Free The Art of the Heist by Myles J. Connor Page B

not, I reasoned, I would at least die trying.
    Rising from my crouch behind the chimney, I made a mad dash for the edge of the roof. Immediately, a fusillade of gunfire erupted from the buildings on either side of me. A bullet caught me in the right side of my abdomen, sending a wave of pain through my body. I would later find out that the bullet had penetrated several major organs before blowing my spleen apart, smashing into my spine, and ricocheting backward into my left kidney.
    Getting shot hurts like hell, no matter where the bullet hits. But my earlier wounds were nothing compared to the agony I now felt. The liver, spleen, and kidneys are all heavily enriched with pain sensors, and I had been hit badly in all three places. Momentarily incapacitated by the searing pain, I dropped my gun, sending it skittering across the rooftop.
    Fortunately, I wasn’t the only casualty of the shooting barrage. The klieg lights had been disabled as well, plunging the rooftop into darkness again. Once the shooting stopped I began to hear tentative voices calling out.
    “Myles? Are you okay?” They were worried not about me but about themselves, what I might still be capable of.
    Taking shallow breaths so as not to exacerbate the pain in my abdomen, I rolled under the eaves of a nearby gable and waited. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see figures slipping down onto the roof and creeping cautiously toward me. They didn’t appear human, crabbing gingerly forward on all fours like aliens.
    “Myles? Are you hit, Myles?” one of them called.
    Finally, someone spotted me, and a cry went up. “Over here!”
    One of the three cops from the Beacon Street shootout pulled me out from beneath the overhang and, after searching me for weapons, quickly cuffed my hands and ankles.
    I rolled over onto my back to see at least a dozen cops standing over me, including the other Beacon Street officer and my old friend from Revere, Robert Deschamps. As soon as I saw Deschamps’s face I knew I was in trouble, but I couldn’t have possibly imagined how serious my situation was about to become.
    “How’s the cop I shot?” I wheezed.
    “Did we hit you again?” one of the men asked, ignoring my question. “Twice,” I managed.
    “Where’s your girlfriend?” another cop demanded.
    “Go fuck yourself,” I shot back, not about to give them Bonnie’s whereabouts. “I only talk to my attorney, Al Farese.”
    This final impudent comment pushed the men, already seething over the fact that I’d shot one of their own, over the edge. Someone kicked me hard in the groin, initiating a frenzy of rage.
    Whack! Punch! Stomp! The first blow was quickly followed by another and then another as the men took turns punching and kicking me, some going so far as to rip my clothes to better target my wounds. One cop even stuck his finger into the entry wound in my side, all the while giggling and laughing in an orgy of high-spirited sadism.
    As I lay on my back, shackled and unable to defend myself or even shield my body, praying for the blow that would deliver me to sweet unconsciousness, I was reminded of Dante’s devils, flogging the damned in the city of Dis. Clearly, the figures who surrounded me were no longer men but wrathful and sadistic demons, their faces hideous and macabre caricatures. Gleefully they danced around me like disjointed marionettes, rotating in and out of the frenzied circle as they grew tired, stepping back so others could take over for them.
    It’s odd, the details the brain chooses to hold on to. I can’t recall that night without remembering that someone in a nearby apartment was playing “Monday, Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas. To thisday, hearing that song takes me back to that Marlborough Street rooftop.
    I don’t know what sustained me up there, what exactly it was that kept me alive. As I have said, I am not a religious man, but I have always been a spiritual being. I firmly believe that my survival, wounded