Shoot the Woman First Read Free Page A

They had my picture, too. I can’t go back.”
    â€œThat’s rough. I’m sorry.”
    â€œNothing for it,” she said. “Just the way it played out.”
    â€œI still feel responsible for what happened. In Texas.”
    â€œYou weren’t.”
    She and Wayne were living in Delaware when it all went wrong. Weak with the flu, she’d stayed behind when Wayne, Larry, and another man took down a jewelry wholesaler outside Houston. It was supposed to be a give-up by the owner, but a clerk had pulled a gun, shot Wayne in the shoulder. Larry had carried him out of there, but two blocks later, their driver put the car into a fire hydrant and park bench. Larry got away before the police arrived, but Wayne and the driver drew bids for armed robbery and conspiracy, ten to fifteen each.
    â€œI maybe could have gotten him out of that car,” Larry said. “But the shape he was in, he wouldn’t have made it very far.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI had a cracked collarbone myself. Spent the night in the crawl space under a broken-down porch ’bout a block away, listening to sirens and radios all night. I was so fucked up, I couldn’t tell when I was awake and when I was dreaming. Next morning, I could hardly move. Never did heal right.”
    â€œYou did what you could,” she said. “You got him out of that store, gave him a chance. You didn’t leave him there.”
    â€œCouldn’t, after all he’d done for me. He brought me in on plenty of work, set me up with a stake when I needed it. I owe him.”
    â€œWe all do.”
    They exited the freeway, turned down a wide residential street. Big stone houses, fenced-in yards. But after a while, fewer houses were lit, and the streetlights were dark. Overgrown yards now, boarded-up windows. He touched the button to lock the doors.
    â€œSure you know where you’re going?” she said.
    â€œI was here yesterday. I think I got it.”
    They steered around a shopping cart on its side in the middle of the street. He made a right, then a left, and they were on a block lit by a single streetlamp halfway down.
    The house was near the end of the block. He turned into the driveway, their headlights passing across plywooded front windows. It was a two-story house, gray stone, a rich man’s home long ago. A bay window faced the driveway, most of its glass intact. Beneath it was a tangle of weeds and shrubbery.
    There was a garage in the rear, a silver Lexus parked beside it. He K-turned, backed in alongside the Lexus.
    â€œYou carrying?” she said.
    He shook his head, looked at the house, the car ticking and cooling. The rear windows were boarded over, gang tags sprayed across the plywood, but the back door was ajar, darkness inside.
    â€œDidn’t think I’d need it,” he said. “I flew here anyway, couldn’t bring anything. And there was no time to find something after I got to town. You?”
    â€œNo. Same reason.” She thought of the Glock 9 she kept in a safe at home, the smaller .32 Beretta Tomcat clipped to the springs under her bed. Wished she had one of them now.
    â€œNervous?” he said.
    â€œA little.”
    â€œYou vouched for Glass, said he’s solid.”
    â€œI did. And he is. Or at least he was, last time we did work together.”
    â€œStill, no way to be sure what we’re walking into here, is there?”
    They looked at the house, neither of them moving.
    â€œOnly one way to find out,” she said, and opened the door.

 
    THREE
    Cordell and Glass were in the big living room, a map open on the coffee table between them, bottles of Heineken beside it. The room was lit by two Coleman battery lanterns a few feet apart.
    â€œHey,” Glass said. “Come on in.”
    He sat on a ragged couch, Cordell in a chair across from him. The hardwood floor was littered with trash. Chunks of plaster had fallen from the ceiling, lathe