I laughed. “Beyond that.”

She pulled the sheet over her face in mock exasperation. “You’re about to talk work, aren’t you?”

“Sorry.”

She popped out with a sigh. “Lay it on me. Uh, I mean continue.”

“Bobby Lee never had a good word for anyone that I can discern. But he was hugging that Prince guy like a brother.”

“And?”

“I wonder, did Bobby Lee ever have a confidant?”

“I can’t imagine it.”

I couldn’t either. But I also knew that for a brief period in the Institute, Crayline had confided bits of his past to my brother and was even, at one point, moved to weeping. The public tends to view serial killers as freaks of nature, which is wrong. They’re almost always freaks of nurture, or non-nurture, to be specific, coming from families and backgrounds so dysfunctional and often savage that the average person would find it hard to believe such treatment could be given an animal, much less a human being. Usually, the killers’ humanity got destroyed along the way. They might hurt and kill with impunity, but sometimes, deep within, beat a morsel of heart that craved contact with reality.

“I think you ought to talk to this Prince guy,” I told Cherry. “It’s possible Crayline confided in him.”

“Oh sure, Crayline told Prince he was going to kill people.”

“Not that. But maybe something to help us unlock Crayline. I remember Slezak saying the XFL was operated out of Louisville. How far is that from here?”

“Two hours. This means I have to get dressed, right?”

“Not quite yet.”

Before we committed to the trip, a friendly voice had called the organization, representing a company wanting to deliver Mickey Prince a case of steaks, the caller figuring Prince got lots of yummy gifts from people wanting to cash in on his success.

“Prime filets frozen in dry ice, ma’am,” the caller had claimed. “Will Mr Prince be in today to take them home? Or should we wait delivery to another day?”

“Mista Prince is in the oh-uh-fus until tomorra aft’noon,” the receptionist had trilled in an accent thick enough to cause the caller to picture her in an antebellum dress and sunbonnet, sitting side-saddle in her chair. “He’ll be dee-lighted. Mista Prince luuuves a good steak.”

By ten thirty we were standing in the Louisville lobby of X-Ventures. The receptionist was not as pictured. “Did y’all have an appointment with Mr Prince?” the woman challenged, not calling up hoop skirts and bonnets. This Clydesdale-sturdy woman conjured images of Slavic prison guards named Ulga, only with nattier tailoring.

“Appointments are so gauche,” I told Ulga, trying a lighthearted approach. “They impair spontaneity.”

Humor was not her métier. “Mister Prince is a busy man. You must have an appointment.”

“I understand. But inform Mr Prince that we’re here, please. In case he finds an opening in his schedule.”

“And exactly whom shall I say is calling?”

We showed our badges. Ulga made a phone call. She said nothing, just pointed us toward the back of the building, through the gym area. I suspected it was for effect, to show visitors this wasn’t an accounting firm. It was obvious a re-location was in progress, large moving boxes stacked in corners, several of them with the THIS END UP arrow pointing at the floor.

We walked down a fenced-off corridor to the side. A round fight ring centered the gym, in it a compact black guy was chasing a towering white guy backwards with a series of snap kicks. We passed a man whose torso was blue with tattoos, punching a wall-mounted board wrapped with sisal rope. His knuckles looked like raw meat. Two guys with shaved heads and brick-muscled bodies stood beside the guy, bellowing, Go! Go! Go!

There were another dozen fighters either working on strength machines or pumping iron, huge stacks of weights clanking up and down. A couple more were in a corner doing sit-ups. The room reeked of sweat and liniment and socks rotting in lockers.

Cherry wrinkled her nose. “This place smells like where stink was invented.”

A door opened in a windowed office at the far end. The man who stepped out resembled Sylvester Stallone, only re-decorated for the new millennium. His glossy black hair was carefully cut to make it look carelessly cut. Diamond studs brightened the ear lobes. Though slender of waist, Prince’s shoulders looked wide enough to lay dinner settings for two, and I took it the CEO spent time aplenty in the gym. He wore a dazzling sky-blue suit and an embroidered silk shirt open to display a tanned and fluffy chest. The requisite gold chains nestled in the fluff.

“Let’s not lead with Crayline’s death,” I side-mouthed. “See how it works out. And if I get weird with accusations, play along.”

“Si, Jefe,” Cherry mouthed.

The man walked up, hand out. “I’m Mickey Prince,” he announced. It was unnecessary, as a large nameplate beside the door proclaimed his name in four-inch silver-flake letters.

“We got a couple questions about a fighter, Mr Prince,” I said. “No big deal.”

“Hey, if Alberto Ventura beat up his girlfriend again, I don’t want to hear. I’m sorry I signed his work papers. Send his sorry ass to the border and kick it back into Mexico.”

“Don’t know Ventura,” I said, turning to eyeball the boxes. “Looks like you’re moving.”

“Vegas. Be gone in two weeks. Got four full floors on top of one of the biggest buildings on the strip. We’re negotiating to buy the building.”

I hoped there were good breezes high up on the new building. Maybe if they opened the windows the new place wouldn’t smell like the old one.

Prince said, “OK, you’re not here about Ventura, so lemme guess. Did Ironman Michaels bust up a hotel room again?”

Cherry said, “We’re here about Bobby Lee Crayline, Mr Prince.”

Prince’s smile turned sour. “Bobby Lee never ever calls me. I always tell you guys I’ll let you know if he tries to get in touch. Why keep bugging me?”

Prince was thinking we were asking if Crayline had been in touch. I imagine he got called monthly by the investigators in Alabama.

A big fighter who’d been kicking a bag a couple dozen feet away saw Prince’s unhappiness and appeared beside us. His neck was tattooed and his face looked like a shark.

“Need any help, Mr Prince?”

Cherry whipped out her shield, held it to the shark. “Private conversation, sweet-ums. Beat it before I ask your name and check your priors.”

The guy flared his nostrils as if breathing fire and slumped away. Prince nodded to the door at his back. “Let’s take this to my office.”

Which turned out to be a ponderous mahogany desk in a room cluttered with more boxes. He pulled a pair of folding chairs to the front of the desk, then sat in a black leather Herman Miller chair that looked as if it had been stripped from a jet fighter.

“You started out here?” Cherry asked. “In Louisville?”

“Over ten years back. The gym’s gonna stay open, one of our franchise training spots. We’re gonna have three dozen across the country by next year.”

“Sounds like you make decent money,” Cherry said.

“No,” Prince smiled. “We make big money.”

“Kinda big?” I asked. “Or kick-ass big?”

Prince leaned back in his sleek seat. “Last XFL bout on pay-per-view TV? We had one point seven million tune-ins at fifty bucks per. Plus we got magazines, posters, T-shirts. Action figures are next. And I haven’t even added in the arena revenue.”

“What kind of audience do you have?” I asked.

“Guys hot for action. Young guys, mainly. The best demo out there.”

“Demo like short for demonstration?” Cherry said, mystified by marketing-speak.

“Demo like demographic: age, income, education. There’s also the psychographic … basically the mindset of the consumer. What he or she needs to feel fulfilled.”

“Violence,” Cherry speculated. “Men tearing one another apart.”