The Cold Spot

racked it. “I’ll be able to hold the fort with this.”

“We won’t be far,” Jonah said. “We’ll cut through the backyard, circle around the block, come up behind the house.”

Mrs. Nicholson’s place was dark except for one dim light in the living room.

The sun had only been down a few minutes, but Jonah didn’t want to wait for fear the crew might come by and make a hit before he and Chase could get over there. They went out the back door, hopped the fence, and worked their way through neighboring yards, circling in a wide arc.

There was a sense of time moving very quickly now. The understanding that it was running out, or had already run out, and they could do nothing but wait for whatever was so nearby to strike. There was no averting it, no deflecting it.

Chase was very quiet but still louder than Jonah, who moved silently and kept to the shadows like he owned them. They spotted and avoided motion-detector lamps, property with dogs, a couple of loud households where rowdy cadres watched a late baseball game. Everybody was losing money on the Mets.

They got to Mrs. Nicholson’s backyard and eased through an overgrown hedge. Chase put a foot on the lawn and felt something brush his ankle. The cats were loose. Seven or eight of them, slinking about, pooling in the gray patches of light bleeding through the clouds. Their eyes glowed a fiery amber, and the curves of their fangs were outlined in blue detail. They mewled and me-owed. Whoever was inside had tossed them out and they were aggravated about it, maybe starved.

Jonah whispered, “Make sure none of them follow us inside.”

Chase and Jonah moved to the back door, which opened into the kitchen. Jonah let him take point, of course. He’d expected that too. He had a very clear image of getting gut-shot and lying there while Jonah ran away and ransacked Chase’s house, stealing Lila’s candlestick holders.

The thought of it made his shoulders tighten. Jonah noticed and put a hand on his back, pushing forward because he thought Chase had frozen with fear. The old man really never had known him at all.

Drawing his tools out of his jacket, Chase got to work. It took fifteen seconds to pop the door. He inched it open and squirted oil onto the hinges so there wouldn’t be any squeaking.

A sharp crew but maybe not sharp enough. The guy should’ve blocked the door with something-a chair, a beer bottle, a stack of glasses. Anything to warn him that somebody was coming in, but he hadn’t taken the precaution.

So, either an oversight or a trap.

Chase crept in, his grandfather at his heel.

Mrs. Nicholson and Freddy were seated at the kitchen table. Side by side. Their heads almost touching.

At least Chase figured it was them. Two body-sized shapes wrapped in garbage bags and cocooned with duct tape. The roll was still on the counter. The bodies didn’t stink all that much, considering. The cat piss smell overpowered it.

Chase thought, Because of me, because of my mistakes.

He tasted Marisa Iverson and didn’t know what it meant until he realized he’d bitten through his tongue and his mouth was full of blood.

The fire began to burn again but he fought off a wave of guilt and forced himself to stay focused. He pulled the 9mm, hating the feel of it in his hand but adoring its intention.

The guy was napping at the front window, sitting in a worn love seat with an MP3 player in his hand and the tinny sound of music coming from his earplugs. He’d been here a day or two and the boredom had made him sloppy.

He was slim, a little younger than Chase, with a pretty-boy roguishness and his hair moussed all to hell. Probably took him forty-five minutes every morning to affect that nonchalant hipster messiness. Dressed down in a wife-beater T-shirt and stained jeans. Young girls would’ve found him beautiful.

Chase didn’t get a pro vibe off this guy. Something was wrong.

He smelled setup but couldn’t see any kind of trap. He quickly walked up and cracked the fucker across the head with the butt of the 9mm. The guy’s eyes shot open and then quickly closed again as he tumbled to the floor. The solid thunk of metal on bone was so satisfying that Chase had to restrain himself to keep from doing it again and smashing the guy’s skull in.

Jonah had drawn his favored.38 and was searching through the small house. He returned and gave a headshake. Nobody else in the place.

First thing Jonah did was rifle the guy’s wallet and pull all the cash. Looked like three or four hundred bucks. Jonah pocketed it and checked the driver’s license. “It’s a fake. Shitty work too. Looks like it was glued together in a half hour. First time stopped at a traffic light he’d be busted. Name on it is Timmy Rosso. He can’t be a pro, sleeping on the job. They killed the old lady and her son and then suckered him into taking this fall.”

“Is he carrying a phone?”

Jonah found the guy’s cell and handed it to Chase. Only one number programmed in. Terrific, he thought. Now we have to go through this shit again.

Chase walked away and Jonah said, “Where are you going?”

You couldn’t do much but you had to do something. Chase went to the back door and opened it, letting in the cats. There were empty food and water bowls in the corner of the kitchen. He found the cat food under the sink, filled the bowls, poured water, and watched the hungry cats tearing in. He turned and stared at the figures of the dead old woman and her retarded son wrapped in their own garbage bags. Lila was in his head saying, Sweetness, you gone far enough for me, I’m proud of you. Now it’s time to stop. And don’t let that granddaddy of yours touch the good silverware.

Jonah stared at him like he’d gone insane, which was fine. Chase found a vase full of dead flowers, filled it at the sink, walked back into the living room, and tossed it in Timmy Rosso’s face, dried stems and all.

As the guy came awake Chase looked at Rosso, pointed the 9mm in his face, and asked, “Hey, any chance you’re the driver?”

7

T he look Jonah gave him said, What the fuck kind of question is that? He knows you want the driver. Even if it is him, he won’t admit to it.

That’s because Jonah didn’t understand that wheelmen had their own thing going. They wanted to be known. It set them apart like the old-time juggers, the safecrackers. Or the demolition men, who were the only ones willing to touch nitro. They had special skills, talents that made them distinct from the rest of the string. It made them a little vain.

If it was him, he’d say it.

“No,” Rosso told him, dead flower petals in his dripping hair. Blood pulsed across his forehead and threaded into his eyes. “I don’t do that.”

There was a whine and some real fear in his voice. “And I didn’t kill those two in the kitchen either.”

“I didn’t think so,” Chase said. “Do you know who they were?”

“No, I never saw them. They were already…covered when I got here.”

“So who snuffed them?”

“I…I can’t say.”

“I think you can.”

“No, really, listen to me-”

Chase held up a hand and cut him off. Rosso wasn’t one of the string. The guy was holding back out of fear, not loyalty or professionalism. They’d hired him especially for this part of the job, to watch and report, and then go down.