“You hear that, Miguel?”
“Yeah, I heard it,” Miguel said.
“That’s very generous of you, Ricky.”
Pinkie took a bite, then pointed at the empty seat across from Miguel and motioned for Ricky to take it.
“I’m fine,” Gennaro said.
“Pinkie wasn’t asking if you wanted to,” Miguel said. “Toomey?”
Toomey shoved Gennaro from behind, and Gennaro stumbled into the chair.
“Careful, Ricky,” Pinkie said. “You could hurt yourself.”
Gennaro straightened up and looked at Pinkie. “Sorry about…” He trailed off as he noticed two more men through the doorway to the kitchen, behind Pinkie.
The guy standing was one of Pinkie’s regulars, Scotty something or other. What bewildered Gennaro, however, was the gagged guy with zip-tied hands sitting in a chair in front of Scotty.
Picking up on his confusion, Pinkie glanced over his shoulder. “That’s right. You know Stefan, don’t you?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Funny story, that. Stefan apparently has some kind of beef with you. I was worried whatever he had in mind might interfere with our chat. So, I did us both a favor and got him out of the way.”
“I don’t have beef with him,” Gennaro said. “I barely know him.”
Stefan shouted something unintelligible through the gag. Scotty slapped him in the back of the head, putting a quick end to the outburst.
“He seems a bit unbalanced, so that doesn’t surprise me,” Pinkie said.
“We’re not here to talk about your friend, though,” Miguel said.
“No, we are not.” Pinkie looked pointedly at the seat he wanted Gennaro to take.
The chair, Gennaro realized, was close to one of the two guns he hid in clips under the table.
As Gennaro sat, he nonchalantly slid the briefcase under the table.
“No, no, no,” Pinkie said. “You should set that up here. There’s plenty of room.”
“It’s okay. It’s fine down—”
“Toomey,” Miguel said.
Toomey grabbed the briefcase and set it on the table between Gennaro and Pinkie.
The Range Rover was parkeda block down and around the corner from the house Gennaro and the other guy had just gone into.
Jack reached for his door handle.
“Hold on,” Stone said. “I think going in unarmed is a bad idea.”
“I’m not unarmed,” Jack said and lifted the flap of his jacket, exposing a pistol in a shoulder holster.
“Well, I am.”
“Mr. Barrington, if I may,” Alicia said.
