Page 25 of So Smitten

He paled another shade but somehow managed a defiant look. “You can’t threaten me. The cops use me as an informant. I’m valuable to them.”

Faith hadn’t worked with CI’s before, but she was willing to bet that Keenan wasn’t nearly as valuable as he thought he was. Still, she would much rather he talked now than force them to go through the hassle of charging him and performing a formal interrogation.

She looked at Michael, who nodded and said, “that’s a good point, Keenan. Here’s another idea. We drive you back to the club, where we thank you loudly and publicly for your help in the Harris case and promise you that as long as you continue to provide valuable information to us, we’ll see to it that you’re handsomely rewarded for your trouble.”

Keenan looked like he might be sick.

“I like that idea,” Faith said. “Clap you on the shoulder, call you a good citizen, tell you to enjoy your night with Yadira. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

“You two are evil,” Keenan complained. “You know that?”

“You don’t want to talk to us about evil,” Faith said.

Keenan sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He shook his head bleakly and said, “You know you could be getting me killed by asking me this stuff, right?”

“I know that people are already getting killed,” Faith countered, “and that you know more than you told us the last time we talked. That makes me a lot less concerned about your safety.”

“All right,” he said, “I get it. Fine.” He looked around the diner, where once more, there was only the odd elderly couple and harried family of below-school-aged children. “Look, I’m not supposed to know this, okay? I don’t just mean I’m not supposed to tell you, I mean I’m not supposed to know it in the first place.”

“And we care about that because…?” Michael said.

“I know you don’t care,” Keenan spat. “But I do, and that means if I’m going to tell you, I need some guarantees.”

“You’re not in a position to demand anything, Keenan,” Faith said.

“Well, if people find out it’s me talking, I’m going to get killed, and then you’ll have a new murder to solve. So how about we save me some pain and you some work, and you promise me that my name never comes up. You don’t even use the word CI. You don’t talk about sources. You just say that you learned this fact or discovered that fact and leave it at that. Can we agree on that, at least?”

“You give us something useful,” Faith said, “and you have my word I forget your name and face the moment this case is over.”

“Good,” Keenan said. He turned to Michael. “What about you?”

“Believe me, kid, I have better things to do than railroad a two-bit john. You help us out, I will gladly erase the memory of you from my mind.”

“The feeling is mutual, agent,” Keenan replied.

He looked at Turk, who watched him with a calm, half-bored expression.

After a moment, Keenan nodded and said, “Okay. Here’s what I know. Harris ran a dog-fighting ring in the inner city. He had his boys handle it: finding locations, finding dogs, setting up fights, taking bets, collecting, all that stuff. You know how the mob used to run boxing back in the day?” Faith nodded. “Well, it’s the same thing here. You want to fight dogs in Atlanta, you go through H. Or at least, you used to. Now that he’s out, I have no idea what’ll happen. There’s a power vacuum and a half going on now. If you think it’s good riddance that H is out of the picture, you have another thing coming. Things are gonna get heavy here real quick.”

“So Harris ran the ring,” Faith interjected, “What about Vincent Mariano? What’s his connection?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Keenan said, “I know he was an errand boy for them. I know he was a little more… respected… of an errand boy than me.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I do intern shit. Bring me coffee, bring me lunch, bring me drycleaning… stuff like that. Mariano did actual work for them, but I don’t know what.”

“So you couldn’t tell me if he ever procured dogs for Harris?”

“No,” Keenan said, “I can’t tell you what he did ever besides refuse a lapdance from Carla. Can’t trust a man who don’t want no lapdances from Carla. She’s got an ass like—”

“Let’s not talk about girls,” Michael said, “case only.”

“I mean, I don’t really know anything else,” Keenan said, “Just that Mariano worked for them running errands. If you want my opinion, I’ll tell you that I’m pretty sure he was running dogs just like he was running drugs and girls, but I don’t think you want my opinion.”

“Almost never,” Faith agreed, “but in this case, I think you might be right. I want you to ask around and see what you can learn about this ring. I’ll be back to talk to you later.”

Keenan chuckled mirthlessly. “You don’t know nothing about gangs, do you, agent? You don’t ask around for anything. You hear things, and unless the things you hear are said about you or to you, you act like you didn’t hear them. I can keep my ears open, but I doubt like hell I’m going to hear anything about the dogs.”

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