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Earlier

“Right from the moment Davie Cavalcanti became a problem, early this week, I wanted to know who he is,” Mia told Carson.

Carson, standing behind her chair, rubbed her neck, looking.  “Yeah.”

“Who he is, what he does, why, how.  But he’s hard to pin down.  He’s careful, he’s smart.  I’ve showed you how I tracked other groups.  Back in my early days?  When I wanted to know who my potential clients and enemies were.”

“Yeah.”

“Davie Cavalcanti is careful, alert, has eyes in the sky.  Does he do everything I’d do in his shoes, to protect himself?  Landmines, that term you like.  Not putting anything online?  No.  But I think he might do some… so we have to anticipate them all, anyway.”

“Makes sense.  So you tried to get the shape of things around him other ways.”

“I dug into the family online.  as much as I could without touching on any potential landmines.  Surface level social media, aunties, relations, who associated with who- seeing which names popped up, and then seeing who connected to those names.  Finding the soft points.”

Carson couldn’t understand all of that, but he could see the system of organization unfold as she showed him.  Mia had tagged people and framed them with colors, moving them around an image file in a hierarchy that suggested their role in this.

“It’s harder to pin down who is under who.  That’s not a strength of mine.  Age was often a good tell.  Prison time could be, too.  Court records.  Doing ten years in prison is the kind of loyalty that gets rewarded with positions.”

“Naturally,” Carson said.

“But as I was sorting this out, I remembered something you told me, years ago.  That they’re kids.  Whoever Davie is, whatever The Kitchen is, their process, rules, the errand boys, the ‘soldiers’ with guns, the guys -and the occasional girl- on the ground?”

“Kids.  Yeah.  Start them young, mid to late teens.  Early teens, in the worst neighborhoods.  They learn, do the work, get immersed in things, so the gang’s their friends, their family, their hopes, their dreams, the world outside’s a bubble that makes them insecure, but they can’t ever admit to being afraid, because that’s death to them.”

“Okay.  Yeah,” Mia murmured.  “You said something similar before.  Except for the death thing.”

“Maybe it’s on my mind.  Okay.  So they’re kids.”

“Some groups do that, like you talk about.  The best of them get picked out to be promoted up.  They run groups of kids, control neighborhoods or areas of neighborhoods.  This is the part I understand,” Mia said.  “They want to build a machine.  One where they don’t have to put a lot of thought into things.  One where the lieutenants and kids reliably deliver their part of things.  But it’s not simple because, again, even the lieutenants and young and stupid?  That’s not how you put it, but…”

“Yeah.  I ran into a lot of them.  There’s rules on how you deal with them if you cross paths, big one being respect, and knowing the situations where they keep to their own and the situations where they might be open to new friends… but they’re simple.  A lot of these guys don’t know shit.  With money, no guidance, sometimes no family to fall back on, no dad to ask for business advice, when the business is drugs?  They’re in their twenties with a ton of money and no oversight, nobody’s taught them to budget or restrain themselves, so they fuck up.  Which can fuck up their place in the machine.”

Which was where he’d often sidle in.

Mia clicked through some windows.  “I thought that would be a weak point- if kids got sloppy or made mistakes where the older Cavalcantis don’t, but they aren’t sloppy.  Instead, I found organization.  At the risk of biasing your interpretation here, I think they recognized the problem you’re talking about.”

“Okay.  A lot of the guys- the ‘kids’ as we’re calling them, it’d be women.  Young gangsters don’t always know how to cook or clean, so they find a woman to do it for them.  Flash some money, find someone desperate for a higher standard of living.”

“There’s that,” Mia said.  “A lot of the ones I pegged as low-level lieutenants or higher, they have wives or long-term girlfriends, fiancees.”

“Show me?”

She clicked through windows.

“Higher rate than average, yeah,” he noted.

“But the big one?” she asked.

She showed him.

Elena Bruno, on Go Foto Yourself, crowing about purchasing a new home, a few months after marrying the very tattooed Jimmy Bruno.  Mimi Marino, doing the same after marrying Claud Marino.  Marco Harville, seen on social media with his friends, standing around a new pool table in a large house, surrounded by boxes.

So it went.

“I see the pattern,” Carson remarked.  “So… I get the feeling they pair you up or expect you to have a partner.  Makes it harder to back out if you’re a family,” he said, glancing at her.

“As we’ve run into,” she said.

“Worth the price.  And the houses are the same?  What’s the story here?  Gangsters in their twenties are buying houses?”

“A lot of information about housing is freely available if you go to or through the county clerk’s office.  A history of past owners and transfers is easy.  A search against taxes against the property needs an application form and a few days- maybe a few more days, since the government buildings are on fire and things were shutting down.”

“Maybe not doable.  Is it important?”

“Probably not.  Might give a better picture about what they’re doing with the ‘I’m a criminal, do I pay taxes’ question.  Court cases against a property can be searched online.  Name and judgment… then you look at names.”

“Okay.  Does it tie back?”

“Unfortunately no.  No single realtor.  No single lawyer.  But look.  If we take all the properties owned by middle-to-lower ranking members of the Cavalcanti organization, co-signers on mortgage applications…”

Carson borrowed the mouse to scroll down, finding the co-signers for each.  He shook his head.  “Not a pattern, as far as I can see.  Am I meant to recognize these names?  They’re not ones you gave people, right?”

“No.  But how many don’t have co-signers?  Or, I’ll make this easier.  Can you find one that has a co-signer on the mortgage that is even a wife of the guy signing?”

Every house had a co-signer.  Not wives.

“Made up people?”

“No,” Mia said.  “Unless they were as good as mine, I think I could spot those.”

In moments like this, her face lit by the computer screen, she looked more herself than ever.  In her element, secure, alert, even a bit proud- as much as she let herself be.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Regular people with decent incomes from tougher areas of the city, on the hook in case things go wrong.  Maybe they’re in debt to the Cavalcantis, and this is an option provided.  Maybe there’s hidden elements of… the paperwork also arrives at the co-signer’s house, so they forward that to a Cavalcanti office, to make sure the lieutenants aren’t screwing up behind the scenes.  Control, more eyes, interconnects things in a way that doesn’t paint a clear picture, legally, makes it hard to pull free- for both the co-signers and the lieutenants.”

“How do we use that?”

“Longer-term, there might be a way to exploit that.  It also raises other questions- like the banks that signed off on this- are they using one they know won’t look too deeply at the information?  But for right now?  I asked myself… if this is a gang-wide practice, did they find the co-signers from territories a given member of the organization controlled?  If I sort my spreadsheet by the given address of co-signers…”

“You’re so sexy,” Carson said.  “Sort those spreadsheets.”

She rolled her eyes at him.  “…and re-run the code that sorts the images…”

The images being snapshots from social media with the colored borders and names beneath them, sorted with the higher ranking members of the family up to the top, lower ranking members of the Cavalcantis toward the bottom.  Translucent lines drew connections between people.

“If you look at the translucent lines only, you’d think it’s the aunties on social media who are the real power,” Carson said.

“They’re the sloppiest with their information.  Still.”

The image stuttered, then went black.  It took a few seconds to load in, with elements coming in one by one, jerking and freezing for a moment before it chugged past the finish line.

Members of the Cavalcanti family, sorted by the people they’d preyed on.

Nicholas Cavalcanti, head of the family.  People working for him had heavy ties to Downtown West, Downtown East, Frideswide, Halfside, The Dunes…

Charlie ‘The Butcher’ Pullen, enforcer.  Absorbed in from another gang.  His cousin was Nicholas’ wife, now.  People associated with him were tied to Flack-Livingstone, Thornton Park, Madera Del Gremio, Albright Village…

Davie Cavalcanti, middle son.  There weren’t as many.  Burntown, Horizon, Corning Ditch, Loom West…

“Does Davie not have as much territory?”

“They’re spread out.  I don’t know.  I was surprised.”

Mia brought up a map before Carson was done scanning over it with his eyes, associating names with places.

Neighborhoods littered with dots, tinted certain colors.  They’d chopped up the city between them.

All the way down at the bottom of the big six was Andre Cavalcanti.  Toohoo Lake, Oak Quarter, South Wesleyham, and Alderside, where they’d kidnapped the Cavalcanti youths from.  It lined up.

“I’d bet Davie doesn’t like this, and it’s why he didn’t get so involved with it.  Maybe his older brother had to force him,” Carson said.

“That’s your instinct?”

“Yeah.  Still… this is good.”

The city, sprawling across the coast, now color coded, with whole tracts tinted one color or another.  Blue for Nicholas, red for The Butcher, yellow for Davie… and each section had the portraits of gang members floating over them- where they lived.  Ones who hadn’t been placed were grouped in row and column beneath the larger picture, for the person they worked directly under.

All the other major cities nearby were there too- but Mia hadn’t quite gotten that far with the grunt work behind the scenes.  People, here and there, for a splash of color, or a portrait with a circle around it, to show the likely area he was in.  Two of the four members of the gang still existed in abstract, operating elsewhere.

“We have a sense of where they operate,” Mia said.

“Time to do something surgical with them,” Carson quipped.

⯁

Now

They’d spent an hour watching things by the docks.  Spence Bolden was looking for something.  Mia had clarified how some of the companies from back when Bolden was active had changed names.  That had helped.

“I cant stick with you through all of this, I’ve got other stuff to get handled,” Carson said.

“This kind of surveillance takes weeks,” Bolden said.

“We have help, hopefully that shortens it to days.  Or hours,” Carson told him.

Bolden scoffed a bit.

“If you were doing this on your own, vendetta against the Cavalcantis- more than you have, for them stealing your setup and methods.  How would you do it?” Carson asked.

“Are they coming for me?”

“Let’s assume no.”

“Then I’d go to where they live.  Track them, wait for a patch of bad weather, visit their homes.”

“Why bad weather?”

“Pushes them out of their routines, some, means all the cameras that are everywhere won’t get a good look at me.  I’m more comfortable in cold rain and mud than they are.”

“Our employer on the other side of the phone can handle cameras, right?” Highland asked.

“Depends,” Carson said.  “I think it’s mostly that some cameras are badly set up.  She can use that.  Not all cameras are like that.”

“Hm, okay.”

“How would you handle it?” Carson asked Highland.

“Tough ask.  I don’t know that much about finding people.  Give me an address, maybe I find a good spot.  Sniper rifle.  Then I’d wait.  I’d appreciate a spotter.  It’s not like it is in the movies.  We’d be camping out for hours, taking turns, one doing general observation, one behind the gun.”

“Can you?” Carson asked Bolden.  “Spot?”

“Sure.”

Highland looked a little wary of that.  Probably because he wasn’t exactly feeling the chemistry, and spending eight hours somewhere with bugs and everything else, with a personality like Bolden?  That’d be hard.

“That can be a backup plan,” Carson said.  “Both of those plans take time.  What if it had to be tonight?”

“Weather tonight’s going to be good.  Less doable,” Bolden said.

“I could go in shooting,” Highland said, he sighed, shifting position, one foot up on the back seat of the car, shoulder against the window.  “I know my shit, I’m good at this, but-”

Carson finished the statement, saying, “But pretty much anyone you run into is likely to be armed.  Even more so than usual, for these days.  It’s fine.  That tells me you’re sane.  Okay.  Follow your instincts, be good, no violence just yet, let’s hold off on alerting them.”

He was pretty sure Bolden would listen to that.

“What other stuff are you handling?” Bolden asked.

“Working for our mutual friend.  Making someone disappear for Davie Cavalcanti.  It puts me close to him.”

“Dangerous,” Highland said.

“Yeah.  We’ll see.  You guys know the deal, right?  If this goes south, if you get spotted doing surveillance…”

“They won’t let us live.  Hurts them more if we lie.  Stick to the story.”

“Gives you more ammo, if they have any mercy in them at all,” Carson said.  “Things to negotiate with.”

“Got it,” Highland said.  He leaned forward and looked at Bolden.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Carson collected his things, including the drink from the coffee shop they’d stopped at.  He’d get a ride to somewhere close to Mia, then travel to a base of operations.

He was halfway down the block when he had a thought.

He called Mia.

“Hi.”

“At work?” he asked.

“Done my work for the day.  Puttering away on my computer.”

Meaning she was doing setup work.  Like the maps and things.  Slowly, steadily, and relentlessly.  She brought a separate laptop to work from when at the hospital.

“Heading your way.  Should I meet you at the house or at work?”

“Work.  I was thinking it might be better if I stayed.”

“Yeah?” he asked.  Did she mean- “Are you sure?”

“All the places we like are ruined.”

They were.  Davie Cavalcanti had asked for access to the trail cameras.  They’d given him that to foster trust.  Those same cameras were aimed at the places they liked to operate out of, and the roads leading in and out, as well as just about every key location they could manage without being suspicious.  It wouldn’t be surprising if there were some drones out there too.

Carson wondered if the guy Mia had called Drone Man would be back in action in any capacity, days after having his shins and feet blasted out by rock salt.

“It’s hard to do things on the spur of the moment.”

“True,” Mia said.

“And that’s the point, right?”

“Yeah.  Ugh.”

“What’s the least bad place that’s still accessible?”

“Let’s talk when you get here.”

He ordered a ride by app, then got off at the hospital.  The staff in Mia’s area knew him well enough that they waved him through, letting him go behind the counter and to the back offices.

She was there, at her computer, folders of paperwork beside her, color coded, with colorful tabs.  He eased the door closed behind him.

Mia didn’t have a supervisor, per se, but there were people who managed her, and gave her directions.  One of them, Jo, an older woman with white hair buzzed short, made a joke, “Don’t get up to any hanky panky with the door closed, kids!”

Carson rolled his eyes, smiling a bit.

Her setup here was similar to home- a desk positioned so that, sitting there, she had a view of the door and anyone coming in.  She didn’t change the screen or hide her personal laptop when he came around the desk.

More research.

He offered her a bag of room temperature lunch things.  Muffin, soup.  She unpacked it and pulled a spoon out of her drawer before drinking it.

“Skipped lunch?” he guessed.

“Yeah.  It’s fine.”

“I know it’s fine, but is it good?  Optimal?” he asked.  “The rule of thumb, if one need’s suffering-”

“What’s suffering?” she asked.

“Have you had any rest?” he asked.  “Let your mind cool down a bit?”

“I don’t function that way.  I’ve told you.”

“I know, but… that costs.  Have you slept?”

“You were right beside me.  You tell me.”

“Some sleep.  Some eating.  You’re taking shortcuts on yourself.  If we find ourselves in a bad situation, you might regret it.”

“Okay,” she said.  She sat back in her chair, bringing the soup with her, resting it on her upper chest.  “Noted.”

“Now I feel bad, because I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to put more on your plate.”

“Ask me,” she said.

He frowned.

“It’s important?” she asked.

“It’s an idea.”

“Okay.  Let’s negotiate.  Tell me, let me help, and I’ll… make up the lost time.  Sleep, eating.”

He took in a deep breath, then nodded.  “Okay.  Is it okay if we talk family stuff here?”

“Yeah.  No bugs.  Place is clear.”

Like the drones being overhead when he’d let Valentina into the bomb shelter, it really was one of those things where if there was a bug, if there was a drone, the situation would already be much, much worse than it was.

Asking was more to give Mia that sense of control.  A reminder that some bases were covered.  With the prompt, it came from her, her own actions, rather than him telling her things and meeting initial resistance.

“Spence likes the idea of waiting for bad weather and going inside.  Pick out people in order of the most vulnerable to least, most crucial to least, I’d guess.”

“I’d do it another way,” Mia said.  She opened a file on her laptop, typed in a password, then angled it for Carson to see.  It was the same map from last night, with hours of work added to it.  Other cities had been filled in.  She opened up a duplicate version,  changed the sorting and waited for it to load.

“Aunties?” Carson asked.

“The people who bridge the gaps,” Mia said.  “Look, this lieutenant in the oldest brother’s branch of things is tied into all of these people on Andre’s side.”

She switched between the two versions- highlighted people on one copy, then found them on the other.  On the one screen, people listed in order of most connected- most involved with others.  On the other, it was the family grouped into branches, based on the mortgage co-signing.  When Mia highlighted people, the arrows drawn between them and other branches glowed a light yellow.

“Sure beats a corkboard with red string.”

“I don’t mind the corkboard idea,” Mia said.  “But my laptop is portable, a corkboard isn’t.”

“We’ve already kicked the hornet’s nest, taking three of theirs.  Threatening the others.  So… we go after people who tie the family together?”

“What happens if we target the people who tie Nicholas and Andre’s parts together?” Mia asked.  “What happens if there’s clear attempts to sow division in the family… and people get removed in a way that suggests whoever is removing them knows the family intimately?”

“Paranoia.  We could splinter the family.  And if Davie is exempt, or hurt less than either of his brothers, it could turn eyes his way.”

Mia turned in her chair.  Carson put a leg out to stop her mid-spin, so she faced him.  Mia said, “Doing what he might have already been planning, but badly.”

“Okay.  I had a thought on the way over.  We aren’t due for the kind of bad weather Spence Bolden likes until next Tuesday.  Maybe.  What if we do something similar?”

“Similar to bad weather?”

“Yeah.  My line of thought tied back to last week, then this one.  We went from Wildfire to-”

“Protests, the city on fire,” Mia finished the sentence.  Carson moved out of the way so she could spin a quarter-circle around and get to her keyboard.  “Does that work for Spence?”

“It still means there will be distractions, excuses for any power outages, it makes it harder to single him out if there’s a camera, it pushes people out of their normal routine.”

“I like it when people have a routine,” Mia said.

“Yeah.  But he’s a hunter.  To him, humans are animals.  Flush a bear out of a cave and confront it with loud noises and strange things, it’ll be alarmed, it might run.  Creep up on a bear in its cave…”

“Get mauled,” Mia said.  “Okay.  If it works for him.”

“I can get in touch with him.  Ask if that works.”

Mia was already searching MyFace groups, where people were organizing protests.

“Sleep in the car?” he asked.  “I’ll drive, get us set up.”

“Where?”

“The least bad place,” he said.  “We’ll keep masks on the entire time.”

“Okay.  You know that can only go so far, right?  I’m five foot eleven, one hundred and ninety pounds.  My physique stands out.  He could have seen me on camera earlier and then stumbled on me walking down the street and think, that’s her.  Drone man could give a physical description.”

“I know.  Let’s take the precautions we can, then hope that what we’re doing tonight will help distract him, so he’s playing defense and looking for bogeymen.  For now, best thing you can do?”

“Run.  Leave everything.  Except it would hurt the children, we’d be starting from scratch.”

“I was going to say eat.  Sleep.  Be your best self, so we can respond faster and better when trouble comes.”

If trouble comes, he thought.  Should have said that, to at least pretend things are better than they are.  But saying it out loud would only draw more attention to the slip of his tongue.

⯁

Something was wrong.

The feeling had dogged him for a while now.  It hung over things like the drones had, hard to put a finger on, but there, fleeting, and very, very dangerous.

No tricks, no ploys.

They’d been asked to do some busy work, looking after one of Davie’s people.  They had anticipated drones spying on them.  They’d swept the old disused cabin for bugs before starting.  They’d left a camera in the car, aimed at the sky above them.  Mia had a ‘landmine’ set up, ready to go, and had routed some messages that way.  If someone was looking in on their internet connection, they’d see a specific site crop up a few times.  When they went to check, Mia would know.

All it was was some stored backups of select camera stuff, showing some cars passing through.  Easily excusable.

No prying, no spying, no tripped landmines, no last minute changes in plans- the change of who they were removing was the last adjustment, and they’d had ample warning.  No bugs in the rooms they were having conversations.  No trackers around the cars they were using.  The search for Valentina in the city had backed down in intensity, resources moved to other places..

Valentina had made tomato soup and grilled cheese, served it, and was careful in every respect.  She’d taken a long nap in the middle of the day, but that was fine.  Being in the bunker could do that.  Still, Mia had kept an eye on the ventilation reports and prisoners.

Ripley and Tyr were fine, spending time with Josie.

After wrapping up the disappearance job, they’d confirmed the incoming payment, then reunited with Bolden and Highland, communicating the plan.  They’d gone home, with Mia letting Carson out of the moving car while it passed slowly over an old wooden bridge with heavy tree cover.  No indication of drones at any point.

The most optimistic view was that the internal warfare and issues with the Cavalcantis were tying Davie up.  If that was true, they needed to drive things home before he could recover.

Carson wasn’t sure he counted himself as an optimist, though.  He found he was more accurate when he expected less out of people.

Maybe that was the people he spent time with.

Either way, Mia would go home, making sure to try and shake any tails, airborne or otherwise, then help Carson by secure and unusual channels.

The protests had reached Frideswide, a nicer area of the city.  Both Nicholas and Davie Cavalcanti lived around here.  So did some of their higher-ups.  So did the state senator.

He’d let Spence Bolden out just outside the wealthy neighborhood, where houses each occupied their own scenic little spot, with stretches of grass and modest woodland over little hills helping them to space themselves out from their neighbors.  Driveways were often arcs, so someone could drive up, come to the front of the house, and carry forward, to depart at a separate point.  Or so ten or sixteen or twenty cars could park along their length, during events.

He had also let Max Highland out too, a bit further down.

Now, as the protest surged, he got out of the car- a used piece of crap Highland had bought using money Carson had given him.

Wearing loose fitting clothes and a wig that was strapped helpfully to his head by the full-face mask he wore, Carson slouched heavily, letting his arms move more freely than usual.  He adjusted his gait.

People came.  Some were in cars.  A bunch were in the back of a pickup, holding onto the sides and each other for stability, some standing so they could grab the rails on top.  Some came on foot, having started hours ago, hyping themselves up, and confronting police, by the looks of things.

Carson had parked relatively early, too.  Bolden needed time to get where he was going, and Carson wanted to guide things a little.  Most of all, he wanted to do it passively.

There were too many protesters for just the governor’s house, and private police had been dispatched in force, lining up on the road, blocking all avenues to the property.

In the face of that, the crowd had dispersed, looking for places to go.

Carson put two 24-packs of bottled water out of his trunk, along with other supplies.  He had first aid, milk for burning eyes and skin, posterboards and markers.

There were some protesters who came over.  It was hot out, there was that trace of smoke still in the air- there still hadn’t been rain to wash things out, and the fires around the city gave it a faintly chemical nature that was worse than smoke on its own.  Water in this situation would be welcome.

“Can I leave you guys in charge of this?” he asked.  “I’ve got to check on some friends at another station.”

Getting confirmation, he left them with the stuff.  Too much to easily carry, he hoped it would draw some people over regularly enough that the people in this neighborhood would be watching out their front doors and windows.

That would be his primary, most direct role.  He’d planted a seed, dropped people and things off.  Maybe some people would cause some trouble here.  Among the regular protesters, there’d be some who just wanted to cause trouble.  A neighborhood of the most wealthy people in the city might be a target.

He caught a glimpse of Bolden, limping through the edge of the woods.

Barely any cars.

The silence, the lack of action, the way they’d been called over to do a job and then there’d been so little?

It felt like a trap.

Had Highland turned on them, behind the scenes?  Had someone else reported their intentions, leading to the Cavalcantis expecting this?

Carson drove, moving slowly through the crowd.  He had another 12-pack of water on his car seat, and opened his window.  He eased his way past the milling crowd of a few hundred that were collecting on the road, while he was behind several other cars, who were moving slowly, some enduring people slapping on windows and hoods.

Passing out water was a gesture of goodwill that ensured he wouldn’t be mistaken for an evacuating local.

He used the library method to communicate.  By the code, if he wasn’t forgetting the codes he hadn’t used a while, he messaged that he had a bad feeling.

The books updated in the app a few seconds later, a little notification saying ‘2 changes’.

The message was clear.  Leave.

She didn’t have any better of an idea than he did, or there’d be some better indication.

The people around the car could include Cavalcantis.  An attack from any direction.  He shut his eyes as smoke from a torch blew in through his window.

Someone grabbed water from his hand and seized his hand at the same time.  Carson reached for his knife, twisting-

Just a protestor, trying to awkwardly show solidarity.

He had a secondary role, which was to park somewhere nearby and provide some auditory distraction at a key moment… if that seemed necessary.  It was the equivalent of lightning signaling the incoming thunder, so Bolden could break a lock or take out someone outside.

Except it’d be a gunshot, or accelerating the car and jumping out, to produce a loud crash.

But his instincts were screaming that something was wrong, here.  He didn’t want to stop and wait.

His phone beeped.  He was moving so slowly he was practically parked, so he handed out one more water, then stopped, checking.

Two new books on the list.  And a magazine.  Magazines and graphic novels helped specify certain subjects or terms.

Stop?  And a magazine starting with S.

Stop Spence.

She did it again.  Just stop this time.  Then a message came across on the song playlist too.

Same idea.

He turned, then steered onto grass and sidewalk, doing a u-turn.

Another car was already taking that route, and they had that moment of who’s-going -which-way? before Carson steered back onto the street, weaving past people.  Some fast walked away.

No explanations?

A trap after all?

He dialed Spence with one hand.

No response.

The man wasn’t very phone-savvy, and would want things turned off anyway.

He found Highland, pulling up.  Highland jogged out of his cover by a fence.

“In.”

“You sure?”

“Our friend messaged me.  Don’t use your phone, just… come.  I’ve got to find a way to get Spence’s attention and pull him back.  Job is canceled.”

“I can try better from here.  Go.”

Carson pulled away from Highland.  He circled around a group that was walking in the road, moved to the other side of the road to avoid a lone individual that, in his alarm, he’d almost failed to spot.  A man who wore dark gray pants and a purple top against a dark grey road and a dark blue sky with red on the horizon, where part of the city was burning.

The target was only a few houses down.  A member of the Cavalcanti organization.  Like The Butcher, he’d been folded into things.  Oddly enough, the Butcher had become an acquaintance of Davie, and this younger acquaintance from the same group had become a friend of Davie’s older brother.

A friend, whose death would spark off nearly as much emotion as the kidnapping of a daughter.

Carson stopped the car, pulled the keys out, and jogged around a property, hurdling a short wall.

A dog barked.  Carson made it a few steps, then hurdled the wall again, back to the outside.

The barking continued, frenzied.  Carson made sure to keep his head down.

Even from a few houses down, he could see that the back door was open.

Even our good luck feels like bad luck.  He didn’t have to break a window, so he was able to get inside faster.  No need for a signal or diversion from me or Highland.

There was no fence at the back end of the Cavalcanti property.  Carson crossed the open field, feeling comical in how intensely his legs were moving.

His shoes slipped on manicured, closely-trimmed, recently watered grass.  He landed on his side.

He pulled himself up, hip sore, and jogged up the stone steps to the raised patio area with a fire pit and a barbecue to the side.

Through the open back door.

Grass-wet shoes squeaked, so he took them off, sliding them, grassy and wet, into his waistband, before flipping his shirt over them.

With sock feet, he padded through the house as fast as he dared.

Ground floor was clear.  Downstairs or upstairs?

Odds were better it was upstairs.

He slipped upstairs.

Carson edged forward until he saw the man.  Bolden was in a room with a view of the state senator’s house on fire.  The neighbors weren’t doing so hot either, and the streets were too clogged for fire services- though it hadn’t been so long that Carson should expect them.  Private police clashed with protestor.  Smoke billowed, catching the light from streetlights, houses, and police spotlights.

The bedroom was cast in that shifting, red-tinted light.  Bolden stood with his crossbow to the neck of their target, who faced the window.  The man was middle aged, hair slicked back, dressed casually, with a navy blue university sweatshirt and pyjama pants, but his hair looked like a thousand dollar haircut, with feathering by the ears, and everything in the room screamed quality.

Bolden turned his head and saw Carson.  He didn’t startle – which was good.  If he’d twitched, he might’ve pulled the trigger and put a crossbow bolt through the base of the man’s skull.

Bolden averted his eyes from Carson.  “See that flashing?”

Carson looked where Bolden was looking.

A light, appearing on the window.  Two quick flashes, pause.

Then another two quick flashes.  Like that.

“That’s an acquaintance, telling me no.  To send you a message and leave it at that.”

Good job, Highland.

Let him live, Carson mouthed the words, shaking his head slowly.  Gently, so as not to agitate.

Bolden sucked on his teeth, then bared the teeth on one side of his face, before moving his jaw, as if he was trying to work something out of a muscle or get something out from between teeth.

Every part of the man looked restless, except for the steady finger near the trigger of his crossbow.

“You saw my face, so I’m not tempted to let you live,” Bolden said.

So have a few hundred thousand people who watched the news a while back, Carson thought.

“I didn’t get a good look,” the man said, calm.

“Shut up!” Bolden barked.

They’d discussed plans.  Depending on what information got leaked, and how the plan went bad, they had contingency plans and stories.

Carson had to choose which.  Did they stick to the Davie-did-this story?  Spin out a lie?

Did they try to paint it as random violence?  Burn the house?

No.

Davie’s absence from this felt wrong.

Putting heels of hands together, fingertips curled, he mimed a bear trap closing.

“Do you see my friend?”

“Yeah.  Barely.  It’s dark.  He’s in foliage.  Looks like a soldier.”

“Do you see his gun?”

“I do.  Rifle.”

“Step forward.  Nose to the window.”

The man did.

“If your nose stops touching the glass, or if your hands lower, he’ll shoot.”

“I understand.”

“Two people visited me in all the time I’ve been lying low.  One’s out there with a sniper rifle.  The other was dismembered by Davie Cavalcanti.  I expect restitution.”

“Did you have something to do with the taking of the children?”

“What do you think?” Bolden asked, his words a growl.  “Idiot.”

Not the tack Carson would’ve taken, but it seemed to work okay.

Bolden backed out, weapon still aimed at the man.  The moment that lining up a shot became impossible, they moved fast.

“What happened?” Bolden hissed.

“Trap.  Something’s off.  I told our friend on the phone, then a few minutes later, she signaled strongly that we shouldn’t kill, I trust her.”

“Let’s go.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs, circled-

And there was commotion upstairs.

The man hadn’t stayed put.  He’d called the bluff, or he’d moved, thinking he could get clear before the soldier in the bushes could react.

When he appeared at the top of the stairs, Bolden and Carson were standing in the foyer, open space with no cover, and the middle-aged gang lieutenant had an assault rifle.

Carson sprinted for the nearest doorway, to take cover.  Bolden, on the other hand, fired his crossbow.

The sound of the gunfire indoors rattled Carson’s skull, and in the moment, he had the surreal impression that the blood that sprayed up and out from Bolden’s lap was the source of the gunfire he heard, firing up and at an angle.  As if he had thigh guns.

He didn’t, though.

The middle aged man tumbled over the railing, an arrow piercing the bridge of his nose and eye, extending into his brain.  He’d pulled on the trigger for a second before the arrow hit, and he’d caught Bolden.

“Fucking- I have gout already, now this!?” Bolden shouted.  “Fuck!”

The man was dead.

Carson lifted Bolden up, the man groaning and screaming, and held him across his shoulders, heading for the open back door.

People would have heard the gunshots.

The target was dead.  Mia had said, with unusual emphasis, not to kill him.

Now they were going to find out why.

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