He stood behind the desk and stretched his hand across and I took and shook it. The massive gold-set diamond ring remained on his left hand. He was three or four inches shorter than me and his slenderness had turned bony, his cheekbones as sharp as his clothes.

A visitor’s chair was waiting for me and I filled it.

He worked up a smile. “What brings you back to town after so long, Nate? And how did you know to look for me here?”

“I’m doing a job for a client that may involve you. You’re the first person I’m touching base with in St. Louis. I called Ace Cab and they said you were at your new club.”

His quick frown said he’d have to talk to somebody about giving out information so freely. Like I’d known not to mention I’d phoned Ace Cab from a booth in East St. Louis after talking to Mollie Baker.

“Who is your client in this, Nate?”

Since we seemed to be on first-name terms, I said, “Can’t tell you that, Joe. Could be any number of people. No shortage of folks might take an interest in the missing Greenlease money.”

His jaw went tight; his cheeks glowed red and I didn’t think it was good health. “I had nothing to do with that, Heller! I live in the same house I did back then. I have two businesses that generate all the income I need. Hard work allowed me to put paneling in the basement and stonework around my fireplace. Before that money went missing, I would buy a new Cadillac every two years and I still do, which is about my only goddamn extravagance!”

I stayed cool. “I didn’t ask about your finances, Joe. But the FBI told the press you were the main suspect in the disappearance of the ransom money.”

His eyes flared. “Fucking FBI. For months they tailed me day and night. They tap my phones, they question my friends and relatives and even the fucking guy who put in my new furnace! They harass my drivers at Ace. It’s only been lately they backed off. And now you come around?”

“I’m not harassing you, Joe. You’re just my first stop.”

He reached down and flung open a desk drawer; my hand went to my unbuttoned suit coat, where I could reach the nine mil easily. But what he withdrew was a quart bottle of Cutty Sark; he reached again and brought out a glass. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised—would I like…?—and I shook my head. At least the offer had been for a shot of Scotch whiskey and not from a handgun.

He poured himself three or four fingers and took a sip that really should be called something else. He tasted it a while and swallowed it down, closing his eyes.

Then he sat back, calm now or pretending to be, and said, “Chicago sent you, I take it.”

“Joe, I didn’t—”

He raised a palm. “You tell them Buster Wortman and I are tight. They don’t need to send Nate Heller around with a gun under his arm. Yeah, I know a tailored suit when I see one. Tell your ‘client’ to have Buster ask me about anything they want to know…or should I just go to Chicago and talk to them myself? Is it Accardo? Or Humphreys maybe? Or both?”