“I don’t speak to him.”

“Don’t let him touch you.”

“It’s not like that.”

The wind blew hard across the harbor and through the three block buildings and up and over the hills into the Atlantic. The boy pushed his hands deep into his pockets, feeling a little food he’d taken from the cafeteria. He wasn’t supposed to take extra food, but he needed it. The fever had drained a lot of energy from him and made him weak.

“Everyone is talking about you,” Dillon said. “They think you’re the new Tony Ponessa.”

“What happened to the old Tony?”

“They got him cleaning shit off the south part of the shore,” Dillon said. “Or that’s what I heard anyway. People aren’t afraid of him anymore. They know he’s no longer top dog for Robocop.”

“What’s wrong with that guy, anyway?”

Dillon turned to look at the boy. He shrugged. “What’s wrong with all these people?” he said. “They all know it’s wrong. They just want to punch the clock and leave this place. You see the look on their faces? All the guards and the people who serve that shitty food? They look like freakin’ zombies. No one will look you in the eye. You notice that? They can’t stand what they’re doing.”

“I’ve gone long past caring.”

“You don’t talk like that,” Dillon said. “You talk like that and they own you.”

“What do you know?”

“I know I’m getting out of here.”

“Same as you came?”

The wind came up hard again and Dillon pulled his jacket up higher onto his neck. He wore a knit winter hat that read MCC. Both boys had on a pair of cheap work boots made in China. Dillon spit on the ground. “I’m freakin’ gone.”

“When?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t know. They pulled me aside today.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I don’t know,” Dillon said. “Not something you want to brag about.”

“Are you shitting me?” he said. “I’d be jumping up and down if they said I could go. Shit, I’d swim across the freakin’ bay to the aquarium and walk naked out onto Atlantic Avenue. Good for you.”

“My mom,” Dillon said. “My mom did it.”

“Good for you,” the boy said. His voice sounded weak.

“I’ll try and help.”

The boy watched the kids in heavy winter clothes playing a rough game. There were a lot of elbows and head butts before the ball would zing into the goal. The ball ricocheted off the backboard with a heavy, dull thud. The work boots on the concrete pounded loud and hard.

“Just don’t come back,” the boy said. “Promise me that. Don’t ever come back.”

Dillon looked to the boy. He nodded.

“Maybe I can help.”

“Nah,” the boy said. “I’ll see it out.”

“My mom, she’s smart,” Dillon said. “If she can do it for me, she can do it for you.”

“All this is fucked up,” the boy said. “I’ll look you up when I get back.”

“I’ll be gone.”

The boy smiled. Dillon offered an open hand and they shook as the guards called for final lineup before heading back to the pod.

42

Whitehead arranged for me to meet a convict by the name of Ray-Ray Barboza at nine the next morning. The Coleman state pen was about an hour and a half from St. Pete, and I left early, driving north on I-75 with a cup of weak coffee and a cold bagel. Hawk was meeting the woman in the purple bathing suit for a leisurely brunch at the Vinoy. He mentioned omelets and fresh-squeezed juice.

I had the feeling, but no proof, they’d had dessert the night before.

The prison, like all maximum-security prisons, was a maze of many checkpoints. I checked in at the front gate, the front office, and through a few more posts before a guard ushered me to a meeting room. The room looked the same as they did in the movies, cinder-block walls, Plexiglas barriers, and an old-fashioned handset to communicate with the prisoner.

I left my gun locked in the rental. I came armed with only a smile and my winning personality.

I took a seat. In a couple minutes, a very unattractive middle-aged man sat across from me. He had longish, unruly black hair pulled into a ponytail, jug ears, and a busted nose. There was a big bruise on his forehead and scratches across his cheeks. Under his split lips, he kept the tiniest tuft of hair, which he stroked several times. When he looked directly at me, through the Plexi, I noticed he had both a brown eye and a black eye, giving him an almost canine appearance. I was relieved this wasn’t my first experience with speed dating.

I picked up the phone.

He did the same.

I told him Jamal Whitehead had sent me to him.

He shrugged and picked his nose. We were off to a famous start.

“I understand you used to work with Jackie DeMarco?” He met my eyes again. The two colors gave me a slight case of the creeps. He nodded. I continued. “And I heard you’re from Boston?”

“Revere,” he said. “I grew up in Revere.”

If he hadn’t said it, I might have guessed it by the accent. “You miss Kelly’s?”

He smiled, the effort of the broken lips seeming to hurt a little. “I’d freakin’ kill for one of those sandwiches about now,” Ray-Ray said.

I smiled back at the assassin. I couldn’t help myself.

“Maybe that’s a bad choice of words,” he said. Ray-Ray was no longer smiling, and sat stoop-shouldered and watching me from under a pair of bushy eyebrows.

I shrugged. “But you were down here doing some work for up there.”

He shrugged. Maybe we didn’t need the phone. Maybe we could communicate in a series of shrugs and nods, maybe a shake of the head. I could even tap out the Morse code I’d learned in the Army on the glass.

“Jackie set you up?” I said, already knowing the answer.

He nodded. “Flushed me down the freakin’ toilet.”

“Ever hear of him working with a guy named Gavin Callahan?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Joe Scali?” I said into the mouthpiece.

He again shook his head. I nodded. “How about a rich guy named Bobby Talos?” I said. “He’s a developer back home.”

I thought the back home was a particularly good touch to build a rapport. After Kelly’s, I planned to talk to him about how much the Sox were going to suck this year. Maybe tell him about the new indigo line on the T. A hundred years from now, it should be running smooth and on time. Someone could push his wheelchair up onto the platform.

“I don’t know those guys,” he said. “Sorry. What’s this about anyway?”

“Your old pal Jackie,” I said. “And two corrupt judges.”

He nodded. “Is there any other kind?”

“I thought you pled out,” I said. “To get out of . . . you know.”

“The death penalty?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That.”

Ray-Ray nodded in agreement. “I only did those two of the four they say,” he said. “But I was just the instrument, man. I wasn’t calling the shots.”

“And DeMarco is walking free.”

“Never so much as a Christmas card or a ‘Hey, how you doing?’ You know? He washed me off like I was shit on his Guccis.”

“Self-preservation,” I said.

“That’s why I agreed to help the Feds,” he said. “They don’t think I’ll be good on the stand because of things I done. And some lies I may have told. But they can make my life easier inside. If it puts the screws to Jackie down here? That works.”

I nodded. “What kind of stuff are they into down here?” I said.