"There, I didn't have a choice. I might as well have been kept in a cage. When I got back here, well..." she let the sentence hang.

"So why AA?" he asked critically as he sipped his milkshake. "You don't look too bad off to me. And it certainly didn't seem you were all too keen to be at the meeting tonight."

"Judge's orders. I wrecked a car when I was drunk. Just an old junker-ran it off the road into the woods, no one hurt-but I totaled it, and when the police came and I was babbling, they did a test and I came up more than double the limit. It was AA or women's detention."

"And sometimes it seems to you that all this 'higher power' stuff is a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses crap, right? 'Let go and let God', serenity prayers, and all that?"

"Exactly."

"Well," Henry said as he took a deep breath, "I got news for you. It is."

"What?" she exclaimed, putting down her hamburger.

"It is a bunch of crap, if you look at it that way. Simplistic phrases repeated endlessly by people who probably got shorted in the genetic lottery to begin with? Not apt to engender confidence in the program, if that's what you're focusing on. But there are a lot of good people in AA that just about anyone would look up to. Go talk to them. Find out what they get out of the program. Don't ask the sappy-sounding moron that says he's got his recovery all figured out, when he's only been sober three weeks. And if you think you aren't an alcoholic, we ll, driving off into a tree doesn't strike me as normal behavior. You've got enough problems, like getting snatched off the street, without making more trouble for yourself." Cindy nodded.

"So what works for you?" she asked.

"Law of physics. That's my higher power. Energy equals one-half mass times velocity squared. Immutable. Constant. Stand in the way of a freight train, you get clobbered. All the good intentions, or will power, or careful planning won't change the train's effect on your body. Same thing with alcohol. My body has a biochemical addiction to a drug. Period. If I have one drink, I want another. I want another one a lot more than I wanted the first one. All the good intentions and careful planning can't change that. Other people may not have that biochemical addiction, but I do. Just like my cousin is allergic to penicillin-one injection and his heart stops beating. Mine chugs along with no problem.

"I can't change those things. Going to AA reminds me of that. Keeps me from thinking maybe that freight train won't hurt me, if I'm real careful. It's also a chance for me to see just how good life is when you stay sober. Those people in there tonight? Lot of them had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, when they first came in." Henry chuckled. "People been sober a month can't wait to tell everybody all the terrible things they did when they were drunk. People been sober a long time like to talk about all the great things that've happened since they stopped wandering around in a gin fog."

"I'd like you to be my sponsor," Cindy Caswell said suddenly.

"No," Henry Bowman said immediately, shaking his head. "Bad idea. Opposite-sex sponsors are strongly discouraged, and with good reason. Sexual tension is real bad news tossed on top of recovery. More than a few of the young babes new to AA get 'thirteenth-stepped' by guys in the group. Some guys even go to AA meetings for that reason. They don't put that in the literature," Henry added. "And being a girl's sponsor makes it that much easier. So no." As he was saying this, Cindy Caswell was shaking her head vigorously in disagreement.

"After those three years in Las Vegas, I don't have any desire for men. I much prefer women, so that wouldn't be a problem, if you were my sponsor."

"Hell, that doesn't matter!" Henry exclaimed. "We're not talking about your sex drive. Jesus, it wasn't your urges that caused you three years of grief." He gave a short laugh. "A few months after my little incident in Jefferson County, my interest in the female gender came back with a goddamn vengeance, and it's been that way ever since." Cindy Caswell laughed heartily when she heard this.

"That's good," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, no shit."

"Look, I, uh, don't really know anyone around here," Cindy said, changing her tack. "And things are kind of...up in the air for me right now. Can I still call you to talk about stuff? Like we did tonight? Call you on the phone?"

"Yeah, sure. That's okay." Henry pulled a business card out of his pocket listing the consulting firm where he worked, and wrote his home number on the back. "Don't worry about the time. I live alone and I keep weird hours."

"I've got a roommate, but so do I."

"What about your family in Rolla?" Henry asked suddenly. "Have you seen them?" Cindy Caswell looked distinctly uncomfortable at the question.

"I called there from a pay phone, but the number had been disconnected. I guess they're gone." "Why don't you just run down there? It's only a couple hours from here. You'd be sure to find someone you know-it's only been four years, right?"

"I don't want to be...seen. Sal knew I was from there. I'm not sure they're still alive now. He may have had them killed. You know-because I ran away."

That doesn't make any sense Henry thought immediately. Go two thousand miles to track down and kill the family of one of their captive whores 'cause she took off after three years? Whole story's probably made up. White-trash parents threw her out, or something. Henry nodded as if agreeing with her.

"This Sal guy..." Henry said, as if trying to remember, "...he wasn't the one who died, was he?" Henry was hoping some more names would shake loose.

"No, that was Fat Tony. Sal Marino was the guy who told me who I had to screw." Fat Tony and Sal Marino Henry thought. Sounds like a high school production of Guys And Dolls. Henry nodded, and then changed the subject back to the AA meeting.

He kept the two names filed in his memory. "Okay, I got some dope on those two you asked about Friday," Dean Copeland said over the long-distance phone line. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what this is about?"

"Sure I am," Henry replied easily. "Probably not today, but before too long, yes."

"Well, it looks like ancient history, anyway. The 'Fat Tony' you referred to would be one Anthony Farratto, of Atlantic City. Former up-and-comer in the organization with a nasty habit of disfiguring and crippling prostitutes. He was killed January seventh of this year in Las Vegas." January sixth Henry thought. That's the date she told me he had a heart attack.

"Mister Farratto was shot four times with a nine millimeter, three times in the chest and once in the left eye. Winchester 115-grain full metal jacket, if it matters. His action in New Jersey was taken over by a Mister Carmine Mangini, also of the Atlantic City area. The killing was done while Anthony Farratto was in the back seat of his car. Killed along with him were two of his torpedoes, one of them in the driver's seat. All three of the men were bound hand and foot. Want the names of the other two?"

"No, that's okay," Henry said. "Uh, you find anything out about that Sal Marino?"

"Yeah. He's in Vegas, mid-level type. Lives in a hotel, the, uh...." Henry heard papers rustling as Dean Copeland went through his notes. "The Vegas Moon," he said when he found it. That's the name she told me Henry thought.

"Marino's still around, but he's getting pressure from some of the mutts in California and right now it looks like he's trying to keep his powder dry." Henry digested that and then asked another question of the Detroit detective.

"What's Marino's connection to the dead guy, Farratto?"

"Funny you should ask. Farratto came to Vegas to talk business with Marino. Michael Mangini, known as 'Mikey-Mike', and son of Carmine Mangini, was working as a kind of apprentice to Marino. A training program, you might say. With the intention of returning to Atlantic City after a period of time, to work for his dad. Which is exactly what he did as soon as the three guys turned up dead, and conventional wisdom has it that Mikey-Mike made his bones on the hit."

"So the son shoots Farratto and his two soldiers, and Dad takes over Farratto's business. Sal Marino still friends with Mangini? Was he in on it, you think?"

"Yes, he still does a lot of business with Mangini, and it'd be a miracle if he wasn't involved in the killing."

"I see," Henry said, not understanding where Cindy Caswell fit into all this. "Ah, Dean, was there anything...strange about the whole thing-the killing, who did it, anything like that? Anything that didn't look like a typical internal power grab?"

"You tell me, Henry." There was a long pause, and then Henry Bowman sighed into the phone.

"Dean, the story I heard, told to me by someone who is afraid she's going to be hunted down and killed because of what she might have seen, is that this Farratto guy did not die from being shot four times while tied up in the back of a limo."

"Bingo. I talked to the medical examiner, guy named Wong. No accent, probably fifth generation American. Anyway, I called him 'cause I thought I might get some useful dope on the wound ballistics for my database." Dean Copeland had gathered more empirical data than any other person in the country on real-world performance of handgun ammunition in gunfights. His findings were being used more and more by serious individuals to dictate what loads they carried in their self-defense weapons.

"What he told me was very interesting. According to him, your Mister Farratto died quite some time before the other two men. It was also his best estimate that whatever killed Mister Farratto, it was not any of the four 9mm Winchesters."

"Oh?" Henry said, now even more interested.

"That's right. The wounds are consistent with the results we get when we fire into cadavers. The most interesting thing was the head wound. Wong autopsied Farratto's brain. Said the path of the bullet was obvious, and that there was substantial trauma to the brain that absolutely could not have been caused by that one full-jacketed bullet. He said he found minute wood particles-sawdust, you might say-in the damaged part of the brain that was away from the path of the bullet. Ran them through a mass spectrometer, and came up with rock maple as the material."

"Why did this Farratto's death merit such a big-time investigation?" Henry asked. Dean Copeland laughed.

"I asked the same question. The short answer is it didn't. Far as the cops are concerned, Farratto died same time as the other two, of multiple gunshot wounds. Mikey-Mike did it, even though he has a hundred witnesses saying he was somewhere else at the time. Case closed.

"No, this pathologist apparently takes great pride in doing as thorough a job as possible, even when nobody asks him to. He told me his lab partner in tenth grade chemistry class needled him once about making up the results to some experiment, and he's never forgotten it.

"There's one more thing he told me. Seems Farratto was fortunate enough to get laid shortly before he died, although not fortunate enough to get off."

"The pathologist told you that?" Henry demanded in amazement.

"Said any second-year med student could have called that one."

"Then I'm glad I went into geology." Henry thought a moment. "The pathologist give you his opinion on what really happened, if the guy didn't die from gunshots?"

"Yes. He said that in his best judgment, Anthony Farratto, either during or immediately after sexual intercourse, died while lying on his back from the effects of having a long wooden object-a long maple object, to be exact-thrust into his eye socket and wiggled around enthusiastically. Eight to twelve hours later, his corpse was placed in the car and four shots were fired into it."

"You got a theory why they'd do it that way?" Henry asked.

"Only one. The wiseguys don't kill their competition in their own house. It's bad form. Also, they usually leave the soldiers alone, when there's going to be a new boss."

"So why do it inside the hotel in the first place? Why not wait?"

"That's the one that no one can answer right now." Henry was silent for a few moments before speaking. "I may be able to give you an a possible explanation before too long, if it means anything to you."

"Only academically, but yeah, I'd like to hear it." Copeland laughed. "What other Detroit cop do you know that could get you the inside poop on a Vegas syndicate hit?"

"You the man, Dean. You the man."

Henry Bowman thought about the conversation for some time after Copeland broke the connection. "I don't think Sal Marino is looking for you."

"What?"

"I talked to a homicide cop I know with some good contacts in Las Vegas. Fat Tony Farratto's body was found January seventh in the back of his car, shot once in the eye and three times in the chest. The bodies of both his guards were in the car with him. One of Sal Marino's buddies has taken over Farratto's action in Atlantic City." Henry paused, and then went on.

"Medical examiner said he'd been dead when the bullets were fired. My cop friend seems to think that Marino had already planned to have him killed. Then, when he died in the saddle, Marino set up the dummy murder scene. Did you order me a chocolate malt?"

"Yes. Uh...why?" Cindy Caswell asked. "I mean, why fake a shooting?"

"Because having Farratto expire in the hotel while he was Marino's guest is against the Mafia rules of etiquette, apparently." Cindy Caswell thought for a while about that, then nodded her head in acceptance.

"Henry," she said, "there's something I didn't te-"

"You know about Joe Columbo's attempted murder?" Henry broke in.

"What? No. Who's that?"

"One of the most instructive events in American history. A lawyer friend of mine thinks it should be taught in grade school. Ah...here we go," Henry said as his malt was delivered. "Damn, these are good," he said, savoring the first few sips. "Where was I? Oh yes-Joe Columbo and the guy that tried to kill him.