Devin said, “You know, it’s too bad about Jenna. Don’t seem right, a woman like that being stuck with two stone killers like Socia and Roland. Shit, the worst thing the woman ever did was rack up a lot of parking tickets. And who the hell doesn’t in this city.” He dipped his second doughnut into his third cup of coffee, his voice as inflectionless as a single piano key struck over and over again. “Too bad.” He looked at us. “Opened her safe-deposit box last night.”

Very slowly I said, “And?”

“Nothing,” he said, watching me. “A government bond, some jewelry wasn’t worth the rental fee on the box.”

A muffled explosion went off outside, and the inside of the doughnut shop rattled. I looked toward the window and saw the group of punks. One of them was staring in, the veins in his neck prominent, his face a war mask. He met our eyes and his hand shot out again into the window. A couple of people flinched but the window didn’t break. His friends laughed but he didn’t. His eyes were red, blazing with rage. He hit the window one more time, got a few more flinches, and then his friends pulled him away. He was laughing by the time he reached the corner. Nice world.

I said, “No one knows why Roland has this beef with Socia?”

“Could be anything. You weren’t particularly fond of your old man, were you, Kenzie?”

I shook my head.

He pointed at Angie. “You?”

“My father and I got along all right,” she said. “When he was home. My mother and I were another story.”

“I hated my old man,” Devin said. “Turned every waking hour in my house into the Friday night fights. Took so much shit from him growing up, I swore I’d never take it from anyone else for the rest of my life, even if that meant dying young. Maybe Roland’s like that. His juvie sheet is one long list of authority problems, going back to the fifth grade when he split open the substitute teacher’s head. Bit off some of his ear too.”

Fifth grade. Jesus.

Devin said, “Fucked up his share of social workers too, not to mention another teacher. Kicked a cop’s head through the windshield of his cruiser when he was taking him to juvie once. Broke the nose of an emergency-room doctor, this while he had a bullet lodged near his spine. Come to think of it everyone Roland’s jammed on has been male. He doesn’t respond well to female authority, either, but he doesn’t get violent, he just walks away.”

“What about Socia?”

“What about him?”

“What’s his deal?” I said. “I mean, I know he runs the Saints, but besides that.”

“Marion is a true opportunist. Up till about ten years ago, he was just a small-time pimp. A very vicious smalltime pimp, but he didn’t give the computer an overload when you keyed his name into it.”

“And then?”