“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Something happened to us in there. Your father found a box hidden under the floorboards. The box was inside a cooler. There were body parts in it.” He looked at me wildly. “Body parts. Of kids. Adults, too, but, Jesus, there was a child’s foot in there, Kenzie. Still in a small red sneaker with blue polka-dots. Christ. We saw that and we lost it. That’s when your father got the gasoline. That’s when we started using the ice picks and razor blades.”

I waved my hand at him because I didn’t feel like hearing any more about the good citizens of EEPA and their systematic torture-killing of Charles Rugglestone.

“Who’s doing Hardiman’s killing for him now?”

Jack looked confused. “What’s-his-name. Arujo. The guy your partner killed last night. Right?”

“Arujo had a partner. You know who it is, Jack?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t. Kenzie, we made a mistake. We let Hardiman live, but—”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you let him live?”

“Because it was our only way out once G busted us. That was the deal he made with us.”

“G? What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighed. “We got caught, Patrick. Standing around Rugglestone watching his body go up in flames with blood all over our clothes.”

“Who caught you?”

“G. I told you.”

“Who’s G, Jack?”

He frowned. “Gerry Glynn, Kenzie.”

I felt light-headed suddenly, as if I’d just tried to smoke another cigarette.

“And he didn’t arrest you?” I asked Jack.

Jack nodded slightly. “He said it was understandable. He said most people would do the same.”

“Gerry said this?”

“Who the fuck am I talking about? Yeah. Gerry. He made sure each one of us knew what we owed him, and then he sent us on our way and arrested Alec Hardiman.”

“What do you mean, you owed him?”

“We owed him. Favors, shit like that, for the rest of our lives. Your father pulled strings and got him the zoning and the liquor license for his bar. I got him some creative financing. Other people did other things. We were forbidden to talk with each other, so I have no idea who gave him what outside of me and your old man.”

“You were forbidden to talk with each other? By Gerry?”

“Of course by Gerry.” He stared at me and the veins in his neck were bright blue and hard. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with when it comes to Gerry, do you? Jesus.” He laughed loudly. “Holy shit! You bought all that Officer Friendly bullshit, didn’t you? Kenzie,” he said and strained against the noose, “Gerry Glynn is a fucking monster. He makes me look like a parish priest.” He laughed again and it was a shrill, awful sound. “You think that gypsy cab he keeps out front always takes people where they want to go?”

I remembered that night in the bar, the drunk kid who Gerry sent into that cab with ten bucks. Had he made it home? And who was the cab driver? Evandro?