Chapter 1 

I obviously had no idea that they were going to be coming to kill me at that particular moment or I wouldn’t have decided to go to the bathroom right then; not that I'd actually thought about it, I'd just woken up with a woody from needing to pee—just one of the hazards of drinking too much beer before bedtime. As it was, I jumped so much at the sound of the front door crashing in that I sprayed piss all over the wall and floor beside the toilet.  

As fast as I could, I finished my business and tucked my wedding tackle back into my underwear. I flung open the door that led to my bedroom, stepping in my own pee as I did. Perfect, just perfect. I grabbed my pistol from where it lay on my bedside table and squished my way to the door that led to my living room, intending to confront whoever had dared invade the sacred space of my domicile. I planned on teaching them a lesson in respect for personal space and property that they wouldn't soon forget.  

Instead, upon opening the door, I suddenly found myself face to face with two guys dressed all in black wearing ski masks. They were as surprised as me, but one of them, the taller of the two, had a shotgun pointed almost right at me. Since I probably wouldn’t have come out on the good side of that particular confrontation, like the brave, battle-tried paratrooper turned lawman, turned PI/bounty hunter that I was, I slammed the door and ran for the bathroom, intending to exit via the window there. Just as I slammed and locked the bathroom door behind me, I heard the door to my bedroom crash open, and I dove into my fortuitously antiquated cast iron tub.  

I would like to say that it was my finely tuned instincts that saved me, but it was probably just as much as plain dumb luck and antiquated plumbing choices as it was anything. Whatever it was, I had just slammed painfully into the cold hard bottom of the tub when the unmistakable roar of shotguns broke the evening calm and pellets began to tear through the bathroom door and ricochet off the tub. When the shooting finally subsided, I heard the door come crashing in. Without looking, I reached over the edge of the tub and let fly five quick rounds from my .45 caliber Springfield XDE. It’s harder on the wrist than you would expect, firing at such an odd angle—my bowling was going to be off for a month!  

I must have had luck on my side because the shooting from outside the tub never started back up. So, after I heard the outer door slam through the ringing in my ears, I gave it a good ten-second count and then peeked over the edge of the tub. Satisfied that no small pieces of metal flying at supersonic speeds were about to go careening through my body, I carefully climbed out and moved cautiously into my bedroom. It was clear—a mess—but clear. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten that I had stepped into my own pee and tracked it onto the carpet with my urine-drenched socks. The night was just getting better and better.  

After I cleared the remainder of my small row house, I checked the yard outside through the front and back windows to make sure my new playmates had actually exited the scene. I noticed that the cheesy lock on the front door of my little house had simply popped open when they’d forced it, the door and jamb were undamaged. I made a mental note to get a metal door with a deadbolt or a burglar bar—it was the kind of neighbor where either would be a good investment anyway—that's why I slept with my pistol at the bedside. I closed the front door, locked it, and wedged a kitchen chair under the handle—just in case. 

There wasn’t much else I could do at this point, so I went to the bedroom, tossed my piss-soaked socks into the tub, and threw on some clothes. I headed into the kitchen and got something to eat. I rummaged around in the fridge and found what I thought were the remnants of a not too old salami sandwich with what, due to its green color, I hoped was lettuce. Sandwich in hand, I grabbed a bag of chips from the tiny pantry and sat down at the table in the small kitchen. 

Halfway through, it became harder and harder to keep the illusion that the lettuce was indeed lettuce, so I tossed the questionable comestible into the garbage and pulled a tub of butter pecan ice cream from the freezer and started to drown my sorrows in its creamy deliciousness. Fifteen minutes later, apparently called by some good Samaritan neighbor, the cops arrived.  

Detective Sergeant Harvey Rivers from the Baltimore City Police Department nearly knocked my recently broken into door off its hinges with his heavy-handed pounding. When I opened the door, he just stood there staring down at me…and that’s not easy, given the fact that I stand about six feet and run around one-eighty. Rivers was a half a head taller and easily seventy pounds heavier than me and none of it was fat. The charcoal grey suit he was wearing strained at the seams to hold in his bulk. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I cleared my throat.  

“Hey, Harve,” I said, “want a beer?” I hoisted the half-finished one in my hand. He shook his head, an indiscernible look on his face.  

“What the hell are you up to, Berkowitz?” he asked, nodding for the two uniforms with him to go back to their car. I knew he was pissed because he only used my real surname when he had the ass; otherwise, he used my business nom de guerre Burke. 

He pushed his way past me and walked through the small living room and into my bedroom. I didn’t object—it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. When he came back a minute later, I chided him for his bad manners. 

“Hey, Harve,” I said. “What if I’d had company back there?” He stopped and looked at me disapprovingly.  

“Then I’d be arresting you for indecent acts with animals,” he said in his usual monotone. “I’ll have that beer now.”  

I went into the kitchen, drained my beer, got two fresh ones out of the fridge and the bag of chips from the table, and went back out. Rivers was on one knee looking at something on the floor. He pulled a small, sterile collection swab and dabbed at something on the carpet. He put it into a plastic evidence bag and deposited it into a pocket. He stepped back into the bedroom and used a pen to pick up the spent shot shells and drop them into a plastic evidence bag which he sealed and stuffed into another jacket pocket. He was so big that you could probably fit a Volkswagen into one of his pockets.  

Finished, he moved back to the chair and I handed him the beer. I glanced to see what he’d been looking at and saw what might have been a blood stain on the cheap beige carpet…if it was beige…I wasn’t really sure…maybe it used to be white? Anyway, there were several small dark splotches that looked very much like a blood trail. I sat down on the sofa, hitting an area that the springs had ceased springing.  

“Looks like you got lucky,” Harve said, nodding toward the blood stains and taking a long pull of his beer. “How many shots you fire?”  

“Five,” I said. He nodded.  

“Aimed?” he asked, sipping his Amstel Lite. I shook my head.  

“Kinda just stuck it out there and let it fly,” I said.  

“Sometimes lucky is better than good,” he said, reaching for the chips.  

“Hey!” I said. “I’m good!” He gave me that same deadpan look. “I am,” I said again, this time in a quieter voice. He only grunted. “I am,” I almost whispered. He just sipped his beer. “Fine,” I said dejectedly. “I was lucky.” He grunted once more.  

“You know who came calling?” he asked, popping a chip in his mouth. His perfectly white teeth made his dark brown skin seem even darker. 

“Nope,” I said. “I never really got a look at ‘em; they were wearing masks and gloves.” Rivers nodded.  

“And you’d tell me if you did?” he asked.  

“Et tu, Harve?” I said, putting my free hand over my heart. “We go way back! You think I’d lie to you?” The deadpan look again. “About something important?” I added. Still the look. “That I didn’t need to keep quiet…for a client.” Still the look. “Honest! I swear, Harve!”  

Rivers set his now empty beer bottle on the coffee table and stood up. I tried to get up, too, but the sofa seemed to be sucking my ass down into some sort of black hole. It took three rocking, aborted attempts before I was able to finally break free of the thing’s gravitational pull.  

“Athletic and a crack shot,” he said flatly. “You’re a regular super soldier, there Joey.” 

“You wound me, Harve,” I said. He shrugged.  

“Better me than those guys who came by to bring you candy and flowers,” he said.  

“Amen, brother,” I replied.  

“You want me to get forensics in here?” he asked, obviously less than enthused with the idea. I shook my head.  

“Naw,” I said. “I’m fine and I’ve got no idea who they were or why they were here, so what’s the point.” He nodded.  

“You need to come down and make a statement,” Rivers said. “Now or the morning, makes no difference to me.” 

“I’ll come in first thing in the morning,” I said. “You need the weapon?”  

“Naw, not even sure you hit anything,” Harve said. “Try not to get killed between now and morning or I’ll be seriously pissed for having to come back over here.”  

“I’ll do my best not to disappoint you,” I said.  

“Too late,” he said turning to head out the door without looking back.  

“Later!” I called out to his back.  

He gave a little salute without turning. He climbed into the unmarked car, which dipped dangerously as his bulk settled onto the seat and took off. He never looked back at the house as he departed. The black and white unit followed in his wake.  

I went back inside, locking the door behind me, for all the good that would do. I placed the chair back under the knob and gave one more glance out the small window at the dark and empty front yard. I took the empties and what was left of the chips back into the kitchen and sat down at the small bistro table. The clock on the stove said 3:47. I knew that was a lie because that clock was about like me with my bills—it was never on time. I looked at my watch and saw just a white watch-shaped area on my otherwise tanned arm. I’d hooked the Seiko two weeks ago for gas money. I’d gotten paid for a skip trace I did on an insurance fraud scam on a Mercedes a few weeks ago, but all that money had gone to pay off overdue bills and utilities. I got up, walked to the sofa and, after making sure all the blinds were down, sat down to try to figure out just who might have been mad enough at me to figure I needed killing.  

The house phone startled me awake causing me to trip over the coffee table as I stumbled sleepily to my feet. By the time I got to it, I was wide awake and sincerely pissed off.  

“Burke!” I shouted into the phone. 

“Burke?” an elderly woman’s voice said. “Burke?” she repeated and I groaned. 

“Ma,” I said. “I’m sorry I yelled.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, I must have the wrong number,” she continued in a bitingly sarcastic tone, “because I’m looking for my son Myron Yosef Berkowitz.” 

“Ma, don’t start,” I said, rubbing at my suddenly aching forehead. “I had a bad night.”  

“And I’m supposed to be punished for that?” she asked. “Am I somehow now responsible for all that goes wrong in your life?”  

“No, Ma,” I said trying to keep my head from exploding.  

“And why are you ashamed to use your name?” she asked.  

We’d had this discussion only roughly one gajillion times before. I shook my head and walked toward the small kitchen to make some coffee.  

“I’m not ashamed, Ma.”  

“Oh really?” she said. “You’re so proud that you use a made up goyim name?”  

“I told you before, Ma. It’s safer this way. I cross paths with a lot of bad people. This way they can’t come after you because of me.”  

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” she asked, the incredulity fairly dripping in her voice. “I’m sure your father is rolling over in his grave!”  

“Ma,” I countered. “Pop is living in Ocean City with wife number four.”  

“Who’s half his age!” she shrilled into the phone.  

This was getting me nowhere fast. My mother was, in many ways, the quintessential Jewish mother. She believed that she should run the lives of those around her to suit her needs and desires and that objective truth was determined by her preconceived notions or situational convenience.  

For example, she’d tried to turn in Mr. Immelman, the guy who ran the 7-Eleven near her house, as a Nazi concentration camp guard—despite his not being born until 1946…in Philadelphia...and he was Jewish. His real crime? He questioned the veracity of her contention that the milk he’d sold her a week before was spoiled. He had noted, quite rightly, that it was not expired and that more than half had been consumed when she attempted to return it. For this sin he was then, and would forever be, a Nazi.  

The excuse I’d given her about the name was somewhat true—I did run afoul of bad people more often than not. It was kind of my job. But the real reason that I’d changed it when I left the US Marshal’s office was the whole Baltimore courthouse thing. I was tired of answering questions…what was the Federal courthouse thing? You must be the only person in the States that didn’t at least read about it. For about a week, I was more famous, or infamous, depending on your viewpoint than the President.