“Must be a tough part of town.”
“Mostly quiet. Occasionally get a rat passing through.”
“Really. Seen any lately?”
“Last night, as it turns out.”
Sobol finally stopped trying to stare my eyeballs out of their sockets and looked down at his pack of Marlboros. I thought it was safe to blink. He flicked out a cigarette and lit it.
“That’s what exterminators are for,” he said, puffing the smoke out with the words.
“You must know our rat. I think he’s done a little exterminating himself.”
I pulled a cloth bag holding Buddy’s Glock out from under my jacket and dumped the gun on the table. It hit the wood with a loud noise—loud enough for me to realize we’d been speaking very softly to each other. Sobol didn’t flinch. He just shook his head and went back to the big stare.
“Don’t know anybody like that,” he said, “but I’ve heard there’s an unlimited supply of ’em back in the city.”
“More the reason for restrictive zoning.”
“That’s right,” he said, waving his Marlboro at me, “you’re into real estate.”
“Only a spectator.”
“I figured that. Like some of the old ladies when I was growing up. Watchin’ everything going on in the street from behind their venetian blinds. nothin’ better to do.”
“Piss you off, did it? The old ladies?”
Sobol leaned back from the table and pulled back his shoulders, grimacing.
“It’s hard sitting on these benches with no backs,” he said. “I think Filmore put ’em here on purpose.”
“Another reason to quit smoking.”
He settled himself back into his original uncomfortable position.
“Didn’t you come over here to give me a tip?” he asked. “Like, where’s the tip?”
“The project in North Sea. Looks like Roy’s going to have to turn the whole thing over to his wife, now that he’s in jail for defrauding her. Actually, at the moment he’s spending some quality time with Chief Semple. You know, unloading everything. Clearing his conscience, I guess. I’ll bet it’s a pretty interesting story. But I thought you should know Amanda’s in the driver’s seat now. I remember you asked her to help you find a place.”
“Good-looking girl, Amanda. You say Roy was trying to screw her?”
“Yeah, imagine trying to screw your own wife.”
“Why I never got married.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“What?”
Sobol’s hand had somehow moved to within a foot of Buddy’s gun. I placed my hand on the table at approximately the same distance.
“I’m an ex-fighter, Bob. I got reflexes like a mongoose.”
Sobol pulled his hand back a few inches.
“I hate weird fuckers like you, Acquillo.”
“There’s gratitude.”
“Screwball fuckers. You think I don’t know all about you? About what you been up to? I knew you’d stick your fucking nose into my shit. Fucking whack job.”
“Too much time on my hands.”
Sobol still hadn’t raised his voice, but his pitty little face finally had some color in it. Suited him better.
“I still don’t know your deal,” he said to me, patiently.
“I’m the administrator.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“When my neighbor Regina died, she didn’t have much of a family, so the County named me administrator to clean up her worldly affairs. That’s all. I’m just trying to clean things up.”
He thought about that for a few moments. Sizing up the situation.
“I don’t know what you think you know, but if you think that bag of shit Battiston’s a problem for me, you’re a bigger whack job than I thought.”
I snorted out a little laugh. I couldn’t help myself.
“Roy’s not your problem, Bob. I’m your problem.”
Sobol had something else to think about, so he stalled for time by looking around Barbara Filmore’s backyard.
“It’s not bad livin’ here,” he said, “but I’d like a little more property. I need elbow room.”
“Not me. I’ve been scaling back.”
“You know what this little joint’s worth? Like, two million bucks. What’s with that? I lived in this town twenty years ago. Back then you could buy any of these places for about $50K. Now it’s like all the rich fucks decided nobody like me’s allowed in. Everything’s jacked up to the stratosphere. It’s unnatural.”
“The coffee’s gotten better.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. What am I thinkin’.”
“You might just have to look somewhere else, Bob. Set your sights on another horizon.”
“Not goddammed likely.”
“Just trying to help.”
“You keep saying that, but I’m not hearing anything that sounds like it.”
“Fair enough, Bob,” I told him. “You’re right about sticking my nose in your shit. Trust me, I know your shit inside and out. Everything, every step of the way. So, the tip I’ve got for you, if you will, is more like a proposition.”
The word “proposition” seemed to register with him.
“You don’t talk to Amanda Battiston. In fact, you don’t talk to anybody. You clean out that little hole you’re living in and scurry back to wherever you came from. Whatever Roy gives up on you can’t be helped. Otherwise, I keep your shit to myself.”
Bob wasn’t immediately receptive to the idea. In fact, it caused him to crack a little bit of a smile.
“Unless I’m imagining things, I think I just heard a threat,” he said.
“More of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Yeah. A threat.”
“Okay, a threat. Have it your way.”
“Nobody threatens me.”
“I just want you gone. When you consider the alternative, not a bad deal.”
“You don’t have anything,” he said.
“I got everything. Hell, Roy’ll get me most of the way there, all I got to do is push it over the edge.”
He was back to his staring thing. I broke away from the deadly gaze long enough to light my second smoke of the conversation. Nothing like a cigarette to give your hands something to do. Only, it’s a good idea not to forget they’re supposed to be guarding a Glock automatic.
Sobol snatched it up, checked the clip, slammed it back in and had a round racked in front of the hammer before I had a match fully ignited.
“Some fucking mongoose,” he said, pointing the barrel directly at my chest.
The gun had so much of my attention I almost burned my fingers, but I finally got the cigarette lit. Another way smoking can get you killed.
“That’s not going to solve your problem,” I told him.
“Yeah, well, what the fuck. Just say it’ll make me feel better.”
I hadn’t seen the barrel of a gun from that vantage point since those carefree days after leaving Abby. The experience hadn’t gained any allure. It was a strange feeling, otherworldly. You think you’d imagine the impending impact of a .40 caliber round ripping into your body, but you mostly think about all the dumb stuff you did that led you to the situation you’re in. It must be some sort of denial. Otherwise, you couldn’t think at all.
This time, though, mostly what I thought about was my daughter. After the divorce the only asset I had that was worth anything, beyond the cottage, was a gigantic, paid-up life insurance policy. I’d been able to drop Abby as a beneficiary, so it would all go to my daughter. It had some symmetry. She’d be done with me and set for life in
