The Night Crew

yeah, yeah . . . you fuckin’ scum, you fuckin’ lawyers . . . You fuckin’ lay there . . .’’ The language had been stolen from Tarpatkin, but had a drug-fired sound to it, a crazy emotional edge. Harper stepped to the door and pushed it shut—slammed it. Then he bent over the men, patted them down, found a cell phone in Tony’s coat pocket, tossed it aside. To Tony: ‘‘You got a dealer working the Westwood area. He was selling wizards down to the Shamrock Hotel last week . . .’’
    He was a street thug, Anna thought: he was doing it perfectly. Maybe too perfectly. He moved to one side, put his foot on the lawyer’s chest.
    ‘‘. . . I’m gonna give you the convincer. I’m gonna shoot your lawyer here, free of charge. Just to show you that I’m serious. Shoot him right in the fuckin’ brain, so you’re attached to a dead man, you can explain to the cops later, YOU FUCKIN’ CREEP . . .’’ He was shouting again, and the lawyer was screaming, ‘‘No, no, no,’’ trying to sit up, but pinned by his hands over his head and the weight of Tony on the cuffs.
    Then Harper, looking down at the lawyer, stepped back far enough that Tony couldn’t see him, looked at the frantic lawyer, put one finger over his lips, pointed the gun at the floor beside the lawyer’s head and fired once.
    The lawyer jerked forward, convulsing with the muzzle blast, then fell back, understood instantly: He went limp and silent.
    ‘‘NOW YOU BELIEVE ME?’’ Harper screamed.
    ‘‘You’ll fuckin’ kill me anyway,’’ Tony screamed back. ‘‘So fuck you.’’
    ‘‘Not before I peel your fuckin’ skin off with a potato peeler I seen in your kitchen,’’ Harper said. Tony twisted, and Harper kicked him in the chest and Tony shouted, ‘‘Stan, goddamn, are you dead? Stan, goddammit . . .’’ And Harper kicked him again, and Anna, out of sight, tried to wave him off, but he ignored her. He had the gun pointing at Tony’s head and he was shouting again, ‘‘ALL RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER, I DON’T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO SKIN YOU ALIVE, SO I’M GONNA KILL YOU NOW. GOOD FUCKIN’ BYE . . .’’
    Tony was thrashing against Stan’s dead weight and Harper pointed the gun and Tony screamed, ‘‘John Maran at the Marshall Hotel on Pico, for Christ’s sake . . .’’
    Harper’s voice went suddenly soft, and somehow more threatening. ‘‘You better be telling me the truth,’’ he said. ‘‘If you’re not, I won’t be coming back.’’
    ‘‘What?’’ Tony was confused.
    ‘‘Get on your feet, lawyer.’’ Harper kicked the lawyer
    once, and the tall man rolled over, started to blubber. Tony shouted, ‘‘You asshole, whyn’t you say something . . .’’
    The lawyer, stooping over him, pulled down by the short play of the cuffs, shouted back, ‘‘You crazy fuck, they were gonna kill us, I saved our lives.’’
    ‘‘You bullshit . . .’’ Tony tried to get up, but Harper pushed him down. ‘‘Stay down.’’ And to the lawyer, ‘‘Drag him over to the basement stairs.’’
    As the lawyer dragged Tony toward the stairs, Anna noticed the cell phone, picked it up, put it in her pocket. In the basement, Harper put them on either side of a steel support pole and threaded the cuffs through. ‘‘Like I said, if there’s no John Maran at the Marshall Hotel on Pico, I ain’t coming back.’’
    The lawyer had followed this thought, but Tony hadn’t: ‘‘So fuck you,’’ Tony said.
    ‘‘Tony . . .’’ the lawyer said.
    ‘‘Fuck you, too, you fuckin’ snotty Yale asshole . . .’’
    The lawyer took a deep breath, and said, ‘‘Look, I’m trying not to wring your fat little neck, Tony.’’
    Tony was amazed: ‘‘What’d you say?’’
    ‘‘I said, I’m trying not to wring your fat little neck, you dumb shit. What he’s saying is, if he leaves us here, what’re we gonna do? Chew our arms off, like rats? We won’t break these handcuff chains or this pipe.’’
    Tony finally caught it, looked once around the blank walls of the basement, and turned to Harper, ‘‘Hey, man . . .’’
    ‘‘Is Maran right?’’
    After a moment of judgment. ‘‘No. Ask for Rik Maran. You ask for John Maran and . . . you won’t get him.’’
    ‘‘Better be right,’’ Harper said. They went up the stairs, Anna first, and at the top, they peeled off the stockings. When Harper started past her to the door, she set her feet and hit him in the solar plexus as hard as she could: