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up his shirt and put it on, leaving it unbuttoned over his concave, hairless, snake-tattooed chest. ‘You, ah, gonna tell Mr Lacotta about the hooker?’
    â€˜Where’s the percentage in that?’
    Wylie nodded. He moved to the kitchenette counter where a bottle of Jack Daniels rested beside a couple of tumblers. He cracked the bottle. ‘Thirsty?’ he asked.
    â€˜Sure.’
    Wylie put a couple of inches of whiskey into each tumbler. He walked to the table and sat, shoving one of the tumblers toward Mace.
    Mace shot his.
    Wylie followed his lead. ‘Mr Lacotta says I got a future in the corporation.’
    Mace said nothing. He raised his empty glass. Wylie hopped up and retrieved the bottle. He splashed more liquor into their tumblers. ‘I figure, guy’s gotta have a plan, you know,’ he said. ‘I mean, shit, this town’ll carve you up a hundred different ways you don’t have a plan.’
    â€˜What’s your plan?’ Mace asked.
    â€˜I figured it out in upper school. Hell, that musta been three years ago. Had a lot of time to sit around, figuring things out, while these assholes kept yakking away about world history, Shakespeare and shit like that. Mr Lacotta had already told me he wanted to do something for me when I finished up. On account of my old man. You know him? Leo Guriso?’
    â€˜I met him once,’ Mace said.
    â€˜He was OK. I mean he treated me and my mother OK. Just didn’t know what the fuck, you know? I mean, he bought his suits at Sears. Always smelled of garlic and Old Spice.’
    â€˜Didn’t have a plan,’ Mace said.
    â€˜Exactly,’ Wylie said. ‘He was like . . . strictly blue collar. Anyway, Mr Lacotta offered. He’s got a big firm, Mount Olympus Industries. Important contacts. And he needs a guy to do investigation stuff for him. Big-business private eye, right? It sounds fine to me.’
    â€˜How long you been with Mount Olympus?’
    â€˜Uh, eleven months, a couple weeks.’
    â€˜You like it?’
    â€˜Got me a title: Security Consultant. My own office. Check every other week. Free time to screw off. OK, so Mr Lacotta’s on my ass to go to a fucking hair stylist and he made me burn off most of my tats. Still a fucking good deal.’
    â€˜What kind of work has he had you doing?’
    Wylie thought about it. ‘Checking up on personnel, mainly. Looking at the daily reports from the hired guards. Some background checks, which bore the crap out of me.’
    â€˜What was the gig before this one?’
    â€˜Gettin’ the goods on one of the dudes in accounting. Found out he was ass-deep into online poker and “borrowed” thirty thou – transferring it from Olympus’ slush account – until he got even. The jag-off.’
    â€˜Do much surveillance work?’
    â€˜Some. A while ago, me and this other guy, Jamey Scalise, was keepin’ tabs on cars comin’ and goin’ at a place up near Frisco. Big fucking joint. Commingore.’
    â€˜Commingore Industries?’ Mace asked.
    â€˜That’s the one. They make weapons. Guns, missiles and shit.’
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜The way things are going these days, not a bad business to be in,’ Wylie said. ‘I figure Mr Lacotta’s interested because he and the big boss, Mr Montdrago, got some deal cookin’ with ’em.’
    Mace didn’t bother asking what the deal might be. Paulie sure as hell wouldn’t have given Wylie that information. ‘See anything interesting while you were clocking the place?’
    Wylie shrugged. ‘All we did was copy license plate numbers and turn ’em in. After a couple weeks, we got the word to come back home. My next surveillance job is this one.’
    Mace wondered if there might not be a connection between the two gigs.
    Wylie poured another shot into Mace’s tumbler, then his own. ‘Anyway. I really need this job.