A Dark and Broken Heart Read Free Page B

forehead.
    Madigan closes the van door and starts walking. At the corner, he glances back. The only giveaway is the thin cloud of fumes issuing from the van’s exhaust. In this neighborhood? Someone parked up in a vehicle with the engine running? Well, that person has something going on that someone else is going to disagree with, for sure.
    Madigan nods one more time at Landry, and then turns the corner.
    At the rear of the house, Fulton and Williams are already down on their haunches side by side, backs against the wall of the outbuilding. The roof of the building is no more than ten feet from the ground. A simple boost, and they’re up there. They sit quiet—all three of them—and Madigan can see the light in their eyes. He knows he has it too. It’s a light like nothing else. It isn’t fear, not exactly. Maybe it’s fear and excitement and anticipation all bound up together in that moment when you know you might die. Madigan has experienced it so many times it’s like one of the family. It’s something that regular folk will never understand. You could give it a name—could be the best damned name in the world—and people still wouldn’t understand it. Not even soldiers, because they’re not fighting two enemies. Here he has Sandià’s people, and he has the police. The po-lice . Screwed either way.
    Madigan breathes deeply. It is cold. He exhales and watches his breath dissipate. His pulse is regular, his heartbeat too, and he feels the blood in his veins, thin like water. He did a couple ofDexedrine earlier. Kicked things up a notch. He’s okay. He feels a balance. He did just enough, and it’s all good.
    He checks the handheld. Can’t miss word from Landry in the van. That delivery arrives at the front door, and in that moment they’re up on the roof and over to the window. In that moment. No sooner, no later. The money coming in through the front door puts all eyes on the street. No one will be looking their way. These guys ain’t that good. And if they’re seen from a property that faces the rear of the building . . . well, this is the neighborhood. No one says a thing. Not a word. And sure as shit no one calls the po-lice . Down here it doesn’t work that way. This isn’t Gramercy Heights or Chelsea. This is East Harlem. Suck it up, motherfuckers; only way out of here is in a squad car or the coroner’s wagon.
    Fulton goes to speak, but Madigan silences him with a shake of his head. Williams has got the bag laid out flat at his feet. It’s unzipped, and Madigan can see the dull sheen of the M16’s barrel. Fulton is a gangbanger, and Williams isn’t that far off. They want blood and mayhem. No class. No subtlety. They want to see people exploding. Fireworks in a butcher’s store. And when they’re done, they’re gonna want to go and screw teenagers. These are the kind of folks he’s now socializing with.
    The handheld crackles once, but it’s just a burst of static. He checks the volume, the small red light on top. Williams instinctively reaches for the M16. There is electricity everywhere. He can feel the raw copper taste in the back of his throat.
    Madigan stays his hand. Williams closes his eyes and holds his breath for just a second.
    A bead of sweat breaks free from Madigan’s hairline and starts down his forehead. He wipes it away.
    “To hell with this,” Williams hisses, and it’s little more than an exhalation of pent-up nerves.
    “Chill, chill,” Fulton says, and Madigan looks sideways at the man, and behind the light in his eyes he sees the thing that makes them do this. The hunger . That’s the only word to use. It’s a hunger, a need, a reason to live. More often than not it’s a reason to die, but until then it’s just who and what they are. They kowtow to no one. They grant respect to no one but their own kind, and even then it is granted begrudgingly. These are precisely the kind of people who would do something as foolish as robbing one of Sandià’s drug