Howland led the way, hurrying. His steps echoed, Furia’s and Hinch’s did not. Hinch was wearing gloves now, too. He was carrying a black flight bag.

Howland’s desk was in a corner of the outer office near the window. There was a greenshade light over the desk.

“Here it is.” He yawned again. “What am I yawning for?” he said. “Where is the rope?”

Hinch pushed him aside. “Hey, man,” he said. “That’s a mess of bread.”

“Twenty-four thousand. You don’t have to count it. It’s all there.”

“Sure,” Furia said. “We trust you. Start packing, Hinch.”

Hinch opened the flight bag and began stuffing the bundles of bills in. Howland watched nervously. Into his nervousness crept alarm.

“Hey, you’re taking too much,” Howland protested. “We had a deal. Where’s mine?”

“Here,” Furia said, and shot him three times, one-and-two-three in a syncopated series. The third bullet went into Howland no more than two inches above the first two as the bookkeeper’s knees collapsed. The light over the desk bounced off his bald spot. His nose made a pulpy noise when it hit the vinyl floor.

Furia blew on his gun the way the bad guy did it in Westerns. It was a Walther PPK, eight-shot, which he had picked up in a pawnshop heist in Jersey City. It had a double-action hammer and Furia was wild about it. “It’s better than a woman,” he had said to Goldie. “It’s better than you.” He picked up the three ejected cases with his left hand and dropped them into his pocket. The automatic he kept in his right.

“You cooled him pretty,” Hinch said, looking down at Howland. Blood was beginning to worm out on the vinyl from under the bookkeeper. “Well, let’s go, Fure.” He had all the money in the bag, even the rolls of coins, and the bag zipped.

“I say when we go,” Furia said. He was looking around as if they had all the time in the world. “Okay, that’s it.”