The Wrong Man by David Ellis

was it?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “Let me pull it up.” Her eyes moved along the computer screen. “Lorenzo Fowler? Hey, wasn’t he—”
    “Shit.” I jumped off my couch and read over Shauna’s shoulder. Lorenzo Fowler, age fifty-two, reputed lieutenant in the Capparelli crime family, found dead on the 2700 block of West Arondale. The article was complete with a photograph of poor Lorenzo slumped against a glass door that read T ATTERED C OVER N EW & U SED B OOKS .
    “A bullet through the throat and one through each kneecap,” Shauna moaned. “Ouch.”
    I revisited our meeting. Lorenzo was in the soup, or so he thought, for the beating of a strip club owner. He wanted to make a trade with the prosecutors, if it ever came to that—the name of the Capparellis’ assassin of choice.
    “Do you have an alibi for last night?” Shauna asked me.
    “Wow. Lorenzo Fowler.”
    “Seriously, Jason. Did he tell you anything that would be helpful to the police?”
    “Sure,” I said. “I’ll just run over there and give a full interview with the police and breach the attorney-client privilege. While I’m at it, I’ll stop by the state supreme court’s chambers and turn in my law license.”
    Shauna turned back to look at me. “I’m your law partner, pal. The privilege holds. Did he give you anything?”
    Poor Lorenzo. Sounds like his fear was well-founded.
    “He gave me Gin Rummy,” I said. “The name of a Mob hit man. Actually, he didn’t like that term. He preferred ‘assassin.’”
    I read through the article again. Gunshots to the throat and kneecaps. The throat was the only one they needed. The shots to the kneecaps would have been gratuitous. It was punitive.
    A message, delivered along with the kill.

15.
    I met Tori outside Deere Hall, the primary building in the city campus of St. Margaret’s College. She was wearing the same long white coat, a gray wool cap, and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She appeared amid a flood of students through the Gothic arched doorway, caught my eye, and bounded down the stairs. She didn’t smile—I hadn’t yet seen her smile—but it wasn’t an unpleasant expression, either. Guarded, in a word.
    Daylight was evaporating, and it was growing cold as we walked down the street. There were still patches of ice mixed with dirty slush on the walk.
    “What do you study?” I asked.
    She looked at me. “Math.”
    “What do you do with a math degree?”
    “You teach. At least, I will.”
    “What age?”
    “Oh, probably young kids,” she said.
    “You like kids?”
    She didn’t answer. It was a dumb question. Why would she want to teach kids if she didn’t like them?
    “You have any kids of your own?” I tried.
    “No kids.”
    I took a breath. It hit me that there could be a return volley, the same question put back to me. But she didn’t ask. She just looked me over for a moment as we walked.
    “What do you do?” she asked.
    “I’m a lawyer.”
    “What kind?”
    “I represent criminals. Sorry, people accused of crimes.”
    “Is that hard?”
    “It can be. The prosecution has a lot more resources at its disposal. It’s usually a lopsided fight.”
    She was quiet for a moment. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “I know. You meant does it bother my conscience?”
    She turned to me again. “You like to tell people what they’re thinking, I’ve noticed. That’s a very male thing. Very alpha male.”
    “Is it? Am I asserting control?”
    “Something like that, yes.”
    “Maybe you should be majoring in psychology, Tori.”
    “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
    “Experience is the best psychoanalysis,” I said.
    “Who said that?”
    “I just did. I’m the only one walking next to you.”
    “That’s not what I m—”
    “I know. You meant who was I quoting?”
    She shook her head in bemusement. She had just passed a test. The test was whether she could tolerate my bullshit. For at least a couple minutes, apparently, she could.
    It