Love and Fear by Reed Farrel Coleman Page A

not explain it. How could he tell her she was in danger again? How could he make sense of it to her? No, Mia was better off without him. She was safer without him.
    Gulliver opened his eyes. Yawned. Smiled. Reached over to the other side of the bed for Mia. But this wasn’t their bed. It wasn’t a bed at all. And Mia wasn’t there. Old habits die hard. The smile ran away from Gulliver’s face as he swung his legs off the couch. Not even the bright sunlight pouring into the office could bring his smile back. He laughed a sad laugh at himself, for he had ended up where he began. His office was once Keisha’s loft. He had moved into the loft after she was killed, in order to feel closer to her.
    For years it had been his office and his home. Now there was much less space than there used to be. When he’d moved to Brighton Beach with Mia, he had built walls around his office and rented the rest of the loft space to a group of artists. That was okay. Small spaces suited him. And so too did building walls around things. Walls around his office. Walls around his heart.
    With the smell of freshly brewed coffee thick in the air, Gulliver sat at his desk. He had showered and dressed. He didn’t bother shaving. What for? Who for? As he sat there, he could feel himself slipping back into his old bitter self. When he was working cases, it was easier to forget. It was easier to forget about the choice he had made. Easier to forget about missing Mia. Easier to forget about who he really was and what he really looked like. But he was between cases, and the mirror had stopped lying to him. All he saw when he looked into it was the little, lonely freak he had always been.
    He couldn’t know that the knock at his door would change everything forever.

TWO
    Gulliver Dowd was shocked to see the man standing in the doorway, but he acted like he didn’t care. He didn’t like this man very much. That was fair enough, because the man liked Gulliver even less than Gulliver liked him. But they had a kind of respect for each other. The kind of respect an enemy has for his toughest foe.
    “Good morning, Tony,” Gulliver said.
    “Morning to you, Bug,” said Tony.
    Tony was a tough guy. Thick-necked. Barrel-chested. Good with his fists. And mean. He carried a 9mm Beretta in a shoulder holster. Gulliver knew this because he had once taken it away from him. He had disarmed Tony and beaten him up in front of his boss. Gulliver had to do things like that all the time because of his size and misshapen body. People never took him seriously. They turned away. They whispered. They laughed. Gulliver hated the laughing. But he hated most of all people pitying him. So he always had to battle to prove his worth to people. To prove that he too could be a dangerous man. A man to be taken seriously.
    Gulliver was unhappy to see Tony because the big man was a living, breathing reminder of the one person Gulliver never wanted to think about again. That person was Tony’s boss, Joey “Dollar Menu” Vespucci.
    Joey Vespucci was the only Mafia don who’d been left standing after the Justice Department wiped out most of the old New York City mob. And it was Joey Vespucci who had made Gulliver choose between Keisha and Mia. He was the man who had handed Gulliver the envelope with the answers to Keisha’s murder. He was the man who would have threatened Mia if Gulliver had chosen to see what was in the envelope. Joey Vespucci was the man who’d given Gulliver the lighter with which to set the envelope on fire.
    “Come on in. You want coffee? I just made some,” Gulliver said, then turned and hobbled back into the office.
    “Sure, Bug.” Tony always called him Bug. “Milk and sugar.”
    Gulliver spun around on his heel. “This is my turf, Tony. My office. In here, you call me Gulliver or Dowd or Sir.”
    Tony puffed out his chest. He looked like he was going to give Gulliver a hard time. But instead he gave in. “Okay, Dowd. You’re right. On your turf