Hacker McKaybees knew the old man was trouble the day his father reentered his life a year ago. Yet some sense of twisted curiosity, or undesirable loyalty to a man he didn't know, drove him to accept the request to help investigate what Hacker felt would be a wasted effort: solve a murder for which a convicted man sat in prison. As his foot hit the first step of his father's building, he knew that before the sun rose over Manhattan, the smell of blood would overpower odors of local Soho residents preparing breakfast. He slowed as he heard his father arguing with someone. Without wanting to alert them and causing the carnage the old man was famous for, he pressed the office door open with the barrel of his Glock. A hinge creaked. Five seconds later, the intruder's body with a hole in his chest, dropped. The old man, still seated, his .45 leaking a tendril of smoke, looked disappointed but satisfied. Hacker knew he was in deep enough that there was only one way out, solve the murder.