Agent Nguyen was fuming. “You what?”

“Ayyy. It ain’t my fault I’m a lucky little ducky?”

Nguyen’s face reddened. “Yeah, dumbass, it is your fault. It’s only your fault, you dumb sonofabitch.”

“Yo, hey now… You know, there was a time when someone, Fed or not, mouthed off to—“

“Save it, grandpa. You ain’t gonna do anything besides make my life harder.”

Tony Mangenonzo—aka Tony the Shark aka Tony Three Toes aka Anthony “Angel” Angelenzo aka Darwin McMurtry—let the ice in what was left of his early-afternoon bourbon clink mockingly against the Walmart glass. He cocked his head and added sarcastically, “You sure you aren’t just jealous, Dougy? I mean, that much money, you could retire a hundred times over, right? What do you pull in a year? 55k? Shit, man, I used to spend that much on suits in a year.”

Nguyen didn’t take the bait. “Well, the only ‘suit’ you’re wearing now, ‘Norman Furtwangler,’ is that of an assistant manager at Petco. So, maybe consider that shit before you get all high-and-mighty.”

Tony smoothed down his velour tracksuit, making sure to let his gold chains find their way outside the neckline, catching sunlight through the sliding glass door of his modest apartment. “Ah, you forget, agent Nguyen, that was yesterday. Today is different. Today, I am friggin’ rich! Again! Can you believe that shit?” His laugh quickly turned smoker-cough, but he covered with a, “I quit those things years ago, you’d think I was still at two packs a day, huh?”

Nguyen glanced at a full ashtray on the coffee table. Once a liar… When he looked at the old gangster he couldn’t help thinking of places to bury him. He knew that Tony knew that, but he didn’t care. ‘Mr. Straightlaced is afraid of letting down the bureau,’ Tony had told his then girlfriend. ‘What a rube; A real G-man’s G-man,’ he had condescended. Their relationship had been like that for years now: Nguyen doing his job to protect the man; Tony unwilling to admit he was happy about it.

“Yeah, well, you might have the winning ticket—if it’s real—but whether or not you get to keep any of the winnings will be up to a bunch of government lawyers. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure they’ll play fair with an upstanding citizen such as yourself. I’m sure they won’t lobby that your newfound wealth shouldn’t be used to reimburse the United States Marshal’s Service.”

Tony feigned a look of shock before realizing that he really didn’t know the answer. Could they keep the money? His money? He bought the ticket with wages he earned from that shit pet store job. Huh…? Quite a conundrum, he thought to himself. Oh well, better to play it off like he was in charge.

“So, whaddayousayin? You sayin that the United States Government is going to steal my winnings? Not let me collect? What are you gettin’ at here, Agent Nguyen? I want to know what I’m up against here. What kind of people I’m dealing with. ‘Cause from the sounds of it, seems to me that what the government lawyers are planning to do ain’t all that different from what me and my compatriots used to do. And most of them are in prison or dead, now. Don’t quite seem fair, does it?”

Nguyen paused for a moment. “No, I’m not saying anything of the sort. The government will follow the appropriate actions as they are laid out in the current SOPS.”

Tony let the man get his rote, robotic statement out before allowing himself a chuckle at the dimbulb’s expense. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You dumbshits ain’t never had this happen before, huh? This ‘uncharted territory?’” He waited, but no reply—which was as good as agreeing. “Yeahhhh… That’s what I figured.” He laughed before, “Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll be real, real sure to pay my taxes.”

Nguyen looked at his mobile.

“What you lookin’ for, Agent?” Tony let the words slither out slowly, a circling snake of the sarcasm he’d come to rely on to sublimate his habit of violence. “You waitin’ on the bosses to tell you what to do? Guess we ain’t to different, than, are we? I get it: I used to have to wait for the boss to tell me what to do, too.”

“The only thing we have in common is that we both hate you.”

“Ohhhh, that’s a quality jab, G-Man! Nicely played. What is it my grandson says, a ‘burn?’ You burned me. Listen, I owe you for Detroit, so when I collect my money, maybe I get you and me a pair of matching jet skis. Whaddayou think? Me and you, taking the lake by storm, popping open a couple of brewskis, scope’n out the local talent. Whaddayasay?”

“I only have to keep you safe, not be your wingman, asshole.”

“You’re hurtin my feelings, Nguyen. Truly. I’m very delicate in my old age.”

Nguyen ignored him, looking back at his phone.

“Lemme guess, they’re not finding a legal means for you to take this money from me, yeah? I hit the six and now you dumbshits don’t know what to do. This shit ain’t in the Ess-Ohh-Pee, is it?”

Nguyen checked his phone again, frowning at the message that finally popped up. “Nope. You are one hundred percent correct.” It had nothing to do with the lottery or with Tony at all. It was an update from EPSN: The Dodgers were down six in the forth. “Nothing we can do but wait and hope, I guess.”

“Hah, I told you. I’m one wealthy SOB, you sumbitch. Rich again, baby!”

“Yep. Get dressed I’ll take you there so you can collect your winnings.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Woo-boy. Sounds good to me. I’ll be right back, chauffeur.”

Nguyen took a moment, letting the old witness-protected-mobster-assclown taste victory before, “I’d be honored to drive you down there. By the way, be sure to dress for TV.”

Tony’s countenance changed. He was suddenly finding it hard to breath, for his heart to beat. He turned, coming back out of his room. “Whaddayoumean ‘dress for TV?’”

“Exactly that, big man. You will be presented with one of those over-sized checks. Every channel will be there to record it for the nightly news. These lottery winner stories go national! Aren’t you excited?” His smile turned to an icy smirk. “They love to do puff pieces about this kind of thing. I mean, elderly retail assistant manager wins millions, c’mon, that’s TV News catnip—no pun intended. I’m sure you’ll get lots and lots of screen time!”

“I can say ‘no’ to being on TV.”

“Sure, you can. But, you know, you can’t tell who might be there,” Nguyen held up his mobile, glancing at the scores, “what reporter might now someone who knows someone, might get a hot tip.”

“You sonofabitch! You tryin’ to get me killed or something? You know I can’t say shit about winning the lottery to no one. That’s why I called you instead of those Marshall goons. They’d bury my ass in the desert and split the winnings sure as shit.”

“Relax, old man. I’m just messing—“

Agent Nguyen moved on instinct, becoming conscious only a fraction of a second later of all-too-familiar gunfire. He pulled Tony forcibly to the ground, one hand keeping him down, flat against the kitchen linoleum, the other sweeping his standard issue Glock across an imaginary horizon.

There.

He fired two rounds into the first threat, a barrel-shaped male, approximately 50 years old, let himself be silhouetted across the drawn curtains.

The next two rounds found their target as well: a well-muscled 20-something burst through the door, splitting the wood along the door jamb. His momentum carried him too far into the room, throwing off his proprioception. He tried to recover by hip-firing his weapon like an old-timey gunfighter but it was too late.

Two down. Out of how many?

“Get off me, you friggin gorilla!”

“Shut up and stay down.”

“I can help. Let me get my gun, I’ll—“

A glass shattered above them as three shots—randoms, likely intended to keep them from moving—found their way into the small space.

Nguyen’s ears were ringing.

Tony’s everything was ringing.

They yelled at each other: Let me get up; Shut up dumbass. I’m trying to keep you alive; I can keep myself alive; You’re not even supposed to have a gun!

Every sense was heightened as the two men did their best to determine who was where, and how many. Nguyen looked at the small table four feet away. His cell phone had fallen beneath it when he had dropped it to return fire. It was his only means of calling in backup, since Tony wasn’t allowed to have a landline or a mobile.

Four feet.

A mile in a gunfight. He had two buddies get dusted through a small crack no more than three inches wide in the wall of a library in Iraq, so four feet was eternity.

They both froze. Movement. Sounds. Down below them. Faint—or maybe not, his ears were still trying to reset.

Nguyen looked around, desperate for some clue as to who was out there—half-tempted to let them have the snitch; He was useless anyway. Besides, he was supposed to be the Marshal’s problem, not his.

No. Can’t do it. Shit. He signed up for this life.

Nguyen opted to ignore his phone for the moment and take a second to breath. To observe. No one was approaching. If they were many, they’d already be attacking in force, confident they’d have superior numbers to make up for the lack of training that was thus far fatally obvious. No, they were probably four strong, a hit team made up of whatever resources the Contangelo family had on retainer, probably out of Denver. That meant a few things, all of which fired through Nguyen’s brain simultaneously. It meant someone had tipped them off. Someone who knew that Tony had called him, or a lucky spotter eyed him as he came into town. Dammit, Tony! It also meant they weren’t a cohesive team, which meant no tactics training, as evidenced. It meant that the other two or three men were outside the small apartment, probably hiding behind whatever car or cement planter was closest when the gunfire started. It meant most of them were small-time or focused on the less violent interests of the family, but when called they had to step up.

It also meant there was maybe one real killer in the group, and Nguyen hadn’t seen him yet.

“Come on, get off me.”

“Fine, sit up, but keep your back against the dishwasher and don’t move.” The old man did as he was told, getting up with surprising agility, keeping his head low, and slamming back into the dishwasher with a thud.

Orient. Where was he? Second floor, apartment complex. One small window in the bathroom, everything else faced the parking lot where the bad guys were. Bathroom escape was a non-starter; No way that old man survives it. Two windows on either side of the doorway, both have closed curtains. No sirens yet. That meant even if someone called the police, help was minutes away. His car was out front, but put him in a killbox if the other shooters were doing as he suspected.

Those asshats are probably using my car as cover, he mused.

Something caught his eye. A glass vase sitting in a concrete planter just outside the door. It was moving. No, not moving, reflecting movement.

Shooter number three.

Nguyen put two rounds through the thin sheet rock near the door. He heard the man’s gun slide off the edge of the walkway, slam into the hood of what he was certain was his duty vehicle, and clack against the asphalt below. The man, conversely, made no movement at all, save to slump, dead, against the concealment he’d mistaken for cover.

Nguyen wondered if it was one-on-one now. Better odds, but still not great. Even when he had superior numbers it was never good to be where bullets were.

“What’s the plan, Dougy? We just gonna sit here?”

Tony was right. Time to decide.

“Wait, you hear that?”

“Here what?”

“Sirens. The Calvary.”

Nguyen heard nothing but the ringing, having fired his Glock multiple times in an enclosed space with no hearing protection. The old man’s muffled voice was the only thing that made it through. “How can you hear anything?”

“I turned my hearing aides on.” The old man winked, pointing at the small devices housed inside his ear canals. “I can hear them. Help is on the way.”

Nguyen still didn’t hear anything he trusted as sirens. But… there was something else. A hum. A rattle. It felt like the ground was moving. What were they doing? Setting up explosives? Digging through from the apartment below? Wheeling in some kind of tank? What was making that—

Nguyen would forget to include this in his official report, or ever talk about it with anyone. He simply reached up, behind the old man’s head, and pressed ‘cancel’ on the dishwasher.

The ringing was finally subsiding and he heard a voice, muffled, but clear enough. They both heard it. One man. He was yelling from outside, below them, surely hiding behind a car as he suspected.

“Hey, listen, all I, uh, all WE want is the old man. You ain’t gotta do nothin’ but decide if you want to live. You walk out now, take a right, go down the back stairs. That’s it. That’s all you gotta do. You won’t see us again. You hear me? We’re all good if you do that. We got no beef with you. You can say you got separated from him during the gunfire, or there were too many of us, you fought valiantly. Whatever. I don’t give a shit. Just walk out and we’ll take care of the rest. You hear me up there? I know you do. I know you hear me, cop. Just walk out. He ain’t worth it.”

“You gonna leave me here to die, Dougy? Do what he’s tellin’ you?”

“Shut up.”

The old gangster, to his credit, was going to go out the same cocky bastard he’d always been.

“It’s all good, like he said. They’ll just let you walk on outta here, all you gotta do is let them have me.”

“I said shut it.”

Tony laughed. “I’m just bustin’ yer balls, my man. But listen, this is my mess, not yours. You did what you could. You gotta family and shit. Just leave me your piece and I’ll give ‘em hell before I leave this mortal coil.”

“I’m not leaving you shit. And you’re not going to die.”

Time to decide. What was next? He only heard one voice. If it was a four man squad that meant man four was stuck. He had seen his compatriots get dropped and he wanted to run, but he couldn’t. He was trapped by the Code. The people he worked for didn’t allow for excuses, no matter how self-preserving or logical they might be. That meant he had to find a resolution. The man was down there, close, crouched behind a car, trying to figure how to kill Tony without getting killed. That’s why he was yelling up instructions, trying to get Nguyen to give up the fight. Trying to control the scene. Trying to play it off like he was They, but that was bull. He was alone.

One-on-one.

“You hear that?” Nguyen yelled. “My ears are ringing like crazy and even I can hear that. Sirens. Lots of them. That’s my team, buddy. Team Good Guys. You really want to be here when they show up? You really want to—“

What happened next happened quickly. First, footsteps. Heavy ones. A big man was moving quickly toward the door way. Nguyen felt the movement more than heard it, one footfall after the other.

The light coming through the doorway suddenly dimmed as gunshots shook the small apartment. A .45. He knew it from the moment the barrel flashed in front of him. A ‘man’s gun,’ but shit for accuracy.

Nguyen planted his feet against the old man, pushing against him so that in one motion Tony slid along the linoleum, slamming into a cupboard as Nguyen, with equal-and-opposite force, slid the other direction, supine, raising his much-more-accurate 9mm to the massive man’s torso and firing everything he had left in his double-stack magazine, forming a bloody trail from groin to heart.

No dramatic death, no movie-only acrobatic reaction: The giant man just fell where he stood, crumbling onto himself.

Nguyen knew he was dead before he hit the ground.

More ringing. Gunpowder. Sweat. Now urine, shit. The man had let loose when he died, the smell a last, degrading warning against a life of crime.

Nguyen’s muscle memory had him already reloading his service weapon before looking after Tony. But Tony was fine. Standing, now. “Get back down! You don’t know, get down, dumbass.”

Nguyen holstered his weapon and scrambled to get up as the old man grabbed a lamp from a nearby end table and started bashing the last dead man’s head with it.

“You think you can come into my home, you fat piece of shit? You think you, after what I did for you, how I vouched for you, you come in here…” Old muscles and older, tar-filled lungs gave up and Tony dropped the lamp. Nguyen pulled the old man back, behind him, protecting him from… what? Was anyone still out there?

The sirens were close. Then lights, red and blue, bounced off of everything reflective.

“Put some real clothes on. We’re leaving.”

Tony did so, as Nguyen took his FBI ID out of his pocket and opened it, making sure both hands were visible.

Once the locals were convinced he was who he said he was, and that he was tasked with taking Tony with him, the local police went about their various tasks: Ensuring the area was clear, talking with other apartment residents, taking pictures, statements, etc.

Tony emerged, dressed in slacks, button-up, cardigan. The swagger was still there, but not the arrogance.

“You done good, kid. You really saved my ass.”

“It’s my job. Now hurry up, I want a drink.”

“Hell yeah. My treat. In fact, what’s your favorite bar? I’ll buy it for you!”

“Yeah. You do that.”

The bullet that tore the back out of Tony’s skull was either fired with a suppressor or came from so far away that Nguyen didn’t hear the report of the rifle.

It was a top-level shooter either way.

Tony had been walking behind Nguyen, wearing a Kevlar vest borrowed from local PD. Nguyen was taller, by at least three inches, so the shot had to have come from somewhere elevated. That meant it was at least a thousand-yarder. Nguyen realized too late that the sniper had probably been there the whole time, firing into the apartment; A backup plan for sure—the kill team having better odds—but also using the gunfight to conceal his first few rounds, not trusting a difficult shot to a cold barrel.

The one real killer.

Didn’t matter, really. Investigators found nothing: No sign of a ‘sniper’s nest;’ No shell casings; No reports of anything strange or out of the ordinary.

That meant lots of things to Nguyen, but there was no point in following up. Tony was a one-off. He only mattered because he was in WitSec. He only mattered because he was a snitch.

Now he was dead.

After a few weeks he barely thought of the old man, save for their very last interaction together. The very last moment before their tether was cut. Nguyen worried for months that someone had seen him. That some beat cop’s bodycam had recorded his slight-of-hand. But no one did. He was in the clear.

He waited two weeks—the longest two weeks of his life—before announcing he was leaving the Bureau.

“Are you crazy? With your military service you’re looking at a pretty excellent retirement in less than a decade, Doug,” his boss had protested. “What are you going to do?”

That was the million dollar question. Well, to be specific, the $138 million dollar question, after taxes.

A lot of money anywhere.

Like Belize. Or Reykjavik. Or on a yacht, just off the coast of Marseille.

Turns out, you really can claim your winnings anonymously…