Zimmer’s face remains impassive. I can tell this isn’t news to him at all.

Cal goes on. “They picked up three of the men involved last night. Bryson, England, and Dawes. Two of them kept their mouths shut. But the third seems to think he can link you to the robbery. He’s making a deal with the DA as we speak. I guess you fucked his girlfriend a couple months back, and he’s holding a grudge about it. He seems to think that, unlike your usual hands-off approach, with this particular shipment you tested one of the guns. The same one used to rob the liquor store on Langley. Remember that? The one where the clerk got shot? Dawes says he knows where that particular Ruger is. He says it should still have your prints on it, along with the prints of the idiot who shot the clerk.”

As Cal speaks, Zimmer sits perfectly still. But his face gets paler, until it looks as gray as the smoke still seeping from his nostrils.

“I could tell you where they’re holding Dawes,” Cal says quietly. “So you can shut his mouth for him, before he says too much. But I need to know who hired that hit on Riona.”

Zimmer lets out the last remaining smoke from his lungs.

“Alright,” he hisses quietly. “Alright.”

He sits up straighter on the couch, leaning forward on his knees and speaking so low that I can barely hear him.

“I didn’t broker the hit myself. But I heard about it.”

“Tell me what you know,” Cal says.

This is the first time Cal’s voice loses its casualness. There’s an edge to his tone now, and I see the stiffness in his shoulders. He’s angry, hearing it confirmed that someone dared hire a killer to attack his sister.

“I heard there was a hit happening, and nobody could know about it. It had to look like an accident.”

Cal gives a small, almost imperceptible nod. That’s what we guessed.

“It was expensive. They hired this guy they call the Djinn.”

“The Djinn?” Cal says, frowning like he doesn’t believe Zimmer. “What the fuck is that?”

“That’s his name,” Zimmer says defensively. “I don’t know his real name. Nobody does. You call him up—and he makes people disappear.”

“Fine,” Cal says, cutting to the point he cares about more than the identity of this hitman. “I don’t give a shit. I want to know who hired him.”

“I don’t know!” Zimmer says. “I don’t. When hits are hired, it’s a double-blind system. The client doesn’t know the hitman, and the hitman doesn’t know the client. It’s all anonymized. That way nobody can rat.”

Cal scowls, obviously wishing he’d implemented a similar system between him and Dawes.

“So where’s the snitch?” Zimmer demands.

“They’re holding him in MCC,” Cal says. “D Block.”

Zimmer nods.

Cal gets up from the couch, our business with Zimmer obviously concluded.

The hefty bouncer follows us all the way to the door, where we retrieve our guns.