“The Boyle girl, she’s still with you?”
“Lara is part of my family now, Brendan. So tell me,” Mark said, “can we put these animals in the penitentiary?”
“We know who they are Mark, it’s who we expected.” Then he added in a particularly cynical way, “There’s not another FBI agent in the world I’d tell this to.”
Mark cleared his throat to remain calm. “C’mon, cut it out, what is it?”
“The information came off a bad wire, a narcotics tap without a court order. We collar them, they’ll walk. We have nothing—no witnesses, not one forensic that ties them to the killing. Zero.”
“Mickey Reno,” Mark said.
“Right, and two of his slammers, Sonny Mullen and Freddie Bordure.”
Mark was quiet for a long time, then, “Ahhhh—this is bullshit,” he snarled into the phone, “murdering bastards, evil sonsabitches.”
“You’ll get no argument from me, pal,” Brendan replied.
*
One morning, Mark awoke to find Lara in his study; somehow she had gotten hold of his case folder. There were photographs of Tommy and Callie Boyle, pictures of their incineration. Composed, Lara fingered one of his guns. Although Mark had locked it away, she’d found the key to his safe.
Suicide, he thought. Lara was about to shoot herself. She sat cross-legged on the sofa, looking at pictures of her parents and studying the nine millimeter in her hand. “You’re not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?” Mark said, taking the gun from her.
“Them,” she responded. “I want to shoot the people that did this to my mother and father. I want them to suffer and I want them dead, I want to help make them dead.”
“You’re twelve years old,” he told her.
“I’ll be thirteen in a month. I can do it.”
Mark believed her.
During the ensuing days and painful, sleepless nights, no matter how he asked himself the question, he kept coming back to the same conclusion: he would become his own government, dispensing his own justice. It was what he and Lara both wanted. What Lara wanted was what he wanted, and he said it out loud now, because he felt it deep in the marrow of his being, a need to say it, as much for Lara as for himself. Justice, pure and simple. Honorable vengeance was what they both needed.
The following week in Olneyville, Sonny Mullen stalked the street like a hunter on a track. Head bowed, he moved slowly to Olneyville Square. He found a bench and sat. His eyes were black, a gold chain hung from his neck. He was nicely exhausted with little energy to bring to bear. Two days and nights at Foxwoods, and he’d won big time.
He lit a cigarette.
Sonny had been sitting for a short while when Lara walked up to him.
“Please, can you help me?” she said.
His fatigued, tanned face put on a show of weary amusement.
Lara showed him a dog’s leash, then pointed to a nearby alleyway and looked as though something had made her suddenly sad. “My dog ran off, he’s hurt, he’s down there and I can’t carry him.”
“Your dog?”
“She’s strong.”
“It’s not a pit bull?”
“A yellow lab.”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the bench.
“I don’t like dogs and they don’t like me. Maybe you should call your folks. Or the cops.” An unhurried hoarse voice with that Providence tough-guy street accent he’d picked up at the ACI.
“I thought you’d help me,” Lara said, her voice catching.
He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then quickly got to his feet. “Oh man, fuck it,” he said. “C’mon, let’s go and get your stupid mutt.”
Lara smiled and handed him the leash.
It was quiet in the alleyway and the far end was dark as a mineshaft. Sonny sensed something was prowling and hiding out among the cardboard boxes behind the dumpster.
“Hey, kid, this mutt of yours, what is it, a male or a female?”
Sonny heard, “Why would it matter to you, hot shot? You got no problem killing either one.”
Instantly, Sonny’s mind went to the gun in his pocket, then he thought he recognized the man standing next to the dumpster, the guy holding the nine millimeter like he knew how to use it. The nine millimeter with a professionally fashioned silencer attached.
The kid smiled at him.
“Do you know who I am?” Sonny said.
“You think that makes a difference to me?” the man answered.
“You’re not fucking with some bullshit guy, some bust-out nobody.” Sonny put his hand in his coat pocket, slowly felt his automatic, knew he’d have to push the safety off and then cock it. It would take way too long. He knew that too. “You want to tell me what this is about?”
“Take your hand out of your pocket,” Mark said.
Sonny brought his hand from his coat pocket to his side.
“It’s about you and two of your buddies, Reno and Freddie Bordure. Your lunatic band of killers,” Mark said.