I leaned back against the wall.

9:24.

Fourteen minutes since Mullen had shoved me into the wall and entered the building.

The walkie-talkie in my jacket purred against my chest. I pulled it out and there was a quick low bleat, followed by: “He’s coming back down.”

Angie’s voice.

“Where are you?”

“Thank God for fifty-inch TVs, is all I can say.”

“You’re inside?” Broussard said.

“’Course. Nice place, but easy locks, man, I swear.”

“What brought him back?”

“His suit. It’s a long story. Tell you later. He should be reaching the street any second.”

Mullen exited the building wearing a blue suit instead of the black one he’d worn on the way in. His tie was different, too. I was staring at the knot when the head above it swung my way and I glanced down at my shoes without moving my head. Quick movements are the first thing your paranoid drug dealer types notice in a crowd, so I wasn’t about to turn away.

I counted down from ten very slowly, thumbed down the volume on the walkie-talkie in my pocket, and barely heard Broussard’s voice. “He’s moving again. I got him.”

I looked up as Mullen’s shoulders moved in front of a young girl in a bright yellow jacket, and I turned my head slightly and picked up Broussard sliding through the crowd where Court became State Street as Mullen turned right before the Old State House and cut through the alley again.

I turned back to the window of Eddie Bauer, met my reflection.

“Whew,” I said.

15

An hour later, Angie opened the passenger door of the Crown Victoria and said, “Wired for sound, man. Wired for sound.”

I’d moved the car to the fourth story of the Pi Alley garage and pointed it toward Devonshire Place.

“You bugged every room?”

She lit a cigarette. “The phones, too.”

I looked at my watch. She’d been in there an hour flat. “What’re you, CIA?”

She smiled around her cigarette. “I tell you, I might have to kill you later, babe.”

“So what was up with the suit?”

She had a far-off look in her eyes as she stared through the windshield at the facade of Devonshire Place. Then she shook her head slightly.

“The suits. Right. He talks to himself.”

“Mullen?”

She nodded. “In the third person.”

“Must have picked it up from Cheese.”

“He comes in the door going, ‘Great fucking choice, Mullen. A black suit on a Friday. You out of your fucking mind?’ Like that.”

“I’d like Inane Superstitions for three hundred, Alex.”

She chuckled. “Exactly. So then he goes in his bedroom and he’s thrashing around in there, ripping his suit off, slamming hangers together in the closet, ya ya ya. Anyway, it takes him a few minutes, and then he selects a new suit and he puts it on, and I’m thinking, Good, he’s outa here, because I’m getting real cramped behind that TV, piles of cables back there like snakes…”

“And?”

Angie can get lost in moments like these, so sometimes a gentle prodding helps.

She scowled at me. “Mister Cut-to-the-Chase, over here. So…then suddenly I hear him talking again. He’s going, ‘Fuckhead. Hey, fuckhead! Yeah, you!”

“What?” I leaned forward.

“Interested again, are we?” She winked. “Yeah, so I think he’s spotted me. I think I’m bagged. Cooked. Right?” Her large brown eyes had grown huge.

“Right.”

She took a drag off her cigarette. “Nah. Talking to himself again.”

“He calls himself ‘fuckhead’?”

“When the mood strikes him, apparently. ‘Hey, fuckhead, you’re going to wear a yellow tie with this suit? That’s good. Real good, fuck face.”

“Fuck face.”

“I swear to God. A bit limited on the vocabulary, I’d say. So then there’s more thrashing around as he gets another tie, puts it on, mumbles under his breath the whole way. And I’m thinking, He’ll get the tie right, be halfway out the door, and decide the shirt’s wrong. I’ll be so cramped, I’ll need traction to get out from behind his TV.”

“And?”

“He left. I called you guys.” She flicked her cigarette out the window. “End of story.”

“Were you in the apartment when Broussard walkie-talkied he was on his way back?”

She shook her head. “At Mullen’s door with picks in hand.”

“You kidding me?”

“What?”

“You broke in after you knew he was coming back?”

She shrugged. “Something came over me.”

“You’re nuts.”

She gave me a throaty chuckle. “Nuts enough to keep you interested, Slick. That’s all I need.”

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kiss her or kill her.

The walkie-talkie squawked on the seat between us, and Broussard’s voice popped through the speaker. “ Poole, you got him?”

“Affirm. Taxi moving south on Purchase, heading for the expressway.”

“Kenzie.”

“Yeah?”

“Miss Gennaro with you?”

“Affirm,” I said in my deepest voice. Angie punched my arm.

“Stand by. Let’s see where he’s going. I’m going to start walking back.”

We listened to a minute or so of dead air before Poole came back on. “He’s on the expressway and heading south. Ms. Gennaro?”

“Yeah, Poole.”

“Are all our friends in place?”

“Every last one.”

“Turn on your receivers and leave your position. Pick up Broussard and head south.”

“You got it. Detective Broussard?”

“I’m heading west on Broad Street.”

I put the car in reverse.

“We’ll meet you at the corner of Broad and Batterymarch.”

“Copy that.”

As I left the garage, Angie turned on the boxy portable receiver in the backseat and adjusted the volume until we heard the soft hiss of Mullen’s empty apartment. I cut through the parking ramp under Devonshire Place, took a left on Water, rolled through Post Office and Liberty squares, and found Broussard leaning against a street lamp in front of a deli.

He hopped in the car as Poole ’s voice came over the walkie-talkie. “Getting off the expressway in Dorchester by the South Bay Shopping Center.”

“Back to the old neighborhood,” Broussard said. “You Dorchester boys just can’t stay away.”

“It’s like a magnet,” I assured him.

“Scratch that,” Poole said. “He’s taking a left on Boston Street, heading toward Southie.”

I said, “Not a very strong magnet, however.”

Ten minutes later we passed Poole’s empty Taurus on Gavin Street in the heart of Old Colony Project in South Boston and parked half a block up. Poole ’s last transmission had told us he was following Mullen into Old Colony on foot. Until he contacted us again, there wasn’t much to do but sit and wait and look at the project.

Not a bad-looking sight, actually. The streets are clean and tree-lined and curve gracefully through red-brick buildings with freshly painted white trim. Small hedges and squares of grass lie under most first-floor windows. The fence encircling the garden is upright, rooted, and free of rust. As far as projects go, Old Colony is one of the most aesthetically pleasing you’re apt to find in this country.

It has a bit of a heroin problem, though. And a teen suicide problem, which probably stems from the heroin. And the heroin probably stems from the fact that even if you do grow up in the prettiest project in the world, it’s still a project, and you’re still growing up there, and heroin ain’t much but it beats staring at the same walls and the same bricks and the same fences your whole life.

“I grew up here,” Broussard said, from the backseat. He peered out the window, as if expecting it to shrink or grow in front of him.

“With your name?” Angie said. “You can’t be serious.”

He smiled and gave her a small shrug. “Father was a merchant marine from New Orleans. Or ‘Nawlins,’ as he called it. He got in some trouble down there, ended up working the docks, in Charlestown and then Southie.” He cocked his head toward the brick buildings. “We settled here. Every third kid was named Frankie O’Brien and the rest were Sullivans and Sheas and Carrolls and Connellys. And if their first name wasn’t Frank, it was Mike or Sean or Pat.” He raised his eyebrows at me.