I still had the sawed-off shotgun under my arm, so it was awkward, getting the front door open.

Cold came in, but I barely noticed. I don’t think Harry much noticed, either.

“What…?” he asked. “Where…?”

“Out on the lake,” I said, and nodded in that direction.

“…can I get my coat?”

“I don’t think so. I think the cold will keep you on your toes, and anyway, suppose you have a gun in your pocket, and I have to kill you, and mess up that beautiful Burberry. Which would be a fucking shame, plus which I’d have to make two trips, carrying Louis, and your fat ass.”

He swallowed, nodded, as if all that sounded reasonable enough. “Okay. I…there’s a shovel I could get…?”

“We won’t need it. Ground’s too hard, anyway.”

Harry looked at me, his eyes behind the glasses wary, glancing from me to his plastic-wrapped burden and back again.

I responded to the question his face was asking: “We’re going to bury Louis at sea.”

“Huh?”

Now I was noticing the cold. “Outside, Harry. My nipples are getting hard, and not in a good way. Okay? Outside.”

He moved past me, his plastic bundle over one shoulder-he might have been delivering a rug.

The chubby ex-gangster walked into the trees, heading toward the yawning white expanse of frozen water. I followed behind, nine millimeter in one hand, sawed-off in the other. Harry in his Hawaiian shirt was an oddly comic sight, but I was too busy to be amused.

As we wound through the pines, the snow got deeper, ankle deep in places. As his glasses got unfogged and made his trek easier, Harry made conversation.