“Would you like to hear my theory?”

“About?”

“Let’s go back sixteen years,” Win said. “Gabriel Wire owes you a substantial sum of money for gambling debts. He’s a drug addict, a pleated-skirt chaser—”

“Pleated?”

“He likes them young,” Win explained.

“Oh. Now I get it. Pleated.”

“So glad. Gabriel Wire is also—more important to you—a compulsive gambler. In short, he’s a mess, albeit a profitable one. He has money and tremendous earning potential, ergo the interest owed keeps compounding. Are you with me?”

Herman Ache said nothing.

“Then Wire goes too far. After a concert at Madison Square Garden, he invites Alista Snow, a naïve sixteen-year-old girl, back to his suite. Wire slips her Rohypnol and cocaine and whatever other drugs he has lying around, and the girl ends up leaping off a balcony. He panics. Or perhaps, being that he is such an important asset, you already have a man on the scene. Perhaps Crisp. You clean up the mess. You intimidate the witnesses and even buy off the Snow family—whatever it takes to protect your boy. He owes you even bigger now. I don’t know what ‘legitimate business arrangement’ you made, but I imagine Wire has to pay you, what, half his earnings? That would be several million dollars per year minimum.”

Herman Ache just looked at him, trying very hard not to fume. “Win?”

“Yes?”

“I know you and Myron like to think you’re tough guys,” Ache said, “but neither one of you is bulletproof.”

“Tsk-tsk.” Win spread his arms. “What happened to Mr. Legal? Mr. Legitimate Businessman?”

“You’ve been warned.”

“By the way, I visited your brother in prison.”

Herman’s face fell.

“He sends his regards.”

Chapter 22

22

Back at the office, Big Cyndi was at the ready.

“I have some information on Gabriel Wire’s tattoo, Mr. Bolitar.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Big Cyndi wore all pink today with enough blush on her cheeks to coat a minivan. “According to Ma Gellan’s extensive research, Gabriel Wire had one tattoo. It was on his left thigh, not his right. This may sound a little strange, so please bear with me.”

“I’m listening.”

“The tattoo was a heart. That tattoo itself was permanent. But what Gabriel Wire would do is fill in a name temporarily.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You have seen what Gabriel Wire looks like, correct?”

“Yes.”

“He was a rock star and an absolute major yummy, but he had a certain predilection.”

“That being?”

“He liked underage girls.”

“He was a pedophile?”

“No, I don’t believe so. His targets were fully developed. But they were young. Sixteen, seventeen.”

Alista Snow, for example. And now that he thought about it, Suzze T, back in those days.

“So even though Gabriel Wire was a tasty rock star, he often needed to convince a girl that she meant something to him.”

“I’m not sure how the tattoos fit in.”