Bubba and Phil had come down the alley by this point and I looked at them as I removed the gun from Kevin’s head.

“You guys know this?”

Phil shook his head.

Bubba said, “I knew Gerry was a little shady, ran some blow and some hookers out of the bar, but that’s it.”

“He duped your whole fucking generation,” Jack said. “The whole pack of ya. Jesus.”

“Be specific,” I said. “Very specific, Jack.”

He smiled at us and his old eyes danced. “Gerry Glynn is one of the meanest motherfuckers who ever came out of the neighborhood. His son died. You know that?”

I said, “He had a son?”

“’Course he had a fucking son. Brendan. Died in ’sixty-five. Had some bizarre hemorrhage at his brain stem. No one could ever explain it. Kid was four years old, he grabs his head, drops dead in Gerry’s front yard while he’s playing with Gerry’s wife. Gerry snapped. He killed his wife.”

“Bullshit,” Bubba said. “Guy was a cop.”

“So? Gerry got it in his head that it was her fault. That she’d been fucking around on him and God had punished her by killing their kid. He punched her to death, framed some spook for it. The spook got shivved to death in Dedham a week after his arraignment. Case closed.”

“How’s Gerry reach out and touch a guy locked up?”

“Gerry was a bull at Dedham. Back in the old days, when they still allowed cops to work two jobs in the same system. Some witness, a con, supposedly heard Gerry set it up. Gerry whacked the guy in Scollay Square a week after he was released.”

Jamal Cooper. Victim Number One. Jesus.

“Gerry’s one of the scariest guys on the planet, you dumb fuck, Kenzie.”

“And it never occurred to you that he could be Hardiman’s partner?” I asked.

Everyone looked at me.

“Hardiman’s…?” Jack’s mouth opened wide again and the muscles in his jaws rotated against thin skin. “No, no. I mean, Gerry’s dangerous, but he’s not…”

“He’s not what, Jack?”

“He’s, well, not serial-killer-psycho crazy.”

I shook my head. “How fucking dumb could you be?”

Jack looked at me. “Shit, Kenzie, Gerry’s from the neighborhood. We don’t breed crazies like that in the neighborhood.”

I shook my head. “You’re from the neighborhood, Jack. So was my father. Look what you two pulled off in that warehouse.”

I started to walk back down the alley and he called after me: “What about you, Kenzie? What about what you pulled off here today?”

I looked back, saw Kevin trying to stay conscious against the pain, blood painted on his mouth and chin.

“I didn’t kill anyone, Jack.”

“But if I hadn’t talked, you would have, Kenzie. You would have.”

I turned, kept walking.

“You want to think of yourself as good, Kenzie? Huh? Think about what I just said. Remember what you would have done.”

The shots came out of the darkness in front of me.

I saw the muzzle flash and actually felt the first bullet streak past my shoulder.