“Hit me with names,” I said.

He sighed and leaned down and patted his dog. Franz pressed against him, shivering, his gaze riveted on the small crowd. The high school kids had arranged themselves in a line of seven. Four jocks, three cheerleaders. None wore a hat despite the chill. They stood motionless as carvings. The presentation disquieted me because I didn’t understand what it meant. It annoyed me because I knew that was the point of the exercise.

Dr. Pruitt continued to dismiss their existence.

“June says that Badja knew what he was getting when he hired you.”

“Time will tell, sir. It always does.”

I rolled my neck and shoulders and ambled toward the students in their battle line.

“Wait,” he said. “You don’t want to fool with them.”

Oh, but I did.

Franz growled. He barked ferociously. I glanced back; the dog reared on his hind legs, barely restrained, lunging and snapping at the air. The sun was nearly down and the light in the trees congealed. Dusk tightened on the surrounding woods like a lover grasping a fistful of hair.

“Those aren’t children,” Dr. Pruitt called over the barking and snarling. I think that’s what he said.

Among my hidden talents is the ability to move quickly without seeming to increase stride. I rushed the group and it broke apart before I’d covered a dozen steps. Five drifted for the gate. A cheerleader and her guy pal stayed put until I’d closed within a few yards. Their uniforms were antiquated and the mascot was wrong—instead of a cartoon horsehead, it was the silhouette of a horse skull, except stretched and sinuous, curving back upon itself, jaws snapping at its own trailing spinal cord. The pair laughed at me, clasped hands, and split. I let them go. Debatable whether I could’ve caught them anyhow. Fleet as deer.

Dr. Pruitt was right. They weren’t kids.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

American gangster lore delights to depict the mob as an unstoppable force. A capo sends his goons to beat on a guy; they beat on a guy. Capo decides it’s curtains for a schlub; the schlub eats a bullet. That’s well and good, except not everybody who’s gotten crossways with the Family sits around waiting to catch a beating or an ice pick to the spine. People hide. People fight back. More people resist than you might think. Often, it doesn’t help much in the end, and yet it happens.

The Buffalo arm of the Outfit took a cut from traffic in Elmira and the satellite towns, albeit haphazardly. So much for the good old days. The mafia foothold in the north had radically declined since 1980. Pressure from the Feds, Russian mobs, and Native American gangs figured into that decline of splendor. The Family concentrated its activities on the City of Lights, the Great Lakes, and smuggling contraband across the Canadian border in cooperation with foreign criminal syndicates.

The Redlicks were the closest thing to a stable organized crime presence in Horseheads, and they had nothing to do with street-level work. Crooked deals went down in smoky back rooms and alleys, same as it ever was, but only a few loosely affiliated thugs exploited the market. Made my task a little more difficult since there wasn’t a central authority figure to lean on. So, I leaned on whoever didn’t scuttle away before I got my hands on them. Typical PI jobs are tedious because rich dirtbags and average joes require subtler tactics; they’re a protected class, as it were. Street- and trailer-park-level scum are cake. Traditionally, I’ve strong-armed hustlers and pimps with impunity. Who will they complain to in the absence of a syndicate? The cops? City hall?