Leetch frowned. “We don’t know that it is the same guy. Could have been a coincidence. Or, not to speak ill of the dead, but Carol might have been feeding us nothing but horseshit.”

Cohen leaned back in his chair. “Why?”

“No offence, KC, but drug addicts have been known to lie now and again,” Leetch said. “Maybe she wanted to get back at us for years of run-ins with the cops.” He snapped his fingers. “Or could be she was involved in Jimmy and Frige’s departure. And she was just covering her own ass.”

“Good point.” Cohen rolled his eyes. “Maybe the whole emaciated and dying drug addict shtick was just a world-class cover for a world-class assassin?”

“Smart ass!” Leetch grumbled with a half-smile. “Okay, maybe poor old wrist watchless Carol got her times confused. She might have seen her Johnny-come-lately dealer two hours before or after she chatted with our corpses. Or maybe it was just plain coincidence that this guy was even in the neighborhood at the same time.” He sighed heavily. “There are a hundred plausible explanations that don’t link him to the two stiffs.”

Cohen nodded. “True, but let’s just pretend for a moment he’s the dealer and the killer.”

Leetch snorted. “If we’re playing ‘Let’s Pretend,’ I prefer doing shopkeeper and-customer with my daughter, but if you insist, can I play the part of Jimmy?”

“You look more like Frigerator these days,” Cohen said. And Leetch responded by flashing him a middle finger, but he couldn’t pull it off with a straight face.

Cohen looked up at the fluorescent light above Leetch’s head. He tapped his chin with his thumb. “What’s Johnny-come-lately, as you call him, doing on skid row?”

“I thought we established that,” Leetch sighed. “He’s working. He’s a dealer!”

Cohen squinted at his partner. “And why does he kill the two other dealers?”

“A turf war.”

“Riiight,” Cohen said slowly. “A turf war, even though the crime scene doesn’t look like one either of us has ever seen.”

“Remember your words?” Leetch said. “They just got ‘outwitted’ or ‘outmatched’ or one of your other fancy Ivy League terms.”

Cohen knew his partner was playing dumb again—Leetch finished the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink four or five days a week—but he didn’t call him on it. “The more I go over it in my head, the way Frige went down …” he said. “I think he had his gun out. I think the shooter might have got the draw on him.”

“Wait a minute.” Leetch stiffened in his seat. “Are you saying they accosted the killer?”

“Carol told us they were looking for him.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” Leetch scratched his forehead. “Those two would be more likely to put up with someone shit-kicking their grandmothers than allow another guy to work their territory.”