“They don’t. He may fuck with her to get to me, so I need to know where both of them are at all times. It’s a two-man job.”

He yawned. “I’ll use Nelson.”

Nelson Ferrare was a guy from the neighborhood who worked with Bubba on his arms deals whenever he needed an extra trigger man or driver. He was a short guy, no more than 5’4”, and I’d never heard him speak above a whisper or utter more than five words in a given day. Nelson was as shit-house crazy as Bubba, with a Napoleon complex to boot, but like Bubba, he could reign in his psychosis as long as he had something to occupy his time.

“Okay. And Bubba? If anything happens to me in the next week, let’s say I meet with an accident, will you do something for me?”

“Name it.”

“Find a safe place for Mae and Grace…”

“Okay.”

“…and then cancel Hurlihy’s ticket.”

“No problem. That it?”

“That’s it.”

“Okee-doke. See ya.”

“Let’s hope so.”

I hung up and saw that the tremors that had been rippling through my wrists and hands since I’d shot out Kevin’s window had stopped.

I called Devin next.

“Agent Bolton wants to talk to you.”

“I’m sure.”

“He doesn’t like you being associated with two out of four dead.”

“Four?”

“We think he killed another one last night. I can’t get into it right now. You going to come by or is Bolton going to have to come for you?”

“I’ll be by.”

“When?”

“Soon. Kevin Hurlihy just paid me a house call and told me to back off the investigation, by the way.”

“We’ve had him under surveillance for days. He ain’t our killer.”

“I didn’t think he was. He lacks the imagination for what this guy is pulling. But he’s involved somehow.”

“It’s curious, I’ll admit. Look, get your ass over to FBI Headquarters. Bolton’s ready to send out a dragnet, pull in you, Gerry Glynn, Jack Rouse, Fat Freddy, everyone else who was anywhere near any of the victims.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

I hung up, and an explosion of country music rocked the apartment through my open kitchen screen. Of course, if you’re hearing Waylon, it must be nine.

I looked at my watch. Nine on the dot.

I stepped out on my back porch. Lyle was working on the house closest to mine, and he turned the radio down when he saw me.

“Hey, Patrick, how y’all doing, son?”

“Lyle,” I said, “I got my girlfriend’s daughter sleeping over. Could we maybe keep it down a bit?”

“Sure thing, son. Sure thing.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll be cutting out pretty soon, so you can turn it back up when we go.”

He shrugged. “Only doing a third of a day here myself. Got me a bad tooth kept me up half the night.”

“Dentist?” I said and winced.

“Yeah,” he said morosely. “Hate paying those bastards, but I tried pulling the tooth myself last night with some pliers and the sumbitch only come out like so far and then it wouldn’t budge. Plus, them pliers got all slippery cause of all the blood and, well—”