“And the video?” I asked, ignoring his comment. “Have you finished watching it?”
“Sure, I watched the parts when we were, uh, when you weren’t looking out the window. I watched it over and over again. No one went into the building. No one came down the fire escape or went up it. You’re sure there’s no other entry or exit to that building?”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and wrapped my hands over my face. By this stage I really did need to shave, and I noticed then that Baxter had taken the liberty of using one of my razors, judging by his smooth jaw. “There’s no room for it in the plans, and my contacts assured me that there were no other entrances or exits. But perhaps they were wrong. I suppose someone could have gone over the roof, but—”
“—but the building’s not attached to any other, and whoever did something like that would have to jump an alley, or lay a plank down, or something. That sounds…complicated.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I really wasn’t in the mood to strategize about how our mark could have gotten himself killed while we were supposed to be watching him. “I’m still waking up. And for once, I’m starving. So why don’t we eat and then we can talk it through after?”
“That’s a great idea,” he said quickly, and then added, “and maybe we could get a whiteboard in here. I work better on whiteboards. I like to see the connections visually—”
“Let’s just focus on one thing at a time. Food first, then everything else.” Still, I couldn’t face another canned dinner or microwaved meal. It would be risky as hell to go out, but I knew one place where we would be safe.
Baxter was already looking through the cans in the kitchen area. “There’s chili,” he said doubtfully. “Or that gross ravioli stuff.”
“Forget that,” I said, standing and stretching wide until my back cracked. I did feel surprisingly better, and I had an unhappy suspicion that part of it was because of the great sex I’d had that morning. But I couldn’t think about that now, not with Baxter standing right there in front of me looking like six-foot-three of solid temptation. “I’ll take you to the best pizza joint in Brooklyn.”
Bax gave me a doubtful look. “Shouldn’t we be in hiding?”
“These people are friends of mine. Hand over my phone; I’ll give them a call.”
* * *
It did not take longbefore I began to regret taking Baxter to this particular pizza place, although I had a purpose beyond a decent dinner. Giuseppe, the owner, was more than happy to accommodate us. We came in by the back-alley entrance and through the kitchen to avoid any difficulties at the front. From the kitchen, he showed us through to a small back room, which he’d set up with a red-and-white checked tablecloth, two chairs intimately close around the table, and the customary fake flowers in a vase. To my embarrassment, he also had lit candles for us.
Baxter, who had been looking wary as we walked down the alleyway, started to chuckle. “Cozy,” he remarked. “Thanks, Giuseppe.”
“We’re not here on a date,” I sighed, but Giuseppe just wagged his finger at me.
“You don’t let me sit my favorite customer in the best seat in the restaurant? I have to make do here. You order anything you want on the menu, Mr. Messina, wine too. On the house, on the house.”
“You know I like to pay my way.”
Giuseppe shook his head vigorously. “And I won’t let you get away with it, not after what you’ve done for us, putting those Clemenzas back where they belong, in the gutter.” He made a spitting noise, though thankfully did not let anything fly from his lips. Then he looked at Bax. “This man of yours, you should be very proud of him,” he said, clapping Bax on the shoulder and shaking him as though Bax had just said something unflattering about me. “If not for him, every restaurant in Brooklyn would be crippled with debt.”
“I’m not his man,” I said hurriedly, but Bax wasn’t even listening.
“What do you mean? What did Angelo do for you?” he asked.
Giuseppe threw his hands in the air. “Don’t you watch the news? Those Clemenza assholes were always around here, demanding money if we wanted to keep in business, hurting people when they didn’t pay out. It was like the bad old days, which you don’t remember, kid, you’re too young, but the rest of us,weremember. There was a time when we were too afraid to open at night if we didn’t have the cash to pony up when the Clemenzas rolled in. It was getting like that again the last few years, but this man—” He wagged a finger at me again. “This man of yours, he put his foot down. Now we have no worries anymore. No worries at all.”
“Oh, right,” Bax said slowly. “But don’t you have to pay protection money to the Morellis now?”
Giuseppe’s eyes went wide and he looked back and forth between me and Bax. “Who’s this virgin you got with you, Mr. Messina?”
Bax looked like he was about to start arguing about the status of his virginity, so I put my arm around Giuseppe’s shoulders and led him diplomatically to the door. “Thank you, old friend. We do appreciate it. And if you’ll do me one more favor, put in a call to our mutual acquaintance?”
His eyes gleamed. “Of course, of course. You sit now, eat.”
“Don’tthey just have to pay protection money to you Morellis now?” Bax asked once we were seated at the table.
I moved my chair a little way around so we weren’t quite so close. “What have I said about asking questions about my job?”
Bax looked dubious, but he didn’t ask again. Instead, we enjoyed the best pizza that Brooklyn had to offer, and I watched Baxter’s face closely as he took his first bite. It was not dissimilar to the expression he had had this morning in bed, I mused, and then quickly changed my thoughts to another direction as I took a sip of the wine and noted with gratitude that it was, actually, very good.
“I’m going to suggest again, Bax, that you think about running back to your flock. They might keep you locked up in the pen for a while, but they’ll let you out again to gambol soon enough.”
He scowled at that, and chewed fast on the mouthful he had. “I wish you’d stop insinuating that I’m a sheep,” he snapped once he’d swallowed. “And I told you, you can kick me out if you want, but I’m not going back to the task force without evidence of who actually committed these crimes.”
