“I don’t care if you kill me,” I said to Tolliver, and I didn’t. “Just clear my conscience before you waste me. Why Martin Dawes?”

He thought about it and then nodded. “OK,” he said. “I’ll play, why not? Martin Dawes was a pawn, and he was a fuck up. We needed him taken care of anyway. He did some legal work for us, but he mostly just distributed to low level dealers, it’s never suspicious for low-lifes to visit their lawyer. They’d get some legal advice and a package.

“But he couldn’t keep his...