CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was early the next morning when I woke up, possibly because I hadn’t slept well the night before.

My body felt bruised, my head sore. And my face was probably going to break out from all the mascara that had saturated my pores.

I rolled out of bed, not feeling especially proud of the way I’d talked to Romero last night. But dang, he could be an ignoramus. And bullheaded. A macho, Italian, bullheaded ignoramus. With swarthy looks, a hot body, gorgeous eyes…

My cheeks flushed, and a burning pulse throbbed below. Darn it! Being mad at Romero was turning me on.

I fanned myself and centered on what I needed to do today. Forget Mr. Detective. He could search the Ritz-Carlton for Ziggy. I had other plans.

First thing I needed to do was talk to Mrs. Calvino’s son Dom at Lumber Mart. In the grand scheme of things, I was certain Ziggy had delivered the dildo yesterday morning, but maybe Dom had seen something when he’d arrived at his mom’s. Something that had stood out. Something I hadn’t noticed.

I summoned images from last night’s tour over the puppy mill. Since Ziggy had attacked me so close to the building, he’d basically tipped his hand that this was his hiding place. He probably wasn’t there now because he’d figure the cops would look for him there first. Ha! Forget about the cops. Maybe Dom had not only observed something from his mom’s driveway, but maybe he could provide another clue on where to look for Ziggy.

What’s more, I still needed proof that Ziggy killed Dooley. I wanted justice for Dooley, and if Ziggy was his murderer, he needed to pay for his crime. As it stood now, the puppy mill was the best place to look for that proof.

Since the hospital was only a few miles from Lumber Mart, I’d stop there after for my weekly visit with the kids. Let them turn me into the Bride of Frankenstein. This case was getting under my skin, and I reasoned that an hour’s reprieve wouldn’t hurt anything. Which reminded me…I needed to drop by the shop and replenish my bag with nail stickers. The kids loved peeling those suckers off the sheet and planting them all over me.

A smile erupted on my face. If I made one child burst into giggles from my wacky appearance, it was worth the trouble.

I had to pick up Max, too, but he’d be making pizza dough until noon. That suited me fine. I’d either take him home or see if he wanted to accompany me back to the puppy mill. I wouldn’t pressure him either way. His friend Freddie had been murdered by the hands of two goons, and staking out the puppy mill might bring back the pain of losing his pal.

Yitts meowed in no uncertain terms that she was hungry and needed her brushing. I nuzzled her under my chin, then set her down and brushed her black fur until it gleamed.

“Wherever Ziggy is today,” I told her, “he won’t be bothering me anymore. After being tossed from the propellers last night, he’ll be lucky to be alive.” Which also gave me the confidence to visit the sick kids. If Ziggy wasn’t dead, he’d be laying low.

Yitts took her paw and tapped my hand. I stared down at her, realizing I’d stopped brushing. “Tyrant,” I said, picking up the pace.

By the time I’d fed Yitts and gotten myself together, it was twenty to nine. Instead of making up for yesterday’s hair disaster and doing something stunning with my locks, I twisted them into a simple bun. Lumber Mart’s doors were probably already open. I wanted to be there with my questions ready.

I gave myself a final shot of Musk, then put out the garbage and took a good look around the neighborhood. Gray skies…again, accompanied with heavy clouds. There were a few stragglers on their way to school. No predators stalking the street.

Ray Donoochi backed out of his driveway and gave me a toot. Always good to know an officer was on duty.

A shiver rushed through me, and I knew temperatures would struggle to rise. I went back in the house, wrapped my long red scarf around my neck four times, and grabbed my bag. I warmed up the car, cruised down Orchard to Wellington, took the roundabout to Hemlock, and pulled into Lumber Mart as my car clock read nine.

Dom Calvino wore a nametag shaped like a happy beaver and was behind the counter at the back of the store, helping a customer. Dom was pushing forty and had the same shock of gray hair that fell in a wavy swoop over his forehead like his mother’s.

He looked up at me, gave a quick nod, and said he’d be a few minutes. No problem, I said. I’d look around till he was free since I loved lumber stores. White lie. The smell of pine took me back to shop class in high school—not a good memory—and looking at floor tiles and paint samples made my eyes glaze over.

His customer left with his own glazed look when Dom handed him a two-page invoice and told him to meet the forklifts out back.

Stretching my scarf down from my neck, I moseyed up to the counter and introduced myself to Dom. Not surprisingly, he knew who I was. The chuckle that escaped his mouth was a dead giveaway.

I asked if he’d seen anything suspicious yesterday morning when he arrived at his mom’s.

“You mean did I see any more deliveries? Like a Turbo Wand Massager? Passion plugs?” He leaned in. “Or a supersized stallion suction-cup dildo? Whew.” He rolled his eyes. “Hang that baby in the barn and see how limber you are.”

“What?” I backed away, eewing inside. “No. I only had one delivery. I wondered if you saw anything else in the neighborhood. Something peculiar or out of place.”

He tucked a paper in a folder and stared past me into the distance. After a few seconds, I waved my hand in front of his face. “Dom?”

He blinked, his stare drawn back to me. “Yeah, there was something that seemed odd. I was getting the air purifier out of my trunk when this white car drove down the street.”

“A white car.”

“Yes.”

“What’s so odd about a white car?”

His lips flattened. “Nothing per se, but this one had a logo on the door, like a plumber or an electrician’s logo.”

I ruminated on this. “A car? Not a van or truck?”

“Definitely a car.” He shrugged. “I told you something seemed odd.”

I frowned. “Maybe it was a company car, or someone was paying somebody a visit.” It’d been kind of early for that, and I couldn’t think of anyone on the street who drove a company car with a logo on it. Ray Donoochi occasionally brought a cruiser home during the day, but a black-and-white with lights on top was easily recognizable.

“Could be. But the woman driving the car slowed down and seemed to take a good look at your place.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “Woman?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t see much from where I was standing, and it wasn’t that light yet, but I’m sure it was a woman.”

“Was she blond? Dark? Redheaded?”

“Like I said, it wasn’t that light out. Sorry. Wish I could be more help.”

I thanked Dom and left Lumber Mart a little shaky in my boots. Who was this woman? And why was she interested in my place? Did she know something about the dildo delivery? Did she know Ziggy? I racked my brain for missing pieces to the mystery but couldn’t think of what I’d overlooked.

Hang on a minute. The female voice on the phone, the one that had upset Dooley. Of course! I hadn’t stopped to think about that in a while. Was the woman in the white car the one who’d called the restaurant? But who was she? And what was her connection to Dooley’s death, and Ziggy…and me?

Jimmy had said there were no women in Dooley’s life. And Ziggy had been in prison. Not exactly prime real estate for carrying on a torrid love affair. Where did that leave me?

I stuffed myself back in my Bug, shook off the jitters, and put the car in gear. I had things to do, and I didn’t have time to waste.

* * *

Ten minutes later, I swung into the parking at the back of the shop and pulled up beside Phyllis’s rusty whale of a car.

What was Phyllis doing here on a Monday when we were closed?

I unlocked the back door and trotted to the front of the salon, the sound of a humming hair dryer greeting me, the usual chemical odors filling my nose. I rounded the corner from the hall and saw the croaky-voiced kid from Friar Tuck’s under the dryer.

He was in his tunic and medieval boots, towel around his shoulders, felt crown by his side. A small flask of booze was perched between his thighs, and he was singing merrily to himself, drumming his head against the inside of the dryer hood.

There was hair on the floor by Phyllis’s station, which sat unswept. Naturally. If Phyllis had just done a haircut, she wouldn’t be in a hurry to clean up the clippings. Instead, she sat amid the mess in her hydraulic chair across from Friar Tuck. She was wearing her white smock, and she was flipping through one of the new magazines I’d restocked yesterday.

I rapped my knuckles on the wall, mildly irritated. “Phyllis?”

She jerked upright in her chair. “Huh?”

“What are you doing here?” I flung my bag on the dryer chair beside the kid. “And what’s Friar Tuck doing under the dryer, drinking booze? It’s not even noon yet. Plus, I don’t think he’s even of age.”

Phyllis’s eyes shifted from the quarter-empty flask, to me, with an uh-oh look on her face. “I had one last tint job to squeeze in before graduating from my course. Austin agreed to help me out.” She sounded so proud. “After all, I buy enough day-old donuts to keep Friar Tuck’s in business.”

I couldn’t refute that. “I thought you were having your first class on tinting yesterday.”

“It’s a fast-moving course.”

Evidently.

I tilted my head at Austin and noticed blue gunk on his brows and lashes. Plastic wrap covered the gunk and spiraled around his head like a blindfold. He didn’t appear bothered. Along with singing and drumming his head against the dryer hood, he was playing an air guitar, making funny burping sounds. “That still doesn’t explain why he seems half tanked.”

Phyllis puckered her lips. “He said he wasn’t making any commission on my day-old donuts, and if I wanted him as a happy, willing model, I’d have to buy him a bottle of rum.”

I sighed. “Did it occur to you that he asked you to purchase a bottle of rum because he couldn’t? Because he’s under age?”

Her eyebrows slid up. “No. But drinking it did wonders for his jumpiness. He was squirming and squealing like a pig when I put bleach on his eyelashes. And look at him now. Happy as a clam.”

My breathing hitched in my throat. “Phyllis, you put bleach on his eyelashes?”

She wriggled off her chair. “The last assignment said to do something unique.”

I couldn’t even think of the outcome to this. I threw up my hands and headed into the dispensary.

The timer went off with a ding, and Austin kicked his leg in the air, strumming a riff, singing the lyrics to “We Are the Champions.” Happy as a clam.

Phyllis strolled to the front and dropped her magazine on a pile with the other new ones, not in much of a hurry to tend to her client. Didn’t matter anyway. Austin blindly took a swig of his rum, screwed the cap back on, and continued singing he was the champion.

I slammed drawers, hunting for my stack of nail stickers, only coming up with three sheets. Strange. I had dozens last time I’d checked.

I marched over to the manicure table and searched there. Zilch. I poked my head up at Phyllis across the room. “Do you know where all my nail stickers are?”

She led Austin over to the sink. “Yeah, I took a bunch home.”

“What for?”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

Would anything Phyllis did ever come as a surprise? “Try me.”

She leaned Austin back in his chair, shrugging at me. “I was having blueberries for dessert one night and thought I’d make a shake. Ends up the lid wasn’t on the blender right, and I sort of had a blueberry explosion.”

Austin hiccupped. “Cooool.”

“Sooo?” I was standing at the foot of her station, waiting for the good part.

“So, I couldn’t get the blueberry stains off the walls, and I thought why not cover the blue spots with nail stickers.”

“Why not? I’ll tell you why not.” I was doing my best to control my anger, but I had to loosen my scarf around my neck because I was boiling inside. “Nail stickers are for nails. The only other reason I order these decals is to let the hospital kids have their fun with them.”

“Pff.” She waved a wet hand in the air. “They’ll get over it. You can always pick up cheap stickers at the dollar store.”

My jaw dropped at her lack of compassion. “They like nail stickers because they’re more intricate, and they revolve around beauty, and—” Why was I explaining anything to her?

“Aaaaah!” Austin pressed his nose to the mirror, scrubbing his forehead.

Phyllis and I had been so busy arguing we hadn’t paid attention to him slinking out of his chair.

“Stop screaming!” Phyllis barely gave Austin a second glance. “You sound like a girl.”

Everything screeched to a halt around me, those words penetrating my skull. Austin sounded like a girl. That was it. A woman’s voice inside a man. That was what kept nagging me about Ziggy. His tone was unnatural, soft, feminine, whereas during the perm-rod incident years ago his voice had been deep, manly. Yow! Was it true that if a man lost his pride—so to speak—his voice climbed a few octaves?

The jokes about Ziggy becoming a soprano had been constant, but until now, I hadn’t stopped to consider the soprano phenomenon could be true.

My thoughts were jumping leaps and bounds, coming back again to the woman caller. Was it possible Ziggy was the one who’d made those disturbing calls to Dooley at the restaurant? Threatening or telling Dooley he wanted to speak to him in person? Maybe Dooley agreed, thinking they’d clear up any misunderstanding, talking face to face.

There had to be a record of calls from prison, and it was a lead I could share with Romero. Unless Detective Smartass had already investigated this. But it all made sense and would’ve explained Dooley letting Ziggy into the Wee Irish Dude. Only thing was, if the feminine voice belonged to Ziggy, who was the woman in the white car? Was she even significant?

Austin shrieked again, dragging my thoughts back to the present.

With clean-cut hair, average weight, and a pimply face, Austin was a typical-looking youth…except for his pale white lashes and brows that were coming off in clumps. On top of that, the bleach must’ve seeped into his hair when he was knocking his head on the dryer, because the front half had turned white.

He flicked mushy bits of hair from his fingers, blinking at his reflection. “I look like Colonel Sanders.” His bottom lip quivered, his eyes wide. “Except he had fried chicken. All I’ve got is six eyelashes. Count ’em. Six! What’s my mom going to say?”

“Stop whining,” Phyllis said. “You still look better than the last guy who came in here.”

Austin took a gulp of rum, and I swiveled my head to Phyllis. “Last guy?” I glanced down at the clippings on the floor, assuming they’d belonged to Austin, pre-bleach. But now that I studied them, I realized they were a different shade of hair. “What last guy?”

“The guy who was waiting at the door when I got here this morning. Scrapes on his face, arm in a homemade sling. Said he had a funeral to go to and he needed a haircut, but all the salons were closed.” Phyllis scratched her head, grimacing. “He looked so beat up, I thought he was talking about his own funeral.”

I swallowed back a tremor working its way up my spine. “Was this guy wearing a beige trench coat? Maybe a London Fog?”

“How did you know?” Her mouth hung open like she was talking to a bona fide psychic. “Though I wouldn’t say it was much of a coat. Sort of tattered, like he got it out of the Goodwill bin. And one sleeve was all black. Must’ve been grease or something.”

Oy. Arm in a sling. Scrapes on his face. Soiled frayed coat.

“Phyllis, that was Ziggy Stoaks you let into the salon.”

“Who’s Ziggy Stoaks?”

I cringed, not surprised I had to spoon-feed her news in small doses. “The guy I helped put away for murdering Max’s friend. He escaped from prison the other day. We think he killed Dooley. Now he’s trying to kill me.”

“The perm-rod guy?”

“Yes.”

“And I just cut his hair?”

“Yes.”

She stood motionless for a second, letting this sift through her brain. Then she took three large strides over to Austin, ripped the flask from his hand, and took a slug of rum. Her eyes got watery, and she clutched her throat.

Phyllis wasn’t much of a drinker. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever seeing her down straight liquor. Coughing and sputtering, she dodged for the hose, yanked up the tap, and guzzled cold water. “How was I supposed to know I was cutting a murderer’s hair?” she gasped, slamming down the tap. “He said he knew you. I figured I was doing the right thing.”

Phyllis never did the right thing. One time that would’ve been in her favor, she chose to play the humanitarian.

“He wasn’t even grateful…the scumbag.” She wiped her mouth and threw a hand on her hip. “Would you believe he complained about his haircut? Said one side was bushier than the other. Lowlife. What nerve.”

“Yeah. Imagine that.” A murderer with standards.

But it was unsettling. After ornamenting the front window yesterday with his repugnant drawing, then trying to shoot me at Kuruc’s and abduct me from the airport, why had Ziggy risked visiting the shop again? To put another scare in me? To show he wasn’t giving up, even if he was injured? The churning in my stomach told me he was still lurking about, ready to pounce again.

“And when he said he knew me, you didn’t question how?”

Phyllis shook her head. “I figured he was an old boyfriend or something.”

“Thanks.” Couldn’t blame her there. It was no secret I’d dated louts before. Maybe not murderers or animal abusers, but jerks all the same.

Perhaps Ziggy thought he was being clever, revisiting the shop, leaving his scent like a dog. Well, I was done with his games. Done with being taunted. Done waiting for him to hunt me down and strike again. There had to be clues to this whole mystery at the puppy mill, and I’d find them. I wasn’t about to quit now.

“Uh, can I go now?” Austin piped, felt crown in hand, a pleading look on his face. To his credit, he had sobered up quickly.

Phyllis tossed him the flask, tugged her phone from her smock pocket, and told him to smile.

“Smile.” He squawked. “What have I got to smile about?”

“For helping me graduate from this course. I’ve fulfilled all the criteria and completed my work on the minimum number of models.”

Austin gaped from Phyllis to me like he couldn’t believe his ears. “You mean you did this on someone else?” He took a moment to absorb this. “And he’s still living?”

Phyllis fiddled with her camera. “Not only is he living, but he liked his new look. Now smile.”

Austin worked up a smile, but he looked more constipated than anything.

Satisfied with her shot, Phyllis slid her phone in her pocket. She pinched a brown eyebrow pencil from the makeup tray and drew two lines on Austin’s forehead. “There.” She plunked the pencil in his palm. “Wear this until your eyebrows grow back. Your mother will never ask questions.”

Austin stared from the pencil back up at Phyllis. “How long will that be?”

“Four months, tops.”

He gawked at himself in the mirror. “What about my hair? It’s white.”

Phyllis rolled her eyes like she was dealing with a halfwit. “Don’t you know anything? White hair on men is distinguished. You’ll have all the girls chasing you down the street.”

“I don’t want all the girls chasing me,” he croaked. “I need to clear up my acne first.”

“Then you should lay off the fried donuts you make next door. They’re nothing but sugar, empty calories, and bad for your health. Eventually, it’ll all go to your hips.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

Austin let out a high-pitched whimper, hung his head, and traipsed out the back door.

Annoyed that I was even considering phoning Romero after the way he’d hollered at me last night, I swallowed my pride and called his cell number. It went straight to voicemail, so I left a short message about checking prison records to see if Ziggy had made calls from there to the Wee Irish Dude.

I didn’t see the point in telling Romero about Ziggy’s latest visit to the salon. We knew who we were looking for, and it wouldn’t change anything. Either way, we still needed to find Ziggy. This only confirmed the best way to catch him was to look for evidence at the puppy mill.

I’d wanted to pop in at the hospital today, but I decided to postpone my visit. The fact that Ziggy was still walking on two legs made me apprehensive to go anywhere near Rueland Memorial. Bad enough he was attempting to kill me. I couldn’t subject the sick kids to possible danger.

I left Phyllis to clean up her mess, then motored to Jimmy’s. It was ten after eleven. Surely, they’d be wrapping up their pizza-dough-making party by now.

* * *

“What’s with the Bruins jersey?” I asked Max when he opened Jimmy’s front door.

He held out the B-embossed black-and-gold jersey from the hem. “Being I slept in my clothes, Jimmy offered me clean duds. It was either this or a surfing T-shirt. And I thought it was a bit chilly to be sporting beach clothes.”

“Good point.”

I walked through the doorway and looked around. “Where is Jimmy?”

“Went back to the restaurant. Said he had to face it sooner or later.”

We lowered our eyes at this. The next few weeks wouldn’t be easy for Jimmy. How would he manage the restaurant without Dooley? Who would be his head chef?

“Look!” Max ran into the kitchen and came back holding a big plastic bowl of dough.

I scrunched up my nose. “I’m looking.”

“That all you can say?” He shoved the bowl under my nose. “Smell it. You love the aroma of fresh-made dough. Isn’t it heavenly?”

I inhaled deeply. “Yes. It’d probably be more heavenly coming out of a brick oven with pizza fixings on top.”

He sniffed, nose high. “No need to get persnickety. As soon as I get home, I’m going to add the toppings. You’ll see. This will be the best pizza in the world!”

I rolled my eyes at his exaggeration and followed him into the kitchen.

“You want to come over and help?” He spun around, excitement dancing in his eyes. “We’ll have a pizza party.”

I thought of Ziggy and the puppy mill, and what lay ahead. Not that a pizza party didn’t sound fabulous, but I wouldn’t be able to relax knowing there was a killer loose. A killer who wanted me dead.

“Another time,” I said. “Right now, I’ve got things to do.”

“Such as?” He plopped the bowl on the kitchen counter. “Wait a minute. You haven’t said a word about last night.” He thrust his nose an inch from my face, looking for telltale signs of my night with Jock.

It seemed like a week had passed since I’d last spoken to Max. I hadn’t told him about my harrowing experience at Kuruc’s or Ziggy’s second attack at the airport. I took a deep breath, pushed him back from almost crushing my toes, and filled him in on everything.

His eyes bugged out like I’d announced Dolce & Gabbana went bankrupt. “You flew a helicopter?”

Max couldn’t just listen to a story from beginning to end like most normal people. He had to interrupt and echo the bizarre bits.

I took my fingers and slapped his jaw tight. “That’s not what I said.”

“I heard what you said. You got a helicopter off the ground.”

“That doesn’t mean I flew it anywhere. Pay attention!”

“I am paying attention! I still haven’t heard what happened with Jock while you were flying all over Boston.” He studied my face, peering from my one eye to the other. “Did he jump your bones? Are you part of the mile-high club?”

“No, and no.” I lugged out my phone. “But I did take shots of the view.”

“Shots of the view! What’s so great about that?”

“Nothing! Do you want to see them or not?”

He gestured his hand at me like let me have it.

I gave him a galled look. Why did I put up with his lunacy? I scrolled through my photos and showed him the best pictures that didn’t have my finger or the helicopter window frame in the way.

He took control of the phone, angling it this way and that. “You’re getting better at this. I can almost tell that’s the John Hancock building.”

“Smart aleck.” I seized the phone back. “You’re lucky I took any pictures at all.” I scrolled to the last shot, realizing I hadn’t looked at it yet.

Max leaned in, watching me enlarge it. “What’s that? What are you looking at?”

“Precisely what I was trying to share with you before you went on a tangent about Jock.” I turned the phone toward him. “This is the puppy mill where Ziggy and Luther ran their business.”

I shuddered, thinking again about their vicious deeds, then forgot about myself and peeked at Max, who seemed to be taking this okay. “It’s right beside the airport. That’s where Ziggy was hiding.” I said this like I was chief commander of the case. “Luther basically handed us the information on a tray.”

He thought for a moment. “I don’t remember Luther handing us anything on a tray.”

“Maybe I’m better at reading between the lines.” I couldn’t help but give a smug nod.

“If you were so good at reading between the lines, sugar, you’d know that our Herculean friend didn’t take you on a tour of Boston for the good of your health. And if you weren’t so against dating an employee, you’d see exactly what this hunk has to offer.”

He looked me square in the eye, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Maybe I’m better at reading between the lines than you think.”

I bristled when Max got self-righteous with me. “Can we get back to the case? I have more important things to think about than Jock’s libido.”

I suppressed the urge to fan myself, because deep down I knew Max was right. Jock had shown all the romantic signs on our tour of Boston. Checking my seatbelt as a façade for brushing his fingers across my breasts. Snuggling close to me in our seats. Taking my hand in his and massaging his thumb seductively across my skin. Most of all, what caught my breath was the way he’d gazed into my eyes and said he wouldn’t force me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. On the surface, he was talking about taking the helicopter ride, but we both knew he meant more. Much more.

“Okay,” Max mused. “You think the old puppy mill was Ziggy’s home base.”

“Without question.”

“Is that what Romero believes?”

I tensed. “Romero’s probably scouting the halls of the Ritz-Carlton.”

“I take that as a no.” Max grabbed the phone again and zoomed in some more. “What you’re saying could make sense since Ziggy came at you on the airstrip with a razor. And the airstrip is next to the woods that surround the puppy mill.”

Finally. Someone who saw it my way. “Thank you. That’s what I tried to tell everyone. Plus, there’s got to be proof there that he killed Dooley.”

Max looked from me back to the phone. “Hey…what’s this?”

“What?” I scooched closer to him, our cheeks pressed together.

“This.” He pointed to a dark patch on the roof. “Looks like a trap door. If the place was boarded up, maybe this was how Ziggy was sneaking in.”

“From the roof?” When he put his mind to it, Max could be Sherlock Holmes.

“Why not?”

“I guess it’s possible.” I thought this through. “No matter how he gained entrance into the place, the roof could be our way of gaining entrance. All we’d need is a ladder…and not being spotted by overhead planes.”

Max made a face. “Rueland Area Airport isn’t exactly Logan International. How often do you suppose planes…or helicopters,” he added mischievously, “are flying in and out?”

“Agreed. It’s not a busy airport.”

I took the phone from Max. “Shall we go see? If I’m right, and Ziggy’s decamped from the puppy mill, we’re not putting ourselves in any danger by going there.”

Max packed up the bread machine, snatched the bowl of dough, and headed for the door.

“Wait!” I dumped the phone in my bag and sped up to him. “You sure you want to do this?”

He didn’t stop to think. “Sure as I’ve ever been.” A trace of sorrow crept into his voice. “I still miss Freddie, and I’ll always be grateful that last time you caught his killers on your own. But this is unfinished business, baby. It’s time I had a shot at this.” He took a step for the door, then paused and turned back. “And let’s not forget…Jimmy’s my friend, too.”

I liked his self-confidence. “Okay. Let’s go.”