He reached back for the bottle of Stoli, poured himself another shot. “So, Alec comes back to haunt us all again.” He chuckled. “Ah, well, I should have known.”

Patton jumped down from the pool table and padded into the main bar area, gave me a look like I was sitting in his seat, then hopped up on the bar top in front of me and lay down, his paws over his eyes.

“He wants you to pet him,” Gerry said.

“No, he doesn’t.” I watched Patton’s rib cage rise and fall.

“He likes you, Patrick. Go ahead.”

I felt like Mae for a moment as I reached out a tentative hand toward that gorgeous coat of black and amber. I felt coiled muscle hard as a pool ball under the coat, and then Patton raised his head and mewed and flicked his tongue over my free hand, nuzzled it gratefully with a chilly nose.

“Just a big softy, huh?” I said.

“Unfortunately,” Gerry said. “Don’t let the secret get around, though.”

“Gerry,” I said, as Patton’s rich coat undulated and curled around my hand, “this Alec Hardiman could have killed—?”

“Kara Rider?” He shook his head. “No, no. That would be pretty hard to do even for Alec. Alec Hardiman’s been in prison since nineteen seventy-five, and he won’t be getting out during my lifetime. Probably not during yours, either.”

I finished my Lite and Gerry, ever the bartender, had his hand in the ice before I set it down on the bar. This time he came up with a Harpoon IPA, spun it in his meaty palm and popped the cap off in the opener mounted on the cooler wall. I took it from him and some foam spilled down the side onto my hand and Patton licked it up.

Gerry leaned his head back against the edge of the shelf above it. “Did you know a kid name of Cal Morrison?”

“Not real well,” I said, swallowing against a shudder that threatened to rise every time I heard Cal Morrison’s name. “He was a few years older than me.”

Gerry nodded. “But you know what happened to him.”

“He was stabbed to death in the Blake Yard.”

Gerry stared at me for a moment, and then he sighed. “How old were you at the time?”

“Nine or ten.”

He reached for another shot glass, poured a finger of Stoli in it and set it on the bar in front of me. “Drink.”

I was reminded of Bubba’s vodka and its ragged chewing on my spinal column. Unlike my father and his brothers, I must have missed some crucial Kenzie gene, because I never could drink hard liquor for shit.

I gave Gerry a weak smile. “Dosvidanya.”

He raised his and we drank and I blinked away tears.

“Cal Morrison,” he said, “wasn’t stabbed to death, Patrick.” He sighed again and it was a low, melancholy sound. “Cal Morrison was crucified.”

15

“Cal Morrison wasn’t crucified,” I said.