He wants to sit down in the silence and still cool air of this place.

He thinks, just give up. Let the gobbos come. Let them tear him apart, make charcuterie from his meat. Long pig pepperoni. Mookie salumi. Pearl prosciutto.

Or maybe one of the shadows would come for him. Sweep over him, silent as an owl, then down upon him–

But he’s got work to do.

Mookie breaks the silence.

“Where’d the rest of your girls go?” he asks.

“Different tunnels. Split up just in case. All part of the plan.”

“I need to know where my daughter is.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“It ain’t Jersey City.”

Skelly pauses. Eyes him up. “No. No it ain’t.”

Mookie pushes in against her. Chin out. Hands in fists. His shadow darkens her brow. “So then: where the fuck is she?”

That move – him standing there like a grizzly bear on its hind legs – usually gets most people to talk. Or at least flinch. Skelly stands firm.

“I told you, I don’t know. That was part of the deal.” She flips her Kool-Aid bangs back. “You really messed things up with her, you know. She’s got it out for you.”

“You don’t get to tell me that.”

“I’m just asking: were you a Bad Daddy, daddy-o?”

He shows his teeth. “You don’t get to ask me that, either. I did the best I could.”

“That so?”

No, he thinks. But all he says is, “Shut up and get out of my way.”

“I’m coming with you.”

He shoves past her. “No, you ain’t.”

She saunters after him, not as a trailing puppy but rather as someone confident in her inevitability to catch up. “Maybe I can help you.”

“I don’t need help. I do this alone.”

“You need me.”

“You’re the enemy.”

“Seems like maybe you’re the one who’s on the wrong side of this. Those thugs who shot at us – they were Organization men, weren’t they?”

He doesn’t say anything.

Finally, she asks, “You got a plan, then?”

He turns. Teeth grinding so hard they could mill wheat. “I’m gonna find out who killed Casimir Zoladski. Prove it wasn’t Nora.”

“Your daughter says she did the deed.”

“What?” The air, sucked out of his lungs. “She tell you that?”

“She passed that message along. To your buddy. The goat-man.”

Now: fire in his lungs. In his belly. Up his throat. “Werth came to you?”

“Mm-hmm. Was planning on killing her. Maybe killing all of us. She got the better of him. We roughed him up pretty good. She sent him home with a message: she killed Zoladski’s grandson. Heir to the throne.”