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that when those guys shot his uncle and stole the money and got him back in the thick again. And now, with that nightmare just beginning to fade in his mind, he was suckering himself back into Nolan’s precarious lifestyle once more, hopefully to recoup some of the money they’d both lost last go-round.
    Not so many hours ago, Jon’d had a talk with Breen, and that talk was lingering in the back of Jon’s head, nagging him as much as the image of old man Comfort. Nolan had arrived around two-thirty in the morning and, after a talk with Breen, had driven out to the house on Iowa City’s outskirts to see if the Comforts were still around. Nolan figured they wouldn’t be, but felt it best to check, and had Jon stay with Breen at the antique shop, armed, in case the Comforts attacked while Nolan was gone.
    During that time, while they waited for Nolan’s return, Jon and Breen had talked. Breen’s first question was, “Are you related to Nolan or something? His fucking bastard kid or something?” Breen seemed slightly irritated.
    Jon was taken aback by the question. “Not that I know of. What the hell makes you come up with an idea like that?”
    “I don’t know,” Breen said, shaking his head. “I known Nolan a long time, and I never seen him act like this.”
    “Like what?”
    “He’s goddamn pampering you, kid. Isn’t like him. You know what he said to me?”
    “No.” Which was true. Jon had not been a party to Breen and Nolan’s conversation.
    “He said he had to be careful old man Comfort didn’t see who was robbing him! Can you imagine?”
    Jon said, “What’s wrong with that? Comfort and Nolan know each other, and so of course Nolan doesn’t want him to know who’s pulling the job.”
    “Don’t you see it? He’s puttin’ on the kid gloves when he ought be bare-knuckle punchin’. This kind of thing, when you heist another heister, you got to kill the guy. You don’t leave people like that alive after ripping ’em off. Not people like Sam Comfort, you don’t. Or he’ll come around and cut off your dick and feed it to you.”
    Jon swallowed at that not particularly appetizing thought. “So what?” he said, straining to sound flip. “That .just means Nolan is right—you got to keep Comfort from knowing who it is, otherwise you got a lot of . . . you know, bloodshed on your hands.”
    Breen sat up in bed, groaning just a little from his gunshot wounds. “Now, I’ll admit,” he said through tight lips, “I’ll admit that Nolan’s always been one to avoid killing when he could, but not in a case like this. You got to lance a boil like the Comforts. It’s safer all around, just to go in and blow those bastards’ heads off and call it a night.”
    “Big talk, Breen. And you don’t even carry a gun.”
    “Right, I don’t, but Nolan does . I wouldn’t go for killing the Comforts or anybody, but I wouldn’t think of ripping them off, either, not for revenge or nothing. I’m lucky to be out of it with my ass. I’m a coward. Ask Nolan. I ran out on him that time in Chicago, when those syndicate boys shot him up. And that’s another reason this thing puzzles me. Nolan says he’s going to give me a share of the take, like he’s going after the Comforts as a favor to me. What for? He owes me nothing. I’m lucky he doesn’t kick my fuckin’ butt in for running the hell out on him that time. So what is it with him? Why’s he jumpin’ on this like it’s his golden opportunity? Why’s he a goddamn humanitarian where the Comforts are concerned?”
    And at this stage Jon had realized what lay behind Breen’s point of view. After the robbery, the Comforts might naturally figure that Breen had had a hand in it, to get back at them for their double-cross and get his due from the parking meter heisting. So of course Breen wanted the Comforts dead; of course he was uneasy about Nolan sparing the lives of that miserable family. Breen himself was the one most likely to (gulp) get his