LITMIR.BIZ

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where?”

      “I don’t know!” Danny yelled. “Just find out who did it! Go over and rip Red’s face off if we have to!”

      “That wouldn’t work. You have to look at the big picture. Today’s not the day to —”

      “What big picture?” Danny screamed at him.

      Jack sighed, then said, “Sit here. I’m going to talk with Susan.”

      Jack walked over to Susan and asked, “How are you doing?”

      “I’ll be okay,” she replied. “Worried about Danny. He’s hurting.”

      “I know.”

      “He’s angry. I’m a little afraid he’ll do something stupid right now.”

      “I’ll look after him. We won’t work. I’m going to take him back to my place for a talk.”

      “You mean you’re going to get drunk.”

      Jack grimaced. This woman has seen this picture before.“Possibly. He needs to vent. I’ve got a pullout bed in the living room if he needs to stay over.”

      “He snores,” she said, then turned and walked back into her house.

      Susan understood, sort of. She recalled the time Danny and a group of policemen had shown up at her house after the funeral of a murdered comrade. She had watched the alcohol slowly eat away at the tough facades on their faces. Everyone was polite, but the conversation was stilted, and she knew it was because she was there. She made an excuse to go to bed, and not long after she heard their emotions pouring out. Despite being a wife, she was still an outsider.

      Right now, she felt angry and hurt. Why did he shut her out of his life at a time like this? She wanted to be with him, to make sure he was all right. This brotherhood of policemen that he belonged to … sometimes it seemed like others knew him better than she did. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him and listen to him say they’d always be together. She looked at Danny’s portrait and felt so alone.

      The new bottle of Jose Cuervo was half empty. Danny knew it was the booze talking, but he said it anyway. “I want to kill whoever did this to her.”

      Jack shook his head. “I know how you feel, but you’ve got to look at the big picture.”

      “What the fuck is the big picture?”

      “We’re not dealing with one rotten animal. This is organized crime. They’ve got about nine hundred professional criminals in our area alone. Do you think it would really make any difference to Satans Wrath if you killed a couple of them?”

      “It would make a difference to me!”

      “You’re damn right it would. You could end up in jail. Susan, Tiffany — gone! And for what? Satans Wrath will keep on going. There will still be other kids like Marcie and Crystal getting killed. You could lose everything and not change a thing.”

      “So what are you saying? That we give up or put whoever did this in jail?”

      “Putting one or two in jail doesn’t help either. In fact, it only helps them.”

      “Helps them?”

      “Jails are a great place for them to recruit more trusted comrades. Instead of getting weaker, the club becomes stronger.”

      “Then what the hell can we do?”

      “You either have to put dozens of the hierarchy in jail, which our laws aren’t geared for, or you need to gain control of the club. Crime will continue, but if you can control the higher echelon, you can make the club less effective.”

      “And how do you expect to do that?”

      “Turn someone on the inside. Once you have one informant, it’s easier to get more. Then you penetrate the higher echelon. The fact that they’re vicious killers is something we can use. That’s why we have to find someone in the club who is like you.”

      “Like me?”

      “Someone with a family who has too much to lose.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “You will when the time comes.”

      “I can’t see any of them ratting out, unless maybe we put them in protective custody.”

      “Their rules don’t usually allow that.”

      “What are you talking about? Their rules? We use our rules, and that includes the Witness Protection Program.”

      “For them, to break their rules is to lose respect. To lose respect means to lose one’s life. If that life is not available to take, then the rules allow for other lives to be taken. Every son, daughter, wife, uncle, aunt, cousin, and close friend would have to be protected.”

      “That’s impossible!”

      “I know.”

      Danny thought for a moment, then said, “I’d kill them if they ever came near my family.”

      “So would I. You have my word on that.”

      Danny studied Jack’s face closely. “You mean it, don’t you?”

      “Messing with a cop or his family is against the rules. I guarantee that the coroner would run out of body bags.”

      “You’d do that for me?”

      Jack became exasperated. “What the hell do you think? If you’re not prepared to do that, then the bad guys don’t respect you. You’re looked upon as being weak. It’s the law of nature. If you’re weak, then you die — or someone close to you does!”

      “The bad guys know this?”

      “The real professionals do. It’s not something that’s spoken about. If they respect you they should take that for granted.”

      “Others feel this way?”

      “Most long-time UC operators do. What we know, what we have been through, it’s like we’re all family. Organized crime can afford to lose a few soldiers on the bottom. The only thing keeping a lot of us alive is that they know we would seek revenge against the executive level for authorizing the hit. I don’t care if it’s some poor cop on the other side of the country that gets whacked; it’s a declaration of all-out war. Otherwise you won’t survive.”

      “That’s one of them rules?”

      “That’s one of them rules.”

      Danny thought it over. What would Wigmore think if he heard this? He thought of Crystal’s eyes. He looked at Jack and said, “So this same rule doesn’t apply to someone like Crystal?”

      “No. The rules allow them to get away with killing her.”

      “Why?”

      “She’s not family. Think what you said earlier, you would kill them if they ever came near your family.”

      “What about your niece and nephew?”

      Jack stared into his aquarium. He imagined that the eyes on the fish belonged to Maggie and Ben Junior. They were silently looking at him. They knew his promise. That was enough.

      It was suppertime when Susan answered her door. She was surprised to see Natasha standing on her porch with a small bouquet of flowers and a bottle of Riesling wine.

      “Jack called,” explained Natasha. “Said he thought you could use some company. I would have come sooner but I had to work. Thought we could order in dinner if it’s not too late.”

      Susan hugged Natasha harder than she expected to. She felt like her body was about to overflow with emotion.

      Jack crushed the empty pizza box and put it in the garbage, then cleaned up the coffee table

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