately wanted to look black. They didn’t look at Henry. She didn’t know them, but she started putting the pieces together. One of the white boys was probably the third guy on the Wachovia job—aside from Lennon and Bling. And this third guy had sold the job out to the Russians.

The thicker of the two white boys handcuffed her to a support column in Henry’s bedroom. Henry tried to reassure her: “Everything’s going to be fine”—before he was hustled out the door with the other white boy and the Russian. They were off to find Patrick. Or threaten him. Or kill him. Or bring him back here, then threaten and kill him. That was probably it. Why else would the Russian keep her alive?

Fifteen minutes later, it first occurred to Katie that she had to pee.

Thirty minutes later, she knew she was going to have to do something drastic, or otherwise wet herself. As well as Henry’s fancy Pergo bedroom floor.

“Hey.”

Her captor. He was a young-looking blond-haired Alpha Chi thick-neck, complete with college sweatshirt and scuffed baggy pants. Joe Frat, with a heavy pistol. He obviously wasn’t a member of the Russian mafiya; he was an errand boy. An extremely odd choice for an errand boy.

“Want a blow job?”

It took some more sweet talk, but the Alpha Chi thick-neck eventually agreed to her proposal. After all, he’d led a life where it was easy to believe that random women wanted nothing more than to take his cock into their mouths. But he was no fool, this boy. First, he made her promise that she wouldn’t use any teeth. Katie promised. Then she asked him if he wouldn’t mind servicing her first, otherwise, it would just be demeaning. Alpha Chi eagerly agreed to her amendment to the proposal. That sounded even better—she must be really into him. The thick-neck said he really liked doing that. He probably had a very satisfied Gamma Delta gazelle somewhere in the city.

He dropped to his knees, then unbuttoned Katie’s jeans and lowered the zipper.

“Be gentle with me,” she cooed, and waited for him to look up at her.

When he did, she smashed her knee into his Adam’s apple. It was the most effective way to kill a man with a single body part, be it the flat of a hand, an elbow, or a knee. Patrick had taught her that. Joe Frat died fairly quickly, scraping the Pergo floors with his thick monkey-boy fingers until they stopped twitching.

The only problem was: she had no way of searching him for a key.

She had no way to contact Michael.

And she still very badly, very desperately, had to pee.

Many, many hours later, the cell phone in the corpse’s pants pocket rang.

No One Answers

LENNON STOLE A CAR A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE safe house in South Philly, then drove up Twentieth Street all the way to Center City. The clouds were low and the wind was cold. Lennon found a parking spot on Rittenhouse Square, miraculously enough. The doorman didn’t bother with him, once he told him where he was headed. Lennon put his ear to Wilcoxson’s door and listened, then knocked.

Fuck.

There was no answer.

Wilcoxson was his ace in the hole—the only guy in Philadelphia he could trust. Lennon hadn’t clued him in to the Wachovia heist ahead of time; better for Wilcoxson not to know. The old man had retired from the business years ago. No sense dragging him into something that could come back to bite him on the arse. Still, Wilcoxson had always been there for him in the past, and there was no reason not to go to him now. Lennon felt hopelessly outnumbered—Russian and Italian gangsters here, rogue cops there. This wasn’t his city. He needed help, protection. A few hours just to breathe. Wilcoxson could give that to him. Mentor to mentee, one last time. For old time’s sake.

But Wilcoxson wasn’t home.

Double fuck.

Lennon walked back down the hallway to the elevator, then took a car down to the lobby again. He scanned the lobby, hoping he might see Wilcoxson, lazing about, maybe kissing a Rittenhouse Square socialite good night, until we meet again, blah blah blah. Lennon had always wanted money just to live. Wilcoxson wanted money to buy a better life. The old man had grown up dirt poor in Brooklyn and clawed his way up and out during the 1960s. He never wanted to go back.

Lennon knew he couldn’t stay in this lobby forever. He was wearing a sharp Italian suit, but he still looked like he had gone six rounds with a piece of industrial machinery. And lost. The Rittenhouse Hotel management would get nervous soon.

Triple fuck.

This is the way it always was. Lennon hated asking for help. He absolutely loathed it. Lennon grew up promising himself he would never ask his father for anything as long as he lived—his father considered basic food and run-down shelter in a bad neighborhood gifts enough—and Lennon stuck to that promise. Even in jail. Self-reliance was always his preferred course.

But the moment he broke down and decided that asking for help was the most reasonable course, help was suddenly not available. There was no one to turn to. There was no help in this world. You were always lugging the load by yourself. Surround yourself with family, with loved ones, with minions, with partners, with whoever. But the truth remained: everyone has to do it alone.

Lennon exited the hotel lobby and started walking toward Locust Street. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts, he almost didn’t see him.

The dead man, walking out of the park.

Kick Back

FUCKING DEREK. HE NEVER TURNED HIS CELL PHONE on. What was the point of owning one of the fucking things if you never turned it on? So instead of chilling out for a couple of hours like he had promised himself—hey, throwing dead bodies down a fucking pipe is still hard work, no matter how you cut it—he was forced to drive all the way back down to Center City to check in on Derek and Lennon’s bitch.

The doorman looked at him funny at first, then regained his composure. He must have remembered him from