Benton reads the papers several times a day, excavating the Internet, sending out queries on search engines to recover pieces of his past life. He knows all about Jean-Baptiste, the deformed, murderous son of Chandonne-the great Monsieur Chandonne, intimate friend of the noblesse in Paris, the head of the largest, most dangerous organized crime cartel in the world. Jean-Baptiste knows enough about his family business and those who carry out its terrible tasks to put everyone who matters behind bars or on a death-chamber gurney.

So far, Jean-Baptiste has bided his time in a maximum-security Texas prison, saying nothing to anyone. It was the Chandonne family and its massive web that Benton tangled with, and now, from thousands of miles away, Monsieur Chandonne sips his fine wines and never doubts that Benton has paid the ultimate price, a terrible price. Monsieur Chandonne was foiled, but in a way, he wasn't. Benton died a fake death to save himself and others from dying real ones. But the price he pays is Promethean. He may as well be chained to rocks. He cannot heal because his guts are torn out daily.

"Wolfman," as Marino usually refers to Jean-Baptiste, "says he'll finger everyone from his daddy on down to the butlers, but only under certain conditions." He hesitates. "He ain't fucking with us, either, Benton. He means it."

"You know that for a fact," Benton blandly says.

"Yeah. A fact."

"How has he communicated this to you?" Benton's eyes take on a familiar intensity as he goes into his mode.

"Letters."

"Do we know who he's been writing, besides you?"

"The Doc. Her letter was sent to me. I haven't given it to her, see no point."

"Who else?" Lucy.

"Hers also sent to you?"

"No. Directly to her office. I got no idea how he got the address or knew the name The Last Precinct, when she doesn't list it. Everybody thinks her business is called Infosearch Solutions."

"Why would he know that people like Lucy and you refer to her business as The Last Precinct? If I logged on to the Internet right now, would I find any mention of The Last Precinct?"

"Not the one we're talking about, you wouldn't."

"Would I find Infosearch Solutions?"

"Sure."

"Is her office phone number listed?" Benton asks.

"Infosearch Solutions is."

"So maybe he also knows the listed name of her business. Called directory assistance and got the address that way. Actually, you can find just about anything on the Internet these days and for less than fifty bucks, even buy unlisted and cell phone numbers."

"I don't think Wolfman has a computer in his death-row cell," Marino says in annoyance.

"Rocco Caggiano could have fed him all kinds of information," Benton reminds him. "At one time he had to have Lucy's business number, since he planned to depose her. Then, of course, Jean-Baptiste pled."

"Sounds like you keep up with the news." Marino tries to divert the conversation away from the subject of Rocco Caggiano.

"Did you read the letter he wrote to Lucy?"

"She told me about it. Didn't want to fax or e-mail it." This bothers Marino, too. Lucy didn't want him to see the letter.

"Any letters to anybody else?"

Marino shrugs, sips his beer. "Not a clue. Obviously, he ain't writing to you." He thinks this is funny.

Benton doesn't smile.

"Because you're dead, right?" Marino assumes Benton doesn't catch the joke. "Well, in prison, if an inmate marks his outgoing letters Legal Mail or Media Mail, it's illegal for officials to open them. So if Wolfman's got any legal and media pen pals, the information's privileged."

He begins picking at the label on his beer bottle, talking on as if Benton knows nothing about the inner workings of penitentiaries, where he has interviewed hundreds of violent criminals during his career.

"The only place to look is his visitors list, since a lot of the people these squirrels write also come visit. Wolfman's got a list. Let's see, the governor of Texas, the president…"

"As in president of the United States?" Benton's trademark is to take all information seriously.

Marino says, "Yup."

It unnerves him to see gestures and reactions that are the Benton of the past, the Benton he worked with, the Benton who was his friend.

"Who else?" Benton gets up and collects a legal pad and pen from tidy stacks of paperwork and magazines next to the computer on the kitchen table.

He slips on a pair of wire-rim glasses, very small, John Lennon-style, nothing he would have worn in his former life. Sitting back down, he writes the time, date and location on a clean sheet of paper. From where Marino sits, he makes out the word "offender," but beyond that, he can't read Benton's small scrawl, especially upside down.

Marino answers, "His father and mother are on the list. Now that's a real joke, right?"

Benton's pen pauses. He glances up. "What about his lawyer? Rocco Caggiano?"

Marino swills beer in the bottom of the bottle.

"Rocco?" Benton says with more emphasis. "You going to tell me?"

Fury and shame dart across Marino's face. "Just remember, he ain't mine, didn't grow up with me, don't know him, don't want to know him, would blow his fuckin' brains out just as easy as any other dirtbag's."

"Genetically, he's your son, whether you like it or not," Benton replies matter-of-factly.

"I don't even remember when his birthday is." Marino dismisses his only child with a wave of a hand and a last slug of Budweiser.

Rocco Marino, who changed his surname to Caggiano, was born bad. He was Marino's shameful, dirty secret, an abscess he showed to no one until Jean-Baptiste Chandonne loped onto the scene. For most of Marino's life, he believed that Rocco's curdled choices were personal-the harshest punishment he could levy on the father he despises. Oddly, Marino found some comfort in that. A personal vendetta was better than the humiliating and painful truth that Rocco is indifferent to Marino. Rocco's choices have nothing to do with Marino. If anything, Rocco laughs at Marino, his father, and thinks he is a Keystone-Kop loser who dresses like a pig, lives like a pig and is a pig.

Rocco's reappearance in Marino's world was a coincidence-"a funny as hell coincidence," in Rocco's own words-when he stopped long enough to speak to his father outside the courtroom door after Jean-Baptiste Chandonne's arraignment. Rocco has been in deep with organized crime since he was old enough to shave. He was a toady, scumbag lawyer for the Chandonnes long before Marino had ever heard of them. "We know where Rocco's spending his time these days?" Benton asks. Marino's eyes turn as dark and flat as old pennies. "Possibly-very possibly-we will soon enough."

"Meaning?"

Marino leans back against the couch, as if the conversation pleases him and pumps up his ego. "Meaning he's got tin cans tied to his ass this time and don't know it."

"Meaning?" Benton asks again.

"Interpol's flagged him as a fugitive, and he ain't aware of it. Lucy told me. I'm confident we're going to find him and a lot of other assholes."

"We?"

Marino shrugs again, tries to take another swallow of beer and gulps air. He belches, thinks about getting up for a refill.

"We is collectively speaking," he explains. "We as in us good guys. Rocco's going down because he's gonna traipse through an airport and his little Red Notice is gonna pop up on a computer and next thing, he's got a nice pair of shiny handcuffs on and maybe an AR-fifteen pointed at his head."

"For what crimes? He's always gotten away with his dirty work. That's part of his charm."

"All I know is there are warrants on him in Italy."

"Says who?"

"Lucy. I'd give anything to be the one who points that AR-fifteen at his head, only I'd pull the trigger for sure," Marino says, believing he means it, but unable to envision it. The images won't come.