Free Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss

delivery. The driver dismounted, came around to the curb side of the van, opened the sliding door. A hydraulic device noiselessly lowered a wheelchair to the street. Inside was a man wrapped against the fall cold in a heavy quilted robe. The driver became an attendant, wheeling the man onto the sidewalk. He returned to the van, pulled the sliding door closed. Then he pushed the wheelchair inside the restaurant.
    A short, squat man with dense black hair covering the backs of his hands came from behind a small counter to the right. He stared expectantly, but said nothing.
    The driver, who looked like Central Casting for Aryan—tall, well built, blond-and-blue—said, “Dmitri?”
    “Over there,” the squat man said, pointing at a table to the left, where a thick-bodied man in a dark suit sat alone, his back to the wall.
    The driver pushed the cripple over to Dmitri. The Russian didn’t offer his hand. Just watched, taking a long, deep drag of his cigarette. The red Dunhills package was on the table to his left.
    The cripple waved his hand vaguely at the attendant, who immediately turned smartly and walked out of the restaurant. The attendant paused on the sidewalk for maybe five seconds. Then he re-entered the ambulette, climbing behind the wheel.
    I was alone with Dmitri.
    “So?” is all he said.
    “You don’t recognize me, old friend?” I asked him.
    “No. How would I—?”
    “Listen to my voice, Dmitri. Listen close. You’ve heard it before. On the phone. In person. When we were packing that satchel together a few months ago. Remember?”
    “You’re …”
    “In my hand, under the tablecloth, there’s a .357 Magnum. Six heavy hollowpoints in the chamber. Listen.…”
    The sound of the hammer clicking back was a thunderclap in the silence between us, as distinctive to Dmitri as a cancerous cell to an oncologist.
    “We are not alone here,” he said, calmly.
    “Every one of your men’s behind me. They couldn’t get between you and the bullets.”
    “Perhaps not. But you would never—”
    “I don’t care,” I said softly. Giving him time to read my face, see that I meant it.
    He nodded slowly. “What do you want?”
    “Good,” I said, acknowledging his understanding. “You thought I was dead, right?”
    “Everybody thought you were dead,” he said, shrugging.
    “Sure. There’s only two ways it could have gone down. Either you set me up, or someone set you up.”
    “There is another way.”
    “And what’s that?”
    “Burke, this was business. You understand? Just business. These people come to me. They say their child is kidnapped. And the man who has him will return him for money. They want me to deliver the money. And they will pay for that service. I tell them, of course we will do that. I would have sent one of my people. But then they say there is a condition. It must be you who delivers the money.”
    “Me by name, right? So they knew …?”
    “That we had done business together? Yes, I think. Otherwise, why would they think I could …?”
    “All right. So you knew it was me they wanted. And that it was no kidnapping.”
    “That I did not know. It is all over the street, how you feel about kids. And about those who … use them. I thought perhaps they wanted someone who might do more than just pick up the child.”
    Dmitri was good. That last bit was a slick stroke. “But they didn’t approach me themselves,” I pointed out, nice and calm.
    “If they had, would you have done it?”
    “Not without references.” I took a slow breath. “So you’re saying that’s what they paid you for, huh?”
    “It is all how you look at it. I did not think it was a plan to murder you. Otherwise, why put all that money into your hands?”
    “Because if we hadn’t counted it—together, remember?—I wouldn’t have gone out that night.”
    “I did not know, I tell you.”
    “Which means the hit squad wasn’t yours.”
    “If it had been mine, you would not be here.”
    “They