“I’m not really at liberty to divulge that information,” he said.

“You’re a real man of mystery, aren’t you?”

“Buddy,” Gannon said, looking out at the shark-toothed skyline. “You don’t even want to know.”

41

Just north of Little Italy, the icy breeze was so strong Gannon had to fight the cab door to get it open.

He’d just made the unmarked Chevy on the northeast corner of Orchard Street when its driver’s door opened. The big man who got out of it smiling had shoulder-length dirty blond hair and a black leather jacket.

With his Fu Manchu and big Red Wing boots, he didn’t look like a cop. He looked like a Hells Angel trying to find his lost Harley.

“Mickey, you crazy son of a bitch. Look at you. Mr. Winter Tan. You’re back!” his old partner, Danny “Stick” Henrickson, said, embracing him.

“Look at me? Look at you. You look exactly the same, well, except for this,” Gannon said, flicking at the dusting of white in Stick’s mustache.

“Yeah, I know. It’s horrible, right?” Stick said, smoothing at his whiskers. “You know how vain I am. I was heading to Duane Reade for a new tube of Just For Men when you called.”

Gannon smiled as he pounded his old linebacker-sized partner on the back. He hadn’t been all that great at keeping in contact with old friends after he moved out of the city, but Stick was the exception.

“So should we sit in the car or hit a Starbucks or something?” Gannon said, shivering.

“No, no. For ancient reunions with old maniac partners, I roll out the full red carpet,” Stick said. “Like the hick jacket, by the way. Are you a farmer or something now?”

Stick took out a set of keys and opened up the door of a shop across from where the Chevy was parked. Silver Mine Properties, it said on the door.

“Yeah, I’m a farmer, and you’re what? Moonlighting as a broker now?” Gannon said as they came into a cozy office space with some cubicles and a reception area.

“Actually,” Stick said as he clicked on a light, “my sister’s new husband is the manager of the building here. The last tenant just left, so they’re still trying to lease it out. I coop in the office here when I’m downtown.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Gannon said as he peeked in an inner office and saw the drum set.

Before the cops, Stick had his fifteen minutes of fame as a replacement drummer in Cold Iron Mine, a once famous Staten Island heavy metal band that had toured Europe.

Which actually made sense, Gannon thought, shaking his head at Stick. You had to be heavy-metal-drummer crazy to be an undercover cop.

And Stick hadn’t been just any undercover cop either but one of the greatest NYPD narcotics officers of all time, Gannon knew. Though Stick looked like a big dumb white boy headbanger, his mom, a pretty Puerto Rican lady, had raised him speaking Spanglish in the Lower East Side projects. None of the dozens of Dominican dealers he put away could ever believe how well he understood what they were saying.