“You’re afraid to talk.” Why sugarcoat it?

His eyes hardened. “You are goddamn right I’m afraid to talk. Not so much for myself—like you said, I was a cop. Every day when I went to work, I did so knowing I might not come home. Plenty of officers in St. Louis have been killed in the line of duty.”

“You weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t. And I don’t want to be killed as a civilian, either, because that leaves my wife and two kids to fend for themselves.”

My turn to swig some Coke. “Well, at least you have your mentor to look after you.”

“What mentor?”

“The former Lieutenant Louis Ira Shoulders. The honored cop who killed bad guys dead and won all those honors. I mean, you’re in business with him aren’t you?”

Of course I knew exactly what reaction I was after. And got it.

“Fucking Shoulders!” He slammed his half-full Coke bottle on the desk and the liquid fizzed. “My partner, you call him! My mentor!”

“Well, isn’t he? The ‘S’ in—”

“In ‘D & S,’ yes! The Shadow! He’s my shadow, is who he is—keeping an eye on me. Making sure I stay mum.” He sat forward, elbows on the desk. “Let me tell you how my life got ruined. I’d already made my mind up to leave the department. The St. Louis PD is a nest of thieves! I don’t know why my father never warned me. Maybe he was one of them.”

“Your father was a cop?”

He nodded curtly. “And my uncle. But I wound up at Newstead Avenue station, the dirtiest district in town, and Shoulders ran it. I’d tried putting in for a transfer and got slapped down. That day…that very goddamn day that all the shit happened…I planned to sneak off to deliver my filled-out application to the Triple A.”

This was news to me. “You were going to quit?”

Now came some vigorous nodding. “I’d made up my mind. Then right after roll call, the 3 P.M. to 11 P.M. watch, Shoulders calls me over and says his regular driver is sick. He wants me to fill in. Now, he already knew about Hall and the money and everything, I’m sure of it. But not a word to me.”

“You weren’t his regular driver?”

“No. Without cluing me in at all, he yanks me into the dirtiest mess in St. Louis history.”

A wave of recognition went through me: in 1932, I’d been a young off-duty dick when the two most corrupt cops in Chicago grabbed me and pulled me unaware into a hit on Frank Nitti. They shot Capone’s successor twice in the neck but somehow Nitti hadn’t died. I quit the force and went private, staying alive by forging a surrogate father-and-son relationship with Nitti that connected me, unwillingly, to the Outfit to this day.

“Mr. Heller? I lost you there for a moment.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

He sat back. Folded his arms. Shrugged. “Well, that’s all I can give you…without certain conditions.”