Free The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski Page A

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    Saugherty traced the barrel’s aim. Across the floor of the garage, above Saugherty’s head, behind him, and into what? He stole a glance.
    The tank of his gas grill.
    Oh no.
    “Remove this, ya fuckin’ arseholes,” the mute said. He fired the Glock.
    Out the Door
     
    T HE EXPLOSION POUNDED HIM BACK INTO THE WALL OF the garage, but the door held. Lennon could feel the heat trying to blast through the wood. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer. It was probably already on fire. He slowly climbed to his feet with Saugherty’s gun in his hand. He looked over the wooden door.
    Saugherty’s garage was an inferno. Pretty much everything inside was either blackened or ablaze, including the black guys with the guns. (Guess they weren’t Russian mob after all.) One of them squirmed on the floor, and Lennon pumped a bullet into him. He scanned for other stragglers through the smoke. This was no time to be uncertain. He was neck-deep in murder. He might as well make the most of it.
    But the fire was out of control. He had to get out now. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it much longer without losing consciousness. His body screamed, and his shoulder screamed louder.
    The easiest way out: use the door.
    The aluminum garage doors were already buckling. Lennon could hear it. So he hoisted the wooden door—it was a heavy son of a bitch—and used it as a battering ram. The door went through the aluminum, and Lennon followed behind. He released his grip on the door before it brought him down with it, and tumbled off to the side.
    Fresh pain spiked through every nerve. Get up, get up, he told himself. His hair felt like it had been crisping over a barbecue pit.
    He climbed to his feet and quickly assessed his surroundings. It was madly disorienting. Jesus, this looked like a suburban cul-de-sac. A yellow plastic Big Wheel was perched on a lawn across the way. It was a bright, sunny spring day. The sun burned his skin.
    And behind him were five barbecued men—three of them probably gangbangers and the other two probably cops, or excops. Lennon had a bullet in the arm, bruises and contusions all over his body. He also had a gun in his hand and $650,000 waiting for him in the trunk of a car in downtown Philadelphia.
    Lennon started walking. He had to get away from the burning house, and away from eyewitnesses. Probably way too late for that. He already saw faces peeking from behind curtains, fathers stepping outside their screen doors.
    Enough was enough. Nearly twenty-four hours had elapsed since the Wachovia heist. Now it was time to bring the getaway to a close.
    The warm air sharpened his senses, or at least gave that illusion.
    Orders of business:
    Find a car.
    Find a convenience store. Snag a long-distance calling card and a map of Philadelphia.
    Dump some rubbing alcohol over his shoulder wound.
    Wrap a tourniquet around it.
    Pray to Christ nothing got infected.
    Figure out where the fuck he was.
    Call Katie’s cell. Enough dancing around it. Thirty seconds on the phone would tell him what he needed to know.
    Meet up with her. Or cut free, and worry about her later.
    Arrange a way out of town, with the cash.
    Never, ever visit Philadelphia again.
    A Fond Memory of Hardship
     
    S AUGHERTY PURCHASED HIS TWIN ON COLONY DRIVE IN 1988, with his then-wife Clarissa and five-year-old boy. The price then was $65,000, which made for slightly uncomfortable mortgage payments on a cop’s salary. In the fifteen years since, the value of the house had doubled as the real estate market boomed. In the fifteen years since, Clarissa had gone, his five-year-old boy was now a twenty-year-old Ecstasy-popper on seizure medication, and the cop’s salary had given way to other forms of support. Clarissa and the kid had picked up and moved to Warminster; Saugherty kept the house out of sheer inertia. He kept meaning to rent a place closer to the city where he did most of his work, but never got around to it.
    But as he sat on his