Dana Potter moved at a steady clip west from Boardwalk Hall, forcing himself to exude easy confidence and showing only passing interest in the police cars that blew by him, their sirens singing.
After he’d left the skybox, his business done, Potter had gone out a service entrance and immediately saw a garbage truck backing up to a full trash container.
He tossed the cowboy hat, the duster, and Sydney Bronson’s laptop computer into the bin just before it was lifted and dumped into the truck.
Both identifying articles of clothing and that weasel’s computer were leaving the area even before Potter reached the entrance to Caesar’s Palace and went inside. He strolled to a souvenir kiosk he’d scouted earlier in the day and bought a hooded sweatshirt with the casino’s logo on it.
He pulled the hoodie on and left the casino just in time to hear shots to the northeast, back toward the boardwalk and the beach, three in a cluster, and then four more shots in rapid succession. There was a break, and then a shot, and then another shot a minute later, and then multiples, a firefight.
But since then, as Potter walked farther and farther west, he’d heard only the sirens. When he saw a bus about to pull into a stop, he ran to catch it.
Potter took an empty seat, yawned, and shut his eyes. Ten stops later, he got off, went into a corner store, and bought a Bud tallboy. He drank it as he walked the seven blocks to the train station, where he bought a ticket to Newark Penn Station.
Eleven minutes passed. He was aboard the train and it was pulling out. Two stops later, he got off. He watched everyone else who’d exited the train until he was satisfied there was no tail. Then he bought another ticket, this time to Hoboken.
While he waited for that train, Potter walked down the platform, away from all the commuters. Only then did he pull the burn phone from his pocket and punch in the number of another burn phone.
“Paul?” Mary said, using the code they’d agreed on.
“Right here, Sal,” he said. “We’re good. Get him out of that hellhole now.”
He heard her break down crying.
“C’mon, now,” he said. “I need you to be strong. We’ve done it.”
“I’m just so relieved, so hopeful, is all.”
Potter smiled. “Me too.”
“You following?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. But do not wait for me to start the therapy.”
“What about payment?”
“I got it. Now get to work.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too,” he said. He clicked off and broke the phone in two before tossing it in a trash can.
Potter pulled a USB drive from his pocket, looked at it, and imagined his son healed, on his feet, and walking again.
That will be worth the risk, he thought. Jesse is worth every risk.
He could even acknowledge that, sooner or later, U.S. federal agents would track him down. Sooner or later, he’d have to tell them he’d done the job in Texas alone, that his wife had no idea he’d assassinated the Speaker of the House and the secretary of state using two identical rifles set side by side on bipods.
Mary had no idea what Jesse’s stem-cell treatments cost. He’d been the one to go to Panama to learn about it. His wife had zero to do with any of it.
He’d say all that, and then he’d die somehow, death by cop or suicide to seal the deal and keep Mary free to raise Jesse.
As his train pulled into the station, Potter was at peace with his fate. He stuck the USB drive in his pocket and got on board. He could see Jesse walking in his mind, and for that, he would accept every punishment that might come his way.