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“I’ve been asked to look into the conviction of A Free Man. There are those who believe he was set up to be killed and then, when that failed, framed.”

“You got ID?”

I held up my PI’s license in its leather folder.

“Hand it here,” Lamont said.

He took the ID and held it like he had the mirror. Then he sniffed and handed it back.

“Manny’s on death row, brother. What you think anybody could do ’bout that?”

“Maybe prove that Valence and Pratt were dirty and that they not only tried to kill Man, but they also killed, and in your case wounded, most of the rest of the Blood Brothers of Broadway.”

Charles’s right eye started fluttering. His smile turned, momentarily, into a sneer.

“Hurts like a mothahfuckah, you know, man?” he said.

“What does?”

“This pain in my back. They prescribed oxycodone, but I only take it on the weekends. I only take it then ’cause everybody deserves a li’l peace sometimes.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt bad for lamenting a few months in solitary confinement compared to what Lamont and all the other residents of Aramaya were experiencing.

“Who hired you?” Lamont asked.

“I can’t say.”

“Manny know you on the job?”

“Not yet.”

The smile came back to the gambler’s lips.

“You know once the state sentences a man to death you got to have DNA evidence or Jesus himself got to climb up out the ground.”

“DNA won’t help here,” I said.

“And J.C. busy,” Lamont agreed.

He looked past me over the water and I leaned back to perch on the weatherworn wood rail.

“What happened to you, Mr. Charles?”

That was the right question. He wasn’t going to worry about anybody but the man in his mirror.

“They shot me in the back,” he said. “Shot me five times and ran. They didn’t know how lucky I was, must’a thought I cheated at cards.”

“Gamblers shot you?”

“Fuck no. A gambler would give me a head shot. Any gambler know me knows my luck. Shit. I win when I wanna be losin’.”

“Was it Valence and Pratt?”

“Or somebody they worked with,” Lamont said. “They killed all the rest’a my friends, Lana’s in prison, and Tanya’s missin’—prob’ly dead. I say a prayer to Manny every night for gettin’ us some justice. You know them cops was bad, from drugs to hos. And you better believe they didn’t give a damn.”

“What did they do?”

“Sold drugs to kids and kids to child molesters. Then they blackmailed the child molesters. They took over private business like gamblin’ and killed anybody aksed why. Manny was a war hero and schoolteacher. How a mothahfuckah like that gonna turn his head an’ forget?”