Only Child

“But outside of prison? Then, for an insult...?”

“Sure. That’s right. Then it is a challenge. Or something you yell out your window at a guy who just cut you off.”

“A great insult,” he said. “It is calling someone a coward, yes? To most people, means the same thing. Maricon, it means you have no courage?”

“Like another word for ‘punk’?” I said. “Yeah, that’s right. I guess it all comes around in a circle, words like that. When I was a little kid, I thought ‘punk’ meant someone who wouldn’t fight—like when you ‘punk out,’ okay? But as soon as I got Inside, I found out ‘punk’ is what you are if some jocker owns your ass.”

Felix leaned forward, lit a cigarette. “In my...culture, in my world, you understand what it would mean, to be thought of...that way?”

“Yeah. I did enough time with Latinos to—”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think an Anglo could know. It’s different from prison. When you were there, did you know of mariconazo who could fight?”

“Sure. Hell, I knew some that loved to. I mean flat-out gay guys who were way too bad to fuck with. One guy, Sidney, he was a sensational boxer. Lightheavy. Take you out with either hand, and look pretty doing it. I knew some who were blade men, too. Everybody walked soft around them.”

“So they are not all alike?”

“Nobody’s all alike.”

“That is the difference between our worlds, Burke. In mine, un maricon could be accepted. He could do work—there is a contract killer, muy famoso, everybody knows what he is—but he could never lead, you understand?”

“If you say so.”

“I read once, in World War I, some white men died because they would not take a blood transfusion from black men. I do not know if this is true. But I know this. For those who play ‘mas macho,’ they would never follow a leader who was not, in their eyes, a ‘man.’ And that will never, ever change.”

“Maybe not.”

“You give nothing away, do you?”

“You called this meet, Felix. I thought Giovanni would be here, too. So I drive all the way uptown, find this place, and...it’s just you.”

“You are very trusting,” he said, sarcasm dusting his voice.

“You had plenty of chances, if that’s where you were going,” I told him. “From the very first meeting. Way before you spent any money.”

“So? I brought you here because I wanted you to understand that this thing you are doing, it is a very delicate matter.”

“I always knew that.”

“And you also knew...about me and Gio, didn’t you?”

“Not before I met you.”

“But then, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You think it is so apparent?”

“No. Not at all. You let me see, didn’t you? A test?”

“Of a sort. If it was, how do you know if you passed?”

“Because I’m not dead,” I said.

“You think I am a killer?”

“I think you just told me you were.”

“Gio thinks it is a federale.” Felix tilted his head, as if Giovanni were in the room with us. “He already told you why. But there is another possibility. One I believe you have not considered.”

“What’s that?”

“That the message was not for Gio; it was for me.”

I watched his eyes, asked, “A message that whoever did it knows things?”

“Yes.”

“What would be the point?”

“For me to step away. Gio would not be a problem for...for the people in my organization. He is not one of us. Who you do business with, that is just business. If I moved aside, whoever took over for me, that man could continue with Gio, as before.”

“That doesn’t add up for me,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“If somebody knows something, something that would make you move over, if they had proof, why wouldn’t they just mail you a sample of that? What’s the point of a homicide?”

“Because they would need me to move away,” Felix said. “But they would need Gio to stay.”

“So what are you telling me? That Giovanni would stay?”

“Si, he would stay. This they would expect. Business is business. And Gio doesn’t know any other business. In their minds, he would not be...emotional about it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“They don’t know him,” Felix said, very softly. “Gio would defend me. But, if he had to fight on two fronts, he could not win.”

“Why tell me all this?”

“Because I am trapped,” he said calmly, a man who’d been there before and recognized the landmarks. “I cannot tell Gio. I cannot tell him that maybe his daughter was killed because of someone who wants something from me. That would mean it is one of my people, not some ‘fed.’ But I know information is a weapon. And I want you to have it all, for what you must do.”

“What happens if I can’t find out, not for sure?”

“Then it could end as if each of our bosses called me and Gio ‘maricon,’” he said, almost in a whisper. “What choice would we have?”

“I’ve got something for you.” The note was under my door in the hotel. Signed “C.”

I walked through two sets of connecting doors to the last suite. Cyn was sitting in an armchair. Rejji was kneeling in a far corner, her back to me. She was nude except for a pair of red stiletto heels. Her hands were bound behind her back with a red silk scarf.

“I got your message,” I said to Cyn.

“She’s so pretty when she’s been bad,” Cyn said.

“You said you had something for me?”

“Don’t you like her?”

“I like you both.”

“Ooo!”

“Cyn...” I said, shortly, in no mood to play.

“We found her.”

“Who?”

“The sorority girl.”

“From the tape?”

“Yep. The one using the paddle.”

“Are you sure?”

“We looked at that tape a hundred times, Burke. We bothered the Mole so much that...Michelle—is that his wife, for real?—Michelle went off on us.

“So he showed us how to stop the frames and do everything ourselves. Then we took the yearbooks, that the kid got us? It was a long shot, but we had to do something to kill time out here, so...”

“Let me see.”

“Look,” she said, pointing to a blown-up photocopy of a picture of a teenage girl whose most striking features