Acknowledgment, Dunne thought, that Lopez knew the man with the glass eye.

“So let me ask him myself,” Dunne said.

Lopez was silent.

“Raymond was ex-Marine, right? Hanover was a decorated vet. How about some semper fi for them?”

Lopez crossed his arms.

“Come on,” Dunne said. “Take me to see him. Kick my black ass, if you don’t like how it goes down. Unless you already know everything, you got to be curious, too.”

“I stopped being curious. It’s bad for business.”

“You know the girl that was killed with the reporter in the Mayflower? She worked for Raymond.”

Dunne paused to let Lopez absorb that fact.

“You see the picture here?” Dunne asked. “I know you do. The asshole who killed the President murdered a young woman who happened to work for your pal Raymond, who then was murdered in the comfort of his own home. And your friend with the glass eye, somehow he’s messed up in all this.”

Lopez kicked a tin can to the side of the alley.

“Please, Mr. Lopez. Semper fi for everyone.”

Dunne placed the gun back in its shoulder holster.

“Alright,” Lopez said.

He opened the back door and shouted that he would be gone for an hour or so. He then headed out of the alley; Dunne followed.

“Got a few apartments around the corner,” Lopez said. “Crash pads for customers. A place to go if they’re too drunk or they need privacy.”

“And he used to work for you?”

“Yeah, a few years back. Odds and ends. Working the door. Security. But it didn’t work out. He hates fags.”

“In the service together?”

“Fort Bragg and Korea …”

“And?”

“Afghanistan. He passed through … It’s a fucking cliché. But I owe him for some major shit.”

“And now.”

“Burn-out city. You’ll see. Can’t do much of anything. Got some pension or something. Been through some heavy stuff. I was just trying to watch his back.”

“And his name?”

Lopez ignored the question. The two walked up 5th Street and made a right on M Street.

“So why all the Marines and other military jocks at your place?” Dunne asked.

“Guys who started it were jarheads. Word got out: a safe place to go for fags in uniform when they were out of uniform. If you’re a new puppy at the Eighth Street barracks, you hear about the Gauntlet in the first week.”

“And he hates homosexuals, but you and he—”

“Hell, this is just a business opportunity for me. That’s all.”

They came to a small apartment building. Lopez took out his keys, but he saw that the lock was broken. With a push, the door opened.

“It’s not Georgetown,” Lopez said. “Proximity. Not style.”