We went down the long entry, then through a living room that looked like it was maybe a hundred years old and then into a wood-paneled den with a fireplace. Sal DeLuca was sitting with a couple of well-dressed guys close to his age, the two guys on one couch and Sal on another, facing each other across a little table. Vito and Angie. They had hard, lined faces, and one of them had a gray mustache, and both of them looked at me with the sort of mild curiosity you reserve for a strange dog with a skin rash. Capos. Mafia executive material.

Sal looked surprised. “What do you want?”

Then Sal saw the gun.

Sal DeLuca was in his early sixties and maybe five ten but he was very wide, with the sort of muscular density that allows great strength. He would’ve been very strong when he was younger, and he was probably very strong now. They don’t call you Sal the Rock because you’re wuzzy. He had a round face and protruding eyes and a wide mouth and fleshy lips, sort of like a frog’s. He was wearing a deep blue smoking jacket. The last guy I’d seen in a smoking jacket was Elmer Fudd, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead I said, “Two of your soldiers were killed today in Brooklyn. I’m the guy who killed them. Charlie DeLuca is partnered with a Jamaican gangster named Jesus Santiago. No one knows it yet, but they’re stealing dope from the Gamboza brothers.”

The guy with the gray mustache said, “Hey.”

The other guy said, “You gotta be outta your fuckin’ mind.”

Sal DeLuca didn’t say anything, but when I mentioned Charlie, something cold flickered in his eyes and I felt scared.

I said, “I wanted you to find out first, Sal. I didn’t want it to get around before you knew.” I lowered the Dan Wesson.

Sal said, “Vito.”

The guy with the mustache hopped up and took the gun. Vito. I said, “There’s a .32 on my right ankle.” He took that, too, and put both guns on the little table between the two couches. Sal picked up the Dan Wesson with his left hand, felt its weight, and then he looked at me and nodded. “You got balls, I’ll give you that. What’s your name?”

“Elvis Cole.”

“That’s a stupid fucking name.”

“Better than Elvis Jones.”

Sal made up his mind about something and leaned back in the chair, still holding the Dan Wesson. “Okay. You got fifteen seconds to tell me something that will save your life.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Thirty-five

Sal said, “Freddie, you wait in the hall.”

Freddie looked nervous. “He had the gun, Sal. I couldn’t help it.”

“Wait in the hall.” The cold thing still alive in his eyes.

Freddie went out into the hall.