His smile was as immediate as it was nervous. As always, he was sharply dressed, a black sport shirt with a white-and-pink diamond pattern. His sandy, curly hair was combed over and his hooded blue eyes looked bloodshot. “How did you get past Howie?”

“Is that his name?” With the hand that didn’t have a Browning in it, I pulled up a chair opposite him and sat, hefted the pistol. “Love tap with the barrel of this. He may live.”

“Hope he does,” Costello said, “or I’ll never hear the end of it. My wife’s nephew. Kind of late to be calling, isn’t it, Nate?”

“Or early. Of course there’s no tomorrow for Sandy O’Day. You heard about that?”

He nodded and put on a sad face that wouldn’t have convinced a six-year-old. “I did. Hell of thing, in this day and age. Too bad. She was a good kid. Good earner in her day, and did very well for us out at Carr’s.”

“Your nephew was the shooter.”

“No, that can’t be,” he said, waving it off, the gold-set diamond on his hand catching the meager overhead light and winking at me. On the wall, in the framed photos of Joe and his late partner at Ace, Leo Brothers seemed to be winking at me, too, as he grinned at the camera.

“I saw him shoot Sandy, Joe,” I said. “I didn’t mention it to the cops. Or that he jumped me in the alley alongside the Tic Toc. I mean, we’re friends here, right? So how about you cut the bullshit.”

I put the nine mil on the desk. Close to me. But right there on the desk. He couldn’t keep his eyes off it, a man trying not to look at his wife’s sister’s tits. I got out the Chesterfields and shook one loose and lighted it up.

“Question is,” I said, “did you send him? Howie doesn’t look bright enough to have too many of his own ideas.”

He showed me surrender palms. “Hear me out. Sandy O’Day came around to my house…my house, where I live with my wife and son—”

I stopped him with a raised forefinger. “That’s the wife with a nephew, right? Right. Go on.”

“She wanted ten grand. Said she worked up a story she was going to peddle to the FBI about me getting the Greenlease money.”

“Just another dirty blackmailer, huh?” I let a serpent of smoke curl out. “And here we both thought she was a good kid.”

His voice turned apologetic. “What happened to her outside Musial’s, that was probably my fault, partly—my bad judgment.”

“Oh?”

He sighed. “Y’see, after I talked to Sandy, I got pretty hot around the collar. I blew my top about it to Howie and a couple of the other guys, how she was putting the squeeze on me so tight I might have to shutter Ace Cab. And these are ex-cons who need the work. Who in St. Louis but Joe Costello pays good money to bad eggs just outa stir? It’s what I get for trying to give ’em a helping hand and a leg up. All I can think is, Howie musta got it in his stupid head to remove the problem. Without my urging, mind you.”