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  Another nod. “Please.”

  Lafitte held the gun loosely in his right hand, the fingers of his left still spread across the doctor’s chest. “Yeah, alright. You’ll do.”

  *

  By the time DeVaughn’s crew rolled to a stop behind the Lincoln in front of Doctor Groff’s house, the weak streetlights were glowing, and even more front porch lights. A quiet night in a rich, white neighborhood.

  DeVaughn checked the text again to be sure. Melissa had added, Think BL having heart attack.

  Seriously? What the fuck was a doctor going to do about it at his home? Did they all carry special “un-heart attack” shots for emergencies? DeVaughn remembered his dad had heart problems in his forties. Lafitte wasn’t that old yet, was he? Then DaVaughn’s dad died from a massive stroke at forty-nine. No one had ever explained what the deal was. His dad smoked all the time. Or maybe the stress at work did it. He had a hard job, Momma had said. Devaughn couldn’t remember what it was, except Daddy wore overalls and smelled like Pine-Sol all the time.

  Whatever. Blink the memory away and be patient. Think about the pain in your foot. The driver turned and asked what to do.

  Hurt to talk. “Turn off the engine and sit tight for awhile.”

  “Need back-up?”

  DeVaughn shook his head. “Shit, I’m surprised you’re both still here. Figured One O Four would want you to bring me in. I got a lot of BGM killed today.”

  “You kidding?” The passenger waved his phone. “He already texted. Said to do everything we can to help you get this son of a bitch. Got all sixty-three remaining BGMs ready at your command.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It ain’t a DeVaughn Rose thing no more. It’s family. BGM for life.”

  “Yeah.” DeVaughn felt the weight of it. “BGM for life.”

  He held to the phone tight, waiting for Melissa’s next buzz. Doctor Groff’s front porch sure looked inviting. A man could really enjoy a warm evening and a cold drink on a front porch. Yes he could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  When Stoudemire came back to Rome’s hospital room the next morning, he was all business again. Suited up instead of casual. His silk tie must’ve cost him a cool hundred bucks. He smelled like expensive cologne, which didn’t smell any better than cheap cologne. He took his seat beside Rome’s bed and sighed.

  “I’ve got to finish quickly. I have to fly back to Washington.”

  “Why?”

  An ever-so-slight sneer. Stoudemire sucked on his teeth. Awful sound. “I know you’ll find out anyway. Janice must have told someone about us, a friend, maybe. The friend, I don’t know, some uggo who got jealous, or some guy who hadn’t gotten as far as I had with her, went and told her SAC. I’m getting called back to Washington for a meeting. A fucking meeting. Waste of time.”

  “But..Lafitte?” Hard to put more than two words together, still. He’d have to push harder during therapy. “Lafitte?”

  “Yeah, Lafitte...I’ve got forty-five minutes. Here it is.”

  *

  First, the hospitals. No luck.

  Then, the free clinics. Still no luck.

  Doctors’ offices? Nope.

  Veterinarians? Negative.

  When the FBI wanted to, it could move at lightning speed. And goddamn it, did it ever want to. Lafitte, back home on the Coast, hobbled, with blood on his hands, literally. He would get the death penalty this time, if he made it that far. More likely, death by cop, right here, right now.

  Stoudemire, Janice Moore, and Captain Delaney were each on their own phones, talking to three different sources, all at once. It was cacophony in the car. They were driving aimlessly. No one had a lead. No one had the Lincoln yet. No one had an idea.

  After another wasted call, another report of nothing-fuck-all-nothing, Stoudemire hung up and rubbed his temple. He really wished Delaney wasn’t here. A blowjob from Janice would have been great right then. It would’ve helped him think. He thought he had her on the hook. His suggestion for dinner had gotten a “We’ll see” and a smile. Still, if only the cop wasn’t in the backseat...

  How did Lafitte think? As much as Stoudemire hated Franklin Rome, he was the one guy who knew how Lafitte thought. After their first tangle, Rome had been smart to finagle a transfer to New Orleans. Almost had the bastard, too. Knew which bait to use. But then it went to shit. Everything involving Lafitte eventually did. It was inevitable. It had been fourth and inches in Sioux Falls, cornering Lafitte and Steel God in a hotel, one second left on the clock. And then Lafitte had killed Rome’s wife. It didn’t matter that they’d caught him and thrown him in jail. It didn’t matter that Rome had gotten a lot of the credit, since further investigation showed he had gone rogue in a bad way. All of it was moot once Rome had sent that bitch Colleen Hartle into the prison for revenge and instead had stirred themselves a prison riot, a dead boy, and Lafitte on the run again.

  But goddamn if he couldn’t get inside Lafitte’s white trash mind. Kind of amazing, actually. Still, he threw Hartle under the bus, and got himself a terribly nice severance package because, well, he knew too much. He’d played a smart game. He’d lost badly, but goddamn, he was the best sore loser Stoudemire had ever seen.

  One phone call to Rome. Just one. Might save him hours. Might save lives. But all that invalid could do was drool at him.

  Fuck Franklin Rome. I got this.

  “He’s not going to the hospital.” Mumbled it. Janice heard, stopped talking. Stoudemire looked over at her. “Well, he’s not, right?”

  “I’ll call you back.” She ended her call, as did Captain Delaney in the back. He pulled himself closer, chin on top of the passenger seat.

  Stoudemire said, “He won’t go to a clinic. Won’t go to the ER. So, where?”

  “Drugstore?”

  Stoudemire shook his head. “The employees would trip the alarms instantly. And there are cameras.”

  Delaney said, “There are cameras everywhere.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean.”

  It was so clear. This was kind of easy. Fuck Rome again. “He won’t go where the doctors work, but how about where they live?”

  Janice said, “Why would he do that?”

  “He’s not looking for surgery. He’s looking for a diagnosis. Instructions. Someone to tell him what to do next.”

  Delaney went hmph, then, “Then how do we find out...”

  Stoudemire looked at Delaney in the rearview. “Yep. All of them.”

  *

  Rome tried to laugh. Sounded bad.

  Stoudemire cleared his throat. Then, “He hadn’t shown up at any hospitals, ERs, or clinics, but we knew he wouldn’t. We had to cross them off the list. We called as many heart doctors as we could, and ended up with four who didn’t answer the phone, and three more who sounded suspicious.”

  Rome shook his head. “No. Wouldn’t answer.”

  “You’re right. I thought the suspicious ones were worth checking out first. I wasted a lot of time and manpower.”

  Rome wanted to tell him it was okay. Making mistakes was how you learned. But telling him would take too much effort in his current state, and the last thing he wanted to do was be sympathetic to this piece of shit. It was also the first time since the crash Rome realized that not only would he survive this whole ordeal, but he’d thrive. Goddamn, he might even have a chance to get back into the action, especially if Stoudemire was the best they could throw at Lafitte these days.

  “We cleared all three,” Stoudemire said. “Two were having affairs at the time. The third...he’d scored some meth a couple of hours before.”

  Rome could’ve told him. Don’t pick up rocks if you don’t want to see the bugs underneath. Except that’s what they were paid to do, pick up rocks all day long. Just so happened Rome was better at picking up the right rocks.

  *

  “Joshua Groff.” Janice read the name of the last doctor who hadn’t answered their call. The other th
ree had been accounted for. So here it was. “What now?”

  Stoudemire knew the right answer. This was textbook. Now was the time to call in a full-on SWAT team to descend on the neighborhood and secure it. Somehow find out who was in the house and where inside it. Get in contact with Lafitte if he was in there, make sure he understood his situation. Play it patiently. Cover every angle.

  But goddamn, if he turned out to be wrong...

  “Let’s mosey on over. A drive-by.”

  Janice turned to him, squinting. “Sir? Really?”

  He wagged his finger-gun at the windshield. “Make it so.”

  *

  Rome started laughing for real. It had been a while. Tears. Stoudemire’s cheeks glowed. Looked like he was sucking a lemon. The man had just explained he would prefer to take a chance and be proven right in front of the agent he wanted to fuck and the local police cop rather than go for the safest and best. All because he didn’t want to be wrong again. It was really funny. Fucking hilarious.

  Stoudemire stood, buttoned his suitcoat. “I’ve got to take a piss. You’d better get it out of your system by the time I get back.”

  He walked over to the bathroom, Rome still laughing, even pointing at him to really twist the knife. But once he closed the door, Rome took some deep breaths and wiped his chin on his shoulder. Stoudemire could’ve shut the whole thing down right then. Why hadn’t he? Why take all the abuse if he didn’t have to?

  It could only mean one thing: they needed Rome.

  They sure did.

  Crawling back, begging for his expertise.

  And he loved it. He would tell them no, of course, because then they would either leave him alone, or they would offer him something he couldn’t refuse.

  Either way, he would be celebrating later with a juicebox.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was a first for both of them. Lafitte had never explained his symptoms to a doctor while pointing a gun at him. The doctor had never listened to a patient explain his symptoms while having a gun pointed at him. Once he was done, Lafitte couldn’t help but mumble, “Sorry.”

  Doctor Groff had already told them he was alone in the house. He and his wife were separated, trying to work through things, and both of his kids were in college at LSU. One a freshman, one a senior. It was him all alone in the big old house right now. If he was telling the truth.

  Each step Lafitte took further away from shore, the stronger the riptide. He had fucked himself in too deep. Could he trust Melissa to check the rest of the house for him? Could he trust the doctor to get him some nitro? Could he trust both of them together if he sent Melissa to watch Doctor Groff while he got the nitro?

  Aw, fuck it. Lafitte sat on the stairway, leaned against the bannister. “Help me, please.”

  It was Melissa who acted. She took the gun from Lafitte and trained it on the Doctor. “Let’s get him something. We don’t want to hurt you. But I swear to fucking Jesus himself, if you don’t help—”

  “I’ll get some nitro. Follow me. But please stop with the gun. I’m a doctor. Do no harm? Remember?”

  “Good for you. I’ve already killed people today. I do plenty of harm. Don’t piss me off.”

  They left the room and Lafitte smiled, shook his head. Might as well tie on his own toe-tag, letting them go off together.

  *

  Melissa followed Doctor Groff, giving him space so he couldn’t turn and surprise her, disarm her. He whispered at her the whole time over his shoulder.

  “He’s not your brother is he? We can help him and still help ourselves, you know. If you put the gun away.”

  “He’s not my brother. But I have to do this.”

  “Seriously, he’s in no shape. We can call for help, real help.”

  They stepped into his home office, lined with half-full bookcases, plaques, framed photos of a normal doctor with pretty wife and well-tended children when they were younger. Nothing recent. The only books she recognized were a line of John Grisham hardcovers next to a line of Michael Crichton hardcovers.

  He started to walk behind his desk when Melissa blinked and lifted the gun straight and said, “Wait, get back, get back.”

  He stayed put. Hands kind of up, kind of not. “I have nitro and aspirin in my desk.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “But they’re right—”

  “Shithead, I said...” Then she made some exasperated noise and pushed him aside, checked the drawer herself. Yep, there was a gun. A fucking .45. She looked up at him.

  He stared away at the floor.

  “Where is the fucking medicine?”

  “You know,” Wouldn’t meet her eyes. “If you and I both had a gun...I swear I can help you both.”

  She thought for a second. DeVaughn should be waiting outside by now. Anything that didn’t end with him killing Lafitte was bad for them both. For a moment, she thought about killing the doctor. He was right. There was nothing he could do except hand over a few pills and tell Lafitte he really needed to go to the hospital.

  She really thought about it. One shot. But she felt sad inside. She missed DeVaughn already. The plans were all bullshit now because Lafitte had to go and fuck it up. So why not kill the doctor and tell DeVaughn to join the party.

  Instead she said, “Get the fucking medicine and don’t play me again.”

  The whole thing was a bad board game, the kind she’d always got stuck playing with her family on Thanksgiving. It sucked, but they’d come this far. Might as well roll ’til the end.

  *

  Lafitte couldn’t believe it. They came back. Letting them go had been a gamble, but he had this idea Melissa was saving him for DeVaughn. It wasn’t long, only a couple of minutes, the doctor carrying a tiny vial with a screwtop cap, which he had opened and had shook a pill into. He handed the cap to Lafitte. Itty bitty pill.

  “Drop it under your tongue and let it sit there. Don’t pick it up. Drop it in.”

  Lafitte did. “Then what?”

  “Don’t, no, don’t talk. Let it dissolve. Sit still. Relax. Take deep breaths. If this is really angina, you should feel better soon. If it’s a full-blown heart attack, we really need to get you to a hospital.”

  Lafitte squeezed his eyes tight and waved his hand randomly. “No hospital. No. No. Something else. No hospital.”

  “Breathe through your nose. Easy, deep.”

  While he did his best, Melissa asked the doctor, “If he won’t go to the hospital, is there anything else you can do?”

  A long, soft sigh. The doctor’s voice was trembling. His throat was dry, every word like sand. “Listen, are you listening? Please. I can’t tell you anything until I do an angiogram. We need to look at the arteries, find out which ones are the problem. And from the look of you, I don’t think we have long. Is there a history of heart disease in your family?”

  “Look, she’s not my sister.” Lafitte said. “I’m Billy Lafitte. I’m sort of famous. And, honestly, yeah, maybe there’s been heart trouble in my family. I haven’t kept up with them, though. Been years and years. And I’m pretty sure mine’s due to steroids.”

  The doctor took a step back. “Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “You need an EKG.”

  “No, what I need is a diagnosis without going to a fucking hospital. Weren’t you listening? Fuck’s sake, I’m a wanted man.”

  The doctor shook his head. Sweating bad. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but, there’s nothing I can do here. I need, I need, I need, um, machines, computers, equipment. A catheter. I need the dye so we can see. You might need, uh, maybe a stent. It’s complicated.”

  “What’s wrong with me? Start there. What is it? Give it a name.”

  “Steroid users, weightlifters, serious athletes, they get what’s called Left Ventricle Hypertrophy. You’ve got crazy high blood-pressure, I bet. It means the walls of your ventricle are thicker and not pumping well. Usually we can fix it with meds, and you’d have to stop steroids completely, obviously
. If you’ve been on the juice for a long time, maybe the damage has spread.”

  “What meds? Do you have them? Can we get them?”

  “Jesus, it’s not that easy!” The doc’s voice jumped in volume, pitch. Goddamn fidgety hands. “I can’t tell you anything without an EKG. I need to do this properly.”

  “Melissa, shoot him, okay?”

  She looked shocked at first, but then two-fisted the gun and lifted it and—

  “Hey!” Lafitte shouted, held up his hand. “Whoa. I want to scare him.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said shit! You’re not paying attention. I didn’t say kill him, I said shoot him, but I didn’t even mean it. Fear motivates people. Death just kills them. Shit, girl.”

  She lowered the gun, one handed. Put her free hand on her hip and cocked it out. “So now he knows you don’t want to kill him. Great.”

  “He knows you will, though.”

  The doctor backed into the wall hard enough to shake the antique crap on the table next to him. He slid down. “Stop it! Please stop it! What do you want me to do?”

  Lafitte stood, couple of steps, leaned over him. “I want you to fix me. I want you to fix me and let me slip the fuck away so I can keep out of fucking jail, alright?”

  The doctor held his arms over his head, openly panting now. He asked, “Are you feeling better? Now? Are you?”

  “The fuck you talking—”

  “The nitro! Did it work? How do you feel now?”

  “Well, shit.” Lafitte rose to full height, what little there was of it, and placed his palm on his chest, rubbed circles. “A little better. It’s not so much...pressure.”

  He stepped back, turned to Melissa and reached down for the gun. She tried to hold on, a little pout on her face, but he wrenched it free. Melissa crossed her arms and stalked away, kept her back to him.

  Lafitte stood still, head low, hand still on his chest. He thought calm thoughts—snow, sunset over the Gulf, more snow, a lazy day on a pier, fishing for flounder, more and more snow. He hadn’t realized how much he missed snow, especially after it nearly killed him. There was still pain, and now he had a headache all the sudden, but it wasn’t so right there. It wasn’t so shit fuck goddamn. It was take five.