“Velvet, please, I’m not the enemy here, I promise. I’m trying to help you, but you’re making it pretty damn hard. You do understand that if you’ve seen this man, if you have any knowledge of what he’s doing, he’ll stop at nothing to kill you? I can protect you, if you’ll just level with me.”

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” she asked. “Burt, I mean. Somebody really did kill him.”

Leather squeaked as he shifted. When she looked up, he’d put the gun in a shoulder holster under the preppy jacket.

“Yes. Somebody really did. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you, too. Maybe they just didn’t get to you in time.”

Even though the hockey game was muted, a dim whisper came from the TV set, a roar as somebody scored or somebody bled. She stared blankly at the screen.

“Robby thinks it’s the wiseguys,” she said.

“Robby’s probably right. Where’d you see this guy, Velvet?”

The roar on the TV was loud enough that it was audible even through the muting. She looked up at the screen. The cameraman was confused, the picture shaking unsteadily. She couldn’t figure out why he was panning the crowd.

“At the dry cleaners. Elegance. Highland Park.”

After a stunned silence, Lenny repeated, “Elegance Dry Cleaners. Burt Marshall owned part of it.”

“Yeah. The Arab guy from the picture, he was there, and this creepy little asshole named Mr. Julian—”

She forgot to finish. The cameraman had managed to get his shot stable, a crowd shot; the picture jerked unevenly as he pulled the focus, shocked confused faces, a blur of motion—he pulled back agair

Velvet screamed.

A burning man plunged down the steps of the arena, arms waving, bright enough to fuzz out the TV picture. People piled out of his way, mouths open, eyes wild.

Velvet fumbled for the remote, but Agent James got there first, found the mute button. Screams exploded into the cool air of the apartment, ringing, echoing. Over them, the announcers.

Not sure what we’re seeing here

My god, Jim, it looks like that man is on fire. Yes, he’s definitely on fire. As you can see, Security is right behind him

Anybody see how it happened? When did it start? He’s fully in flames now, folks, pushing a hot dog vendor out of his way

Agent James looked over at Velvet, his face tight and pale, and said, “I guess it’s a little late for damage control now.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Robby

It was a good thing that Mark had arrived to act as bank, because Kelly hadn’t bothered to show. Robby brushed past him on her way to the beer stand, passed him three thick wallets, and made sure he had them before she continued on her way. Of all of them, he was the only one with an actual pickpocketing conviction.