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He paused and almost grinned.

Matt blurted, “Five-Eff, you sonofabitch!”

Fuller went on: “And I mean that sincerely. Sergeant Payne is not only a fine law-enforcement officer, but a fine friend of mine, too.”

“Bullshit,” Matt said again.

“Now,” Fuller said, “with all due respect to my good friend Mayor Carlucci, I say this to his statement concerning this new task force: Why waste effort trying to stop someone who is doing good by removing the evildoers from our city? Such people should not be condemned and hunted but, rather, encouraged in whatever way. Indeed, rewarded. And that’s why Lex Talionis is here today. And it’s why it will be here tomorrow and the days after.”

Francis Franklin Fuller the Fifth then smiled and raised his right index finger, wagging it at shoulder height.

“And that brings me to today’s big announcement,” he said. “I am genuinely honored to say that, henceforth, Lex Talionis will double each new reward to”—he poked the air with his index finger for each word—“twenty thousand dollars!”

The microphone picked up the loud and indignant voice of a young male just out of camera view: “Say what? And we only get ten grand, muthafucka?”

Matt Payne chuckled. “That was that backward kid.”

Then he thought: Wait. He’s doubling the reward?

He thumbed the remote control to back up to where Fuller raised his finger, then watched him poke the air and say, “Twenty thousand dollars!”

“Sonofabitch! There’ll be mayhem in the streets!”

Amanda said, “You’re right. Now what happens?”

Matt looked at her. “I don’t know exactly, but it’s going to have to come from someone with stars on his white shirt. Or higher. And soon.”

Matt looked at his phone and quickly read through the other texts.

The second one from Harris, time-stamped almost thirty minutes earlier than the other, read: -ANTHONY HARRIS-

GOOD NEWS: THE PRINTS CAME BACK FROM IAFIS ON REGGIE JONES.

ONE WAS A NO-MATCH. BUT THE OTHER WAS A HIT FOR (I SHIT YOU NOT) A DRUG DEALER NAMED MARCUS CICERO, AKA MARC JAMES, WHITE MALE, AGE 28. LONG LIST OF PRIORS.

Matt shook his head.

Some druggie murderer trying to pass himself off as a Roman emperor? What’s up with that?

Then he read Harris’s third text, the most recent, which was time-stamped fifteen minutes after the second one: -ANTHONY HARRIS-

FYI—THERE’S NOW AN UNDERCOVER SITTING ON JAMES’S LKA IN PORT RICHMOND. HE’S WORKING A COUPLE CI’S TOO.

Well, maybe one or both confidential informants will want to cash in the wannabe Roman for a twenty-grand reward. . . .

Matt then went to Rapier’s message: -CPL KERRY RAPIER-

THOUGHT YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW THAT I HEARD FROM FORENSICS ON THE PRINTS FROM KENDRIK MAYS’S HOUSE. GOT A HIT: IT’S YOUR OLD BUDDY SNU 2010-56-9280

Damn. But no surprise there. The mystery shooter strikes again.

Finally, he got to Coughlin’s.

Payne was amazed that Coughlin had actually thumbed out a cleanly written text message, and he wondered how long the two sentences had taken him. They read: -UNCLE DENNY-

BE PREPARED FOR CONFERENCE IN ECC TOMORROW 0800. YOUR PAL 5-F JUST CAUSED CARLUCCI TO REALLY BLOW HIS CORK AGAIN.

“Oh, shit,” Matt said as he quickly thumbed and sent the reply: “Yes, sir. I’ll