"How about the Coyote?"

"I'm always up for Tex-Mex," he said. "Call you later."

Nadia grabbed his arm as he started for the door. "Whoa! What if you run into Dr. Monnet on your way out? Let me go first and see if all's clear."

She led him back to the security door, passing a tech or two along the way who paid them little attention. They seemed to assume that if Doug had got in and was with Dr. Radzminsky, he must belong.

Nadia stepped through the door and looked around. No one in sight. She motioned to Doug, who hurried up behind her.

"Go," she said, giving him a quick kiss. "And don't do this again."

A smile, a wave, and he was heading down the hall toward the reception area. Nadia turned and nearly bumped into Dr. Monnet.

"Oh, Nadia. There you are. I was just calling the dry lab to tell you I've been delayed. But I'll be down in half an hour and we'll get started."

He looked distracted, frayed at the emotional edges. Dragovic's fault. Had to be. She felt her anger rise. It was criminal for a man of Dr. Monnet's brilliance to be upset by a thug. He needed a tranquil environment to allow him to focus fully on his work.

Don't worry, Dr. Monnet, she thought. I know you're in some kind of trouble, but I think I've found you help.

She wondered if Jack was already working on the case. Would he call it a case? And if he was on it, how was he starting out?

8

The quickest way to Staten Island's north shore was through New Jersey via the Bayonne Bridge. The guy Jack was going to see, Sal Vituolo, ran a junkyard there off Richmond Terrace. Lots of junkyards among the old docks along this stretch of road. Word had it some of them were fronts for chop shops, but Jack wasn't interested in car parts.

When he was a kid, New Yorkers called this chunk of rock the Borough of Richmond and used it mostly as an offshore refinery and garbage dump. Sometime in the seventies it renamed itself Staten Island. A lot of people Jack knew would rather admit they were from Jersey than Staten Island.

He steered his five-year-old Buick Century into the Sal's Salvage, Inc., lot and got out. The air smelled of brine, acetylene fumes, and carbon monoxide. Hopping over muddy puddles, he was making his way toward the office when he heard a voice shout, "Watch out!"

Jack turned and saw that someone had backed a fork-lift into a twenty-foot stack of old tires. For an instant it leaned like the Tower of Pisa but looked like it might hold; then it toppled over, sending tires rolling and bouncing in all directions. Half a dozen came Jack's way, bounding wildly. A scary sight, and he had to duck, dodge, and weave to avoid being hit. He did not avoid getting splashed with muddy water. Once in the clear, he spent an amused moment watching the yard workers chase around like frantic shepherds after a scattered flock, then went inside.

Sal Vituolo did not look happy to see Jack when he stepped through the door. The office was small, cluttered, stuffy, and dim—its two tiny windows probably hadn't been cleaned since La Guardia's day. The man behind the desk was about forty with a low hairline, two days' growth of salt-and-pepper whiskers, and a good-sized gut. Reminded Jack of Joey Buttafuco, but without the class.

"Aren't you the guy from last week? Jack, right?"

"Right."

"The guy that doesn't do what I need done."

"Right."

"So why you back? Change your mind?"

"In a way."

Before Jack could go on, Sal went on a tear. His eyes lit and his hands started stabbing the air. "Yeah? Great, 'cause I've got just the way to do it, see? I know this caterer who's gonna to be doin' the Serb's parties this weekend. I can have him hire you as one of the waiters.

All you gotta do is poison the slimeball's food. Easy, huh?"

"Piece of cake," Jack said.

"I'd do it myself if I could look the part, if you know what I'm sayin'."

"I think I do," Jack said, moving a pile of parts catalogs from a chair to the floor and seating himself. "But before we go any further, Sal, I need you to tell me why you've got it in for Mr. Dragovic."

They hadn't got that far last week. When Jack had said he didn't "whack" people for money and Sal had said he'd settle for nothing less, the meeting ended.

"It's that murder thing they had him up on during the winter."

"The one he walked on after all the potential witnesses came down with Alzheimer's?"

"Right. And you know why they suddenly didn't know nuthin'? Because one of the so-called potential witnesses got flattened dead in a hit-and-run in Flatbush a coupla days before the trial."

"So I take it then this guy he was up for killing was a friend of yours?"

"Corvo?" Sal said with a disgusted look. "He was a piece of shit. The world smells better without him. For him, the wrong side of the grass is the right side of the grass, if you know what I'm sayin'. Nah, it was the witness, the potential fucking witness—he was my sister Roseanne's kid, Artie."

"How'd he become witness material?"

"Who knows?" he said, drawing out the second word into a sigh. "Artie got in with a rough crowd. He was headin' for a fall at ninety miles an hour. I warned him, offered him a job here but he was like, 'What? Me work in a junkyard? Fuhgeddaboudit.' Like I was puttin' him on or somethin', if you know what I'm sayin'. Anyway, he happened to be someplace where he wound up knowing something about this killing Dragovic done. And the DA found out, so they was leanin' on him pretty good."

"And he ratted?"

"No way, man. Artie was a stand-up kid." Sal thumped his chest. "He was tough in here." He tapped his head. "A little thick up here, maybe—a real capa-tosta, if you know what I'm saying—but he'd never rat. Dragovic couldn't know that, of course, so he took him out."

That was the word on the street: Dragovic arranged the hit and made sure to be very visible at the 21 Club when it went down. But Jack was curious as to how much more Sal knew.

"You don't know it was Dragovic."

"Hey, I heard from people who saw it go down. The car was aimed right at Artie. When Artie tried to dodge outta the way, the car swerved to hit him. No accident."

"OK. No accident. But as you yourself said, he was in with a rough bunch. Maybe—"

"It was the Serb. Guy was there told me. Won't say nothin' officially, if you know what I'm sayin', but he tells me he recognized one of the Serb's guys at the wheel. So it was Dragovic. I know it, and worse, Roseanne knows it, and every time I see her she looks at me and her eyes say, What're you gonna do about my boy? I'm her little brother, but I'm sorta the man of the family, so I feel I gotta do something. In the old days if you knew someone in the families you could maybe get something done, but those days are gone. So I gotta find someone or do it myself. But this Serb's crazy. I try something and he connects it to me, I'm dead, probably along with my wife and kids to boot."

"You could just let it go."

Sal looked at him. "What kinda guy would I be then?"

"Alive."

"Yeah. Alive and havin' to see Roseanne's eyes lookin' at me every Christmas and Easter and birthday and First Communion, sayin', When, Sal? When you gonna do somethin'?" He sighed heavily. "Bein' the man of the family can really suck, if you know what I'm sayin'."

Jack said nothing. Nothing to say to that.

"So anyways," Sal said, rubbing a hand over his face, "I'm talkin' to Eddy one day, sayin' what am I gonna do, and Eddy says I should call you." He spread his hands and looked at Jack. "And here we are."

Jack remembered Eddy. He'd fixed a problem for him a few years ago. Obviously Eddy remembered Jack.

"Let me float a concept by you, Sal."

"Float away."