That mad cop, who had him blacken his face in a coal cellar, had been right. Where once he’d been certain, he no longer understood why he lived this life.
Or if he could survive it.
He’d been the intended victim of an execution.
Instead, the attacker was killed.
He might have considered bugging out, except a circuit hardwired in his brain canceled the idea.
He had time-in. He had sacrificed. Now he needed the payoff.
Not a surprise he was targeted given the company he kept. Mafia on one side, Hells Angels on the flip. Russians in the middle. Yet no one had a beef with him. The attack sailed in from elsewhere. That told him the gangs had grown complacent; the soil was shifting underfoot.
Time to bury-in.
His death might have gone unnoticed, a mere blip marked down as a personal grievance. That he survived was bound to light up the airwaves.
An assassination attempt by an unknown player imploded the Vegas odds on him surviving another week. The house shut down that bet. No takers on his life expectancy.
The irony of survival: now more folks wanted him dead.
He assumed he was already deader than a Christmas turkey with its head chopped off. His own skin-and-bones the stuffing. Staying alive meant playing dead. Put hope aside. Squash it. Hope could be lethal. Hope could kill a dead man and bring him back to life. And that – that – could be fatal.
He was a corpse unsteady on his feet. Breathing, but lacking a pulse.
Go with that. Call it a last resort. Just don’t call it hope.