The Face

before the hit.”
        “Standard,” Ethan agreed.
        “But there’s no stolen-car report on the Benz they used. I got the number on the tags, and you won’t believe who it belongs to.”
        Hazard looked up from his folded hands. He met Ethan’s eyes.
        Although Ethan didn’t know what was coming, he knew it couldn’t be good. “Who?”
        “Your boyhood pal. The notorious Dunny Whistler.”
        [239] Ethan didn’t look away. He didn’t dare. “You know what happened to him a few months ago.”
        “Some guys drowned him in a toilet, but he didn’t quite die.”
        “Few days after that, his lawyer contacted me, told me Dunny’s will named me executor, and his living will gives me the right to make medical decisions for him.”
        “You never mentioned this.”
        “Didn’t see any reason. You know what he was. You understand why I didn’t want him in my life. But I accepted the situation out of… I don’t know… because of what he meant to me when we were kids.”
        Hazard nodded. He withdrew a roll of hard caramels from a coat pocket, peeled back the wrapping, and offered to share.
        Ethan shook his head. “Dunny died this morning at Our Lady of Angels.”
        Hazard pried a caramel from the roll, popped it in his mouth.
        “They can’t find his body,” Ethan said, for suddenly he sensed that Hazard already knew all this.
        Carefully folding the loose end of the wrapper over the exposed candy, Hazard said nothing.
        “They swear he was dead,” Ethan continued, “but considering how things work at the hospital morgue, he couldn’t have gotten out of there any way but on his own two feet.”
        Hazard returned the roll to his coat pocket. He sucked on the caramel, moving it around his mouth.
        “I’m sure he’s alive,” Ethan said.
        Finally Hazard looked at him again. “All this happened before we had lunch.”
        “Yeah. Listen, man, I didn’t mention it because I didn’t see how Dunny could be connected to Reynerd. I still don’t see how. Do you?”
        “You were one self-possessed dude at lunch, considering all this was churning through your head.”
        [240] “I thought I was going crazy, but I didn’t see how you’d be more likely to help me if I virtually told you I was losing my mind.”
        “So what happened after lunch?”
        Ethan recounted his visit to Dunny’s apartment, leaving nothing out except the strange elusive shape in the steam-clouded mirror.
        “Why’d he keep a photo of Hannah on his desk?” Hazard asked.
        “He’d never gotten over her. Still hasn’t. I guess that’s why he ripped it out of the frame today and took it with him.”
        “So he drives out of the garage in his Mercedes-”
        “I assumed it was him. I couldn’t get a look at the driver.”
        “And then what?”
        “I had to think about it. Then I visited Hannah’s grave.”
        “Why?”
        “Gut feeling. Thought I might find something there.”
        “And what did you find?”
        “Roses.” He told Hazard about the two dozen Broadways and his subsequent visit to Forever Roses. “The florist described Dunny as good as I could’ve. That’s when I was sure he was alive.”
        “What’d he mean when he told her that you thought he was dead-and you were right?”
        “I don’t know.”
        Hazard crunched the half-finished caramel.
        “You can break a tooth that way,” Ethan warned.
        “Like that’s my biggest problem.”
        “Just friendly advice.”
        “Whistler wakes up in a morgue, realizes he’s been mistaken for dead, so then he puts his clothes on, goes home without saying boo to anyone, takes a shower. That make sense to you?”
        “No. But I thought he might be brain-damaged.”
        “He drives to a florist, buys some roses, visits a grave, hires a hit man… For a guy who comes out of a coma with brain damage, he seems to get around pretty well.”
        “I’ve given up the brain-damage theory.”
        [241] “Good for you. So what happened after you left the florist?”
        Operating on the two-ghost theory of credibility, Ethan didn’t tell him about the PT Cruiser, but said, “I went to a bar.”
        “You’re not a guy who looks for answers in a glass of gin.”
        “This was Scotch. Didn’t find any answers there either. Might try vodka next.”
        “So that’s