Something changed in Angelidis’s eyes. If Gurney had to guess, he’d say the man was trying to conceal a stab of fear. “How do you know this?”

Gurney shook his head and smiled. “Better not to say how I know.”

For the first time since Gurney arrived, Angelidis looked around at the garden and its brick walls, his eyes stopping at the doors that were open to the view of the river and cemetery. “Why are you bringing this to me?”

“I thought you might want to help me.”

“Help you do what?”

“I want to find Panikos. I want to bring him in. To cut a deal, he may be willing to tell us who bought the Spalter hit. Since that wasn’t you, OCTF can go fuck themselves. You’d like that, right?”

Angelidis rested his burly forearms on the table and shook his head.

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem?” Angelidis emitted a short, humorless laugh. “The part about you bringing him in. That don’t happen. Trust me. That don’t happen. You got no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Again Gurney shrugged, turning up his palms. “Maybe I need to know a little more.”

“Maybe a lot more.”

“Tell me what I’m missing.”

“Like what?”

“How does Panikos work?”

“He shoots people. Mostly in the head. Mostly in the right eye. Or he blows them up.”

“How about his contracts? How are they set up?”

“Through a fixer. An arranger.”

“A guy like Fat Gus?”

“Like Fat Gus. Top shelf for Panikos. Only a handful of guys in the world he deals with. They do the transaction. They transfer the payment.”

“He gets his instructions from them?”

“Instructions?” Angelidis let out a guttural laugh. “He takes the name, the deadline, the money. The rest is up to him.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Let’s say you want a certain target whacked. Theoretically. For the sake of argument. You pay Peter Pan’s price. The target gets whacked. End of story. How he gets whacked is Peter’s business. He don’t take instructions.”

“Let me get this straight. The nails in Fat Gus’s head—that wouldn’t have been part of the deal?”

The point seemed to interest Angelidis. “No … that would not have been part of the deal. Not if the hitter was Peter.”

“So that would have been his own initiative, not an order from the client?”

“I’m telling you, he don’t take orders—just names and cash.”

“So the nasty shit he did to Gus—that would have been his idea?”

“You hear me? He don’t take orders.”

“So why would he do what he did?”

“I got no idea. That’s the problem here. Knowing Panikos and Gurikos, it makes no sense.”

“No sense that Panikos would worry that Gurikos might know something damaging? Or that he might talk? Or that he might already have talked?”