It made me sick, the whole thing. I look back, whatever I turned out it wasn’t what I was intending. You think I planned what I became. You think I planned three jolts in the joint. I was young, I didn’t know what I wanted. But after that, I couldn’t want nothing decent, you know? All I was fit for was what I ended up doing, small-time nothings with the occasional spectacular screw-up. But I thought this thing what happened was long over. I thought I was past it. And then, twenty years later they’re looking for the suitcase? What the hell’s that all about, Victor?”

I didn’t have an answer for him then – my advice had been to make a deal, to give the story and the name of his old pal to the DA, to pay the price and put the thing behind him, a suggestion he said he’d have to think about but that I figured he’d ignore – and I didn’t have an answer for him now, but I would find one, yes I would. On the last day of his life, Joey Parma had given me a sordid piece of his sordid past, and now that his throat had been slashed I couldn’t just give it back.

Joey Cheaps might have been a sad sack no-account who still owed me my fee, but he was a client. That means something, to be a client. It means he gets my loyalty, whether he deserves it or not. It means he gets my absolute best for the price of an hourly fee. It means in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side for as long as there is a battle to be fought. And the final battle, far as I could see, was just beginning. So, I couldn’t just ignore what had happened, I couldn’t just ignore that my client was dead, that his killer was free, that his past had risen to swallow him whole. My life was imploding in on itself like the fizzling core of an atomic bomb, but a client was dead and something had to be done. Yes, something would have to be done.

But first things first.