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who?”
    â€œIt’s around?”
    â€œOff the record?”
    â€œNot for attribution. You’re a highly placed, badly dressed police source with a high forehead.”
    â€œNot for attribution, I’ve heard the story.”
    â€œWho were the mob guys?”
    â€œWoof. Let me see. Marino was one.”
    â€œThe same Marino you just found in the car trunk.”
    â€œThe same one, only alive. And Tommy the Blond was another. That’s all I can remember hearing.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œWho’s badly dressed?”
    I hung up.
    â€œWe’re going perky, Wells. Load for bear.” It was Vicki. Rafferty was standing next to her.
    I swiveled to them. “Hey. Grand Central’s across the street, okay?”
    Rafferty laid a hand on my shoulder. “I just want you to know, John, that we’re all counting on you to risk your job standing up to her so that we can smile and fawn and degrade ourselves in front of her and then pretend to support you when her back is turned.”
    â€œListen,” I told him. “There are plenty of worse things than perky.”
    â€œEmphysema?”
    â€œSee, there’s one right there.”
    Vicki lifted her head and shouted, “Hey, everybody. Wells has sold out.”
    There was a general “Awww” from around the room. I stood up. Fran brought my coffee.
    â€œJust leave it here,” I said.
    I hurried through the maze and around the city desk. Pushed out the glass doors to the bank of elevators. Lansing leaned her head out the glass doors after me. She smiled maliciously.
    â€œGuess you two can sit around being perky together.”
    The elevator opened. “I can be perky.” I got in. The door closed. “I can be as perky as anyone.”
    I took the subway to Little Italy. I walked the winding, cramped, and smelly streets, between the crumbling walls of painted brick. On Kenmare, I went in the side door to a small garage. There was a man there named Marty Rapp. He was in his fifties now, but he had the frame of a linebacker. Arm muscles stretched his shirt open at his hairy chest. Leg muscles made his jeans tight. He had a sharp-featured, bullet-shaped head and a widow’s peak you could open a letter with. He was in the bay, leaning against the trunk of an old Camaro, smoking a cigarette. A man in overalls crouched down next to him. He had the car’s front door open and was working on its hinge with a screwdriver.
    When I walked in off the street, Marty Rapp looked at me with marbly black eyes. He kept looking until I was standing directly in front of him.
    â€œYou’re not here,” he said then. “Go away.”
    â€œLet’s go in back.”
    He shook his head, his pale lips parting. “What? Can I talk to you? No. Can I be seen with you? No. Go away, Wells.”
    â€œIt’s old stuff, Marty. Nothing hot.”
    â€œNothing hot. You’re hot. You’re the whole reason Marino got whacked. Who is that? Is that me? No, it’s you.”
    â€œI also pegged Mulroney for that arson charge,” I said. “You’d have gone down for that. You owe me.”
    He looked at the grimy ceiling. Then he leaned toward me. Then he tapped me on the chest with his finger. “Wells. Mr. Dellacroce is still talking a whack on you. Is this a safe thing for us? You tell me.”
    â€œTell Dellacroce I’ve written my obit naming him as the cause of death. He hits me, it runs. Now, come on, give me a break here, Marty. I need to know about E.J. McMahon.”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œWas Marino in on that?”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œTom Watts?”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, “we’ll do it this way. If Tom Watts was in on it, just say: ‘Fuck you.’”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œMarino?”
    â€œFuck you.”
    â€œTommy the Blond?”
    Marty Rapp put a cigarette to his lips carefully.