I smile without an ounce of hostility in my expression. “I’d say my ass is worth a lot more than afewfucking cigarettes, Detective.”
Van Hallen grunts. “Let’s not play around, Vialle. While your impending release certainly is no cause for celebration...you have a chance to really do some good for this city.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. My gaze drifts from Van Hallen to seek out the clock hanging on the wall beyond his head. Twenty minutes.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Detective. I can think of a few good things the city might be able to do formethough.”
Van Hallen struggles to keep his composure. I recognize him from the slew of pigs the DA paraded in and out during my sentencing hearing. Their spiel pretty much followed the samelines.This man is dangerous—we may not have evidence that he’s dangerous, but mark my words. He’s dangerous.How much did the commissioner have to bribe him to come here on his hands and knees?
“Twelve murders,” Van Hallen starts. “Three counts of extortion. Human trafficking. Those are the crimes we suspect Stacatto of committing this month alone.”
I extend my fingers, observing them in the blinding light. “Sounds like you’ve been busy, Detective.”
“This isn’t a fucking game,” Van Hallen snarls. He’s playing the bad-cop routine without his good-cop wingman. It’s an amusing effort.
I smile again and watch as his face becomes an alarming shade of red.
“Let’s try another name, huh?” he suggests. “Mathew ‘Mack’ Spigotti? Arnold Mackenzie?”
“Mackenzie...Mackenzie...” I raise an eyebrow and meet the detective’s gaze head on. “Hm... Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”
“So, all those years you ran around with those two in the streets never left an impression, huh? What about when you fought for Dino Mulligan?”
“Must be all those favors for cigarettes I had to earn,” I say coldly. “My memory’s a little fuzzy.”
“Okay,” Van Hallen spits. He reshuffles his papers and tries again. “Espisido Vialle. You’ve got to recognize at leastoneof those names.”
“One of them,” I admit, my entire body tensing the same way the hackles on a bulldog rise when someone gets too close to its territory.
His mentioning of Espi is a dangerous game to play. The bastard knows it. He doesn’t make eye contact this time.
“You wouldn’t be threatening me, Detective,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Now would you?”
Van Hallen doesn’t answer me directly. He rummages throughthe pages of my file and surfaces with three pictures, which he sets out in a line, just out of my reach. One is of a scrawny kid with tousled, black hair barely contained by the hood he has pulled over his head. His blue eyes stare off into the distance—it’s obvious he didn’t know that the picture was being taken. There’s a cigarette sticking out of his mouth, and I scoff at the sight. Little fucker knows better than to court cancer with that shit.
He’s grown up, though, in the years since I’ve been gone. His face has filled out, the baby fat melted down to reveal our inherited bone structure. He has the makings of a mustache budding over his lip. The longer I stare at the picture, the more I can sense something tense inside me. A human might refer to the emotion as guilt. I’ll write it off as irritation.
“Are your subordinates into kiddy porn?” I wonder, fixing the detective with an expression that makes him flinch. “That kid’s a minor.”
“He’s nineteen now, Vialle,” Van Hallen retorts, shaking his head. “Your little brother’s grown up some since you’ve seen him last. Sadly, he seems to have picked up some of your bad...habitsas well.” He points to the remaining two pictures.
They both depict graffiti that I assume is on the brick walls of the buildings uptown in the city. One of them is an elaborate six-pointed star. The other, the stylized drawing of a man with glowing, red eyes. Even in the grainy photo, I recognize the features.
“The kid’s quite an artist,” Van Hallen says. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t put his talent to good use. Remember Mackenzie? That man you claimed not to know? Well, your brother’s been running with him and his gang. TheGardai. Ringing any bells now?”
I flex my fingers, hearing the knuckles crack in unison. Arno really went with that fucking name? Go figure. The bastard loved showing off his so-called “Irish” heritage.
“Get to the point, Detective,” I grit out, my gaze on the slowly moving clock.
Van Hallen flashes a grin of his own. “This one”—he taps thepicture depicting the painted man—“was found this morning on a building deep in Stacatto’s territory. That’s one of Mackenzie’s tactics, as I’m sure you know. He sends men to mark areas he intends to hit—but if he goes after Stacatto...it could turn ugly. I don’t think you’d want your little brother in the middle of it.” His voice lowers an octave. The bastard might actually give a damn—which is why his precinct was desperate enough to come crawling to me.
“Sorry, Detective,” I say. “I’m not taking any last requests.”
Van Hallen has the nerve to seem pissed, though we both knew what my answer would be. “I’ll keep in touch,” he warns while tucking the photos back into my file. “It’s inevitable that you’ll be back here within the month. Dogs like you don’t escape the pound for too long. In fact, I’d give it a week.”
“And let’s remember why this dog got loose in the first place,” I throw back. The handcuffs click against the table’s surface when I lean forward, holding Van Hallen’s gaze.
To the old man’s credit, he doesn’t look away. Yet. There’s a twitch in his jaw, however. A bead of sweat forming on his brow. I’ve been told that my eyes are soulless or some shit. Intimidating. Once you kill a few men, your eyes stop beingjustbrown or blue, apparently. Shadows lurk inside them. Evil, they call it. Some days, I can even see it there myself. Van Hallen is no fool, and when I allow him to break the eye contact, he quickly gathers up his briefcase and shoves my file inside it.
