I was wearing a pearl gray, unstructured linen jacket when I stepped out of my car in front of Jenna’s last-known address. It was oversized and concealed the gun entirely. The group of teenagers sitting on the cars in front of Jenna’s house was definitely fooled. As I crossed the street toward them, one of them said, “Hey, Five-O, where’s your backup?”

The girl beside him giggled. “Under his coat, Jerome.”

There were nine of them. Half of them sat on the trunk of a faded blue Chevy Malibu with a bright yellow Denver boot strapped to the front tire because the owner hadn’t paid his parking tickets. The rest of them sat on the hood of the car behind the Malibu, a puke green Granada. Two kids slipped off the cars and walked quickly up the street, heads down, hands rubbing their foreheads.

I stopped by the cars. “Jenna around?”

Jerome laughed. He was lean and hard, but held himself loosely in his purple tank top, white shorts, and black Air Jordans. He said, “‘Jenna around?’ ” in a high-pitched falsetto. “Like he and Jenna old friends.” The rest of them laughed. “No, man, Jenna’s gone for the day.” He looked at me and rubbed his chin. “I’m, like, her service, though. Why don’t you leave your message with me?”

The other kids cracked up at “service.”

I liked it too, but I was supposed to act like I was in control. I said, “Like have my agent call her agent?”

Jerome looked at me, deadpan. “Yeah, man, like that. Whatever you say.”

More laughter. Lots more.

That’s me, Patrick Kenzie, got a real way with youth. I walked between the two cars, hard to do when no one moves to the side for you, but I managed. “Thanks for your help, Jerome.”

“Hey, man, don’t mention it. Just part of the wonderfulness of me.”

I started up the front steps of Jenna’s three-decker. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Jenna when I see her.”

“Damn white of you too,” Jerome said as I opened the door into the hallway.

Jenna lived on the third floor. I trudged up the steps, smelling the familiar smells of all inner-city three-deckers chipped, sun-baked wood, old paint, kitty litter, wood and linoleum that had soaked up decades of melting snow and dirt from wet boots, spilled beers and sodas, the ashes of a thousand discarded cigarettes. I was careful not to touch the railing; it looked like it could easily crumble away from the banisters.

I turned into the top hallway and reached Jenna’s door, or what was left of it. Something had imploded the wood by the knob, and the knob itself lay in a pile of splinters on the floor. A quick glance at the corridor in front of me revealed a thin stretch of dark green linoleum littered with broken chair legs, a shattered drawer, some shredded clothing, pillow stuffing, pieces of a small transistor radio.