"Something came over me."
"You're nuts."
She gave me a throaty chuckle. "Nuts enough to keep you interested, Slick. That's all I need."
I couldn't decide whether I wanted to kiss her or kill her.
The walkie-talkie squawked on the seat between us, and Broussard's voice popped through the speaker. " Poole, you got him?"
"Affirm. Taxi moving south on Purchase, heading for the expressway."
"Kenzie."
"Yeah?"
"Miss Gennaro with you?"
"Affirm," I said in my deepest voice. Angie punched my arm.
"Stand by. Let's see where he's going. I'm going to start walking back."
We listened to a minute or so of dead air before Poole came back on. "He's on the expressway and heading south. Ms. Gennaro?"
"Yeah, Poole."
"Are all our friends in place?"
"Every last one."
"Turn on your receivers and leave your position. Pick up Broussard and head south."
"You got it. Detective Broussard?"
"I'm heading west on Broad Street."
I put the car in reverse.
"We'll meet you at the corner of Broad and Batterymarch."
"Copy that."
As I left the garage, Angie turned on the boxy portable receiver in the backseat and adjusted the volume until we heard the soft hiss of Mullen's empty apartment. I cut through the parking ramp under Devonshire Place, took a left on Water, rolled through Post Office and Liberty squares, and found Broussard leaning against a street lamp in front of a deli.
He hopped in the car as Poole 's voice came over the walkie-talkie. "Getting off the expressway in Dorchester by the South Bay Shopping Center."
"Back to the old neighborhood," Broussard said. "You Dorchester boys just can't stay away."
"It's like a magnet," I assured him.
"Scratch that," Poole said. "He's taking a left on Boston Street, heading toward Southie."
I said, "Not a very strong magnet, however."
Ten minutes later we passed Poole's empty Taurus on Gavin Street in the heart of Old Colony Project in South Boston and parked half a block up. Poole 's last transmission had told us he was following Mullen into Old Colony on foot. Until he contacted us again, there wasn't much to do but sit and wait and look at the project.
Not a bad-looking sight, actually. The streets are clean and tree-lined and curve gracefully through red-brick buildings with freshly painted white trim. Small hedges and squares of grass lie under most first-floor windows. The fence encircling the garden is upright, rooted, and free of rust. As far as projects go, Old Colony is one of the most aesthetically pleasing you're apt to find in this country.
It has a bit of a heroin problem, though. And a teen suicide problem, which probably stems from the heroin. And the heroin probably stems from the fact that even if you do grow up in the prettiest project in the world, it's still a project, and you're still growing up there, and heroin ain't much but it beats staring at the same walls and the same bricks and the same fences your whole life.
"I grew up here," Broussard said, from the backseat. He peered out the window, as if expecting it to shrink or grow in front of him.
"With your name?" Angie said. "You can't be serious."
He smiled and gave her a small shrug. "Father was a merchant marine from New Orleans. Or 'Nawlins,' as he called it. He got in some trouble down there, ended up working the docks, in Charlestown and then Southie." He cocked his head toward the brick buildings. "We settled here. Every third kid was named Frankie O'Brien and the rest were Sullivans and Sheas and Carrolls and Connellys. And if their first name wasn't Frank, it was Mike or Sean or Pat." He raised his eyebrows at me.
I held up my hands. "Oops."
"So having a name like Remy Broussard...yeah, I'd say it toughened me up." He smiled broadly and looked out at the projects, whistled softly. "Man, talk about going home again."
"You don't live in Southie anymore?" Angie asked.
He shook his head. "Haven't since my dad died."
"You miss it?"
He pursed his lips and glanced at some kids running past on the sidewalk, shouting, throwing what appeared to be bottle caps at each other for no apparent reason.
"Not really, no. Always felt like a misplaced country boy in the city. Even in New Orleans." He shrugged. "I like trees."
He turned the frequency dial on his walkie-talkie, raised it to his lips. "Detective Pasquale, this is Broussard. Over."
Pasquale was one of the CAC detectives assigned to watch Concord Prison for any visitors who'd come to see Cheese. "This is Pasquale."
"Anything?"
"Nothing. No visitors since you guys yesterday."
"Phone calls?"
"Negative. Olamon lost phone privileges when