Page 15 of Long Way Down

A frustrated noise.

“The closest guy had this real flashy watch, and he kept pushing his sleeve off it like he wanted everybody to see it, and wound up showing offwaytoo much ink. He caught me looking and all of a sudden he’s coming at me with a pool cue. We got into it, a little back and forth, but Denny broke it up before his boys could jump in.”

“Christ,” Maverick repeated.

“I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking.”

“I don’t care if you are.”

Pongo played a tiny mental violin for his shiner.

Maverick made a tired, exasperated sound on the other end of the line. “Pongo…”

“Wow, you sound just like my old man right now.”

“Hey.” Sharp as a knife for a moment – then tired again. “I’ve left you in the city because you’re good at what you do – I still don’t know how you get people to talk to you the way they do.”

“Aww, that’s sweet, boss. I like to think my winning personality–”

“But I don’t like you getting yourself deep in the shit without proper backup.”

“I wouldn’t saydeepin the shit. Maybe, like…one-eighth in the shit.”

“I’m being serious. If you’re not safe, then I want you to come home.”

Pongo sobered.

He’d been recruited to the club fresh out of high school. He’d never forget that summer, grounded to hell and back, the police warning his parents he’d wind up behind bars if he “continued down this dangerous path.” His attendance at Club Summer – a non-profit that helped “difficult young men” deal with their issues through sports and group counseling – had been a non-negotiable part of his probation. Most of the other kids had been younger than him, some of them pickpockets, some self-harmers, some who’d been born addicted to crack or heroin. Few had come from loving parents, and he’d instantly felt like he didn’t belong – even as he felt sorry for the other boys, sympathetically hopeless about their chances there. Those sorts of programs didn’t fix anybody, he was convinced – just as he was convinced he shouldn’t be punished for what he’d done.

Angry, fuming, bursting with rage, he’d walked into his first group therapy session determined to hate the counselor running it.

And there had sat Maverick, in his Lean Dogs cut, his arms covered in faded black ink. He’d met Pongo’s gaze head-on, no-flinching, no-judgement. “The world sucks, huh?” he’d asked, and Pongo had eased down into a chair, rapt on the edge of it, all his anger bleeding out through the soles of his feet.

Maverick had helped a lot of kids that summer. And at the end of it, he’d offered a crisp new cut with a Prospect bottom rocker to Pongo, who’d shrugged into it and never looked back.

He’d spent his prospect year in Albany, at the main New York clubhouse, stepping and fetching and worse than that, proving his worth and loyalty. He’d learned along the way that the club liked keeping a guy or two in the heart of the city.Can’t have a clubhouse there, wiry old Lockjaw had told him.PD and feds would love to have a raid in the heart of downtown. You can’t eat where you shit. So the clubhouse was in Albany, and the New York chapter spent a lot of time on the road back and forth. Born and raised in Queens, Pongo had volunteered for the overnight gigs in the city a few years ago.

At this point, he had a shitty Manhattan apartment and only went to Albany when absolutely necessary. He’d even wheedled Maverick into letting him attend weekly church through Skype, when he’d become president. Other guys came into town to work other jobs or to back him up, but for the most part, he was the Lone Ranger in the heart of NYC. It was his judgement that controlled the ebb and flow of the club’s Manhattan business.

But after the situation with Abacus, everyone was understandably jumpy.

“I really do think it was just a bar fight,” he told Maverick now, inhaling steam off his coffee and walking toward the sunrise. “If it looks like the yakuza put a bead on me, I’ll let you know. Hand to God. But right now, things are okay.”

Maverick grumbled under his breath, but finally relented. “Fine. But be careful.”

“Always am.”

“Uh-huh. Oh, and while you’re out, swing by and talk to Jimmy. He says he’s got a problem.”

Four

“Hello, girls.” Pastor Keith had a whisper-soft voice. It was hard to hear him at church sometimes, though the acoustics of the high, steepled ceiling helped. He had a microphone he talked into on the pulpit, one that squealed and crackled with feedback. It always made Melissa wince.

Now, though, his voice seemed made for this close, humid space beneath the moss-bearded trees. It belonged with all the other hushed sounds: the shush of snakes sliding along the leaf beds, the rustle of weeds in the wind, the quiet, dignified flap of wings as snowy egrets took flight from their bogs and winged up through the crowded branches overhead.

“You’re awful deep out here in the swamp,” he said, stepping fully through the doorway. He carried a long, metal pail in his right hand, the kind you used for gathering crawfish. His head tilted, angled like one of the egret’s. “Do your mothers know you’re out here?”

“No,” Melissa said.