A month earlier he’d complained to Gage that the mayor had summoned him to City Hall, less concerned about the slug-ridden corpses of what the newspapers were calling “Russian businessmen” than about stray bullets and November elections. Spike had called Gage as he drove away from that dressing-down, infuriated not only by the pressure, but by his own helplessness in solving murders ordered by gangsters overseas whose identities and motives he had no way of ascertaining.

“Are you sure they didn’t change their minds?” Spike asked. “Hitting Jack would send a message that it’s going to be business as usual.”

Gage wasn’t at all sure, but the answer wasn’t one Spike could help him get, so he fixed his eyes on his friend and answered, “Yes.”

Spike held his gaze for a moment, then conceded by drawing a line across his pad.

“What else was Jack up to?”

“IPOs. Bank mergers. Nothing anybody goes to war over.”

Gage glanced down the long hospital driveway toward the street. Commuter traffic inched by. Overfilled trolleys crawled along the wet pavement. Another ambulance rolled up to the emergency entrance followed by a patrol car, lights flashing, arriving with the last of the night’s victims.

Spike followed Gage’s eyes, then pointed at the windows lining the ICU and sighed. “I always figured it would be you or me lying in there.”

“Until two years ago, I had no doubt it would be Jack.” Gage made a steep gliding motion with his arm. “The way he used to rocket down the ski slopes like some oblivious teenager. But that all changed when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. First he flared up the way he always would, ready to take on the forces of nature. But two weeks in, he realized it was all about chemistry and physiology, not force of will. Courtney’s or his. It crushed him, really crushed him.”