“Sir,” Erin said, “this doesn’t feel like a mob hit.”
“Of course not,” Webb agreed. “The Mafia doesn’t whack people with poisoned candy. They shoot you in the head. But they’re involved, and I don’t like it. Bianchi’s been in the system longer than I’ve been wearing a shield. If we go in unprepared, he and his boy will lawyer up so fast your head will spin. And we don’t have anything on them, yet. Just the word of a junkie whose girlfriend was screwing the victim. You think that’ll hold up in court? We won’t even get an indictment. So we take our time. It’s just about quitting time in the private sector. Go home, see your families, get a good night’s sleep for once.”
“My family doesn’t recognize me anymore,” Vic said.
“That’s just since the last time you got your nose broken,” Erin said.
He grinned. “You should see the other guy.”
* * *
That was how Erin found herself leaving the precinct at a civilized hour for the first time in a long while. In the parking garage, she loaded Rolf into her Charger, then took out her phone and dialed an unlabeled contact. It was a call to a burner cell, the sort of disposable phone favored by criminals.
“Evening, darling,” the man on the other end of the line said in a distinct Northern Irish accent.
“Evening,” she said. “Guess what? I’m off work early.”
“That’s grand,” he said. “And what exactly were you planning on doing with your unexpected free time?”
“I was thinking of going home, having a nice, relaxing shower, taking it easy, maybe getting some takeout for dinner.”
“And would these plans be solitary, or would you be wanting company?”
She smiled to herself. “I’ll be home in half an hour,” she said. “You want to come looking, you know where to find me.”
Exactly thirty minutes later, there was a knock at Erin’s apartment door. She’d just finished walking Rolf and was giving him his supper. The apartment had a lock on the outer door, but Morton Carlyle wasn’t the sort of man to let something like that stand in his way. There he was in the hallway, a slender, handsome man, impeccably dressed, with silver hair and intensely blue eyes. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
“I hope you’ve no objection to Italian,” he said with a smile.
“C’mon in,” she said, stepping back from the door and holstering her Glock.
“Still answering the door with your revolver, I see.”
“A serial killer tried to take me out last year,” she reminded him. “I can’t believe you don’t carry, after all the shit that’s happened to you.”
“I’m not licensed. One of New York’s finest, encouraging me to break the law? I believe that’s called entrapment.” He set the bag and bottle on the kitchen counter. “As I recall, you’ve a fondness for spaghetti, with meatballs.”
“Everyone likes spaghetti,” she said, but she was secretly pleased. They’d gone out for Italian only once, almost a month ago, and he’d remembered her order. That was Carlyle. He didn’t miss much, and never forgot anything.
“If you’re ready, we can set the table,” he said.
“I actually still need to shower,” she said. “I just got home.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “I’ll get things ready, pour the wine.”
“You could do that,” she said, giving him a smile. “Or you could join me.”
He returned the smile. “I suppose the food can keep a few minutes.”
* * *
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Lorenzo Bianchi?” Erin asked, later.
They were sitting at her small dining table, spaghetti in front of her, Carlyle with a plate of gnocchi. Rolf lay at Erin’s feet, keeping an eye on Carlyle. She’d accepted him, so the K-9 did too, but the dog wanted the Irishman to know he’d better keep in line.
Carlyle raised an eyebrow. “Old Sewer Pipe? I know him, aye. That is to say, I know of him. We’ve not met face to face, and I doubt he’d think of me as a friend.”
“Some bad blood?”
“Something of the sort.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
Carlyle took a sip of his Chianti. “The lad came up through his family in Brooklyn, in the sanitation business. He handled a few dustmen’s lorries.”
It took her a second to translate. “Garbage trucks?”
“Aye.”
“Bianchi was part of the Garbage War, back in the ‘90s,” Erin said, remembering something her father had told her about Carlyle. “That was when you were getting started with the O’Malleys. Did you blow up Bianchi’s trucks?”
“There’s no statute of limitations on arson, darling,” he said gently. “Are you certain you’re wanting to ask me that?”
Erin shook her head. “No one got hurt in any of those bombings.” She knew, because she’d checked. It was the one series of crimes she was sure Carlyle had been involved in, and when they’d started seeing each other, she’d had to know. He’d been a suspect in half a dozen truck bombings, but all of them had happened at night, in deserted parking lots. The O’Malleys had been trying to put their competitors out of business, but as Carlyle had explained to Erin once before, blood was an expense best avoided. He’d taken pains not to hurt anyone. At least, that was what she told herself.
“Right now, I just want to know about Bianchi,” she said, steering clear of the subject of Carlyle’s past activities. “His name got brought up in a case.”
“My understanding is that he’s not particularly active on the street,” Carlyle said. “If you’re investigating a murder, I’d be astonished to find him involved. He’s somewhat older than I am, darling. Street crime is a young hoodlum’s game.”
Erin nodded. “Can you find out if he knows anything about poisons?”
His eyebrows went up again. “I’ll see what I can discover. While we’re on the subject of hobnobbing with my associates,
