I gave him a fairly thorough walk-through of the events of Sunday night.
“You?re the expert on the Triad—what the hell?s going on here?” he asked.
“I?ll tell you what I don?t think?s going on,” I said. “I don?t think it?s an outside mob and I don?t think
it?s an inside job.”
“That?s interesting,” he said. “That just about rules out everybody. Who do you think did it, the tooth
fairy?”
“It?s logical. The last thing the Triad wanted to do was create attention. They uprooted their families
and sneaked in here. If it had been a family feud, it makes more sense that it would have been done
before they left Cincinnati. Besides, this thing just doesn?t read like a Mafia hit. Salvatore agrees with
me.”
“Salvatore?s an expert, huh?” he said, looking over his breakfast plate and raising his eyebrows.
“He knows their style. Hell, he ought to, his father was an LCN cannon in south Philly.”
“I know that” He went back to his breakfast, waving a fork at my plate. “Talk and cat, it?ll get cold.”
“The only exception to that is that maybe it could be Chevos and Nance.”
He looked up, surprised.
“1 didn?t know they were here.”
“They?re here somewhere.”
“Oh, you?re guessing again.”
“It?s logical.”
“You and your logic,” he said. “You can make any argument sound good. One minute you tell me you
don?t think it?s internal and the next you tell me it is.”
“Chevos and Nance are different.”
“That?s „cause you want them to be,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “This is department business,
pal. I didn?t bring you in here to carry out a personal vendetta.”
“I?m just running the possibilities past you. Chevos is devious enough to try it and Nance is psychotic
enough to do the work. So, if the shot fits I let the rest of the sentence dangle.
“It?s „If the shoe fits,” he said.
“Not in this case.”
“All right, tell me more.”
“We have reason to believe whoever?s in on this did time in Nam.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Weapons, MO, style.”
“Uh-huh.”
