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even enjoy my pie, just wolfs it down like a gafone . I swear you can smell the acid in this prick’s stomach, he’s wound so tight.” Then he glanced sheepishly at Priscilla, his face beginning to redden. “I’m sorry, Priscilla, excuse my French.”
    Priscilla smiled, chewing her first bite. “Hmmm,” she purred. “This is some good fuckin’ pizza, Nunzio.”
    Nunzio’s flush deepened, and he turned back to Rizzo. “But,” he said, “I gotta tell you, Joe, I know squat about the guy. No name, nothin’. To night, he was loaded, like most times he’s been in here. Shit, I could smell the booze on ’im from way over there, by the friggin’ chopped garlic.”
    Rizzo smiled. “The three kids were a little fired up, too, wouldn’t you say?” he asked.
    Nunzio shook his head sharply. “Few beers, Joe, couple a beers. For the holiday. I know those kids. They grew up in here eatin’ my pies. They’re good kids. And Gary, the one got shot, he coulda been a middleweight contender. Fastest hands I ever seen. Semifinaled the Golden Gloves when he was seventeen, won the next year. Even the freakin’ nig . . . black guys couldn’t lay a glove on him.”
    He glanced again at Priscilla. She smiled tightly and twisted the cap off her water bottle. “How ’bout the spics, Nunzio?” she asked coldly. “They have any better luck?”
    Again, Nunzio reddened, his eyes darting away from Priscilla’s. Rizzo reached out a hand, patting him gently on the face. “I got an idea, Nunz,” he said. “Knock off the narrative. I’ll ask the questions, you give the answers. You know, like in the movies.”
    Nunzio nodded. “Okay,” he said sheepishly. “That sounds like a good idea.”
    When they had finished with the man, Rizzo and Jackson left, meeting up with Officer O’Toole at the door.
    “Just coming to get you, Sarge,” she said. “We found that casing.”
    Rizzo lit up. “Show me,” he said.
    The brass casing lay in the gutter, nestled among cigarette butts and scraps of paper. Using O’Toole’s flashlight, Rizzo bent to the casing and examined it.
    “Thirty-oh-six,” he said. “Like Sastone figured.”
    He stood and brushed grit from his pants leg. “Thanks, O’Toole, good work. Tape off the area. When forensics shows, let them get some pictures and bag the shell.”
    The cop, fair-skinned and twenty-something, smiled.
    “You got it, boss,” she said.
    Later, following Rizzo’s directions, Priscilla drove the Impala toward the Lutheran Medical Center.
    “You may hear an occasional ‘nigger’ slip out here and there, Cil,” he said. “Kinda comes with the local territory.”
    “Yeah,” she said without anger, “I know. Territory keeps gettin’ smaller, though. So that’s a good thing.”
    “Yeah,” Rizzo said absently. “Anyway, you got any thoughts on this case, Cil?”
    She shrugged. “Shooter knows Vinny’s, been there a few times before. Chances are he lives local somewhere. Nunzio didn’t remember ever seeing the guy pull up in a vehicle, so maybe he lives in walking distance. The guy likes to booze it up, we oughta check out the local bars. See where he was drinking to night. How many guys coulda been running around wearing fatigue pants on Columbus Day?”
    Rizzo pursed his lips. “Pretty good,” he said. “And those fatigues—ever since Bush the Elder sent Stormin’ Norman and the boys and girls into Kuwait, the civilian fashion statement of choice has been brown-and-tan desert fatigues. The green-and-black jungle fatigues are from the old Vietnam days. But our shooter, according to the witnesses, he goes green and black.”
    “Maybe he’s some bugged-out Viet vet,” she said.
    “Too young for that,” Rizzo said. “Everybody who saw him pegs him about forty.”
    Priscilla shrugged. “So he’s a military buff. Likes to dress the part, show what a hard-case dude he is.”
    “Not likely,” Rizzo said.
    Priscilla glanced at his profile as she drove.
    “Why’s