The End Game

Barring the ability to achieve any of the above, your only other option is to match or beat the velocity of the object moving toward you, so that when it impacts, most of the damage goes in the other direction.

Or exactly what happened to Christopher Bonaventura’s fist.

I felt his thick wedding band dig into the tightened flesh of my forehead, splitting it right where I’d hoped, sending a spray of blood out from my head, which I then flung forward, dousing him, and then dousing the sofa, and getting a few drips and drops on the coffee table, too. If I got the opportunity, I’d walk over to the bookcase and grab Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and leave a couple streaks there, too. All of which would be hard for Bonaventura to explain to his daughter, the nice invited guests here for her birthday and the elephant tamer, too.

But first he’d need to go to the emergency room, since as soon as his fist landed on my forehead he let out a shriek, which told me he’d probably just broken his thumb, maybe his ring finger, too, which would serve him right for hitting me with his wedding band. He stumbled out from between the sofa and the coffee table, holding his hand and covered in my blood.

Nate made a move, but Jarhead gave him a slight shove that sent him back against the wall. It was a halfhearted effort by both of them, which is about what I expected. Jarhead was going to let Bonaventura do what he was going to do, which didn’t end up being much at all, which was probably better for all involved.

I had two options here: pretend to be really hurt or be the tough guy.

“That all you got?” I slurred. I staggered up and then fell back into the sofa.

Bonaventura stood next to Jarhead and glared at me. It was about all he could muster, since his hand had already started to balloon grotesquely. Also, I was shaking my head back and forth, spreading blood onto as many surfaces as possible. He was going to have quite the cleaning bill, though something told me he could afford it. His daughter might only get an alpaca for her next birthday, however.

“Get this trash out of my home,” he said to Jarhead.

“Does that mean we have a deal?” I said. “Because Maria has about ten minutes left on her clock.” I tapped my watch. “Tick, tick, tick, Chrissy.”

He glared at me some more. The he turned and glared at Gennaro. He took some time doing that glaring thing to everyone in the room, even his own guys. I got the impression that he thought this was a good way of communicating rage and indignation, generally, but at that moment I think it was also a way to keep him from crying out in pain again. “I hope you know what you’ve done,” he said to Gennaro.

“All I know is that I don’t want my wife to die,” he said. “If I am in this maniac’s pocket or yours, I can’t see the difference.”

Bonaventura walked out of the room without another word, which I took to mean I’d solved one of our problems. I took one of the throw pillows from the sofa and pressed it against my forehead and then stood up, which got the blood flow to stop.

“How many minutes was that?” I said to Jarhead.

“Nine,” he said.

“Think I can get a ride on the elephant?”

“Not this time,” he said. He motioned to one of his guys, who gave me and Nate back our guns. Jarhead then handed me a card. All it had on it was his name: ALEX KYLE. No number. “Call me,” he said. “We should talk.”

10

It used to be that the only way you could get reliable information on someone was by tapping his phone. Get a wire on someone’s line and you could find out the most intimate details of his life. But now everyone uses e-mail. From a legal standpoint, it’s more difficult to tap into someone’s e-mail account than it is to get a wiretap on his phone.

From an illegal standpoint, it’s also harder.

If you want to tap a phone, there are stores in the mall that will sell you everything you need. What used to be the most clandestine technology is now sold as a way of watching your children. For less than two hundred dollars, you can get the RDRX-99, a line-activated digital recorder that will monitor up to five different phone lines at once for thirty-four hours at a time, and will e-mail you reports on the time and date of phone calls. If you don’t want to break into someone’s home to install the device in his wall jack, you can always access his outdoor box and place your device there. It requires the same technical precision required to set up a DVD player. Plug A into B and listen.

But if you want to intercept someone’s e-mail or track his movements online, it’s usually far more complicated.