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KEVIN DOYLE PUT off doing anything about the cop, Bennett. He still had plenty of jobs to complete. He’d deal with Bennett when the time was right and he had his ducks in a row.

Doyle examined the interior of his current car, a stolen Ford Taurus. He’d taken it from a construction site in Brooklyn. Now he realized the owner was some sort of building inspector. He wouldn’t keep this one too long. He was only using it for one job. And right now, he was watching as his target walked from the gang’s warehouse in the Bronx to a restaurant where he ate almost every single day.

The target’s name was Jaime Nantes. He was every bit as bad as or worse than all the drug dealers Doyle had taken out so far. At the moment, he was under indictment for assault with a firearm. Apparently, a stockbroker in lower Manhattan had decided Nantes’s price for cocaine was too high. He refused to pay, so Nantes took the business dispute into the restroom of the club where they met. Following a short discussion, Nantes pulled out a Colt .45. After smacking the stockbroker in the face with it several times, Nantes stuck the pistol in his customer’s mouth. All this was generally accepted business tactics in the world of narcotics. Nantes’s problem occurred when the bouncer had to use the bathroom and walked in on the disagreement.

The bouncer was a former Marine and quick on his feet. He barreled into Nantes and his customer, knocking the pistol to the ground. Nantes was in custody a few minutes later.

Doyle liked to keep little tidbits of information like that in his head before he took out a target. It was his way of rationalizing what he did for a living. Like most people, Doyle wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to make the world a better place. No one could argue that running down a guy like Nantes would help society a little bit.

The problem with today’s assignment was a restaurant down the street from his target. It was a chicken place. A busy chicken place. Cars were lined up into the street to go through the take-out lane. Occasionally, cars blocked his view of the street. It was frustrating, but it also gave him a little more cover.

Doyle knew Nantes’s schedule pretty well. Now he could see Nantes walking down the sidewalk toward Island Delight. He knew that his target always spent about thirty minutes in the little restaurant, then walked the exact same path back to his drug gang’s headquarters. That’s what Doyle was counting on. He’d be able to catch Nantes when he crossed the street, then keep on driving until he saw a good place to dump the car. Though first, Doyle thought he might try the chicken.

He could be back at his hotel in Brooklyn by midafternoon. He wanted to be done with this assignment. He also was hoping that if he left town quickly, he’d be able to avoid trying to take on Bennett and his partner.

Doyle was tempted to act rashly. He wanted to pull out of his parking spot, dodge a few chicken customers, and run this son of a bitch down right now. But that wasn’t in his nature. He was an excellent planner and that wouldn’t follow his plan.

Instead, he let Nantes walk through the door to the bodega and Island Delight intact and healthy.

At least for now.