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Those would be the guys I needed to talk to.

Jocko turned his head and whispered to someone across the aisle. He caught sight of me and gave a nod, looked toward the suits, then me again, then toward the front. I hoped I could count on Jocko to help me with this. I mean, what if the old barber was cracked and these suits had no idea what I was talking about? What then? I didn’t want to go kissing their rings and make a fool out of myself. It had always been my policy to steer clear of those guys and not let them even know I existed. Just a little rule I had.

I won’t bore you with the service. It bored me; they’re all the same. I understand everybody is sad, I get it, and grieving is a process. For me, though, funerals seem kind of phony, all staged so people can get up and act like the dead guy’s best friend, and even more so the wife can act like she’s not kind of happy the mope who farts all night next to her in bed is finally gone. I’m just saying, but Louie gave a little speech about what a great man we’d lost, and I know he wasn’t Johnny’s friend at all. That crap is hard to sit through.

It didn’t help that I was also getting claustrophobic. For big guys like me, a lot of spaces seem smaller than they do to everybody else. If you’ve never been claustrophobic, it’s like everybody around you is breathing your air and you’re running out. You start breathing harder, but in short breaths. Hyperventilation begins, making it worse because you feel light-headed and start to breathe harder, making it worse. So once I made it out to the sidewalk, I leaned against a lamppost by some of the black limos and did some tantric breathing exercises to calm my phobia and stop hyperventilating.

My eyes were closed when I felt hands on me, pushing me backward.

I didn’t have much time to react, and it wouldn’t have helped much anyway because I had no balance, and was off my feet and in the back of one of the limos. Two guys with broken noses and about my size were outside, and they slammed the door.

The street-side door opened, and Louie slid in next to me. His black hair looked slick and hard like the back of a cockroach. The sharp suits were right behind him, and they sat across from me.

It was suddenly very hushed in the back of that limo, and the mix of aftershave from the three men was like diced onions.

“You don’t like me,” Louie said. I think he suffered from low self-esteem.

I gave a little shrug, trying to relax into the situation and figure out how I was supposed to act, because I wasn’t sure what they knew. Or thought they knew.

I tried my shrug again. “So?”

OK, that’s one word. Well, you know me by now. When I’m stressed, I keep the words to a minimum. Never good to yak.

“Johnny told me you don’t like me.”

“I don’t really know you, Louie. How can I not like you?”

One of the suits spoke. He had very smooth skin, almost like he’d been a burn victim or something, only he hadn’t. Just very smooth flat features and a very small nose.

He says, “Forget him. We want to know what’s going on.” Flat Face’s little blue eyes were fixed on mine.

So I says, “Fair enough. So do I.”

Flat Face thought about that a second as the limo began to move. Then he says, “It’s obvious you’re involved. You know something.”

So I says, “Jocko tells me you guys think I tweaked Johnny and Huey.”

“That’s one theory.”

I shook my head slowly. “Five-pound salami, four-pound bag. Johnny was my friend. Which is why I was standing next to Johnny when it happened. How could I shoot him from a distance and be standing next to him at the same time?”

“Done all the time.” Flat Face attempted a smile, but it was a little scary. “You set Johnny up for the shooter.”

“That could be. But why? Why not just have the shooter tweak Johnny while I’m in Vegas with an alibi?”

“Money, that’s why!” Louie waved an accusing finger under my nose. “You’re into Vinny Scanlon for fifteen large by next Tuesday.”

I tried to look bored. “I owe Vince. Me and half the businesses in this area have been into Vince at one time or the other. Doesn’t mean I go killing Johnny and Huey.”

“Word is Huey double-crossed you on a deal. Johnny was in on it. Now you can’t make the payment to Scanlon by next Tuesday.”

Louie was right. I didn’t like him, and now I had a reason. I turned to Flat Face.

“Look, I’m a business person. You’re a business person. Business people find common interests. That’s how they stay in business. It wasn’t in either of our common interest that Johnny died. But it is in our common interest to know who made that happen.”

Flat Face’s little blue eyes seemed amused. “We know what business you’re in. Our end has always come out of that business through Johnny. Now where are we going to collect our end, Tommy?”

I could see that they really were businessmen. Johnny wasn’t their friend. He was their hand in the till of the Carroll Gardens theft industry.

“I see. Never good when a revenue stream dries up. What are you proposing?”

Always dangerous to ask a question when you think the answer is something you don’t want to hear. I did it anyway. I did it to keep things on the up and up with these guys.

So Flat Face leans forward, his elbows on his perfectly creased pant leg.

“Right now your business is settling the goodies to the insurance companies. For a vig. There’s nothing much in that for us. If there were, we would have been in business together a long time ago. Johnny’s end of your business was more rewarding. The goofballs got the slice, he got the pie. That was good business for us. We don’t want to let that go.”

Louie interrupted, his finger in my face again, those deep-set ratlike eyes burning. “He knows what’s going on and he’s not telling. That’s disrespect.”

Flat Face reached out his hand and gave Louie a hard poke on the forehead. “I’m still talking.”

Louie shrank back into his seat, looking wounded.

Flat Face reclined, his eyes back on me. “So. Like Louie says, I’m sure there is a lot you know that we don’t about this. Like you say, we’re businessmen. My only interest is in the bottom line. We’ve lost a revenue stream. We want it back. You could take Johnny’s place.”

I squinted at him. “Even if you took my entire percentage, it wouldn’t come close—”

“You misunderstand me.” He wagged a finger. “We’re offering you a position with our firm. Swagging the goodies instead of settling them.”

I nodded slowly. I looked calm on the outside. You know things are going seriously south when the Mafia offers you a job.

I heard myself say, “I’m flattered. That’s very generous. I’d like to say yes right now.”

Flat Face’s eyes dulled. He seemed ready not to like where I was going next. It was important not to seem like I was dancing.

So I says, “Louie is right, though. At the moment, my company is in debt to Scanlon. I don’t deny that. Also, this thing with Johnny, and Huey: It’s put the police on me for a while. I think I need to clear all this up before accepting an offer like this. I would be a liability to your firm. Neither of us wants that. Fact of the matter is I think the entire market in goodies has taken a downturn at the moment, at least in this sector. Nobody is doing anything while the police are snooping around and people are getting shot. The goofballs are keeping their heads down and waiting tables. Can we reconvene this meeting in a couple weeks?”

Flat Face reached a hand back and knocked on the glass partition, the one behind the limo driver’s head. The limo pulled to the curb. “Best if we don’t arrive at the cemetery together. I like to keep my business private.”

I glanced at Louie, who had shrunk into the corner, his eyes looking outside through the tinted glass. I figured I must be a breath of fresh air to guys like Flat Face who have to deal with hotheads like Louie every day.

I reached out a hand. “Thanks for the meeting. I’ll be in touch.”

Flat Face shook my hand. The skin was cool, and I could feel a lot of rings on his fingers.

“
We’ll
be in touch.”

“Either way.” I shrugged, opened the door, and stepped out of the limo. The long black car zoomed up Twenty-fifth Street.

I was at the corner of Fourth Avenue, and when I looked downhill on Twenty-fifth Street I could see a long line of cars with their headlights on. When I looked uphill on Twenty-fifth Street I could see the red taillights of cars and limos stretching up to Fifth Avenue and the gate to the cemetery.

Fourth Avenue is a busy commercial road. Auto part stores, fast food, what have you. Three moving lanes in each direction, a median, and a subway below. Trucks, cars, and buses roared past me as I stood on the corner looking uphill toward the cemetery.

The sky had turned overcast, and a warm wind was kicking up from the west. Looked like rain.

You don’t have to be the Dalai Lama to know that being mobbed up is definitely bad karma. Working for Flat Face would be crossing the line permanently into the illegal side of things. It was there that people got hurt. People like me. Remember? I had a rule about that.

First I was settling. Then I was shopping. Now they wanted me to swag. For the Mafia.

On top of everything else I had to say no to the Mafia.

I felt the subway rumble under my feet, and figured I’d find the nearest station and train back close to home and walk the rest of the way. I didn’t have the stomach to attend the burial.

I turned to start walking.

Doh and Crispi were standing behind me.

“WE NEED TO TALK,” DOH
says, wincing like he wished we didn’t have to talk. Crispi and his unibrow looked like they couldn’t wait to rubber-hose me.

I says, “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

So he says, “I can see that. But we have some questions we’d like to ask you.”

Doh looked up Twenty-fifth Street toward where the limo had gone. I guessed they’d been watching the procession of cars. Then they saw me dropped off by Flat Face and made a move.

I nodded. “I can see that.”

Crispi jerked a thumb south. “The precinct is just over there.”

I nodded. “I’ve seen that, too.”

Doh cocked his head. “You’re not going to stonewall us, are you, Tommy?”

I smiled. “Look, Detective, I know you have a job to do. I respect that. But I’m not a kid. I have standing orders with my lawyer to only talk to the police with her in the room at my side. I’m a businessman and have liability issues. So I refer you to her, Carol Doonan, she’s downtown on Montague. Call her and we’ll set something up. Otherwise, unless I’m under arrest, I can’t expose myself or my business to unnecessary risk. That’s how I keep my insurance rates low.”

Doh had his hands on his hips by that point, and it looked like he was sizing me up. Crispi was all dusky around the eyes, hoping Doh would pull something.

Pull something? By that I mean try to goad me into taking a swing at him, giving him an excuse to arrest me. My size was giving him second thoughts, though.

So I says, “Let’s not play any games. You’re not going to get me to act out in a way that you can bust me. Like I said, I’m not a kid. I’m an adult. Let’s do this like adults, in a businesslike fashion. I’ll help you any way that I reasonably can to help you find who killed those guys.”

Doh took out his cell phone. “What’s Doonan’s phone number?”

I looked through my phone’s directory and gave it to him. He dialed.

“This is Detective Doh, for Carol Doonan. Tell her I’m about to arrest one of her clients, Tommy Davin. … Page her, then. If I don’t hear from her within the hour her client is headed to Rikers.” He left his number and hung up. “I’m not arresting you, Davin. That was just to get her to call. But you’re up to your neck in this thing, whether you know it or not. Sooner you come in and talk, the better. We know things you don’t.” He stabbed a finger at me, turned, and went back to his car.

Crispi followed like a kid cheated out of his lunch money.

They roared past me toward the precinct.

I left the hum and rumble of traffic by way of the stairwell to the R train, which I took to Union Street and then walked back across the Gowanus Canal, across the drawbridge. I could see the Carroll Street bridge where the punk had jumped on the barge, and the seawall where he’d climbed up into the telephone maintenance yard.

I was curious about what the cops knew. Assuming Doh wasn’t bullshitting me. Did they have a lead on the kid? Couldn’t be that strong if they needed to ask me questions. Then again, I did have information that could help them. I knew where the gun was. I was pretty sure Ms. French was involved. I knew what Huey had been up to before his head exploded.

That reminded me of someplace I needed to go. The green loft on Bond.

When I say green loft, I mean it’s a factory space that’s had one end of the second floor renovated into an apartment. Probably the apartment isn’t legal, but then what went on in the loft wasn’t legal, either. The outside of the building is painted grass green.

There was an unmarked button next to the door. I pushed it, heard a distant but angry buzz.

I waited.

I rang again.

I looked up.

A camera pointed down from a second-floor window. So I looked up at the lens and waved, then put my hands together like I was praying. Kind of stupid, I know, but at least I might look like a harmless giant. I was sure a girl like Bridget had to be careful. She was an independent, and she’d never met me before. I’d seen her shopping at the Met Food on Smith Street. I’d run into Blaise there, and he pointed her out. Cute enough, short brown hair, but nothing too special about her figure, and lots of moles on the parts of her body I could see.

I waited some and rang the buzzer again, and the door popped open. A heavy chain was across the open space, and a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and moles was looking up at me from under it. She was in cutoff jeans, clogs, and a white T-shirt that said life is an onion. it’s better fried. I could smell cigarette smoke.

“My name is Tommy. I’m not with the cops or anything, but I was wondering if I could buy some of your time to ask about Huey.”