I gave him a light kick in his right knee and said, “I’ve got enough money to last me ten lifetimes. Why do I need dirty money from you?”

“’Cause if you don’t help me, you gonna regret what you could have done to help Mexicantown—all of it!—from turning into a ‘ghost town’!”

I gestured for him to get up.

Favoring his left leg, he did.

“Sit at your desk,” I said. “Pour us a couple scotches—the good stuff—then start talking. And don’t even think about reaching for that gun in your desk drawer. You do and that’ll be the last ineffectual thing you do on God’s green earth.”

“How’d you know—”

“About the gun?” I sat in one of the leather wingback chairs in front of his desk. “If I was on the Detroit City Council, I’d sure as hell have one in my desk drawer. Especially with a council president like you and constituents like me.”

Quinn trembled as he poured two crystal tumblers of whisky, managing to spill only a drop or two from the one he handed me.

I wasn’t the one he was scared of anymore.

I could beat his flesh purple and snap his bones one by one, and he’d take it and ask for more—just as long as it meant keeping the real boogeyman at bay.

I knocked back my whisky, tossed my empty crystal tumbler on his Persian rug and said, “So what’s got you wanting your worst enemy as your best friend, Councilman?”

“I, uh—I may have gotten myself in a—a seemingly inextricable situation.”

“Such as?”

For the next ten minutes, he breathlessly told me about his involvement in a complicated real estate scheme fronted by someone he knew only as “Mr. Sloane.” Quinn had taken close to half a million in cash personally and another two million for cash distributions to keep certain real estate purchases and developments off or opaque on the city’s books: apartments, luxury condos and housing developments in Detroit’s historic and upscale neighborhoods. Indian Village. Boston-Edison. Palmer Woods. And a variety of new condo and apartment developments catering to young nouveaux riches. Properties that would soon to be without street addresses, dots on maps or GPS coordinates.

Ghost towns.

“Electricity?” I said. “Water? Postal service?”

“False fronts and dead drops,” Quinn said. “Paid-off city service employees. Cops in the pocket. Plus—these guys—”

“Meaning Sloane.”

“Meaning Sloane and the other guy.”

“Xiang?”

“No. Xiang’s just the tactical delivery boy,” Quinn said. “A killer, but mostly just delivers money, assignments, threats. But his boss? The Albino? That mothafucka’s like middle management—the strategist. You need high-speed Internet? He’s got you. Cell and sat-phone service? Done. Medical? Mail? Property management? Everything! Yo goddamn toilet backed up at two in the morning? The Albino’s got your back. Until he sticks a knife in it.”