Tom Piccirilli - Headstone City

“When you were in the pen, I almost paid you a visit.”

Dane said, “I know. Why'd you want to, and why didn't you bother?”

Cogan took another bite out of his half-eaten cannoli but wasn't much enjoying himself. That Warm & Wonderful Café catered to the neighborhood wealthy, the supermodels and celebrities whose daily caloric intake never broke five hundred. The café probably used skim milk and a sugar substitute.

“I was thinking of cutting you some kind of a deal,” Cogan told him. “Protection if you helped us take down the crew.”

“My grandmother could take down that crew. What stopped you from making the offer?”

“I read through your file. It looked like you could handle yourself all right. Like you said, they're not so plucky anymore. I wanted to see what would happen when you got out.”

“Nothing's happened.”

“That itself is the puzzle.”

Dane had met a lot of cops-including his father and Phil Guerra-who knew how to shoot the breeze and patiently chat with perps for weeks or even months before making a bust.

But looking into Cogan's eyes, Dane couldn't get any sense of what the man was after, except that he hadn't come close to getting it yet. Even the night ride hadn't given Dane much information, Cogan's soul just sitting in the backseat bouncing around.

On the surface of things, Cogan certainly wasn't making great strides.

“What'd you go see the old Don for?”

“I wanted to say hello,” Dane said. “It had been a while since I'd seen him.”

“And your pal Vinny wasn't there.”

“No.”

“That's what's so surprisin' to me. How little you and Vinny been in the same place since you got out. So little interaction. You Mediterranean types run too hot or not at all. I would've thought you'd have walked right up to each other and started shootin' it out in the streets. But that's just not the way.”

“No,” Dane said.

“And nobody else has taken a run at you?”

Either Cogan wasn't as wired as it seemed, and he hadn't heard about Big Tommy Bartone and the chase through the hospital, or he was faking it. Testing Dane's honesty? Seeing how much Dane might be holding back?

You could make yourself nuts trying to second-guess every son of a bitch who got in your face. Dane figured telling the truth was always the best course, and it fucked the other guy up just as much as if you lied to him all the time.

“Big Tommy Bartone made a dash at me the other day. Sort of a half-assed one.”

“Now, I did some checking on him too. He don't appear to be the sloppy type.”

“He's not. At least he never used to be.”

“Maybe he likes you too much to take you out of the game.”

“I keep hoping someone will appreciate my charm.”

“I wouldn't wait on that, son.”

Special Agent Daniel Ezekiel Cogan, with pastry crumbs on his specially cut jacket, stepped out of the limo, the burden weighing on him, his gaze kind of shimmering with crucial knowledge, and said, “I enjoy our talks. I'll see you soon.”

“Okay.”

Dane watched him walk down the block and turn the corner before he got out of the car to go up and see Glory Bishop.

The doorman was back to making faces. Dane felt himself losing ground.

The elevator carried him too slowly to the fourth floor. Behind him he could feel two figures slumping against each other, not quite across the veil yet. Mako and Kremitz, in their comas, coming around again. They were both hanging on. Drawn to him as the source of their anguish, but not dead enough to prod him much.

The doors slid open and Dane stepped out, Mako and Kremitz shuffling along, their eyes closed.

They nudged forward just enough to annoy him, almost like they were trying to cockblock him, racing him down the hall. Dane started to say something but Glory's apartment door was already open, her shadow slanting across the carpet.

She waited there wearing a gaping crimson kimono, nothing beneath but a gold silk nightgown that tied at the shoulders and hips with cute little bows.

“Come in,” she said, taking his hand. “Make yourself a drink.”

“I don't drink on the job.”

“You're not on the job, we're not going anywhere, if you couldn't tell.”

That stopped him. “Why'd you book the limo then?”

“Maybe so you'd show up?”

Dane frowned, but moved to her. “What made you think I wouldn't show up if you just called me?”

“You never gave me your phone number,” Glory said. Wary and cool, but with an edge to her.

She kissed him, and there was passion in it. He reminded himself she was an actress, and women could fake this kind of thing even without any training. She murmured against his tongue and broke away.

A stack of scripts lay spread out on the glass-topped coffee table in the living room, positioned in a way that made Dane think they'd been cleverly placed for appearance's sake. An electrical paranoia swept through his gut, and he really didn't know what to do about it. He turned and she said, “You look upset.”

“I thought we might be going to another premiere or a fancy party.”

“Would you want to attend one?”

“No,” he told her.

“I'm not following you then. If you didn't want to go anyway, then why complain?” She smiled in a way meant to disarm him, but it only made him tighten up more. He couldn't get over the feeling that he was being watched, that there was somebody else here who wasn't dead.

“It's my last night,” he said. “Working for the limousine service.”

“What? Why?”

“I quit.”

“You got another job?” she asked.

“No.”

Probing now, her eyebrows arched into those inverted Vs that only an angry woman can really do well. “You're not going back to stealing cars, are you?”

“No. Well, I don't intend to boost anymore. Not after the one I grabbed yesterday, I mean.”

Shaking her head like she couldn't believe it. “So you have started stealing cars.”

“Just the one.”

“The cops might not look too fondly on that.”

“I stole it from a cop. An ex-cop, actually. And I really don't give a shit how he looks on it.”

“Is that why you seem so wired?”

He started toward the bar and then stopped. Liquor would only make things worse. “I feel it too. Sorry.”

“Something the matter? Besides quitting the job and jacking a car, I mean.”

“It wasn't much of a jack, and I brought it back a couple hours later.”

“Police after you?”

“Nah.”

She touched his shoulders and got his coat off. “You really have terrible taste in ties.”

“I thought it was distinguished.”

“Maybe for 1956.”

“That's the look I was going for.”

“Consider it a success then.” She unknotted it and tossed it on the floor, undid the first couple buttons of his shirt, pressed her cheek to his chest, and took a deep breath. He brushed her hair back and kissed her again.

“Lie down on the couch,” she told him, and he did. He liked the way she put a roughness in her voice, expecting no back talk. But focusing completely on him as she took his shoes off, shoved the sceenplays aside, got his feet on the table, and rubbed them for a while.

“Put a kimono on you and you get all geisha,” he said.

“It's a side of my personality that doesn't come out much.”

“I bet.” One of the scripts had flipped onto the couch. He reached down and flipped through a few pages. The Seven Angry Daughters of Valentino.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“The title doesn't resonate.”

He shut his eyes while Glory Bishop's hands worked over him, knowing he should be very happy here with her, but still finding himself thinking of Maria Monticelli. You couldn't restrain your brain, no matter who said you could. He opened his eyes and stared at the side of Glory's face as she unbuttoned his shirt farther and started to undo his pants.