For the first time in weeks, Deuce is starting to feel as though he may outrun fate after all. On the other hand, shotgun or no shotgun, he is still pitted against a guy who has been his lifelong friend, and he doesn’t understand why. Deuce is scared and angry, but sad too; his heart in his throat. Deuce knows Chucky’s tired of his asking for more money from the heist, but figures there’s got to be something else at work, something he doesn’t know about. It’s confusing and unnerving, but all he can do is play the cards in his hand.
Deuce turns to Karyne, his voice normal and more confident now that he is heavily armed, and says, “There’s only two ways in here—that door and that window.” He points the shotgun at the door. “If they come in that way, we’ll blast ’em, and we’re going out the window.” If they try to come in through the window, Deuce says, he will kill them and he and Karyne will go out the door.
Deuce wonders if he will be fast enough if “they,” meaning at least two killers, split up and one blasts open the door while the other comes through the window in a simultaneous assault, front and back. He knows there’s at least one other man with Chucky. That was clear in the phone conversation they had when Deuce was in Dallas; Chucky spoke in terms of “we”: “We’re flying right out . . . ,” he said.
Deuce is sure Chucky wasn’t talking about Purcell; the kid’s a hustler, but he’s a lightweight not a player. Deuce figures that Chucky’s “we” has to include at least one of his crew, probably Danese, because he and Chucky have been tight for years. But “we” also could mean more than two men. If that’s the case, he’d put money on Skippy Byrnes. He’s like Chucky’s fucking shadow, that guy. When Deuce and Karyne met with Chucky in the motel in Chicago, Byrnes was there, and for no reason that Deuce could fathom.
Deuce and Karyne sit in silence through the night, dozing and waking, dozing and waking, but then finally sleeping until early morning. They are hungry and there’s no food in the apartment. They hazard a peek outside and see that no one is stirring in the entire complex, so Karyne walks quickly to her car and drives off to the nearest supermarket.
She returns in less than an hour, but she has no groceries. She is breathless and scared.