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ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

“AND IF YOU’RE THINKING about getting cute and going for your guns,” Licata says, “take a look behind you.”

A small woman has come up out of the dunes to our left, maybe fifty yards away, maybe closer, pointing her own gun at us. She has to be the one whose voice I heard, unless there’s more than just the two of them.

“That’s Mei,” Licata says.

“I believe we’ve met,” Jimmy says, looking over his shoulder.

“Where’s McKenzie?” I ask.

“Probably in a bar someplace by now.”

“I thought we were all going to live together in peace,” I say.

“We were,” Licata says. “But the two of you just would not stop, no matter how many times you got warned.”

“I hear somebody still owes my father a favor.”

“Unfortunately, that deal is now off the table. I got my orders to end this.”

“From Sonny?” Jimmy says.

“That old fool?” Licata sadly shakes his head. “You two still don’t know what you don’t know.”

I’m reviewing our options, limited as they are. Maybe nonexistent. I’m sure Jimmy is doing the same. The clock is running, and it’s clear Anthony Licata and the woman didn’t just bring us here to talk. But Licata is dragging things out now, maybe just for the fun of it, as if he needs us to know that he’s gotten the better of us, and that we both could choke on it.

Ours guns are behind us in the sand. Theirs are pointed at us.

“How’d you survive your boat trip?”

“I never took the boat trip,” he says. “Well, my hat did. Does that count? Bobby didn’t even notice I left it in the cabin before I wished him bon voyage.”

“Who wanted Bobby dead?” Jimmy asks.

“Who didn’t?”

Then, just like that, he’s tired of talking.

“Enough,” he says.

“One more dying request,” I say. “You’d grant a girl a dying request, wouldn’t you?”

“You never fucking stop talking, do you?”

“I need to know who killed those two families.”

He hesitates. I see him nodding, as if ending a conversation with himself.

“Aw, why the hell not,” he says. “What does it matter if you know which one of them did it?”

We hear the first shot then, from our right, maybe from the second dune, even if that would be some shot.

The bullet thuds into the sand wall behind Licata.

As Licata tries to find cover, another bullet hits the dune behind him. Out of the corner of my eye I see Mei running toward the second dune, firing in the direction of the shooter.

The next shot from the second dune puts Mei down in the sand, face first.

“Mei!” Licata screams, as if the bullet had hit him and not her.

Then there’s another shot fired out of the night, and another. Jimmy and I are flat on the ground then, reaching for our guns. As I roll to my side I make out the figure of someone scrambling into the sand at the bottom of the second dune, stopping just long enough to raise a long gun and fire another shot at Anthony Licata.

Who the hell is that?

I look the other way and see Licata running for cover, sliding down the dune in the direction of the ocean.

Jimmy and I drop to the ground.

“Who’s that?” Jimmy asks.

“Dunno—is he on our side?”

“Or wants to take everybody out,” Jimmy says, “one by one.”

Then he adds “Fuck it” and tells me to go after the shooter.

Then he’s on the move in the night, going after Licata to end this once and for all.