Darkness, Take My Hand (Kenzie & Gennaro 2)

Jack hadn’t known. It seemed to annoy him. He said, “Give me a cigarette, Kev.”

Kevin leaned across the table, lit the cigarette for him, his elbow about a quarter inch from my eye.

“Mr. Constantine,” Angie said, “our client doesn’t wish to make the list of what your associate considers disposable.”

Freddy held up a meaty hand. “We’re talking about what here exactly?”

“Our client believes she may have angered Mr. Hurlihy.”

“What?” Jack said.

“Explain,” Freddy said. “Quickly.”

Without using Diandra’s name, we did.

“So, what,” Freddy said, “some cooze Kevin’s bumping tells this psychiatrist some bullshit about—I got this?—a body or something, and Kevin gets a little hot and calls her and makes some noise.” He shook his head. “Kevin, you want to tell me about this?”

Kevin looked at Jack.

“Kevin,” Freddy said.

Kevin’s head turned.

“You got a girlfriend?”

Kevin’s voice sounded like ground glass running through a car engine. “No, Mr. Constantine.”

Freddy looked at Jack and they both laughed.

Kevin looked like he’d been caught buying pornography by a nun.

Freddy turned toward us. “You kidding me with this?” He laughed harder. “With all due respect to Kevin, he ain’t exactly a ladies’ man, if you understand me.”

Angie said, “Mr. Constantine, please see our position—this isn’t something we made up.”

He leaned in, patted her hand. “Angela, I’m not saying you did. But you’ve been duped. Some broad claims she was threatened by Kevin because of his girlfriend? Come now.”

“This,” Jack said, “is what I left a card game for? This shit?” He snorted and started to stand up.

“Sit down, Jack,” Freddy said.

Jack froze half in, half out of his chair.

Freddy looked at Kevin. “Sit, Jack.”

Jack sat.

Freddy smiled at us. “Have we cleared up your problem?”

I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket for the photo of Jason Warren, and Kevin’s hand dove into his jacket and Jack leaned back in his chair and Pine shifted slightly in his seat. Freddy’s eyes never left my hand. Very slowly, I withdrew the photo and placed it on the table.

“Our client received this in the mail the other day.”

One of the mustaches above Freddy’s eyes arched. “So?”

“So,” Angie said, “we’d thought it might be a message from Kevin letting our client know that he knew her weaknesses. Now, we assume it isn’t, but we’re confused.”

Jack nodded at Kevin and Kevin’s hand came out of his jacket.

If Freddy noticed, he gave no indication. He looked down at the photo of Jason Warren and sipped his coffee. “This kid, he your client’s son?”

“He’s not mine,” I said.

Freddy raised his huge head slowly, looked at me. “Someone know you, asshole?” Those once warm eyes of his seemed about as comforting as ice picks. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that. Understood?”

My mouth suddenly felt like I’d swallowed a wool sweater.

Kevin chuckled softly under his breath.

Freddy reached into the folds of his jacket, his eyes never leaving my face as he produced a leather-bound notepad. He opened it, leafed through a few pages, found the one he was looking for.

“Patrick Kenzie,” he read. “Age, thirty-three. Mother and father deceased. One sibling, Erin Margolis, aged thirty-six, lives in Seattle, Washington. Last year you grossed forty-eight thousand dollars as part of your partnership with Miss Gennaro here. Divorced seven years. Ex-wife currently resides in parts unknown.” He smiled at me. “But we’re working on it, believe me.” He turned a page, pursed his fat lips. “Last year, you shot a pimp in cold blood under an expressway overpass.” He winked, reached out and patted my hand. “Yes, Kenzie, we know about that. You kill someone again, here’s simple advice: Don’t leave a witness.” He looked back at the notebook. “Where were we? Oh, right. Favorite color is blue. Favorite beer is St. Pauli Girl, favorite food is Mexican.” He turned another page, glanced up at us. “How’m I doing so far?”

“Boy,” Angie said, “are we impressed.”

He turned toward her. “Angela Gennaro. Currently estranged from husband, Phillip Dimassi. Father deceased. Mother, Antonia, lives with second husband in Flagstaff, Arizona. Also involved in killing of pimp last year. Currently residing on Howes Street in a first-floor apartment with a weak deadbolt on the back door.” He closed the notebook, looked at us benignly. “Me and my friends can come up with information like this, why the fuck would we need to mail someone a photograph?”

My right hand was pressed against my thigh, the fingers digging into the flesh, telling me to stay calm. I cleared my throat. “Seems unlikely.”

“Fucking right, it is,” Jack Rouse said.

“We don’t send photographs, Mr. Kenzie,” Freddy said. “We send our messages a bit more directly.”

Jack and Freddy stared at us with predatory humor in their eyes, and Kevin Hurlihy had a shit-eating grin on his face the size of a canyon.

Angie said, “I have a weak deadbolt on my back door?”

Freddy shrugged. “So I hear.”

Jack Rouse’s fingers rose to the tweed scally cap on his head and he tipped it in her direction.

She smiled, looked at me, then at Freddy. You’d have to have known her for a while to realize exactly how irate she was. She’s one of those people whose anger you can gauge by her reduction in movement. By the statue’s position she’d taken at the table, I was pretty sure she’d cruised past the extremely pissed-off point about five minutes ago.

“Freddy,” she said and he blinked. “You answer to the Imbruglia Family in New York. Correct?”

Freddy stared at her.

Pine uncrossed his legs.

“And the Imbruglia Family,” she said, leaning into the table slightly, “they answer to the Moliach Family, who in turn are still considered glorified caporegimes to the Patriso Family. Correct?”

Freddy’s eyes were still and flat, and Jack’s left hand was frozen halfway between the edge of the table and his coffee cup, and beside me I could hear Kevin taking long deep breaths through his nose.