‘I don’t follow.’
‘Scarsden here seems to know a bit about me. I am indeed a native of Chicago. I still have a lot of friends there. There and elsewhere. One of them rang me last night. Told me an interesting tale. Told me the organisation has put a contract out on me. A hit. Me. After all I have done for them. You understand what I mean?’
‘We can offer protection. You can trust me,’ says Montifore, but that only elicits a snort of contempt.
‘Why?’ asks Martin. ‘Why do they want you dead?’
‘They’ve been told, on the best authority, that I’m a grass. Some snivelling shit in the FBI told them I’m feeding information to your Crime Commission.’
‘Are you?’ asks Martin.
‘Fuck you, pal,’ says Sweetwater, voice low and menacing, hand tightening on the gun.
‘Why tell us this, if you don’t want protection?’ Montifore persists.
Sweetwater looks up at the sky, purses his lips. Then he looks first at Montifore, then at Martin. ‘I want you to clear my name.’
‘What? How?’ asks Montifore.
‘I’m being set up. Framed. I didn’t kill Molloy, I didn’t order his killing, I didn’t know he was dead. And I didn’t know he was a fucking cop. If I’d known that, I would have killed him.’ He takes a breath, as if containing anger. Or regret. ‘And I didn’t kill the fucking judge or that arsehole reporter. I had nothing to do with any of it. And yet my connections here are washing their hands of me. I’m being made a scapegoat.’
‘Who by?’ asks Martin.
‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Sweetwater smiles again, opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it. For a moment, he’s dead still, as if the mechanism running the day is changing gear, moving to a larger cog, slowing the world down. Martin watches on, unable to move, as events begin to unfold, frame by frame. He sees Sweetwater’s fingers tighten on the gun handle, the knuckles whitening, the barrel lifting. ‘You cunts,’ spits the mafia man, as if speaking underwater, even as he begins to stand, the weapon coming to bear as he rises to his feet. It’s pointed at Montifore, Sweetwater’s finger on the trigger, the policeman starting to raise his hands in futile defence. But there is no shot, no flaring of gun smoke. Sweetwater’s head is turning away, looking beyond Montifore and Martin. Still he doesn’t shoot, moving instead, starting to run. Martin watches him, his mind still trying to catch up, even as Montifore lowers his arms to look. Sweetwater is a step away, two steps, three, accelerating through treacle.
Martin swivels, sees a man in an antique suit approaching, walking calmly, seemingly unnoticed among his fellow pedestrians, striding like a gunslinger, his long hair oiled back. That must be Henry Livingstone, some outlier in Martin’s brain reports in, some distant colony informing its capital. Livingstone is wielding a gun, holding it before him at arm’s length, a large and brutal thing, matt-black steel—an instrument of death, and elegance be fucked. Henry Livingstone: in the flesh, here, brandishing a revolver.
‘Down,’ yells Martin, reaching for Montifore, pulling the policeman from his seat, pulling him downwards towards the concrete as a shot powers above them, a booming explosion coming from the suited man. Martin witnesses the muzzle flash, believes he smells the cordite, even as he hits the ground, a shrill pain firing through his elbow as it strikes the pavement. The shot echoes in the smoke-filled day, the sound fragmenting like shrapnel, bouncing every which way from the uneven surfaces of the adjacent building. Another shot follows, booming like a cannon, like an artillery piece, echoes chasing the first.
Livingstone has reached them now, riding boots polished to a high sheen. He glances down to where they cower. For a moment, for a single frame, his eye catches Martin’s. The killer smiles, gold tooth glinting, and he winks. Winks at Martin, and moves on. Close by, ravens launch into the air, cawing madly.
The mechanism behind the world changes down a gear, and life begins to speed up again, a moment after it could have seized up altogether, the moment when their eyes met, the killer and the journalist, when death stood just a metre away, wearing riding boots and a well-tailored suit, winking at him like an old friend.
Martin rises to his knees, adrenaline quieting the pain in his elbow, preparing to stand, when he hears the triple volley coming in response from Sweetwater, some distance away now and out of sight, firecracker retorts, a treble staccato, a contrapuntal response to Henry Livingstone’s basso profundo revolver. A chamber orchestra of death. A bullet goes screaming, ricocheting from the metal street furniture, the chair beside Martin ringing like a bell with the impact. Martin looks to Montifore, sees his own mind reflected in the face of the detective: not fear, not panic, just the struggle for comprehension.
Pap. Pap. More shots from Sweetwater, further away now, but no less emphatic, the brushed-steel accessory singing death. A boom, Livingstone responding in kind, Martin and Montifore struggling to their feet, the combatants leaving them, vanishing into the smoke. And now silence, there is silence, like the city is holding its breath, no sound as pedestrians stare out of hollow eyes, unbelieving.
And then the silence is broken by an animal shriek, a howl of pain. Someone has been shot. Martin starts to move, the detective next to him, pushing forward, into the smoke, into the veil. Another gear shift, and the world spins them forward, running in the direction of Livingstone and Sweetwater, even as bystanders are starting to move the other way, desperate to get away from the men with guns, desperate to get away from the blood and the terror.
Somehow Martin knows it’s too late, all too late, but they run anyway.
They come first to the woman, writhing on the ground, blood soaking her. A man is with her, an office worker, kneeling, his coat off, his shirt off, trying to stem the bleeding, trying in vain.
