Page 94 of Lone Wolf

“Weakness.” The capo’s head bobbed. “Weakness?” Without looking over, he snapped his fingers in the direction of the pool table. “Amber. Up.”

Amber’s expression did not change. She rose, stumbled a bit, righted herself with a hand on the felt, and then dutifully trudged over. The capo cupped her chin, stared into her face. Her glazed eyes looked back, long lashes blinking.

“At all times, I have a coterie of women who obey me. That isn’t status. It’s pure strength.” The capo was gazing at Amber but speaking to Evan, the effect unsettling. “I can walk into any high-end restaurant from Beverly Hills to Monaco and if I snap my fingers and ten beautiful women obey, all those beaten-down husbands and dutiful young men see me as an ancient god. Their cells cry out to be freed the way I’m free. I have built an empire around me. An empire I carry on my back. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“Coercing female companionship isn’t my definition of strength,” Evan said. “I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“Coercing?” The capo laughed his laugh. Evan wondered what his breath smelled like at Amber’s distance. She didn’t blink, didn’t turn away. “You may be old-fashioned,” the man continued. “But I’m primal.”

Were it not for Amber, Evan would have been bored. He focused on the playing board. One of the men by the pool table chewed gum. Another stroked his mustache. Their muscles were coiled, but they were doing their best to project cool. Domenic was closest to Evan, two strides behind him to the right. The capo’s Rolex was momentarily hidden, but one of the seated men had a big-dick diving watch that showed 11:20.

The security monitors continued their lazy rotation through and around the holding pen, not yet back at the angle Evan needed to complete the address. He continued to assemble a picture of the off-site building: Three floors, each patrolled by a single guard. Nerve center on the ground floor— more security monitors, more computer hardware—manned by a single guy with a Benelli. A fifth guard surveilling from the roof, heavy-duty headphones clamped over his ears, bopping away.

“‘Coercion’ is too weak a word. ‘Ownership’ is more appropriate.” The capo waved his hand, the ash at last falling, scattering across his polished shoes. “I’m not talking about gutter work, managing lot lizards. No. That’s barbaric shit. I own these fine young women. I take what I want from them and when I’m done I sell them to cathouses, individuals, the Mexicans or Armenians who have street operations that require meat, stale or otherwise.”

Evan was tired. Tired of the endless war on corruption, of men doing bad things, of how much work it took to right some small part of any of it. He slid a half step back toward Domenic, closing the distance. On the monitor, the exterior angle Evan needed came up, and he filled out the street numerals of the off-site structure: 86774. None of the men’s watch faces were visible, but Evan knew time was getting tight.

The capo palmed Amber’s head like a basketball and pressed it against the wall hard enough that her cheek shoved forward, pooching her lips. He used his right hand, providing Evan a glimpse of the Rolex—11:23.

Nearly go time.

Amber hadn’t made a sound. She didn’t even look scared. Nothing human seeped through her numbed façade. She’d been treated like an object so long and so consistently that her outsides had learned to believe it. He wondered if she was still in there, receded behind a thousand layers of scar tissue, and if she’d ever find her way back to the surface.

The capo took the cigarette from his mouth and held it vertically like a tiny chimney, smoke unspooling from the top. Still pressing her head to the wall, he looked over at Evan. “Eye or cheek,” he said.

Evan didn’t answer.

“Since you’re so concerned about equity,” the capo said, “I’ll let you choose.”

“What sort of businessman damages his own product?” Evan said. “If you disfigure her, you just lose income.”

The capo blew a fierce glow into the cherry of the cigarette and hovered it right over her temple. “If you don’t choose, I do both.”

Amber hadn’t issued a single noise of complaint but her squirming eye found Evan, the pupil pulling downward: Cheek.

Evan said, “Cheek.”

A sizzle. The stomach-turning stench of burning flesh. Amber grunted but it was without fear or anger, just a response to the stimuli. The Rolex read 11:25. The men around the table were distracted by the spectacle. Domenic’s shotgun was at his side, aimed at the ground two and a half feet behind Evan’s right boot. The safety was off, bolt closed, so he presumed a round in the chamber.

The capo flicked the cigarette at Evan. It hit his chest and fell to the ground.

“It’s funny,” he said, “that you thought you’d get out of here alive.”

Evan felt the tug of a smile, his muscle memory warming its engines. “I was just about to say the same thing to you.”

In a single fluid movement, he snatched the Benelli from Domenic’s grasp and crushed the guard’s left knee with a piston kick. While everyone else was busy being startled, Evan had the barrel up. It was trained on the capo’s center mass, but with a shotgun at this range it didn’t have to be. The other men scrambled with their pieces, laggards on the draw. The capo shouted “No!” and they froze.

It took a moment for the gust of air from the exclamation to reach Evan. It curled up his nostrils, rancid enough to make his eyes water. The second guard was the only one in Evan’s periphery, but he hadn’t gotten his Benelli to horizontal and couldn’t now without Evan taking note.

For a moment everyone remained stock-still.

And then Amber broke the suspension, pressing herself languidly off the wall. Walking back to her chair, she picked her way through the men and sat. The red spot floated beneath her cheekbone, tinged black at the edges.

Domenic’s mouth wavered silently for another few seconds. Then he emitted a confused moan. Evan’s piston kick had staved in the leg, devastating it. Khaki held the bone, tented up where the shard had shoved through the skin.

The diving watch was at 11:27.

“I’m gonna go now,” Evan said, backing to the door. Now he could hear the sirens, barely audible, maybe four blocks out. “Stay away from the muzzle slits. If you come out after me, I’ll cut you all down in the doorway. Understand?”