A tired-looking middle aged waitress glanced up at me, that mix of interest and disdain typical of service industry employees writ large on her face. Most of the patrons that time of day were older Chicagoans, bitching about the Bears or New Yorkers, or whatever.
Father Gilberti/Marco sat in the booth furthest from the door, next to the kitchen entrance. Smart. He’d set himself up so he could watch the entrance and also had a clear avenue of escape.
He spotted me, and I couldn’t help but glare. That was the asshat who’d spotted me in the alley when I offed Diego, all right. His priest’s frock couldn’t hide the fact he was a predator. It was in his beady dark eyes.
I strolled casually back to his booth and plopped down in front of him.
“Hello, Marco.”
He looked up at me and licked his dry, cracked lips.
“You came.”
“Of course, I came. The fuck else was I gonna do? You’re my ticket to staying out of the slammer.”
He lifted his coffee mug to his lips with trembling hands. “Did you notice those two out front?”
“I did. Your witsec friends?”
Marco nodded. “There’s another car parked out back, two guys I don’t know, but they’re definitely cops.”
I nodded, taking his word for it. Marco had the same instincts I did, honed by years of dealing with, or better yet, avoiding, law enforcement.
“How are you going to get me out of here?”
I glanced out the picture window. “You got a car?”
“That green Ford out there. I filched it from the O’Hare long-term parking lot.”
“Smart. Won’t be reported stolen till the owner gets back.” I stood up and stretched. “Let’s get going.”
“You—you just want to walk out the front door?”
“Marco—or should I say, Father Gilberti?” I snickered. “Technically you’re a free man. You can walk away from witsec any time you want, legally. They’re not going to try and nab you in broad daylight.”
“You underestimate how bad they want to take you down, Indro. This goes way beyond the Loggia family.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Now that was news to me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I hear shit. I’ll tell you all about it if you can keep me alive long enough to do so.”
“All right. We’re going to walk out to your car, all casual like. Give me your keys.”
Marco stared at me for a long moment. “Ain’t no keys. It’s hot-wired.”
“Oh, right. Let’s do this. I’m driving.”
Marco sucked down the rest of his coffee and we strolled out the front entrance. We got about ten feet from the Ford when our undercover friends revved up the Nissan and burned rubber into the street.
“Screw casual, run!”
I jumped behind the wheel and sparked the wires together, bitching when I got a little jolt. Marco snapped his seat belt on as I tore out into the street, the cops a car length behind.
“They’re not popping their cherry on top,” I said. “At least we won’t have to deal with blue boys.”
“That just means they’re going to kill me.”
“That also means they don’t have back up.”
As if on cue, an older Lincoln Town Car with a primer-colored trunk joined the chase. Must have been the guys watching the rear exit. They hit a pothole and bounced hard, sparks flying up from their undercarriage.
“I told you.”
“Calm down, Marco. It’s the middle of the day, it’s not like they’re going to start shoot—”
A bang followed by the Ford’s side mirror shattering a split second later cut me off.
“Or maybe they will.”
You know the old cliché about shooting out tires? Doesn’t work so well. You’d be surprised how long you can go with one flat tire, even if it’s down to the rim. Well, those bastards shot out my mother fucking tires. We skidded crazily down the lane, shooting up sparks in a shower behind us.
I had no traction. It was like skidding on ice. I spotted a run-down stove factory and aimed for the rusted, cyclonic-fence gate.
The gate smashed apart, a bit of heavy chain smacking into the Ford’s windshield and cracking it into a spiderweb pattern. I couldn’t see shit. I threw the wheel hard to the left and skidded into the truck bay. Marco and I bounced hard. I bit my tongue.
We leaped out and ran like hell for the padlocked door as our friends careened through the chain link gate. I kicked the door, but it didn’t budge.
It was risky as hell, but I drew one of the Berettas and fired at the chain. I missed the first three shots before I finally severed a link. A bit of shrapnel shot up and cut Marco on the cheek.
I kicked the door open at last and I shoved Marco ahead of me. I followed a step behind, and we found ourselves on a wide-open factory floor without a damn strip of cover anywhere. I turned toward Marco.
“You clipped?”
“No.”
“Then stay behind cover. Don’t fucking move. If I go down, find Sophie Vercetti. She’ll know what to do.”
If I were going to die, I wanted to make sure Sophie could at least protect herself. Exposing the conspiracy would do just that.
We got behind rectangular concrete pillars just in the nick of time. Our undercover boys scrambled through the entrance. I fired off a few wild shots and managed to nick one of the undercover cops in the thigh.
There was a chance I could have offed them before they got to us first, but I never got the chance to find out. Marco panicked and ran out from behind his pillar. He went down in a hail of gunfire. As soon as I saw the first geyser of blood fountain from his back, I started running in the opposite direction.
The cops followed, firing away like bullets
