“I know it hasn’t been hours,” she said, “but you’re so uncomfortable, maybe we should just go get this taken care of?”

As he swallowed with obvious difficulty, his Adam’s apple went up and down like it was having trouble doing its job. “This is just what happens to me.”

Wait, so staying hard wasn’t a problem for him? “Then stop with the pills.”

“What pills?”

As her cell phone started to ring, she went over and took it out of her purse. When she saw who it was, she looked through into the kitchen, to the digital clock on the microwave. You know, just in case her iPhone was wrong about the time.

But nine o’clock wasn’t that late. And how was it only nine? It felt like four in the morning.

With that thought in mind, she answered in a low tone. “McCordle, I can’t talk right now.” There’s an erection on my sofa. “Let me call you back.”

“Just want you to know the FBI is going to subpoena security tapes from both the Hudson Hunt and Fish Club and Gigante’s back office gambling den at his cement business. They’ve got probable cause on an unrelated RICO charge. They’re going to let us see what’s on ’em. I’ll let you know when I can.”

“That’s great. Thank you.”

Bracing herself, she turned around as she ended the call. Syn was up on his feet and had pulled his leathers into place, somehow stuffing his anatomy in behind the fly. When she considered the logistics on that one, she wondered why he wasn’t passed out on her carpet.

Or why the buttons weren’t going airborne.

“Let me take you to the ER,” she said. “You should be sensible about this.”

Yeah, it’s not like she waited four months to go see a doc.

“It’s not what you think,” he muttered.

“It’s not what you think.” Putting her phone back in her purse, she knew he had to have lied about the Cialis thing. “But you’re a grown man, and you can do what you want—”

“I can’t . . .” He motioned over his hips. “You know, I can’t . . .”

“Enjoy your baritone singing voice right now? I don’t mean to make light of this, but—”

“Finish.”

Jo frowned as she felt herself go still. “I don’t understand.”

Syn lowered his eyes to the floor. “I can’t ejaculate.”

“Ever?” She shook her head. “I mean, you orgasm, but you don’t—”

“No, I don’t find a release.”

“At all?” As he shook his head, Jo cradled her purse against her chest. “Have you gone to see someone about this?”

“No reason to.”

“There is every reason to. You’re suffering, and maybe . . . what happened? Were you hurt?”

“It’s just the way it is for me.”

He went over to the bathroom doorway. Without her noticing, he’d set his leather coat down just outside of the door, and given the bulges under it, she had a feeling he had hidden things of a holster variety under there. Without further comment, he picked the load up and went into the loo, closing the door behind himself. A moment later, he reemerged, jacket on.

“You don’t have to go,” she said.

“It’s best that I do—”

“May I take you back to wherever you live?”

“No, I can do it—”

“The nearest bus stop is a quarter of a mile away. I’ll take you there.”

“That’s okay. I’ll walk.”

Jo found herself speaking quickly because he was clearly in a hurry to leave, and she didn’t want him to go for a whole lot of reasons: “Let me walk you out, then—”

“It’s just cosmetic stuff, by the way.”

“What is?”

Syn pointed to his mouth. “The teeth. They’re caps. Don’t worry about it.”

Jo blinked. “Okay.”

When he nodded, she expected him to come over and hug her. Give her a kiss. Hold her for a minute. Instead, he walked right out her apartment door.

Jo stayed where she was as she imagined him exiting the building. Going down the sidewalk. Heading toward—

She hadn’t told him which way the bus stop was. Did he know? Or—

Rushing out of her apartment, she jumped through the vestibule, and punched her way out into the chilly spring night. Under the bright moonlight, she looked left. Looked right.

There was no one walking down the sidewalk, no huge-shouldered man with a long stride heading away, no solid boots making heavy sounds on the cement.

Syn had up and disappeared.

Again.

Syn rematerialized downtown, taking shape across the street from the Hudson Hunt & Fish Club. The place was dark, no slivers of illumination showing around the seams of the front door or the painted panels of the windows. There was someone in there, however. A blacked-out Chevy Suburban was parked face out in a narrow alley alongside the building, steam rising from its tailpipes. Behind the wheel, the figure of a man with broad shoulders was a dense, solid shadow, and from time to time, when the chauffeur took a draw on his cigarette, his face was illuminated on a flare.

A car passed between Syn and the SUV. Then another.

Reaching behind to his belt, Syn took one of his two suppressors from its holstered position at the small of his back. Then he drew one of his forties. As he screwed the cylinder onto the end of the barrel, the metal on metal made a soft, pliant sound.

Dematerializing, he re-formed behind the Suburban.

In silence, he proceeded down the length of the SUV, keeping his back flat to the steel panels and the panes of glass. When he got to the driver’s side door, he knocked on the window.

The man put the thing down. “What the fuck do—”

The gun made a huffing sound as Syn pulled the trigger. The bullet went directly into the frontal lobe and came out the far side, thunking into the back seat.

As the driver started to slump, Syn caught him before his forehead hit the horn. Forcing the deadweight onto the center console, Syn reached in, popped open the door, and unlocked everything else. With hard hands, he dragged the dead body out, and carried it around to the rear where he stored it into the cargo space in the back.

Returning to the driver’s seat, he got behind the wheel, put up the window most of the way, and sat with his gun on his thigh.

His phone went off in his leather jacket, the subtle vibration transmitting through the pocket and onto his chest wall. Getting the thing out, he cut the power to the unit and put it back. When another rattling sounded, he looked down. A cell phone was slotted into a drink cup holder, and he picked it up. The text notification on the screen read: ETA 2 mins. Home next.

Precisely 120 seconds later, the side door of the squat, concrete building opened, and a piece of meat with a set of jowls like a St. Bernard’s came out. Syn recognized the guy from when he’d entered the place the night before last. He’d been sitting at the bar with the younger version of the old man.

And what do you know, behind the bodyguard, Gigante lumbered out of his establishment, his cigar shoved into the corner of his trout mouth, his jacket open, his big belly exhausting the structural integrity of the buttons down the front of his shirt.

The bodyguard walked ahead and opened the door to the back seat, letting Gigante get in first.

“Sal, you can’t keep this car warm, huh?” Gigante said as he hefted himself up. “I hate the fucking cold. What’s the matter with you.”

The bodyguard shut the door. And Syn turned around to the back seat and discharged two bullets into Gigante’s huge chest. The old man gasped and clutched his sternum, his ham hands fisting up his shirt, the cigar falling out from between his lips and throwing up sparks as it bounced off his leg.

The bodyguard opened the front passenger door. Syn pointed the gun at his face and discharged another pair of slugs.

The man fell to the ground in a slop of limbs.

Syn refocused on Gigante. The mobster’s eyes were wide, the whites flaring around the dark irises as he gasped for air.

“I don’t have a problem killing females,” Syn said. “Or anybody. But I’ll be damned if you hurt Jo Early. Say good night, motherfucker.”

The final bullet went into the front of Gigante’s throat, the torso jerking in response, a splash of red arcing forward and speckling the side of the bucket seat in front. Struck by a bored hunger, Syn reached out and ran his forefinger through the stain on the leather; then he brought the blood to his mouth. As he sucked it down, he loved the taste of his kill and stared into the man’s eyes for a little longer, listening to the gurgling, the gasping.

The sound of screeching tires brought Syn’s head around. Another car was turning into the alley, summoned by someone, something.

Syn dematerialized out of the driver’s seat, ghosting away, leaving the carnage behind. Death had been coming fast for Gigante. He would not last long.

And even if the man did, Syn didn’t give a shit.

His female was safe. That was all that mattered.

Jo took her time throwing away the paper plates they’d used, the napkins that had been wadded up, the empty box that was stained in a circle in the center and had cold cheese clinging to one edge. As she topped off the Hefty trash bag in her bin, she felt as though she were dismantling something she’d imagined. Packing up a fantasy. Putting a puzzle that had been completed away.

And it was for what could have been that she moved slowly and sadly. In her kitchen, standing over her trash which now had to be taken out, she had the thought that she wished she’d used two of the four mismatched plates she’d taken with her when she’d left Dougie and the boys’ apartment. If she’d used washable plates, she could have at least kept what he’d eaten on.

Which was pretty pathetic, really. And God, this was too much of a profound loss for what was really going on. That man was nothing but a stranger coming and going out of her life, a storm passing after an intense sexual experience that had ended on an unsettling note.