“I could tell you where they’re holding Dawes,” Cal says quietly. “So you can shut his mouth for him, before he says too much. But I need to know who hired that hit on Riona.”
Zimmer lets out the last remaining smoke from his lungs.
“Alright,” he hisses quietly. “Alright.”
He sits up straighter on the couch, leaning forward on his knees and speaking so low that I can barely hear him.
“I didn’t broker the hit myself. But I heard about it.”
“Tell me what you know,” Cal says.
This is the first time Cal’s voice loses its casualness. There’s an edge to his tone now, and I see the stiffness in his shoulders. He’s angry, hearing it confirmed that someone dared hire a killer to attack his sister.
“I heard there was a hit happening, and nobody could know about it. It had to look like an accident.”
Cal gives a small, almost imperceptible nod. That’s what we guessed.
“It was expensive. They hired this guy they call the Djinn.”
“The Djinn?” Cal says, frowning like he doesn’t believe Zimmer. “What the fuck is that?”
“That’s his name,” Zimmer says defensively. “I don’t know his real name. Nobody does. You call him up—and he makes people disappear.”
“Fine,” Cal says, cutting to the point he cares about more than the identity of this hitman. “I don’t give a shit. I want to know who hired him.”
“I don’t know!” Zimmer says. “I don’t. When hits are hired, it’s a double-blind system. The client doesn’t know the hitman, and the hitman doesn’t know the client. It’s all anonymized. That way nobody can rat.”
Cal scowls, obviously wishing he’d implemented a similar system between him and Dawes.
“So where’s the snitch?” Zimmer demands.
“They’re holding him in MCC,” Cal says. “D Block.”
Zimmer nods.
Cal gets up from the couch, our business with Zimmer obviously concluded.
The hefty bouncer follows us all the way to the door, where we retrieve our guns.
“Don’t come back,” he grunts as he cracks the door for us once more.
Cal turns and fixes him with a cold stare.
“Don’t give me a reason to,” he says.
Even the air of the run-down rail yard tastes fresh after the inside of that warehouse. We head back to the Escalade, which is mercifully untouched. No doubt anyone watching recognized Callum and knew better than to fuck with his ride.
It was bizarre watching the charming and well-bred politician melt away so I could see the Irish gangster underneath. It’s easy to see the Griffins for what they are today—one of the most wealthy and successful families in Chicago. You forget that their empire was built on blood and crime. That Fergus Griffin, and his father before him, and his grandfather before him, had no scruples about crushing anyone who got in their way. I suspect Callum is the same.
“You don’t care if he kills Dawes?” I say to Cal.
“Why would I?” Callum fixes me with his icy blue eyes. “He’s a low-level criminal, not even loyal to his own boss. I don’t give a fuck about him. I’d strangle him with my bare hands to keep Riona safe.”
I nod. “Fair enough.”
I let Cal do the talking in there, because he knows these people and I don’t. But I want to get to know this so-called Djinn. If I’m going to protect Riona, I need to know who he is, and how he works.
For that reason, I call Dante and ask him to meet me at the Griffins’ house.
He gets there around 1:00 p.m., carrying a large bag of Thai food. He spreads it out across the long marble countertop, saying to Riona, “Take a break and eat with us.”
Riona sets down her pen, tempted by the scent of chicken satay and coconut rice.
“Alright,” she says.
Cal, Riona, Dante, and I all dish up large plates of food. Cal and Riona use chopsticks, but Dante and I grab forks out of the silverware drawer. Fucking around with wooden sticks is the reason you don’t see a lot of overweight Thai people, I bet.
While we eat, Cal recaps our meeting with Zimmer.
Dante doesn’t look pleased at all when he hears the name “Djinn.”
“You know him?” I ask.
“I don’t know him,” Dante says. “But I know he’s fucking expensive. The best you can get around here. A professional.”
I glance over at Riona to see how she’s taking this.
She’s picking at her Pad Thai, obviously not thrilled to know that the person hired to kill her is a little too good at his job.
“Hey,” I say to her. “We’ll find him.”
“I’d rather find the person who hired him,” Riona says.
“I went and met with the Russians this morning,” Dante tells us. “Yenin denied having anything to do with it. But he looked pretty fucking pleased about it all the same. And I doubt he’d tell us if it was him.”
“We need to find out more about the Djinn,” I say. “And check the other two people Riona mentioned having a possible grudge.”
“I’ll look up the Hartford family,” Dante says.
“And I’ll find the guy Uncle Oran fired,” Cal says.
Riona pushes her plate away, having hardly touched her food.
“I’m going back to work,” she says. “Sounds like you all have it covered.”
9
Riona
The week that follows is extremely strange.
I’m not used to having another person with me constantly. Raylan stays by my side morning and night, no matter what I’m doing. I think he’d stand outside my shower if I let him.
I appreciate that he’s taking the job seriously, but I like my alone time. I’m cognizant of him constantly watching me, even when I’m trying to work or read or exercise.
I guess it could be worse. His company isn’t entirely unpleasant. He insists on cooking for both of us. “ ‘Cause otherwise I’d starve,” he says, apparently feeling that the volume and frequency of my meals leaves something to be desired. And he is a good cook. He makes pasta carbonara with fresh basil, bacon, and peas, and a citrus-marinaded chicken that he serves over risotto.
As I suspected during our dinner with Dean, Raylan is pretty damn smart under that country-boy schtick. While I’m working, he’s often reading. He goes through half the books on my shelf, reading The Bell Jar, Life After Life, Barkskins, and The Devil in the White City all in one week.
“What do you mostly read?” I ask him, curious about his taste.
“I like any book that puts you inside somebody’s head,” he says. “Like this Devil in the White City one. Have you read it?”
I nod.
“This H.H. Holmes guy. He’s pretty fucked up. But it makes me curious, anyway. Trying to see why he did all the things he did.”
Raylan is observant. His laid-back attitude doesn’t fool me. It’s obvious that he sees everything, and files it away.
“You like watching people,” I say.
“Yeah,” he nods. “I do.”