"Her a.s.s."

With that, the hookers turned their backsides to us and dropped their drawers.

"I'm sorry," Mason said, "but we are not in the market for your services."

The short one stuck her head in the window, scowled, and looked at me.

"Yo' friend is buggin'," she said.

"Buggin'?" Mason said.

"Acting weird."

"Fo' shiggidy, my weeble," the tall one said.

Mason glanced at me again. "Sorry," I said. "No idea. I think she's just playing with us now."

The hookers spun on their heels and trudged back across the street. I slid Mason's window up, started the engine, and cranked the heater.

"Getting anywhere with the campaign contribution lists?" I asked.

"I'm still working on it," Mason said.

"Want to tell me what you've got so far?"

"Not until I have something solid."

I took a Partags from my shirt pocket, set fire to it, and cracked my window to let the fumes escape. On the corner behind us, commuters pulled their cars to the curb to check out the stroll. Now and then, one of them opened a car door so a girl could climb in. Others, displeased with the price or the merchandise, pulled out alone. A squad car crawled by, but the girls didn't scatter the way they did in the old days. Instead, they gave the cops a wave. Under Rhode Island's weird prost.i.tution statute the stroll was against the law, but few cops paid it any mind. Why bust streetwalkers when indoor prost.i.tution was legal? It wasn't worth the ha.s.sle of paperwork and court appearances.

"What are we waiting for?" Mason said.

"That," I said, pointing to a skinny black girl in a gold lame miniskirt who was climbing out of a red Toyota pickup. "The guy we're after sets up every night at a different abandoned house. Best way to find him is to follow one of his girls when she comes back from a job with cash in her bra."

"I don't think she's wearing one," Mason said.

I reached across him, popped the glove compartment, took out the Colt, and stuck it into the hand pouch on the front of my New England Patriots sweatshirt. I expected Mason to ask why, but he didn't. Probably figured the neighborhood was answer enough. We got out of the car, crossed Broad Street, and followed the miniskirt east on Potters Avenue. She loped down the sidewalk, her high heels clacking on the cracked concrete. She pa.s.sed several two-story houses with peeling paint and drooping shutters, turned left up a short macadam walk, and tromped up the splintered porch stairs of a fire-scarred house with plywood across the windows. We followed her up.

She heard us coming, spun, and whipped a straight razor out of her halter top. Mason let out a little shriek and backpedaled down the steps.

The porch was furnished with a single yellow-and-white lounge chair made of aluminum tubes and plastic webbing. Beside it was an open Igloo cooler containing a revolver and a dozen longnecks. In this weather, there was no need for ice. Next to the cooler stood a huge bottle of Vicodin that must have been stolen from a pharmacy. No doctor would prescribe that much. A tall black man was stretched out on the lounge. He was dressed in red Converse low-tops, a matching red fedora with a black feather in the band, and a full-length mink coat. He was smoking the biggest joint north of Jamaica.

"Why you trippin', b.i.t.c.h?" he said. "Be easy. Mulligan my man. We been down since we wuz shorties."

The hooker shrugged, flipped the razor shut, stuffed it back in her top, and came back out with a small roll of bills. King Felix smiled benignly and took it from her. He counted it out with his long slim fingers, peeled off two twenties, and handed them back to her. Then he slid his hand inside the mink, pulled out a small aluminum foil packet, and dropped it in her hand.

She turned to me then, placed her palm on my zipper, and said, "Jonesing fo' some dark meat tonight, white boy?"

"Mulligan don't want none a yo' crusty a.s.s," Felix said. "Get yo' b.u.t.t back out on the f.u.c.kin' street and bring back some mo' cheddar."

He watched her clomp down the stairs. Then he turned to me and said, "So how you been?"

"I'm fine. You?"

"Can't complain."

"No? Then why the Vicodin?"

"Ran into a little trouble a while back, and my ribs are still sore."

"A little trouble named Joseph DeLucca?"

"Who's he?"

"The bouncer you tangled with at the Tongue and Groove."

"Oh. You heard about that, huh?"

"I did."

"I wasn't looking for any trouble. Just wanted to talk to a couple of girls that used to work for me, see if I could talk them into coming back. The a.s.shole blindsided me."

"I see."

"Don't tell anybody, okay? It'll damage my street cred."

"No worries."

Felix handed me the joint. I took a hit and then offered it to Mason, who was cautiously coming back up the stairs. He shook his head.

"When in Rome," I said, and offered it to him again. Again he shook his head, so I pa.s.sed it back to Felix.

"Who's the newbie?" he said, and tipped his head toward Mason.

"Pay him no mind," I said. "I'm just showing him the ropes."

Felix pulled two longnecks from the cooler, popped the tops with a church key, and handed one to me and one to Mason. Then he opened one for himself and took a swallow.

"Careful," I said. "Vicodin, marijuana, and alcohol don't mix."

"So I've heard," he said. "But the combination works real good, and it hasn't killed me yet."

He pa.s.sed the joint. I took another drag and handed it back to him.

"Still playing ball?" he asked.

"Not since you schooled me in that pickup game last September."

"Yeah. My wind isn't what it used to be, but I still got my jump shot."

Felix and I had been teammates at Hope High School back in the day. He was better than me, but he tanked his SATs; so I moved on to play at Providence College, and he moved on to this.

"That a gun in your sweatshirt?" he asked.

"It is."

"Not planning to shoot me, are you?"

Two skinny black teenagers unfolded themselves from a dark corner of the porch and jerked little silver revolvers from their pants pockets. Until they moved, I hadn't noticed they were there. They looked to be about fifteen years old. The one on the left was nervous, his left eye twitching. The one on the right was as cool as a Texas executioner. He took a step and looked through me with flat, dead eyes.

"Chill," Felix said. They put their guns away, glided back to their dark corner, and flopped back down on the porch floor.

Beside me, Mason had been holding his breath. He blew it out now and took a step back, signaling he thought it was a good time to go.

"Sorry about that," Felix said. "Marcus and Jamal can be a tad overprotective."

"Hope you're not planning on sending them after DeLucca."

"Not unless word about the beating gets around," Felix said. "If it does, I might have to do something to restore my reputation."

"What about the family that owns the club?"

"What about them?"

"Not gunning for them, are you?"

"No way."

"Your baby hit squad been down to Newport lately?"

"You'd have to ask them."

"Should I?"

"I wouldn't recommend it."

I was about to ask another question, but a long-legged white hooker with a gash over her left eye and a red skirt that barely covered her privates was coming up the stairs now. My old teammate Felix evaporated and King Felix returned.

"Dog," he said. "I ain't seen you in a minute. Where the f.u.c.k you been at?"

"Makin' sc.r.a.ppy for my man," she said, and handed him some bills.

He counted them slowly. "Two f.u.c.kin' hours an' dat's all you brung me?"

She looked at her feet and didn't say anything. He handed her the joint. She plucked it from his fingers, took a hit, and held it. Then she blew it out through her nose and took another.

"Don't bogart dat s.h.i.t, Sheila," he said. He grabbed it back, peeled off two twenties, tucked them into the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and gave her a hard look. "Get yo' pale a.s.s back out on the f.u.c.kin' street and bring back some serious green."

17.

The Capital Grille is located in Providence's old Union Station, a lovingly restored, yellow-brick structure erected by the New Haven Railroad in 1898. It's a fashionable luncheon spot, but one that lacks my favorite diner's affordable prices and greasy charms.

In honor of the occasion, I'd shed my usual sweatshirt, jeans, and Reeboks in favor of Dockers, a white dress shirt, a Jerry Garcia tie, and buffed brogans. I'd topped off the ensemble with a double-breasted navy blue Sears blazer that went out of style when Roebuck was still around. It was the only suit jacket I owned since I left my new one behind on an Amtrak train last year. I hadn't worn the blazer in a long time, but it still fit, more or less. It wasn't loose enough to conceal a large handgun, however, so I'd reluctantly left the Colt locked in my file drawer.

Yolanda Mosley-Jones had declined to see me in her office, explaining that nosy reporters were banned from the firm's inner sanctum. After some whining on my part, she'd agreed to meet for lunch. When I slipped into the place, she was already there, sitting at the bar sipping a pale yellow something from a martini gla.s.s and fiddling with her BlackBerry. She didn't see me come in, so I stood there and watched her for a moment, admiring the legs she came in on.

Yolanda was more alluring fully clothed than the babes at Shakehouse were naked. I stood there a little longer, trying to come up with a good opening line, but the sight of her had me fl.u.s.tered. She spotted me in the mirror over the bar, tucked the BlackBerry into her purse, and spun toward me, giving me a better look at those perfect legs entwined around the luckiest barstool in town.

I never understood how some women can dress so simply yet ooze elegance. Yolanda was encased in a black silk suit that must have been made for her. Beneath the jacket, b.u.t.toned just low enough to jump-start my imagination, no blouse was evident. Instead, a cascade of thin gold chains sparked against skin so black it was nearly blue, and fell there.

"Sit," she said, patting the adjacent barstool. "Our table will be ready in a couple of minutes."

I sat and discovered my blazer didn't fit as well as I thought. The top b.u.t.ton strained to hold the fabric across my belly.

"What are you drinking?" I asked.

"A wildberry apple vodka Hawaiian sherbet."

Good G.o.d, I thought, but what I said was, "Ready for another?"

"Not quite yet." Her voice was so smoky I could smell it.

The bartender sidled over, and I asked for a Killian's. They didn't carry it, so I settled for a Samuel Adams.

"I hear they gave you Brady Coyle's old corner office," I said.

"Yes."

"And made you a partner."

"True."

"Things are working out for you, then."

"They are."

"No blowback from that favor you did for me last year?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"No, of course not. It never happened. But if it had happened and you'd gotten caught, which you didn't, you could have been fired. Even disbarred. I don't think I ever properly thanked you. That was a n.o.ble thing you never did."

She stared at me now as if she were being accosted by a lunatic. I was about to blabber something equally incoherent when the matre d' came to the rescue. He seated us at a cozy table for two, and romance was in the air. Or maybe it was just the smell of something spicy she'd dabbed on her skin.