chief violent enforcer, Buddha Hat, a murderous man who cryptically identifies Strike as "Victor's brother." Strike takes this to mean that Buddha Hat was Victor's "My Man" and that he had killed Darryl. As Buddha Hat worked for Champ, and Darryl was the previous overseer of Rodney's secret drug sales, Strike assumes that Buddha Hat will realize their treachery and tell Champ, who would have them both killed. Buddha Hat pays Strike a perplexing visit, where Strike, thinking he is about to be killed, is instead taken to a restaurant and peep show in New York, in a bizarre gesture of friendship by Buddha Hat. Victor gives a full confession for Darryl's murder, but his self-defense story does not match witness accounts and Rocco believes that he is in fact innocent. His obsessive investigation begins to lead him to Strike, who he believes is a much more likely murderer than the hard working and law-abiding Victor. Assuming that Victor will take a mandatory 30-year sentence to protect his brother, Rocco confronts Strike at his drug corner and forcibly takes him in for questioning several times. Strike goes to meet Papi to pick up the week's cocaine shipment but finds him shot to death. Strike panics, fearing that Champ is on to him and Rodney. He later learns from Rodney that Buddha Hat also went behind Champ's back to take a bit of Papi's profits, and murdered him when he refused to pay. When Rodney is arrested selling cocaine to an undercover police officer, Rocco arranges things so that Rodney believes Strike has been talking to police. Rodney then sends his enforcer, Errol Barnes, to murder him. Rocco, whose marriage is in serious trouble because of the tremendous amount of work he has taken on, brings in Strike for another round of questioning. He also talks again with Victor and his mother. They reveal that Victor did indeed commit the murder in a moment when, hating his difficult life and ungrateful wife, he impulsively decided to murder Darryl just as Strike had suggested, using a gun he had earlier found and kept. At about the same time, Errol Barnes, despite a fearsome reputation for violence, is shot and killed by Strike's panicked young assistant Tyrone, who had been on his way to return Strike's gun after borrowing it out of curiosity. Strike goes free but is still being threatened by Rodney.