But the rules are the rules: You can’t lay hands on a boss’s kid.

And you can’t refuse him hospitality.

Frank doesn’t like it, though, as he leads them into his place. For one thing, he doesn’t like letting them get the lay of the land, in case they come back later to try something. Second, it’s not a good idea in case they ever flip and take the witness stand. It will be harder for him to deny that a meeting ever happened if they can accurately describe what the inside of his house looked like.

On the other hand, he knows his house isn’t wired.

He pats them both down the second they come in.

“No offense,” he says.

“Hey, these days…,” Mouse Junior says.

No kidding, these days, Frank thinks. This is probably what this little sit-down is about anyway-Mouse Senior sending Mouse Junior down to get reassurance that Frank is still on the reservation.

Because Mouse Senior hasn’t been named on the Goldstein hit, even though he was the one who ordered it done, and Frank knows it.

Like Mouse Senior is so careful, Frank thinks. For three years, three years, back in the late eighties, Bobby “the Beast” Zitello was wearing a wire, while Mouse Senior thought the sun shone out of his ass. Bobby’s “Greatest Hits” album went platinum and put half the family in the joint for fifteen years. Now Mouse Senior is out, and he doesn’t want to go back in.

But the Goldstein thing might put them all in the can for good. Poor Herbie got clipped back in ’97 and a couple of low-level mokes confessed to it. But there’s no statute of limitations on murder, and the Goldstein killing has come back like a ghost. The feds have been all over it lately, as part of Operation Button Down, their attempt to put the last nail in Mouse Senior’s coffin. What probably happened is the two mooks found out they didn’t like prison so much and decided to trade up. For all Frank knows, Mouse Senior might be under a sealed indictment and be looking to make some trades of his own.