Sweets had no idea where the killers were staying in town. He doubted, however, they were the home-invasion type of contract killers, which eased my mind a bit. No, these boys seemed to like making a front-page show of their demented work. The Brooklyn real estate broker they had allegedly murdered had been found hung from the beam of a multimillion-dollar high-rise apartment. The only reason she hadn’t been written off as a suicide by the NYPD was the fact that she’d been beaten with a baseball bat like a piñata, then shot three times.

A real estate broker on Cape Cod—a rather corpulent fellow, as the story goes—had been force-fed ice cream, fried clams and lobster rolls until he suffered cardiac arrest. But it wasn’t the heart attack that had killed him: ultimately, it had been one of three bullets fired down his throat following his gorging.

Jersey City had been a murderous abomination that made the previous two hits look like evenings of cotton candy at ice-skating escapades.

“Well, you can’t say they don’t enjoy their work,” I finally said.

“Yeah,” Sweets said after a sip of coffee. “Maybe a little too damn much.”

A quiet moment passed between us. Then Sweets said, “Comox, BC, ain’t but a couple days’ drive. Got plenty of room in the truck for you and your lady. Pitch in for gas and—”

“Thanks, Sweets,” I said. “Think I’ll stick around.”

“You gonna be awright on this one?”

“Sure,” I said. “Easy peasy.”

“Your boy is out of commission,” Sweets said, referring to Tomás. “And I don’t know who you got for backup, but that big Mexican dude had to be the every-time, all-the-time choice for a second gun.”

“Still is,” I said. “Just got a little healing to do.”

“Well,” Sweets said, finishing his coffee and standing, “I’d best be gettin’ on the road. Got four, maybe five days of driving ahead of me.”

“What do I—”

“You don’t owe me nothin’, Snow,” Sweets said. “On the house. You always treated me with respect—not like some of these ashy back-alley ghetto rats sniffin’ for a piece of cheese.”

We shook hands.

“Took smarts and guts to do what you did for as long as you did it, Sweets.”

He reached into the chest pocket of his insulated bib coveralls, pulled out a business card and handed it to me.

“I only had six of these things printed,” Sweets said. “So, don’t be losin’ it, okay?”

“Delmonico Firenza?” I heard myself say as I stared at the name on the card.

“Yeah, I know,” Sweets said. “My grandmomma was Italian. My granddaddy liked her last name so much he took it legal.”

“Safe journey, ma brotha.”

I watched him get in his used Toyota 4Runner and drive off toward the glow of the US/Canada bridge.

Didn’t know him all that well.

Wish I had.