Frank Ache laughed a little too long and hard at that one. “You’re lucky I never whacked you. My brother always stopped me, you know.”

Win did know. He looked into the dark eyes and saw blankness.

“I’m on Zoloft now,” Frank said as if reading his mind. “You believe that? They have me on suicide watch. Don’t much see the point, do you?”

Win didn’t know if he meant the point of taking the drug or committing suicide or even trying to prevent the suicide. He also didn’t care. “I have a favor to ask,” Win said.

“Were we ever buddies?”

“No.”

“So?”

“Favor,” Win said again. “As in, you do one for me, I do one for you.”

Frank Ache stopped. He sniffled, used a once-giant hand to wipe his face. His receding hairline was gone now, though big tufts stayed on the side. His dark olive skin was now the gray of a city street after a rainstorm.

“What makes you think I could use a favor?”

Win did not answer that. There was no reason to elaborate. “How did your brother slither out of an indictment?”

“That’s what you want to know?”

Win said nothing.

“What difference does that make?”

“Humor me, Frank.”

“You know Herman. He looked classy. Me, I looked like a dago.”

“Gotti looked classy.”

“No, he didn’t. He looked like a goomba dressed up in expensive suits.”

Frank Ache looked off now, his eyes wet. He put his hand up to his face again. It started with another sniffle and then the big, scary man’s face crumbled. He started to cry. Win waited for him to regain his composure. Ache cried some more.

Finally: “You got a tissue or something?”

“Use your neon orange sleeve,” Win said.

“You know what it’s like in here?”

Win said nothing.

“I sit alone in a six-by-eight cell. I sit in it twenty-three hours a day. Alone. I eat my meals in there. I crap in there. When I go out in the yard for one hour, no one else is outside. I go days without hearing a voice. I try sometimes to talk to the guards. They won’t say a word back to me. Day after day. I sit alone. I talk to no one. That’s how it’s gonna be till the day I die.” He started sobbing again.

Win was tempted to take out his air violin, but he refrained. The man was talking—needed to talk, it seemed. This was a good thing. Still: “How many people did you kill, Frank?”

He stopped crying for a moment. “Me myself or that I ordered?”

“Your pick.”

“Got me. I personally whacked, what, twenty, thirty guys.”

Like he was talking about parking tickets he beat. “I’m feeling sorrier for you by the moment,” Win said.

If Frank took offense, he didn’t show it. “Hey, Win, you want to hear something funny?”