against the relentless compression.
“You fuck with me,” he whispered in my ear, “and it’ll be the last fucking crazy thing you do.”
I think he said a few more threatening things, but I don’t remember. I was preoccupied by the blood being squeezed up into my head and the popping sensation behind my eyes. It wasn’t the ideal state of mind for working out a defensive strategy, but I had the advantage of panic and desperation.
I hadn’t troubled to dress up for the visit, so all I had on my feet was a pair of worn-out Timberlands. Worn, but with a good enough heel to dig into Valero’s toes where they stuck out of his sandals. This had less effect on his grip than I hoped, though he stopped talking and started growling in my ear.
I used the other heel to kick him in the shins, forcing him to look down to see where he’d placed his feet. This gave me the chance to tap him in the face with the back of my head. I caught him in the mouth, cutting my scalp on his teeth, but the move loosened up his bear hug. I probably should have stopped with the head butts, given my neurological issues, but it was the only weapon I had available. And it was working. The growling stopped and his breath was coming faster, more seriously as he tried to twist clear of my hammering skull.
With all the butting and Valero’s maneuvering, I’d been able to turn a little to the right, which caused my hand, pressed into my side, to come in contact with the impressive package Angel had stuffed into his swimsuit. He had a split second to ponder the wisdom of allowing this configuration to evolve before a slight bend in my elbow allowed me to have both polyester-covered testicles firmly in hand.
This was a first for me, and I imagine for Angel as well.
I’d spent the last several years swinging a hammer and throwing around bundles of lumber. So my grip was probably as good as ever. I gave those boys of Valero’s a pretty lusty squeeze.
He must have thrown his head back to bellow, because when I butted him again I caught the edge of his chin. He lost the hold when he tried to grab my wrist. I didn’t give him another chance. I spun out of the hug and danced back out of his reach, on my toes with my fists up where they belonged.
I didn’t know how a guy my size would do against a human bull, but I was done wrestling.
Angel was leaning forward, gripping himself around the midriff. I stepped in and planted a right jab in his face, snapping his head back, which made a nice target for the following left. He was still upright, but wavering. So I threw another neat combination. This seemed to have little effect, but before he could get his big arms up to protect his face I shot a right straight into his mouth. I was very happy to see this drop his ass down on the patio, where I was even happier to see it stay.
“I never cuddle on the first date,” I told him.
By now he’d let go of his balls and was holding his face.
“You’re a dead man,” he said into his hands.
“We all get there eventually,” I said as I circled back around to the gate, keeping my eyes on him the whole time.
Jesse opened it for me.
“Well,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Thanks for the drink. Next time I’ll take it with tonic.”
“I’m sure there’ll be a next time.”
I took one more glance at the blonde before walking up the grey path to the outer gate, where Opium was sitting licking her ass, and out to where the Grand Prix stood staring down the German performance cars scattered around Valero’s driveway.
When I got to Dune Drive I tried to take a full breath, with little success. I didn’t think anything was broken, but I’d bruised ribs before and knew I was in for a long hurt.
The visit hadn’t turned out exactly as planned. All I’d done was make an enemy, in record time, out of a wealthy and ruthless son of a bitch. I’d fully exposed my own intentions without learning a thing about his, or about anything else for that matter, and ruined any chance for future discussion or cooperation. And all I had to show for it was a sore chest and a cut on the head.
“Brilliant,” I said, pulling a smashed cigarette out of my shirt pocket, seeing if a little jolt of carcinogen would do something for the aching ribs and eroding self-regard.
That night I finally got through to Joe Sullivan. I’d called him at home on my cell phone from a table at the Pequot. He’d been tied up with the DA for a few days, and his wife, whom I’d never met, was none too delighted by my intrusion. He used a clever ploy to hustle me off the phone—the promise of a full forensics briefing, delivered at the crime scene.
Mollified, I went back to
“The root of all evil?” I asked Dorothy Hodges, holding up the book.
“Not to me, and I’ll ignore the stereotyping,” she said, dropping my drink on the table as gracefully as you could with three-inch-long black fingernails.
“I’ve got
“They did that already. Smith won.”
“They taught you that at Columbia?”
“Marx belongs in the fantasy–science fiction section. Lovely dreams.” She used one of the black daggers at the end of her fingers to scratch her head through greased orange hair. It wasn’t my favorite Dorothy look, though it was hard to pin down what was, since it changed almost by the day.
“Maybe I won’t bother reading either of them and you can just explain it to me,” I said.
“Easy. People yearn for community, but they’re biologically hierarchical. Trouble is, hierarchy’s defined in two ways. Brawn and brains. Brains run the kitchen, but they need brawn at the front of the house. It’s a natural symbiosis. And the rest of us have to eat whatever they dish out.”
“The Pequot Theory of Economic Interdependency?”
“Money doesn’t suck. Not having money sucks. Using money for stupid things sucks.”
“Like the time you bought tropicalbirds.com at fifty bucks a share?” said her father, sliding a chair into the conversation. “Don’t get me wrong. Dotty’s a hell of a stock picker.”
“Not really,” said Dorothy, though clearly pleased with the compliment. “I’m just a mid-cap index kind of a girl with a taste for the occasional social-conscience buy. Which do very well, by the way, most of the time.”
“There’s so much about the world I don’t understand,” I said with deepest sincerity.
“You don’t think we could live on what comes out of the till, do you?” Hodges asked me as we watched Dorothy disappear back into the kitchen. “A restaurant’s a cash business. If you play it right, you get to hold the suppliers’ money just long enough to put it to work without pissing ’em off. Dotty’s been floating the delta since she was in high school.”
Back when I was married and had a regular paying job I handled all the family finances. My wife Abby resented this, and from this remove I can see why. It was an implicit insult to her financial acumen, entirely untested and perfunctorily rejected. I wasn’t a bad money manager but I wasn’t exactly Warren Buffett, or Angel Valero. I was exactly like my father. Afraid to let the money out of my sight and have it all taken away like in the Depression, thirty years before I was born.
So what did I do? Lost it all anyway.
“You can’t know everything, Sam,” said Hodges. “That’s what we have trust for. To fool us into giving ourselves over to specialists who know more about something than we’ll ever know even in a thousand years.”
“You can trust Dorothy.”
“That’s what we have children for.”
On the way home I called and left a message for George Donovan. I told him Mason Thigpen and the people at Eisler, Johnson were aware I was nosing around about Iku Kinjo. They had no reason to suspect anything but the obvious—that finding her body had drawn me into the case. I said I thought things were going to heat up, but there was no need to worry as long as he played it tight to the vest, something he surely knew how to do.
I was glad to leave a message. If I reached him directly I didn’t know what he’d say. This really wasn’t up to him anymore, and while his secret would die with me, I didn’t need the interference.
When I got to the cottage I found Amanda and Eddie sleeping on the screened-in porch. Eddie was on the
