Working Things Out

by Tedswife

An old lover of Mickey Kostmayer's is in trouble, and Harley Gage is protecting her. There is friction in the fiction.

All recognizable characters, settings, places, etc. are the property of their

respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended. No money is involved.

WORKING THINGS OUT

By

Tedswife

Somebody hit him and said, "Wake up."

Gage came out of a morning-after fog with Kostmayer's face grinning down at him. It took him a moment to remember where he was – McCall's sofa. He remembered getting out of his clothes and falling onto the sofa. Somebody put a blanket over him. Now, the sunlight pouring through the windows hurt his eyes. He could have sworn the light was reflecting off Kostmayer's teeth – but hadn't Kostmayer been with him the night before? Why did he look so healthy?

"What time is it?" Gage mumbled and sat up, the light blanket twisting around his legs.

Kostmayer handed him a mug of coffee. Gage could smell it now all over the apartment and see McCall bumping around in the kitchen. He sipped the coffee, breathing deeply between sips to get his head to quit throbbing.

Kostmayer went back into the kitchen, saying, "See what happens when you drink more than you're used to?"

"Well, the booze was lousy upstate," Gage said and ran a hand through his mess of hair. Then he realized he wasn't wearing a shirt and didn't like that. There were scars he didn't want showing. The shirt he was wearing last night was thrown over the arm of the sofa. He put the coffee down on the coffee table and pulled the shirt on.

"Are you functional, Harley?" McCall asked, coming in toward him.

"I will be in a few minutes," Gage said. "What's going on?"

McCall chuckled. "The phone has been ringing all morning, and you didn't hear a thing."

Gage said, "I heard lots of things. They just didn't have anything to do with reality. I'm sorry, McCall, I haven't gotten that blasted since – hell, I don't even remember anymore."

Kostmayer came in and handed him a piece of toast.

Gage took it, munched it, and looked up at Kostmayer. "What are you grinning about? You had as much as I did."

"Imagine that," Kostmayer said. "I drank Harley Gage under the table."

"Well, that will have to stop for a while," McCall said. "I got a call a little while ago from one Steven Cone, a bank manager in Queens. His bank and his family have been the victims of a rather imaginative hold-up."

"Shouldn't the police be handling something like that?" Gage asked.

"They are, but Mr. Cone is afraid it may happen again, and the police can't protect his family or devote the resources to locating this thieves that it looks like it might take."

"What happened?" Kostmayer asked and sat on the arm of the sofa, looking up at McCall.

"The family woke up one morning earlier this week and found three masked men in their home," McCall explained. "One of them held Mr. Cone's family hostage while the others took him to his bank and secured his assistance in holding it up. When they were safely away, the let Mr. Cone go in the warehouse district in Brooklyn and the man holding his family simply drove away."

"'The Friends of Eddie Coyle,'" Kostmayer said.

"What?" Gage asked.

"'The Friends of Eddie Coyle.' Robert Mitchum film, 1973. Same M.O."

"Hm," McCall said. "I suppose our thieves like old movies, especially ones with nasty little ideas that work."

"In the movie, it took a snitch to get the bad guys caught," Kostmayer said.

"Mitchum was the snitch?" Gage asked.

"No, but the real snitch let everybody believe it was Mitchum and –"

"Don't ruin the ending for me, Mickey," McCall said impatiently.

Gage ran a hand through his hair again. "I need a shower."

McCall said, "Get yourself cleaned up, Harley. Mickey and I will go meet with Mr. Cone and be back here by one."

"What time is it?" Gage asked again. No one had ever told him and he still couldn't see clearly enough to read a clock.

"Ten-thirty," Kostmayer said.

With a groan, Gage got to his bare feet, shirt flapping open over his boxer shorts.

"Cute legs," Kostmayer said.

Gage growled at him, wrapped the blanket around his waist so it hung to his ankles, and wandered off to the bathroom.

While McCall drove across town to the Queensboro Bridge, Kostmayer watched the buildings go by – very slowly. Traffic was awful. He thought about "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" and how he and McCall were going to find a snitch to give up Cone's thieves. He thought about whether McCall was going to want him to do guard duty with the family or try to dig up that snitch. He thought about whether the thieves would try again, with Cone or with someone else. He thought about whether the Yankees were going to make the playoffs this year and whether he remembered to pay the utility bill. He thought about a lot of things.

And then he thought out loud. "McCall, what are you going to do with Gage?"

"Do with him?" McCall asked. "On this case, you mean?"

"Well, yeah, but even in general. How long are you going to let him string along working with you?"

"Hmm," McCall thought. "A while longer, I suppose."

Kostmayer shook his head. "I'm not sure he's worth the trouble you're going to."

"Neither am I, but you worked out all right." McCall gave Kostmayer a sideways grin.

Kostmayer smiled. "Okay, maybe I had that coming, but don't tell me I was ever as surly as Gage can be."

McCall said, "Gage isn't always surly. What kind of trouble did the two of you get into last night, anyway?"

"No real trouble," Kostmayer said. "Once Gage got really soused, he was a pussycat, but on the way there – well, Harley Gage half drunk is not a guy you want to spend a lot of time with."

"I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time with him completely sober," McCall said. "He acts out whatever emotion he's feeling at the moment, but he is changing. He is easing off. Occasionally he sees there are other people in the world with problems and he softens up a bit."

"What do you really know about him? Where did he come from? What's his history? Did he have parents or did he just spring into the world out of sheer cussedness? How the hell did he ever get with the company?"

McCall chuckled. "His talents aren't immediately obvious anymore, but they were and still are valuable, and yes, his history is quite checkered. His family? Who knows? I certainly don't. I never knew of any, ever, and I've known him a long time. I only know that his life has not been a happy one. But Gage is not a hopeless case, anymore than you were – or I was."

Kostmayer grunted. "Oh, I know he's basically a good guy, but he drives me crazy sometimes, you know?"

"Then why did you go drinking with him?"

"To see if I could figure out anything about him. To see if I could get him drunk enough to talk."

"But he didn't talk."

"No, he just got more and more silent and ornery, until he was a wet rag, and then he was so pleasant he made me want to throw up."

McCall laughed. "You'd better make up your mind which way you want him, Mickey. He's going to be with us for a while."

Kostmayer decided it was time to change the subject. "What about this Cone guy? You got anything in particular in mind?"

"To hear him out, first. To see his family is protected, second. To see what we can turn up on this gang of bank robbers, third."

"What are you going to want me to do?"

"Well, you're the one who's seen the film. You tell me. Which part do you want to play?"

Kostmayer chuckled. "There were no good guys in that film, McCall. Eddie Coyle had no friends."

"Somehow I had that feeling. Let's hear what Mr. Cone has to say. Then we'll talk."

Cone wanted to meet them at his home, not at the bank, so he had taken an early lunch and met them there just before noon. His home was a quiet bungalow in a regular Queens neighborhood. The front porch had been enclosed at some time in the past. The brown grass was just beginning to come back to full life, and tulips were up near the house, together with the last of the daffodils. At this hour of a weekday, it was not hard to find a parking place. McCall parked the Jaguar, and he and Kostmayer went to the door.

A man they presumed to be Cone opened the door as they were coming up the walk. "Mr. McCall?"

"Yes," McCall said.

Cone led them right in, across the closed-in porch and into the main living room of the house. As he took their coats, he said, "This is my wife, Eileen," and a pretty woman with light brown hair that dangled around her neck gave them a nervous smile.

McCall nodded to her and said, "This is Mickey Kostmayer, my associate."

And Eileen Cone's face fell.

Kostmayer looked up to say hello to her – and his face fell.

McCall looked back and forth from one to the other.

"Hello, Eileen," Kostmayer said with a touch of very, very distant warmth.

"Mickey," she said in the same tone of voice.

"You've met," Cone said and did not look happy about it.

Kostmayer perked up. "How long has it been? Seven or eight years maybe?"

"About that," she said. Then she looked at her husband and explained, "Mickey used to shoot pool at that little saloon where I was working when we met." Then she looked back at Mickey and said, "You just disappeared one day. What happened?"

"Had to travel for my job," Kostmayer said.

But their entire conversation had been so guarded, so careful. McCall knew right away there was more to it than a few games of pool in a bar, and he could tell by Cone's expression that he knew, too. Immediately McCall also knew he could not leave Kostmayer to help guard this family. Kostmayer would be doing field work.

"Well, Mr. Cone, we are here to see what we can do to help you," McCall said.

Cone ushered them into a dining room and a big round oak table.

"Would you like some coffee?" Eileen asked.

"Yes, black," McCall said.

"The same," Kostmayer said.

"Steve?" Eileen asked her husband.

"I still have some," he said.

In a moment they were sitting around the table with mugs of coffee and Cone was explaining how they awoke one morning to find three masked men in the house. One held Eileen and their daughter, who was six years old and off in school now, while the other two took Cone to his bank and robbed it. Then they left him off in Brooklyn, the one at the house just left, and the whole thing was over in an hour. Except that when something like that happened to you, it was never over. Their daughter Sarah still had nightmares and to Eileen every noise in the night was a footstep, every shadow a masked man with a gun.

But McCall had to know what the reality was. "What makes you think there is still a threat to you from these men?"

Cone said. "I couldn't see their faces, but I could see what they were built like, how they held themselves, and I've seen one of them at the bank."

"When?"

"Day before yesterday. He asked for information about a checking account but didn't open one. We didn't get a name."

"What did he look like?" Kostmayer asked.

"Short, about 30, dark brown hair but receding a bit. Had funny hands – the – veins – " He held out the back of his own hand and ran a finger along the veins that fanned out from his wrist and up to the fingers. "The veins – they really stood out, and one of them just seemed to go sideways across his knuckles before it turned and went up to his finger."

By now, Eileen had sat down with them, and McCall asked, "What about the man who stayed here? Did you notice anything about him?"

Eileen shook her head. "He was – about Mickey's height, I guess. Dark hair. I could barely look at him."

"What about the car he drove away in?" Kostmayer asked. "Did you see it?"

"No. I was too afraid to look out the window."

"She didn't even call the police until I called home," Cone said, "and it took me ten minutes after they left me off to find a phone."

McCall said, "I take it you have photos of the man who came into the bank on the security cameras."

Cone got up, fetched a file from a sideboard drawer, and brought it back to McCall.

McCall opened it and saw several photos. As usual for security camera photos, they were bad, but they did give him a general idea of the man Cone thought had been one of his captors. Of course, he could have been mistaken, but maybe not. McCall passed the file to Kostmayer, who looked at the photos closely, figuring he was going to be the one to go looking for the guy.

"How does your daughter get to and from school?" McCall asked.

"I drive," Eileen said.

McCall said, "I will have a man over here this afternoon. His name is Harley Gage, and he will be with you when you go to pick her up today."

"I'm more worried about overnight," Cone said.

"I will arrange for that, too," McCall said, "but Gage will stay with you tonight and be relieved in the morning."

"How long do you think this will take, Mr. McCall?" Eileen asked, her voice quivering.

McCall gave her a reassuring smile. "It's not easy to tell, but we have a way of solving things like this fairly quickly. May I have these photos?"

Cone nodded.

McCall and Kostmayer had barely climbed into the car and closed the doors before McCall asked, "Just how involved were you with Eileen Cone?"

"Very," Kostmayer said flatly. "We once talked about moving in together."

"What happened?"

"The company, what else? I had to leave town, couldn't tell her why. She didn't like the uncertainty."

"Hmm," McCall said as he pulled away from the curb. "She does not appear to be at ease with uncertainty, does she?"

"No," Kostmayer said, and in his mind's eye he remembered how she trembled at the drop of a hat all those years ago. He took a deep breath. "No, she needs to know what's going on around her all the time. I'll be doing the legwork on this, won't I?"

"I think that's best," McCall said.

"Do you think Gage is up to guard duty today? I really don't want to end up trying to kick his ass across the Queensborough Bridge because he screwed this up. He can't screw this up."

McCall recognized all the implications in Kostmayer's words. "He did very well with Mickey Burton – very well indeed. It turns out that children love him."

"I don't know why."

"Because when they are small, they are straightforward, and Harley doesn't have to worry they have something hidden that will come after him. Therefore, he is straight with them and relaxed, and they trust him. Remember, Mickey, he's not only rebuilding his life. He's rebuilding his faith."

Kostmayer grumbled an understanding. He didn't really want to understand, but when McCall put it that way, he did understand, all too well. But then Eileen's face – that younger face – came back into his mind, and he worried. If anything happened to her because of Gage….

When they got back to McCall's apartment, they were surprised to find Harley Gage clean, nicely groomed even if he was back in his clothes from yesterday, and for all intents and purposes, completely over any hangover. He even smiled at them, put down the newspaper he was reading, and got up from the sofa to greet them.

"Are you still drunk?" Kostmayer asked.

Gage's smile turned to a glare.

"I like the smile better, Harley," McCall said.

So Gage gave it to him. "How did it go?"

"Well, the Cone family may have a very serious problem," McCall said, and explained it all – except for Kostmayer's relationship with Eileen Cone - while Kostmayer went for the coffee maker and, finding the pot empty, made more and poured himself some.

The only time Gage interrupted was when McCall described the hand of the man on the security camera. Gage held up his own hand and showed McCall the back of it – veins that stood out, went sideways when you expected them to go straight to the fingers. "A lot of people have hands like that."

"I'm not convinced that this particular man is a threat," McCall said, "but I'm also not convinced the real threat is removed. I want you to get over there now, stay until tomorrow morning when I'll have someone relieve you. Eileen Cone needs to pick up her daughter at school."

"Does the school know about this?" Gage asked.

"Not specifically. I want you to talk to the Cones and get them to alert the school. It shouldn't take too much arm-twisting."

While he listened and sipped coffee, Kostmayer debated whether to tell Gage that he knew Eileen. How would he do it if he did? Threaten him about taking good care of her? Appeal to the comrade? However he approached it, how would Gage take it? Maybe it would be better to say nothing.

But then McCall turned to him and pointedly said, "Have we left anything out, Mickey?"

That was an instruction, not an inquiry. "One thing," Kostmayer said, still wondering how to say this. "Eileen Cone and I – have a history."

Gage's eyebrows went up and back down. Kostmayer hated that affectation of his. It always meant either "ah, well" or "hmm!" and this was "hmm!"

But it told Kostmayer which way to go with this. "Look, she's a special lady, she's very – afraid. Take good care of her, huh? And don't go talking to her about this conversation."

"Or you'll kick my butt from Queens to Queensland, right?" Gage said, kidding. Then, "Don't worry. I'll take good care of her even if she is a friend of yours."

Gage followed with a grin and a slight tilt of his head that made Kostmayer want to strangle him. "I mean it, Harley," he said seriously.

Gage waved a hand, looked away and said, just as seriously, "I know you mean it. Don't worry."

"Have you eaten something?" McCall asked Gage.

Gage nodded. "That leftover pizza is gone."

"Then get going. I'll call and tell her you're on your way."

McCall gave Gage the address. Gage nodded and went out the door.

"If I ever have half a reason, I'm going to – "

"Knock it off, Mickey," McCall said. "Eileen can't have a better bodyguard than Harley Gage, and you know it."

"Yeah, I know," Kostmayer admitted. "He drives me crazy, but you're right."

McCall handed Kostmayer the security photos of the man in the bank. "As I said, I'm not completely convinced this man is the threat Cone thinks he is, but take these, check around, see if anyone knows him and see if you can pick up anything at all on this gang."

Kostmayer took the file, nodding. "I got a contact in Queens. If he doesn't know, he'll point me in some directions."

"Good. Even without our clients being involved, I'd like to get these bastards off the street. They will pull their tricks again, and someday, someone is going to get hurt."

"I know. That's how the movie went."

"I do not want to see it go that far."

Kostmayer nodded and went out the door. He arrived down on the street just in time to see Gage pull away from the curb half a block down and drive by right in front of him. He thought about Eileen and said to himself, yes, McCall's right, Gage is a good bodyguard and that Mickey Burton did love him. And God knows I don't need to be anywhere near her now.

But he worried.

Gage had to admit he was intrigued about the idea of some woman involved with Kostmayer and couldn't wait to meet this Eileen Cone. What kind of woman would fall for that little dweeb? Ah, well, there was no accounting for taste, and the romantics said that there was someone for everyone in this world. The thought made Gage briefly remember some of his past encounters, all of which ended badly, so he didn't remember them for long. So he and Kostmayer had a least one thing in common – love lives that weren't going anywhere.

It took too long to get to Queens and the traffic was irritating, but as he pulled up to the house, Gage took a deep breath and got rid of the bad mood that had sunk into him. He parked, went up to the door and rang the bell.

There was a peep hole through the big wooden door. The light coming through was blocked for a moment, and Gage said, "It's Harley Gage. Robert McCall sent me."

The door opened slowly, only partly, and Eileen Cone looked out carefully.

Gage smiled and tried to be reassuring. "Robert and Mickey filled me in about your problem and asked me to come make sure you and your daughter are safe. Is it all right if I come in?"

Hanging her head, she let him in and closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry. I'm pretty nervous."

Gage took a quick look around, sizing things up. Windows on every wall he could see, a back door straight back through what must have been a kitchen, dining room off to the right with a big, round oak table, and stairs leading up to the second floor just to the left of the front door. "I don't blame you," Gage said, and he extended his hand. "I'll try to help make some of that go away."

She shook hands with him and attempted a cautious smile. "I was just going to make some lunch. Do you want anything to eat?"

"No, thank you, I've eaten, but something to drink would be nice."

"Coke? Coffee? I have some tea, too."

"Just water, I think. I've already put down three cups of coffee today."

Gage followed Eileen into the kitchen, evaluating along the way. Off the kitchen was a stairway down to a basement, with a door to the outside at ground level about half way down. An interior door could close the steps off from the kitchen.

There was a small round table in the kitchen with three chairs around it. A glass of soda with ice was at one chair. Gage sat down in one of the others, being sure he could see the front, back and side doors from where he sat, as well as having a clear view through windows at the other side of the table.

"Ice?" Eileen asked.

"No, just plain," Gage said, and thanked her when she handed it to him.

"How long have you been working with Mr. McCall?" Eileen asked as she made herself a sandwich.

"Not that long, but I've known him for years," Gage said, and followed it with, "He's good at what he does. He'll help you."

"I hope so," she said with a disarmed sigh. "I can't tell you how awful that morning was. If it happens again – "

"It won't," Gage said quickly. "I'm good at what I do, too."

"You know, I'm not a vindictive woman," she said, stopping what she was doing and staring out the window, "and I'm not all that assertive either, but if I could find those men and if I were six-five and two hundred and fifty pounds – "

Gage smiled. "Well, I'm only six-one and two-ten."

Eileen glanced over her shoulder at him, smiled, and brought her sandwich to the table. "I have a six-year-old daughter."

Gage nodded. "I will keep her very safe, and I do read bedtime stories."

"Do you have any children?"

"No. No family, just me."

"That's too bad. Kids are great."

"What's your daughter's name?"

"Sarah. She was a rock that morning, stayed quiet and calm and after it was over she came and hugged me and said she was glad that ugly man was gone. I was falling apart inside, but how do you fall apart on the outside when your six-year-old acts like that?"

"You don't," Gage said. "But I'm sure she was scared."

"She cried a lot when her father got home. I think she just held off for my sake." Eileen looked straight at Gage then. "You've got to get those men and put them away."

Gage nodded. "We will."

There was a little coffee shop off Roosevelt Avenue run by a large fat man Kostmayer met sitting next to him at a Mets game. They shared some stories back then and Kostmayer cultivated him as a source of information – turns out coffee shop owners overheard a lot of things they found useful when pouring that coffee. The large fat man's name was DiMarco, and even though Kostmayer hadn't seen him in a few months, DiMarco welcomed him like a long lost cousin, bellowing a big hello and cupping his cheek with one hand while shaking hands with the other.

"Mickey, Mickey, Mickey," he said happily. "Where have you been, I was beginning to check the obituaries for your name."

"Aw, DiMarco, it hasn't been that long."

"You just missed the lunch rush, come on, sit down, have some coffee, what is that?" DiMarco pointed to the file Kostmayer had under his arm.

Kostmayer sat down with DiMarco at a table and opened the file. "Have you seen this guy around?"

DiMarco looked at all the pictures, alternately squinting and frowning. "No, can't say I have, who is he?"

"I don't know, but there's a chance he's involved with a client of ours."

"Involved? How involved?" DiMarco leaned close and lowered his voice. "Is this some bad guy, are the police after him too, what do you want him for?"

It was hard to keep your head from spinning when you talked to DiMarco. Kostmayer said, "I just want to find him and talk to him. He might be into some illegal handguns, laundering some stolen money, something along those lines."

"So, he's robbing banks or holding up gas stations, what?"

"Banks, maybe, but maybe not. He may not be into anything at all. Could be we got the wrong guy."

"Ah, so you need information about the possible right guys if this one is wrong, you need to find somebody been stealing from your client, robbing his liquor store, holding up his gas station?"

"I'll take whatever you know, DiMarco."

DiMarco got quieter, even though Kostmayer had now realized there wasn't another soul in the place. "Well, I'm not saying there's anything to this, I'm not saying this guy was even telling his buddy the truth, he coulda just been bragging, you know how guys make stuff up and brag, but this guy comes in two days ago, I hear him say to his buddy that whatever it was he did went over real well, nobody got hurt, nobody got seen, no guns got fired, they were gonna try it again and they were gonna want new guns."

"These guys come in often?"

"Now and then, not every day, not every other day, maybe once or twice a week, maybe at breakfast, maybe at lunch."

"What do they look like?"

"Just guys, one short, like five-six or five-seven, one taller, maybe five-eleven, six foot, maybe Italian, maybe Jewish, not Hispanic, spoke good English, dress in jeans and tee shirts and one has a crappy leather jacket with holes worn through the elbows, dark hair, young, maybe late 20s, you know, just guys."

Kostmayer looked down at the photo. "This guy doesn't look like he fits in with that."

"Ah, you can't tell from security camera shots, they come from overhead, can't always tell what somebody's wearing, this is a good camera, though, got to be a bank, am I right, this is a bank?"

"It's a bank."

"It's that bank that got hit on Monday over by 40th, am I right, they held the manager's family and made him rob the bank for them and let everybody go and you're working for that bank manager, am I right?"

"I can't tell you who we're working for, DiMarco, you know that."

"Well, no matter, I can tell you, this guy in the picture ain't one of the guys who comes in here, he's too old, these guys are young but I guess that doesn't mean they can't be working with some old guy."

"You got names on these younger guys?"

DiMarco thought, staring up at the ceiling. "The tall one calls the short one Bobby, I got nothing on the other one, but when they leave here they used to take off in an old blue Ford but when they were in here yesterday or the day before it was they were driving a tan Buick, old tan Buick."

"What else can you tell me?"

DiMarco looked up at the ceiling again. "Nothing else but they might come in here again before the week is out, if they do I can get a plate number, I'll take a better look at them, see if they got scars or anything, and I'll see if I can pick up more name, will that help you any?"

"Sure will." Kostmayer said. "And the guy in the picture, see if you can find out anything at all on him. If we can rule him in or out, it'll help a lot."

"Can I keep one of the pictures, it'll help if I got it around, I won't show it to anybody I don't trust with my life but it'll help even if I don't show it to anybody."

"Sure," Kostmayer said and passed one of the photos to him. Then he took a fifty dollar bill out of his wallet. "Here. Bring me that cup of coffee and maybe an egg sandwich."

He felt like he'd burned up 300 calories just listening to DiMarco.

It was hard to drive back over the Queensborough Bridge without going to see how Eileen was. The more Kostmayer tried not to think about her, the more she crept into his memory. They really did have something going way back then. She was sweet, really sweet, at a time in his life when sweetness was hard to find. When she touched him, he felt like all the world had gone soft and loving, and when she was in his arms he felt soft and loving and he liked that. He really did want to live with her back then. He wanted to put the company aside when he walked through the door and dance in her smile all night long.

But, of course, that was absurd. He couldn't tell her about how he made his living, and that raised the uncertainty, the fear in her eyes. It was absolutely impossible for them to have any kind of real life together if she couldn't know everything about him. The first time the company called him away and he couldn't tell her where he was going or why, he knew it was over, so he just left. He was ashamed of that now. That must have really hurt her. Hell, it really hurt him. And maybe that was why he longed to turn around in the middle of the Queensborough Bridge, to go back and see her and tell her and get her to understand that this was what he couldn't tell her back then, this was how he made his living and it was deeply secret, and he was so ashamed he had just left her.

Crazy thought. Gage was there now. Kostmayer wasn't about to go open his soul to her with Gage around, and besides, she had a husband and a child. Maybe in all this there would be a time for him to say, "I'm sorry," but it wasn't today.

McCall was happy to hear that Kostmayer had made a contact that sounded promising, because he had visited the police and they seemed to have nothing. "They ought to get ATF in on it," Kostmayer said. "In the movie, it's a treasury agent after guns who has the snitch and gets the bad guys."

"I thought you said Eddie Coyle didn't have any friends in that movie."

"He didn't. The treasury agent was a slimeball, too. Reminded me of Gage."

"Speaking of Harley, I've called Joey Tambor – you remember, that fellow we used last year in Queens? He'll take over for Gage in the morning and I'll have Harley stay overnight at the Cone house. Harley will be available to run down leads if you need him."

Kostmayer grunted. "I don't think I'll need him."

McCall pointed a finger at him. "If you do get an angle on these bastards, I do not want you trying for them alone. Call Gage, and call me too if it looks serious enough. But do not go without any backup."

"Okay, okay," Kostmayer agreed. He had to admit that McCall was right, again.

Gage glared at the man, small and with his shirt pulled up around his neck. "I don't like this shirt."

Beside him on the living room floor, dressing Barbie in a similar polo shirt and shorts, Sarah Cone asked, "Why?"

Gage looked at Ken in his hand. "It doesn't fit right. See, it's too tight to fit over his chest."

"Here," Sarah said with great impatience, handed him the Barbie doll and took Ken from him. "You just have to pull." And she pulled the shirt down tightly over Ken's chest and smoothed it out.

Gage gave Sarah a sideways smile. "I'm sorry. I'm just not used to dressing dolls."

"Don't you have a little girl?"

"No, I don't."

"Did you have a little sister?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well," Sarah sighed with exasperation, "I'll just have to put up with that."

Eileen Cone had been listening and had to go into the kitchen before she laughed. She had been astonished to see a big man like Gage get on the floor and play with her daughter – more astonished since he didn't have any children. But she was tickled to see her daughter take to him and have fun with him. It took the edge off this whole nightmare.

In a moment, Gage was in the kitchen with her, saying, "She couldn't put up with me anymore and threw me out. I seem have that effect on women."

Eileen laughed again. "Steve will be home in an hour or so and we'll have dinner. Would you like some coffee or something in the meantime?"

"No," Gage said, "but I want to talk to you about something."

Gage motioned to the table, and Eileen, frightened now, sat down.

Gage sat down, too. "It's nothing to worry about. I talked to McCall about it, and he and I both think you should tell the school what's going on so they can keep an extra eye on Sarah."

"Oh," Eileen said, relieved, then visibly nervous again.

Gage's eyes narrowed. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Just that Steven's been trying to keep this quiet, didn't want the neighbors to know we still had concerns. If we talk to the school, it'll get out."

"I think your daughter's safety is more important."

"Of course it is."

Gage could tell by the way she said it that maybe her husband didn't think so. "Do you want to talk about this again when your husband gets home?"

"No, let me talk to him first," Eileen said. "I'll talk to you about it in the morning."

Gage nodded, but he didn't like how concerned Eileen looked. Why wouldn't a man be more concerned about his daughter than his neighbors? Well, things went on between a couple in a marriage that Gage knew he'd be better off staying far away from. He touched Eileen's hand, and the moment he did she looked up at him as if he had just pulled her up after she'd fallen off a cliff. He withdrew his hand slowly and said, "This isn't anything to worry about, just something to do to be extra careful."

Eileen nodded. "Of course. I'll talk to Steve as soon as we get Sarah to bed."

Gage got up, uncomfortable with this situation and wishing he'd waited until Steve Cone came home to say anything. "I'm going to nose around the house, make sure everything is secure before your husband leaves the bank," he said and went out of the room.

In the living room, Sarah was playing happily alone with Barbie and Ken and didn't even see him go by. He heard her say in a deep Ken voice, "Don't you worry, my darling. Everything's going to be just fine."

Night fell. Kostmayer was finished for the day. He went home with a fresh bottle of scotch and settled in with it, determined not to drink even a third of it, since he was alone and didn't want to feel like a lonely drunk. Feeling lonely was bad enough.

He parked himself in the window and watched the traffic go by. It was hard not to think about Eileen. Fate was so damned cruel sometimes, to throw him into her life again when he was as unable as ever to really be a part of it. The more he thought about her, the more he let the memories come creeping in, and the more they crept in, the more he had to force them away. She was so sweet, so soft, so warm –

No, damn it. He got up from the window and got rid of the scotch. He wasn't going to sit here and drink alone and feel miserable because somewhere, years ago, he'd made the wrong choices and now there was no chance he would ever find a woman like Eileen. He'd go down to Pete O'Phelan's and drink with friends and feel miserable because somewhere, years ago –

No, he wouldn't do that either. The choices were made and drinking wouldn't change them. Going to Pete O'Phelan's wouldn't change them. Nothing would change them. And frankly, he wasn't sure he regretted them at all. It hadn't been a bad life. It wasn't a bad life now. And if it was incomplete, maybe it wouldn't always be that way.

He picked up the phone. There was a friend he knew he could turn to, be with, without strings, without promises, without regrets. He dialed. She answered.

At the same time, in Queens, Gage made his last rounds for the night and settled down on the sofa. The house was dark and quiet, but he could hear the murmuring of Steve and Eileen Cone talking in their bedroom. It was too muffled to hear words, but Gage could tell it was not lovemaking talk, but serious talk, probably about whether to tell the school authorities what was going on. He could tell because their voices rose and fell, and when they rose, there was sharpness and anger in them, not softness and joy. Gage congratulated himself on being able to discern the difference.

But even in the sharpness and the anger, there was something that he was just a little bit jealous of. Intimacy, that's what it was. The feeling of being so close to another person that you were able to share sharpness and anger and softness and joy. It was enticing. It tickled at the edge of his wanting like the voices tickled at the edge of his hearing. But no, something automatic shut it off, something with a big DANGER sign on a big closed door that he didn't even want to open because of all the damned memories behind it.

Gage left a small light on in the living room and read magazines and listened to soft jazz on the radio all night. Coffee and making rounds every half hour helped keep him awake. When the sky began to get a little lighter, he flicked off the light and waited, listening. If the three men were going to return, this was the time they were likely to do it. He moved quietly around the house as they sun gradually came up, checking each window and door, listening for cars that might stop nearby. The sky grew lighter and lighter, and Steve and Eileen Cone began moving around, and then Sarah's little voice began to giggle happily. Gage eased off and started to feel tired. No bad guys were coming this morning.

Before the family was up and coffee was even on, a car stopped outside. Cautiously, Gage went to a front window and parted the curtains just an inch to see what was going on. A small old VW had parked two cars behind his van, and a little wiry man with curly black hair was coming up the walk toward the house. Gage eased – it was Joey, another one of McCall's operatives, not used often, but enough so that Gage knew him to be easy-going, very crafty, very bookish. Gage went to the door and opened it as Joey came up the steps.

"Harley Gage," Joey said with a smile.

"Hi there, Joey," Gage said, grinning, and let him in. "Family's just getting up."

As Gage closed the door, Joey looked around carefully. Like Gage, he left his jacket on, because of the firearm he carried under it. "Yeah, I'm early. McCall called me about an hour ago and said to get over here. He needs you to meet Kostmayer someplace at eight."

Gage looked at his watch. "It's only six. Gonna take me two hours to get there?"

"No, but McCall knows you, Gage," Joey laughed. "Speed in the morning ain't your long suit."

Gage didn't chuckle, but he didn't growl, either. "Yeah, okay, where?"

Joey gave him the name and address of the coffee shop DiMarco ran. "Mickey will meet you in front of the place."

Gage figured it would take him half an hour or so to get there in the morning traffic. "Well, that'll give me time to wash up and shave as soon as the family vacates the bathroom."

It was then Sarah came dashing in, still wearing pink pajamas. "Harley!"

But she stopped running toward him when she saw Joey and stood still, a mix of defiance and fear taking over her bright little eyes.

"Sarah, this is Joey, he's a friend of mine and he's going to be with you today," Gage said and reached to pick her up.

She let him lift her. Although she was still cautious, she'd already knew she could trust Gage's big arms.

"Hello, Sarah," Joey said and held out his hand.

She took it, very carefully, but boy, there was defiance in her eyes. Whoever this was, he was going to have to fit into her world, because she wasn't going to let him disrupt it any more than she had let Gage disrupt it. "Hello," she said.

Gage had fallen in love with that attitude of hers right off the bat. "Oh, if you were only thirty years older," he said and planted a big wet one on her cheek that set her to giggling.

Eileen Cone came in, wearing a blue bathrobe, smiling. Gage introduced her to Joey and they exchanged pleasantries before she went to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast. Gage left Joey with them while he went out to his van to make sure there had been no mischief with it overnight. He checked carefully in the back, under the seats, under the hood, in the undercarriage. Everything looked all right – except for one small problem.

Gage went back into the house, grouching. "Everything all right?" Joey, drinking coffee at the table with Steve Cone, asked.

"Oh, nobody's tampered with it," Gage said, "but while I was checking around under the hood, the radiator hose fell off in my hand. The belts aren't long for this life, either."

"You can call AAA," Steve said and pointed to the phone.

Gage said, "AAA isn't in my budget. I'll phone McCall and get Kostmayer to pick me up here. He'll know somebody."

Then he growled, and headed for the phone.

It was about 7:30 when the doorbell rang and Eileen went to answer it, knowing that it was going to be Mickey Kostmayer. Kostmayer was waiting when she opened the door, and the look on his face was annoyed, but that mood lifted when he saw Eileen. He smiled and said, "Hi," and felt like a teenager coming to pick up a date.

Eileen smiled back and opened the door. She was dressed now and would be taking Sarah to school in an hour or so, but in the meantime, Sarah had both Joey and Gage at the kitchen table, carefully instructing them on the playing of Crazy Eights. That pretty much eliminated any feeling Kostmayer was having but mirth.

When he chuckled, Sarah looked up and took on that turf-protecting expression she had greeted Joey with but given up in the short time she'd gotten to know him. Eileen said, "Honey, this is Mickey. He's friends with Harley and Joey and he's come to pick up Harley because his van is broken down."

"Hello," Sarah said cautiously.

On hearing her voice, the first thing Kostmayer thought was, this could have been my daughter. He got rid of that thought. "Hello, Sarah," he said. "I'm going to have to take Harley away for a while."

"When are you coming back?" Sarah asked Gage.

"Oh, I'm not sure," Gage said as he folded his hand and got up, "but I will be back, I promise."

"Don't make it too long," Eileen said. "We're getting used to you."

Gage smiled at her, and Kostmayer felt bile rise up in his throat. He recognized the look in her eyes when she looked at Gage. He knew that sweetness in her voice. He knew that smile of Gage's. And he was pretty sure he knew what had gone on here since Gage arrived.

"Come on, let's go," Kostmayer said and headed quickly for the front door without a goodbye to anyone else.

Gage followed him, suspicious of his attitude but not willing to get into it in front of Eileen and particularly Sarah. He followed Kostmayer and didn't catch up to him until they got to Kostmayer's car.

"What's eating you?" Gage asked as soon as he climbed in.

"Later," Kostmayer said, not looking at him.

"I guess a recommendation for an auto mechanic is out of the question, huh?"

"Later," Kostmayer said again and pulled away from the curb.

They did not speak to each other again, all the way over to DiMarco's coffee shop. When they got there, Kostmayer led the way to the front door and inside. The place was fairly crowded, but mostly with commuters picking up coffee to take on the ride to work. The tables were only about a quarter full. Kostmayer gave a wave to DiMarco behind the counter as he and Gage found a table and sat down. In a couple of minutes, a woman took over for DiMarco at the counter, and he came over with coffee and a pad to take an order on.

"Morning, gentlemen," he said fairly loudly for others to hear. Then, more softly, "I got a couple names for you, Mickey, one of those guys were in here again just before I closed yesterday, I couldn't believe it, and he had two other guys with him and I actually overheard the word 'bank' in the conversation, I guess they coulda been talking about their checking accounts but I didn't get that feeling, who's this?"

Gage was trying so hard to follow the man's sentences that he really didn't hear DiMarco ask who he was.

Kostmayer said, "Harley Gage. He works with me. He's ok. Did you get any names?"

"Yeah, I did, I got chit-chatty with them and heard a couple more names to go with the Bobby, there was a Frank and a Danny and those two are brothers and I got the plate number off the car, here you go."

DiMarco slipped Kostmayer a small piece of paper as he put a napkin down in front of him."Did you get any last names?" Kostmayer asked.

DiMarco said, "I thought I heard the one called Bobby say 'Davilov' or something like that to the one called Frank, but I didn't get Bobby's last name, but maybe you can get it off the car license, and I'll tell you what, they all came together, and they all left together and I figure we'll be hearing about another bank job today or tomorrow because they were starting to look all sweaty when they were leaving, you want something to eat, Gage?"

"Uh –" Gage heard his name but it took a moment for what came before it to register. "Donut, glazed, I guess."

"Let me have one, too," Kostmayer said, and he gave DiMarco a fifty from his wallet.

DiMarco walked away, writing on his pad.

Gage sipped his coffee. "The words went by so fast, I'm not sure I caught them all."

Kostmayer sipped on his coffee as well, without looking at Gage or responding to him.

Gage thought he would bide his time a little longer, but not much longer. Something was eating Kostmayer, and he bet to himself that it had something to do with Eileen Cone, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it could be. If Kostmayer didn't tell him by the time they got to McCall's place, Gage was planning to throw him up against a wall and knock it out of him, and he thought he might enjoy that very much.

When they got back to Kostmayer's car, Kostmayer called the DMV and got the name Robert Mallineau and an address in Queens. It wasn't very far, so he and Gage drove by the place. Just a row house divided into apartments. The car was nowhere to be seen. Both Kostmayer and Gage got the very uncomfortable feeling that somewhere, right now, Mallineau and the Davilov brothers – or whatever their name was – were carrying out another kidnapping/bank robbery. Kostmayer called the Cone home and was relieved when Eileen answered calmly.

"Just checking," Kostmayer said. "We're heading back to Manhattan, and I wanted to be sure everything was okay over there before we left Queens."

"Everything's fine," Eileen said. "By the way, that Harley Gage is a prince. He made us all feel a lot safer and Sarah adores him. She can't wait until he comes back over."

Kostmayer had to suppress the bile again. "Yeah," he said. Then he bid her goodbye and turned the car toward Manhattan.

"Everything okay over there?" Gage asked.

"Just fine," Kostmayer said coldly.

If you weren't driving, Gage growled to himself.

The rest of the trip to McCall's was in silence. McCall wasn't there, and Gage had to let them both in, and the moment the door to the apartment closed behind them, he decided he'd waited long enough. He let Kostmayer get into the living room and then came right at him.

"Well, you said 'later,' and it's later," Gage growled into Kostmayer's face. "What they hell is eating you? Are you that pissed you had to come pick me up?"

Kostmayer was never one to be bowled over by Harley Gage or anybody else. "I told you about Eileen. You can't even let one go by, can you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"She's pretty, she's sweet, she's vulnerable, so Harley Gage has to make a move."

"What?!!"

"Didn't even matter she's married, did it?"

Gage drew all six foot one of him into a tight fist. "What the hell are you talking about? What kind of man do you think I am?!"

Kostmayer got right up into Gage's face. "I don't know, Gage. You tell me. What kind of man are you? You drop in here like a plane crash, you disrupt everything, you screw everything up, and then you think the world ought to kow-tow to whatever poor Harley Gage wants to – "

Kostmayer didn't even get to finish before a big hand smashed into the side of his head. Kostmayer knew it was coming, tried to duck, but Gage's punch moved with him and took him full in the left cheekbone. Kostmayer went down in a heap, but expecting a kick to follow, he quickly rolled over away from Gage and got back up onto his knees.

Gage hadn't moved. He just stood there, flame coming out of his eyes, hands in big fists – and then suddenly the fists uncurled. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

"What is it with you?!" Kostmayer bellowed and climbed to his feet. He thought he might have lost some teeth or broken his jaw, but he moved his mouth around. Everything hurt, but nothing crackled. "This is about protecting Eileen! None of it's about Harley Gage and what he wants! It's not about Mickey Kostmayer!"

"Isn't it?" Gage asked, moving toward Kostmayer now and getting back into his face, but speaking in an enraging intense softness. "You think Eileen Cone is your private property because you had a thing with her once, and if she smiles at me there must be some sinister plot of mine behind it. If you got a problem with me dropping into your little world like a plane crash, you take that up with me, not Eileen Cone."

"What I got a problem with," Kostmayer said into Gage's face, "is the way you're working that woman like she was just there for you to – "

"Don't say it! Don't even think about saying it unless you want my fist in your face again! Nothing is happening between Eileen Cone and me, absolutely nothing. And if you think there is, it's because your imagination can't find anything better to do."

"She's in love with you, Gage."

Gage looked absolutely thrown. "What?"

"She is in love with you."

"Go to hell! You've been with her less than thirty seconds since she's known me!"

"Whatever you've done – "

"I haven't done anything. Not a damn thing."

He looked so shaken, that suddenly Kostmayer believed him. Just as suddenly, he remembered, years ago, before he fell in love with her – wait. She had fallen in love with him first, hadn't she? It was Eileen who started making the first moves, wasn't it? Kostmayer tried to remember and for a moment was completely confused. When exactly had they fallen in love? How had it happened? All of a sudden, way back then, it just suddenly seemed to be there. Why had it just suddenly been there?

Gage was still off in his own territory. "I'm a jerk and an asshole, but Eileen is screwed up all by herself and I'm not the kind of man who's going to take advantage of that. Not to mention, she has this husband, and they're clients. If she's in love with me, she did it to herself, and it's news to me."

Kostmayer felt like maybe he had gone a little out of bounds. It showed.

And Gage did take advantage of that. He moved back into Kostmayer's face. "And if I've dropped in like a plane crash and disrupted your little world, well, I'm sorry. I was sitting comfortably in my little prison bus when you blasted in to have me help you save your precious McCall. It wasn't my idea to go to prison, and hell, it wasn't even my idea to get out. So I'm sorry, but you're stuck with the monster you helped create."

Gage ran a hand through his hair and moved away, breathing hard, pissed to high heaven and sick of the whole damned thing.

Kostmayer sighed. "All right. You and I have issues of our own to settle. I just don't want Eileen to get hurt in the crossfire."

Gage let a breath out, too. "If she's in love with me, I don't know how it happened. Maybe just because I was there and I was her protection – I don't know. I didn't come on to her. I wouldn't have."

"You're going to have to set things straight, and you better do it carefully."

"Why do you think she's in love with me? What the hell kind of woman falls in love with a stranger over one afternoon?"

"One who's under a lot of pressure and whose head isn't all that straight about men to begin with. But I know her. God knows why, but she's falling for you. Clear it up somehow when you go back over there."

"I will."

"And then you and I have to settle things, for good, before McCall gets hurt in the crossfire."

As if on cue, McCall came in the door. As soon as he spotted them there like that, he stopped, stared suspiciously and came toward them. "Problem, gentlemen?"

They looked at him, and then at each other, and for one of the few times, an understanding passed between them. Neither one of them wanted McCall to get hurt in the crossfire.

"No," Gage said.

"Not at all," Kostmayer said.

"Good," McCall said and clearly did not believe it. But he said nothing more. Whatever these two men were dealing with between them, they would have to solve between them. He wasn't running a bloody nursery school. "Did you get anything today, Mickey?"

Kostmayer ran a hand through his hair, straightening it out, and explained to McCall what he'd gotten from DiMarco and the DMV.

"All right," McCall said. "I haven't heard anything on the radio about any bank robbery this morning, have you?"

"No," Kostmayer and Gage said, practically in unison.

McCall said, "Mickey, I want you to find the car and follow it today, and stake out that address tonight. If they move in the morning, I want to be right there with them."

"I still can't be 100% sure these are the right guys," Kostmayer said.

"I know," McCall said, "but it won't hurt to keep an eye on them until we have anything better. How did you leave it with your contact?"

"He's still got some feelers out, and he's going to get back to me as soon as he has anything else."

McCall nodded. "Harley, I want you back with the Cone family overnight tonight. How's your van?"

"Sitting in front of the Cone house with no radiator hose," Gage said.

"I'll get my friend Mike over there as soon as he can go," Kostmayer said.

McCall nodded again. "Go get some rest, Harley. I don't want you falling asleep over there tonight. Either Mickey or I will drive you back over there around 8 this evening."

"Okay," Gage said and headed by for the spare bedroom.

As soon as he was out of sight and earshot, McCall leveled a glare at Kostmayer. Kostmayer knew right away what it meant. "We're sorting it out," he said. "It'll be all right."

"It better be," McCall said.

After Gage had sacked out and Kostmayer had taken off to Queens again, McCall called his police contact and had a long conversation. Kostmayer's information still hadn't been enough for the police to act on, but of course, they wanted to know if anything more solid developed. Whatever "anything more solid" was, McCall knew was up to him to decide. That was about what McCall had expected to hear, but frankly, it tickled uncomfortably at the back of his brain. He had come to respect that tickle when he had it. It put him on a sharper edge that he usually ended up needing.

Gage stumbled out of the spare room at about six, drawn by the smell of leftover Chinese food that McCall was heating up for dinner. Gage was dressed and groomed except for the five o'clock shadow he wore. He did look almost as weary as he had looked the morning before when he woke up on the sofa, but he cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and was more alert.

"Smells good," Gage said. "Got enough for me?"

McCall showed him the pot he was heating the food in. It was easily enough to feed two average men, but he wasn't sure it would feed one Harley Gage. McCall said, "Get yourself a plate."

Gage did that and set it on the counter next to the one McCall had already gotten for himself. "You heard anything from Kostmayer?"

"No, not since he reported in an hour ago." McCall checked his watch. "He should be calling anytime."

McCall dished up the food and took the plates to the dining table while Gage got himself a glass of water. He glanced into the dining room and saw McCall had already set down something for himself, so Gage carried his own drink in and sat down with him. They had scarcely gotten two bites down before the phone rang.

McCall let the machine answer, but Kostmayer's voice said, "McCall, pick up."

McCall went to the phone and picked it up. "Yes, Mickey?"

Gage cocked an ear and listened while he ate some more, hurrying a bit now.

Kostmayer said, "We might have something happening here. Mallineau didn't go anywhere today, but about half an hour ago I followed him to a shopping center parking lot. Some other guy met him there, and they exchanged big brown paper bags."

Not good, McCall thought. "Money for guns?" he asked.

"Possibly. Maybe just money for drugs. I couldn't tell."

"Where are you now?"

"Still following Mallineau. He's heading home again."

"All right. Stay with him, all night if you have to

"Tell Gage I can't get anybody out to his van until tomorrow."

McCall grumbled on that. "All right."

"I'll call again in an hour."

McCall hung up and went back to his dinner. Gage was just finishing up. He'd heard McCall's plan to keep him here and asked, "What's going on?"

McCall sat down again, placing the napkin back on his lap. "Our mark may have just purchased some guns, and I have a nasty feeling that something may happen early tomorrow morning. By the way, your van won't be fixed until tomorrow. I'll make a call and get you a loaner. I don't want you to be without transportation while you're at the Cone house tonight."

Gage said, "Okay. You think they might head there again?"

McCall shrugged. "Who knows? They might, just because it would be unexpected. But wherever they move, Kostmayer will know, and if these men are in fact the one's we're after, we'll have them."

"You're awfully confident, McCall."

McCall smiled. "Just trying to teach you the power of a positive attitude, Harley."

Kostmayer was very, very tired of this stakeout. He hated stakeouts in general, but he especially hated this one, and not just because Gage was where he'd have preferred to be. Sitting in a car all night in Queens was just not his idea of a good time. The light in Mallineau's place had gone out at about midnight, another had come on in another room and gone out fairly quickly, and no one had come out of the house. Mallineau had clearly retired to a comfortable bed, while Kostmayer had to spend the night in the cold front seat of a car. There was no justice in this world.

He had to fight to keep awake, so he decided to keep setting his watch alarm. He'd nod off, the alarm would wake him, and he'd immediately set it for another five minutes ahead. If it went off and he hadn't fallen asleep, he'd reset it for another five minutes. About twenty times during the night he told himself this really stunk and he was never going to work for McCall again if it meant he had to draw duty like this.

Then a light went on in Mallineau's place, the light that had gone on and gone off quickly earlier. Kostmayer came wide awake and checked his watch. It was 4:15 a.m.

Mallineau might have just been going to the bathroom, but at 4:30 that light went out and the one that had stayed on until midnight came on again. More interesting, a car pulled up in front of the house. Two men got out of the car and went into the house.

"Show time," Kostmayer said to himself and called McCall on his car phone.

McCall's phone rang several times before his foggy voice said, "McCall."

"It's Kostmayer," Mickey said. "We've got something happening here. Mallineau is up and two guys just joined him."

"All right. I'll alert Gage and come over there. You stay with them if they go anywhere."

"Got it," Kostmayer said and hung up.

It wasn't a minute later that his car phone rang.

"Kostmayer."

"It's Gage. They moving yet?"

"No, they – wait a minute." The light had gone out in the house, and three shadows were going down to the car. "They're leaving now."

"Stay on the line with me. If it looks like they're coming this way, I want to get the Cones out of here in plenty of time."

Kostmayer watched the car pull out and let it get a block away before he pulled out after it. He was nervous. There wasn't a lot of traffic this early in the morning, and he was afraid they'd spot him, so he had to hang back. "If it were me, I wouldn't come anywhere near the Cones again."

"Me, either," Gage said. "It's too stupid. But that's why McCall thinks they might do it."

"Well, McCall does have a feel for these things. And – they just turned in your direction."

Gage's voice got an edge to it. "How far away do you think you are?"

"Fifteen minutes, maybe, depending on how we hit the lights. We're on 157th Avenue – traffic's heavier."

"All right. I'm not taking any chances. I'll get the Cones out of the house and call you back in a couple minutes."

"Good idea. I'll update McCall."

Gage hung up and quickly went to the Cones' bedroom door. He was about to knock when Steve Cone opened it. He was dressed in sweats, and behind him Eileen was too.

"I heard the phone ring," Steve said. "Something's happening, isn't it?"

"Looks like it," Gage said. "I'll go get Sarah. I want you all out of here. Just drive to a diner or something, call here in half an hour, okay?"

Cone nodded.

Gage immediately went to Sarah's room and tried to wake her, but she was so sound asleep that even shaking her didn't work. Gage bundled her up in her blanket and carried her out to where her parents were already in the car with the engine running. Eileen was in the back seat, and Gage handed Sarah into her trembling arms.

Gage gave her a smile. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

He knew as he closed the car door that they were not remotely reassured, but at least they were on their way out of danger. As they drove off, Gage went back into the house, made sure all the lights were turned off, and called Kostmayer back.

"The Cones are gone," Gage said to him.

Kostmayer breathed a sigh of relief Gage could hear over the phone. "Good, because I think we called it right. You'll probably have company in about five minutes."

"Did you call McCall?"

"Yeah, but he won't make it in time for the show."

"Cops?"

"He's calling them and making sure they don't turn on the lights and sirens, but I don't know if they'll be there in time either. Looks like you and me, pal."

Gage chuckled. He loved a good adrenalin rush. "Okay, stay on the line with me. I'm going to be really disappointed if they pass me by and go somewhere else."

"I won't let you miss anything. If they pass you by, you can just hop in your car and come after us."

"No, no, no, you make sure they come here. I'll be all ready for them."

"Gage, you're a madman, you know that?"

Gage chuckled again. "Yeah, I know that."

Kostmayer chuckled, too. His own adrenalin was pumping hard now, and he could just picture himself herding these guys right into Gage's big grinning face. The car he was following made another turn. "Well, get ready, they're on your street."

Gage carried the phone as far as the cord to the wall would reach, then pulled the receiver all the way to a front window. "Okay. How far?"

"Four blocks, maybe."

"Okay."

They were both quiet for a moment. Then Kostmayer said, "They've turned – they're turning into the alley now, lights off. They'll be right behind you in a minute."

"Okay," Gage said. "They'll come to the back door. I'll let them get into the kitchen. You follow in the back yard and grab whoever tries to bolt, okay?"

"Got it. I'm hanging up. Curtain in about one minute."

Gage hung up and quickly went to the kitchen. He stopped before going all the way in, drew his gun and rested it against the doorframe, pointing it at the back door. He rested his shoulder on the wall right next to the kitchen light switch that was in the hall just outside the kitchen door. He heard three car doors close. His heart was pounding, pounding, so hard he could hear it in his ears. In another few seconds, he heard footsteps on the back porch. Then someone quietly broke the glass in the back door and reached in to unlock it. Gage steadied himself, waited, smiled. This was going to be fun.

Three shadows silently came in and closed the door behind them. The sun was lightening the sky outside the windows. Gage could see the outlines of all three men. He flipped the light switch up and the kitchen light blasted on. Three men in ski masks stood frozen, startled.

Gage smiled. "April fool."

One of them bolted.

Out in the back yard, Kostmayer pointed his handgun at him and froze him on the back porch. "No, no, no!" he said as if scolding a child. "Just sit right down and call it a day."

Gage chuckled again on hearing Kostmayer's voice. "You can sit down, too, and keep your hands on top of the table," he said. "Cops will be here in just a minute. You know, coming back to the same house really was dumb."

McCall roared over to the Cones' house as fast as he could, but he knew he would not be in time to be of any help. He kept checking the clock in his car. Five minutes since he left home – then ten – then twelve – then fifteen – it had to be all over by now. What had happened? Were Mickey and Harley all right? They had worked together all right in the past, but he knew they'd be at each other's throats lately – probably over Eileen Cone, although he wasn't sure that was it. Had they managed to put that aside? Had these bank robbers even gone to the Cone house at all? McCall just didn't know, and he hated not knowing. That was the most nerve-wracking thing in the world, not knowing, having to trust someone else with all the knowledge. Yes, that was an arrogant way of being, he knew, but it was an attitude that had kept him alive all these years, and not knowing ate him up.

He finally turned onto the Cones' street and immediately saw the police vehicle blocking it just ahead. The flashing roof lights were on. McCall hoped that was good.

He pulled up not far and got out of the car. The two uniformed officers standing by the car immediately became alert and confronted him.

McCall pulled out his identification when one of the officers told him to get back in the car and leave. He explained his involvement, but they weren't buying it. Fortunately, at an unmarked car at the curb about fifty feet beyond the marked car, a man looked up over the roof and yelled, "McCall!" Then he yelled to the officers. "It's all right! Let him in!"

McCall put his ID away and hustled over to Sgt. Dolman, a man he'd worked with once or twice before. "The family here is a client of mine," he said fast.

"Yeah, Kostmayer told me," Dolman said and walked quickly with McCall toward the Cone house.

"How is it here?" McCall asked.

"It's fine. Your man Gage got the Cones out. They're off at a diner someplace. Thanks to your guys, we got our guys."

"Anyone hurt?"

"Not a soul. Your boys were real pros, McCall."

By then they were in the street at the front of the Cone house. Gage and Kostmayer were standing there talking to another plain clothes officer McCall did not recognize. Three marked cars were driving off down the street with lights flashing, and the marked car which had been blocking the road where McCall came in drove down to them and double parked. The officers touched base with the plain clothes officer and then went into the house. At houses all around, neighbors were on porches or looking out of windows and doors.

Kostmayer and Gage both wore happy smiles. "Hey, McCall, you missed all the fun," Gage said

McCall felt himself breathe again. "So I see. But it looks like you didn't need me this time."

Gage said, "Kostmayer herded them like sheep, right into the kitchen, and then he came in behind them and closed the gate while I stared them down like a good old border collie."

"Worked like a charm, not a shot fired," Kostmayer said.

"Where are the Cones?" McCall asked.

"I sent them to a diner," Gage said. "They should be calling – "

"Or coming," Kostmayer said and nodded down the street.

Steve Cone was pulling up behind the marked car. He quickly got out but stood there with the car between him and everyone else. Dolman went over to talk to him.

McCall was smiling now. "Well, Mickey, Harley, I must say I'm impressed. This couldn't have worked out any better. I feel like a proud father."

Kostmayer chuckled. "Well, I'll play the son part, McCall, but Gage is waaaaaaay too old."

Walking away from Gage's good-natured glare, Kostmayer went over to the Cones' car and opened the door for Eileen to get out of the back. She stayed inside and held on tightly to Sarah, though, still looking very frightened.

"It's okay," Kostmayer said. "It's all over and the bad guys are off to jail."

When Eileen eased, Sarah came tumbling out of the car, saying, "I want to see!" and running for the house. Kostmayer saw Gage grab her up into his arms before she could get to the curb.

Eileen got out of the car, and Steve came walking around to them with Dolman following along. "Oh, God, Mickey, I was so scared," Eileen said.

Kostmayer shook his head. "You can let it go now. They won't be bothering you again."

"Thank God," Steve said and put his arm protectively around his wife.

She put her arm around him, too. "I can't believe they really came back."

Kostmayer shook his head again. "They thought they were going to outthink the police. Didn't work out for them." Then there was a silence, and Kostmayer decided to say something he'd been wanting to say. "Eileen – this is what I do. This is what I've always done. I couldn't tell you about it – before."

She nodded and squeezed her husband. "Things have a way of working out, you know?" she said.

Kostmayer nodded, glanced at Steve and then back at Sarah, giggling in Gage's arms. Gage was laughing – Gage, laughing! McCall was smiling, relaxed. The police were beginning to mop up around here.

"Yeah," Kostmayer said, and smiled. "They do."

THE END