smoke in the air. Rolly finally glances his way. A corner of his mouth turns up. “Well, look what the devil drug up,” he says, smiling. “Ain’t this some shit. Jay fucking Porter.”
“It’s your hand,” the tubby at the bar says.
“Let Carla sit in for me.”
“I hate gin rummy,” Carla says, licking potato chip grease off her fingers.
Rolly walks to the end of the bar. “Jay motherfucking Porter,” he says, smile widening. “What the hell you doing here, man? Can I get you a drink?”
Jay runs through the last twenty-four hours in his head: he was face-to-face with a .45; he talked to Cynthia Maddox for the second time in ten years; he buried nearly $25,000 in his office; he rifled through someone’s mail; and he bribed a county clerk. By his count, he’s committed at least two felonies, and nearly lost his life, and the sun hasn’t even set yet. “Yeah, I’ll take a drink.”
He watches Rolly pour two shots of whiskey. Jay sucks his down in a single gulp, then asks for a beer chaser. When he pulls out his wallet, Rolly waves away his money, making a point to add that the
“There somewhere we can talk . . . in private?” Jay asks.
Rolly nods down the bar. “They’re cool, man.”
Jay lowers his voice anyway. “I need your help, Rolly. It’s serious.”
From his pants pocket, he pulls the folded pages of Elise Lin sey’s arrest records. He slides them across the bar. “I need infor mation on her.”
“How much do you want to know?” Rolly asks, getting right down to business. “And how badly do you want to know it?”
Jay rehearsed this part in the car, the negotiation, and made a brash decision that when the time came, he would go for broke. He pulls the two rolls of money from his pants pockets, $1,500 total. “I want to know everything.”
He sets the money on top of the arrest records. Rolly pockets it without counting it. The weight tells him everything he needs to know. “Who is she?”
“You tell me,” Jay says.
Rolly picks up the arrest report. He flips through the pages, stoically, as calmly as he’d been reading the women’s magazine just a few moments before.
“Where you want me to start?”
“The last few years,” Jays says, watching as Rolly pulls a ball point pen from the back pocket of his Levi’s, making notes in the margins of the arrest report. “She stays out on the west side,” he adds, “14475 Oakwood Glen. I want to know how she’s been spending her time and with whom. And most important, I want to know where she works . . . and how she gets her money.”
“She got money?” Rolly asks, his interest piqued.
“I don’t know,” Jay says flatly, keeping quiet about the $25,000. “But, hell, look at it, Rolly,” he says, pointing to the arrest report. “She was in and out of shit for years, and then
“Maybe she cleaned up her act,” Rolly offers.
“Well, I’m willing to bet she got some help.”
Rolly nods, following the logic.
Jay is afraid to tell him more: the money and the murder, his fears about a setup, people coming after him. He doesn’t want to scare Rolly off the job . . . or get him killed. He remembers Jimmy’s cousin and the high price he paid.
“I want to know who she’s working for,” he says vaguely.
“What’s your piece in it?” Rolly asks. “Why you so inter ested?”
“Just find out what you can,” Jay says.
“I got you.” Rolly nods, respecting his client’s need for dis cretion.
“Be careful, though. You might not be the only one sniffing around.”
“Cops?”
“Maybe.” But, of course, it’s more than that. “Just be careful.” Jay says. “There might be trouble, for both of us, if anybody knew you were looking into this.”
“Won’t nobody know the difference then.” Rolly holds out his hand to seal the deal, giving Jay a lopsided smile. “It’s good see ing you again, man.” Jay buys a six-pack with his gas card on the way back to the office.
He drinks two of the beers sitting at his desk, hiding the paper bag underneath, down around his feet. About four thirty, Eddie Mae asks to cut out early, claiming she’s got to pick up one of her grandkids from band practice. By Jay’s count, she’s got something like twelve grandchildren, all boys, half of whom he’s long suspected she made up (he once asked her to name them all, watching as she got confused around number seven, repeat ing Damien and Darnell twice). She’s always got some dentist appointment or after-school program or T-Ball game she has to leave work early for. “Got to be there for my grandbabies.”
Once she’s gone, Jay pulls down the shades and locks the door. Then, on his hands and knees, he counts and recounts the remaining cash in the lockbox and has a fleeting, drunken thought of spending it all. He eventually returns the money to its hiding place at the bottom of his filing cabinet, but not before peeling off a couple of hundred-dollar bills, tell ing himself it’s only for the ride home, only ’cause banks are closed and it’s hot and he doesn’t want his wife to cook. Maybe he can pick up a chicken dinner on the way. Another $200 . . . what difference
