“Thank you very much.”

“Hey, honey, trust me—I have other things you can do for me.”

Both eyebrows went up. “I bet you do.”

I let that pass. “We are assuming this Roger Kraft character was the driver of the Ferrari.”

“A sound assumption, I think.”

“I agree. But why was he killed?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe somebody hired the job and was tying off a loose end.”

I narrowed mine back at her. “Maybe. But what if Kraft had a grudge against young Colby himself? Clearly that was no accident outside Pete’s Chophouse, not when Roger Dodger was out driving a sports car that didn’t belong to him, while wearing a fake beard and pony tail.”

She had a slow nod going. “Did that second-in-command guy at the brokerage, Owens, hire Kraft maybe? Owens and Colby were arguing about something, you said, and it got heated.”

“True,” I admitted.

“Also, Kraft was working on Owens’s car, which happens to be the red Ferrari that almost got a lot redder. Could that be the reason for the office dust-up—Colby learned Owens tried to have him killed…?”

She shook her head and her hair went wild, then tamed itself.

“No,” she said firmly, answering her own question. “That’s dumb. Colby would’ve called the cops on his ‘friend.’”

“Probably.”

She cocked her head. “Just probably?”

I gestured with an open hand. “As irrational as Don’t-Call-Me-Vince has been lately, who knows? But more likely it’s some work thing and just demonstrates what a loose cannon that concussion’s made out of our client’s baby boy.”

Her nod was in slow motion. “I can buy that.”

“But, again, doll—why was Kraft killed, and who did it…? If Pat has any ideas about that, he’s sure not sharing them.”

The waitress stopped by again and Velda held up a hand, preferring not to have her coffee cup refilled. We’d both had enough caffeine already to fuel the evening ahead.

Velda said, “All we know about Kraft is that he was part of a heist crew, and after this new heat, with their driver turning up dead? The accomplices will be in the wind.”

“Most likely. And if Kraft hadn’t been killed the same chest-crushing way as Shannon and that call girl? I would think tracking that end of things might pay off.”

“But we’re obviously dealing with one killer.”

“Right again. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with smash-and-grab bank jobs.”

Her eyebrows rose contemplatively. “I have my own police contacts. You want me to dig into the late Mr. Kraft and his life and times?”

“Damn straight. You still know some of the undercover girls in Vice, right?”

Her dark hair bounced as she nodded. “Yeah. Nobody’s around from when I worked there, a million years ago, but yes, I have contacts. And I know some of the working girls, from that undercover job a couple of years back. Let me guess—that dead upscale hooker, what was her name?”

“Jasmine Jordan. But you’re ahead of me on this.”