Billy comes back out and says, 'They're going to pay tomorrow morning, with me or without me.'
'So which is it?' Jack asks.
'Gotta think about that,' Billy says.
'That's fair.'
'How 'bout you?'
'I'm gone.'
'Jack.' Billy says, 'you're not going to find another claims job anywhere in the industry.'
'I don't want one.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I don't know,' Jack says. 'Maybe remodeling.'
Billy frowns. Fights the wind to light another cig and says, 'Sleep on this, goddamn it. Take some sick days.'
'Fuck it, Billy. These days, they're all sick days.'
And walks out.
Muy disgusted.
In the lobby the receptionist juts her chin at the waiting bench and says, 'Olivia Hathaway for you.'
'Not now.'
'She's here, Jack.'
'I don't work here anymore,' Jack says. 'She's somebody else's headache now.'
'Jack?'
She's standing right behind him now.
'Mrs. Hathaway.'
'A moment of your time?'
'Not now, Mrs. Hathaway.'
'Just one moment,' she says.
She's holding a plate of cookies.
'I really don't have the time right now, Mrs. Hathaway.'
Two minutes later Jack's sitting across a table from her in Room 117.
Jack starts, 'Mrs. Hathaway, I don't have time for this today. I'm in a very bad mood. So, for the last time, I'm not paying for your spoons. Not now, not ever-'
'I didn't come about my spoons.'
Say what?
'Then why-'
'I came because a lawyer came to see me,' Olivia says. 'A Mr. Gordon?'
'Paul Gordon?'
'Do you know him?'
'Sort of.'
'Anyway,' Olivia says, 'he came to ask me to join in a suit against you. A class suit.'
'A class action suit?'
'That's right,' Olivia says. She takes out her knitting and goes to work. 'He said that he had at least twenty other people that you've cheated that are going to join together and sue you for bad faith and punitive damages. He said that we could stand to share millions of dollars.'
'Did he tell you who the others were?'
'I don't remember them all,' Olivia says. 'There was a Mr. Vale, a Mr. Boland, a Mrs. Vecch…'
'Veccharrios?'
'Yes,' Olivia says. 'And a Mr. Azmekian.'
'A Mr. Azmekian?' Jack asks.
'Yes.'
' Kazzy Azmekian?'
'No,' she says. 'I think it was Kazimir.'
Jack sits there while she recites a litany of various claims Jack has turned down for the past seven years. It's like the old lady is reading off his freaking inventory.
And the only way, Jack thinks, that Paul Gordon could go trolling for these clients is that he's had access to all my files.
Jack hears Olivia saying, 'So Mr. Gordon wants me to join in this suit against you. He even offered me shares in the Westview,' Olivia says.
'In the what?'
'In the Westview Company, my dear. Very confidentially, of course.'
What the hell?
'What did you tell him?' Jack asks.
Olivia looks up from her knitting.
'I told him to go fuck himself. Cookie?'
'Yes, ma'am, I'd like a cookie,' Jack says.
Her blue eyes look at him very seriously.
'I know a scam when I see one,' she says. 'Sugar — your favorite.'
'A great cookie.'
'Now, about my spoons…'
99
'So?' Letty asks.
'So what?' Tony says.
Still doing the Snitch Hop.
Kid's dressed up in the official Vietnamese gangsta uniform — black Levi's, black high-tops. Black leather jacket, and it's what, 70 degrees out? Black leather jacket in August…
Letty doesn't feel like it. 'You called me.'
'Tranh and Do.'
'No kidding.'
Tony whispers, 'They were doing a job for some Russians.'
'Okay,' Letty says. Like this is telling her something.
'No,' Tony says, 'they were doing a job for some Russians.'
Which gets Letty's attention in a hurry.
'How did they get hooked up with the ROC?'
'Maybe we do some cars…' Tony says.
'Is that right?'
'Anyway,' he says, like he's not here to engage in bigger issues, 'Tranh and Do were running an errand for the Russians. These two guys came and said they needed some guys and a truck.'
'For what?'
'Boost a truck, pick some stuff up at a house, take it somewhere, lose the truck.'
'What stuff!' Letty asks. 'What house? Take it where?'
Tony says, 'They talk with my boys, they call later and leave an address.'
'What address?'
'Thirty-seven Bluffside Drive.'
Which rocks Letty.
The night Pamela is murdered, two missing Vietnamese gangbangers are taking 'stuff' out of the house.
Tony says, 'So they lift a truck. From Paladin Unpainted Furniture. Go over there that night, they don't come
