“You still say you never saw him?”

“Not in a lot of years. Not to say if I would’ve I wouldn’t have kicked his ass.” He got further out from his desk and put his feet up, crossed. It was a good casual posture, maybe even rehearsed. His hands were crossed on his stomach. “If this is about Rusty getting it, I told you I worked a double that night. You can look at the log.”

“No, thanks. I’m sure it says that in the log.”

“So give me a break. What do you want?”

“You know Johnny LaGuardia, Hector?”

“Sure. Everybody knows Johnny. What’s he got to do with this?”

Hardy leaned forward. Abe stood up, cracked his back and asked Hector if he could have a cup of coffee from the pot going by the window. Pouring, he turned to Hardy. “How’s this sound, Diz? Hector calls Rusty to set up some meeting so he can kick his ass. Rusty’s on a roll, having just collected some big money on insurance. He rubs that in Hector’s face.”

“What are you talking about? What big money?” Hector’s feet were on the floor now.

Abe kept it up. “So Hector calls his good friend Johnny LaGuardia-”

“I didn’t say he was my good friend, I just know the guy-”

“-and tells him there’s a wad of cash in it for him if he goes over and does Rusty. How’s that sound?”

“I like it,” Hardy said. “My girlfriend can dance to it. I give it a nine.”

Glitsky turned to Medina. “How ’bout you, Hector? That about how it went down?”

Medina had pulled back up to his desk, his hands again crossed over the newspaper. “You got a warrant, sergeant?”

Abe looked at Hardy. “You got a warrant? I don’t have a warrant.”

“Tell you what,” Medina said. “You come back when you got a warrant. I’ll show you the log that says I worked here the whole night. I haven’t seen or talked to Johnny LaGuardia in like six months and I didn’t send him nowhere.” He nodded. “Go find yourselves another patsy. Nice talking to you both.”

“I don’t think he was sincere,” Hardy said.

“About what?”

“About how it was nice talking to us.”

Glitsky slammed his car door and put the key in the ignition. “Some guys don’t have a sense of humor.”

“So where to?”

The late-afternoon traffic was not moving well. They waited, windows rolled down, for a break when the light changed up at the corner behind them.

“You know Johnny LaGuardia?” Abe asked.

“Nope.”

“Well, he works for Angelo Tortoni…”

“I don’t know Angelo either.”

Abe pulled out, tires squealing. “LaGuardia might be the man, even if he wouldn’t have shot anybody with a twenty-two under normal conditions. Could be Ray Weir’s gun was there, he figured what the hell, it would throw somebody like me off the track.”

“Somebody like you?”

“You know, a trained investigator with years of experience.”

“Oh, that you.”

Glitsky drove.

“So where are we going? LaGuardia have an office he works out of?”

“No, but Tortoni does. Though he’s probably gone home by now. I think I’ll see him tomorrow. No point in going by his home, not without a warrant.”

“Everybody wants a warrant.”

“We live in a picky world.”

They were crossing Market now, going south. Hardy caught a whiff of Chinese food, a glimpse of some rappers putting it out to passers-by. The sun was low but still hot, casting long shadows.

“You realize,” Abe said, “we’re back to the vig.”

Hardy squinted at the sun, came back to Glitsky. “Seems like. You think Rusty got caught in the squeeze?”

A nod. “How’s this? Rusty had been light on his vig for a while, and maybe Johnny covered for him a few weeks, floated him on his own, knowing this big insurance payment was coming, maybe setting up his own client base. But Johnny gets there and something goes wrong-Maxine doesn’t go along, Rusty’s already blown it at the track, whatever.”

“Or,” Hardy said, “Johnny sees the money and an easy way to walk with all of it.”

Abe’s scar tightened across his mouth. “Okay, and this is better. Johnny goes, collects his regular vig, and Rusty’s bragging about how he’s able to pay, he’s fat city now. From what you heard about him, that’s the way he was, right?”

“Yeah. When he was flying he flaunted it.”

“And he was flying. So he tells Johnny all about it. Pays him with cash, of course, and maybe Johnny sees the roll, or figures there’s more on board. He goes outside, waits around, figuring he’ll toss the place next time Rusty goes out. But instead, Maxine shows up. He gives them a half hour, sees the bedroom lights go on and off and on, maybe looks in and sees them counting money, breaks in the door, blam, blam, grabs the stash, adios.”

“And the brace?” Hardy hadn’t bought the explanation from the night at Weir’s.

“Maybe they were celebrating. Maybe she puts it on one last time while they count the money it brought them.” He looked at Hardy. “I said maybe.”

“Lots of times,” Hardy said.

“Granted.”

“And Hector?”

Glitsky shook his head. “That was fishing. Hector’s right. Johnny gets around. Everybody does know him.”

“And Louis?”

They were pulling into the parking lot at County General. “Louis probably doesn’t know what he knows, but another big maybe seems to be he did it.” Abe pulled the parking brake, turned toward Hardy. “He was there, he had a motive, and there was a weapon. The trained detective tries to remember these things. Motive, means, opportunity. Detecting One-A.”

In the parking lot there was a strong smell of hot tar.

“So what’s all this other bullshit we’ve been doing all day?”

Abe stopped. “This isn’t bullshit. This is covering the bases, which is what we do. We nail it down. We find out where everybody was and what they were doing. We eliminate reasonable doubt-”

“So you think Baker did it?”

“I think he’s a real suspect. Would you let him go right now?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.”

“But that’s because he was coming after me. It doesn’t mean he killed Rusty.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“You want to get technical, Rusty being dead is still an open question.”

Louis Baker wondered for a minute if he were dead. If he was, then this certainly be Hell.

Half-open eyes seeing the Man and Hardy standing by the end of the bed, arms crossed, studying. A phlegmy cough rumbled up from somewhere inside him, half smothered, and seemed like to rip his lung-the one already got a bullet through it-seem to rip that lung further apart. His throat burned inside, and the slight movement of the cough made him feel the abrasion on his neck. He went to reach his hand up and found this time that he was strapped to the bed, hands to his sides.

The Man say, “Louis, you hear me?”

He tried to open his eyes further. There was a crust over them that made it seem too much effort.

“I think he’s out.”

“Louis,” the Man repeat. Same quiet voice. What they gonna do to him now ain’t been done? He tried his eyes again.

They seemed to have moved closer, Hardy hanging back maybe a step, the Man-mean scar through his mean lips top to bottom, hovering over, the devil himself.

“You want some water?”

The Man held a glass to his lips and tipped it up. “Slow now.”

Shit burned. Everything burned down there. Then, another hit, getting a little better. He held the water in his mouth, letting it drip back down his throat. Swallowing was where the pain came in.

“Can you talk?”

Some kind of laugh started but it hurt before it got too far. He tried to shake his head.

“But you hear me?”

He opened and closed his eyes. Man want to talk all the time, and Louis don’t got nothin’ to say. Just want to get out, get back to home turf.

Another sound, he look out again. Woman in white saying he’s under heavy sedation now, perhaps they’d like to come back tomorrow.

Maybe she been here all along, other side the bed. He felt something cold on his forehead, good. White woman in white. She got good hands, some kind of towel.