it was leadership. No matter what Sean and Hans had liked to believe, Johnny had always been the true leader of the group.
“Is it true what Juan said?” Jonas slid into the booth. “They found Giovanni this morning, fried like the others?”
Johnny sent a look at Juan, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Is that what he said? Because I fucking told him to set up a meet and we’d discuss the topic once we were all together.”
“You’re not the only one that hears things.” Juan wiped at the sweat beaded on his broad forehead. The years had cost him his first wife and house, then his hair. From what he knew of the man, Johnny figured he missed the hair the most. “I got a buddy in the seventh district. A couple coworkers caught the call and ran the canvass. Someone’s lighting up cops, think the details don’t get around?”
“This is getting out of hand.” Jack looked like ten years had settled on him over the last few weeks. “Three dead cops, there’s certain to be a task force, right? How long’s it gonna take to connect the victims? And then link them to us?”
“I knew it’d come to this.”
Johnny jerked around to glare at Jonas. He’d never fully trusted the prick. Always whining about right and wrong and consequences. Fuck consequences. A real man shaped his life to suit himself. He didn’t wait for whatever crumbs life left him. “The last thing we need right now is for you to go weak on this, Jonas,” he said meaningfully. “You’ve gotten rich along with the rest of us over the years. You wanna clear your conscience, see a fucking priest. We hang together, same as always, and cover our asses. A task force might keep the rest of us alive, ever think of that? Every cop in the city is going to be looking for this fuck.”
“And if they find him before we do, and he talks, we’re in prison, which might as well be dead,” Jonas shot back. “Or do you think it’s coincidence the three dead cops happen to be members of our John Squad?”
“Keep your damn voice down.” But a quick look reassured Johnny that they’d garnered no attention from the bar. Other than from the beefy bartender who kept shooting them sour looks. He knew better than to hassle them about taking up space without ordering, though. Johnny had made sure of that long ago. “No, it’s not coincidence. Likely one of our business associates got greedy and decided to quit profit sharing. Once Hans and I find out which one it is, we’ll convince him of the errors of his ways.” And maybe give the bastard a taste of his own medicine while they were at it.
“Johnny and I have this thing in hand.” Hans had the type of soothing grandfatherly voice that calmed any crisis. Johnny watched it work its magic on Jack and Juan. Jonas still had a stick up his ass, but that was nothing new. “We’re following up on our various partners. We’ll find whoever’s responsible. In the meantime, just sit tight and don’t panic. We’ve been careful to avoid any connections over the years.”
“Don’t you get it?” Jonas’s palm slapped the scarred table top with enough force to draw the attention of the hulking bartender. “The torch has made the connection. Whoever is doing this knows the members of the squad. How’d he get that information, huh? We were always careful to split up the business areas. Different suppliers, different parts of towns. How could any one of them put us all together?”
A damn good question. But then Jonas always had been a smart one. He actually had more smarts than guts, and that’s exactly what worried Johnny.
“We don’t know that he has,” Hans pointed out matter-of-factly. “All we know is that he put Giovanni, Jon-O, and Johann together.”
“Jesus.” Jonas looked away, disgusted.
Hans leaned forward. “Listen, we’ve all got contacts on the street. We need to start tapping them for any scuttle on this thing. If one of our business partners is involved, there’s no way word isn’t going to be out somewhere about that. So I want you to lean on your informants. Hard. Just like every other cop in the city is going to be doing, right? Let Johnny or me know if you get something worth pursuing.” The other two were listening to him, and Johnny figured that was a good thing. Jonas was always the crybaby,