“And you—do I have this right?—sent men to find security weaknesses in the apartment of Mr. Patriso’s only granddaughter? Freddy,” she said and reached across the table and touched his hand, “do you think Mr. Patriso would consider these actions respectful or disrespectful?”
Freddy said, “Angela—”
She patted his hand and stood. “Thanks for your time.”
I stood. “Nice seeing you guys.”
Kevin’s chair made a loud scraping noise on the tile as he stepped in my path, looked at me with those depth-charge eyes of his.
Freddy said, “Sit the fuck down.”
“You heard him, Kev,” I said. “Sit the fuck down.”
Kevin smiled, ran his palm across his mouth.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pine cross his legs at the ankles again.
“Kevin,” Jack Rouse said.
In Kevin’s face I could see years of howling class rage and the bright sheen of true psychosis. I could see the little, pissed-off kid whose brain had been stunted and blighted sometime during the first or second grade and had never grown beyond that point. I could see murder.
“Angela,” Freddy said, “Mr. Kenzie. Please sit down.”
“Kevin,” Jack Rouse said again.
Kevin placed the hand that had wiped the smile off his face on my shoulder. Whatever passed between us in the second or two it lay there wasn’t pleasant or comfortable or clean. Then he nodded once, as if answering a question I’d asked, and stepped back by his chair.
“Angela,” Freddy said, “could we—?”
“Have a nice day, Freddy.” She came around behind me and we walked out onto Prince Street.
We reached the car on Commercial, a block from Diandra Warren’s apartment, and Angie said, “I got some things to do, so I’m going to cab it home from here.”
“You sure?”
She looked at me like a woman who’d just backed down a room full of Mafioso and wasn’t in the mood to take any shit. “What’re you going to do?”
“Talk to Diandra, I guess. See if I can find out any more about this Moira Kenzie.”
“You need me?”
“Nope.”
She looked back up Prince Street. “I believe him.”
“Kevin?”
She nodded.
“Me too,” I said. “He has no reason to lie, really.”
She turned her head, looked over at Lewis Wharf, at the single yellow light glowing in Diandra Warren’s apartment. “So where’s that leave her? If Kevin didn’t send that photograph, who did?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“Some detectives,” she said.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “It’s what we’re good at.” I looked up Prince and saw two men walking down toward us. One was short and thin and hard and wore a scally cap. The other was tall and thin and probably giggled when he killed people. They reached the end of the street and stopped at a gold Diamante directly across from us. As Kevin opened the passenger door for Jack, he stared at us.
“That guy,” a voice said, “doesn’t like you two much.”
I turned my head, saw Pine sitting on the hood of my car. he flicked his wrist and my wallet hit me in the chest.
“No,” I said.
Kevin came around the driver’s side of the car, still looking at us, then climbed in and they pulled out onto Commercial, drove up around Waterfront Park, and disappeared at the curve of Atlantic Ave.
“Miss Gennaro,” Pine said, leaning forward and handing her her wallet.
Angie took it.
“That was a very nice performance in there. Bravo.”
“Thank you,” Angie said.
“I wouldn’t try it twice, though.”
“No?”
“That would be stupid.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“That guy,” Pine said, looking off to where the Diamante had disappeared and then back at me, “is going to cause you some grief.”
“Not much I can do about it,” I said.
He came off the car hood fluidly, as if he were incapable of an awkward gesture or the embarrassment of a stumble.
“It was me,” he said, “and he looked at me like that, he wouldn’t have made his car alive.” He shrugged. “That’s me, though.”
Angie said, “We’re used to Kevin. We’ve known him since kindergarten.”
Pine nodded. “Probably should have killed him back then.” He passed between us and I felt ice melting in the center of my chest. “Good night.” He crossed Commercial and went up Prince, and a crisp breeze swept the street. Angie shivered in her coat. “I don’t like this case, Patrick.”
“Me either,” I said. “Don’t like it at all.”
5
Except for a single white track light in the kitchen where we sat, Diandra Warren’s loft was dark, the furniture rising out of the empty spaces in hulking shadows. Lights from neighboring buildings glazed her windows but barely penetrated the interior, and across the harbor Charlestown’s lights checkered the black sky in hard squares of yellow and white.
It was a relatively warm night, but it seemed cold from Diandra’s loft.
Diandra placed a second bottle of Brooklyn Lager on the butcher-block table in front of me, then sat down and idly fingered her wine glass.
“You’re saying you believe these Mafioso?” Eric said.
I nodded. I’d just spent fifteen minutes telling them about my meeting at Fat Freddy’s place, omitting only Angie’s relationship with Vincent Patriso.
I said, “They don’t gain much by lying.”
“They’re criminals.” Eric’s eyes widened at me. “Lying is second nature to them.”
I sipped my beer. “This is true. But criminals usually lie out of fear or to maintain an edge.”
“Okay…”
“And these guys, believe me, have no reason to fear me. I’m nothing to them. If they were threatening you, Doctor Warren, and I came around on your behalf, their response would have been, ‘Fine, we’re threatening her. Now mind your own business or we’ll kill you. End of discussion.’”
“But they didn’t say that.” She nodded to herself.
“No. Add to this that Kevin just isn’t the type to have a steady girlfriend, and it seems unlikelier by the second.”
“But—” Eric started.
I held up a hand, looked at Diandra. “I should have asked this at our first meeting, but it never occurred to me that this could be a hoax. This guy who called claiming to be Kevin—was there anything odd about his voice?”