bedtime,' he said. 'That flight bag looks familiar, but I hope it's not full of counterfeit money this time.'
'It's your hundred and thirty thousand. We did our best. I don't think there's any schlock mixed in.'
'If there is it's no big deal. It's just about as good as the real stuff.
Your best bet's the Gowanus. You know how to get back on it?'
'I think so.'
'And then the bridge or the tunnel, up to you. My brother offer to take my money into the house with him, keep an eye on it for me?'
'I felt it was part of my job to deliver it personally.'
'Yeah, well, that's a diplomatic way to put it. I wish I could take back one thing I said to him, telling him he had a junkie mind. That's a hell of a thing to say to a person.'
'He agreed with you.'
'That's the worst thing about it, we both of us know it's true. Yuri surprised to see the money?'
'Astonished.'
He laughed. 'I'll bet. How's his kid?'
'The doctor says she'll be all right.'
'They hurt her bad, didn't they?'
'I gather it's hard to separate the physical damage from the emotional trauma. They raped her repeatedly and I understand she sustained some internal injuries besides losing the two fingers. She was sedated, of course. And I think the doctor gave Yuri something.'
'He should give us all something.'
'Yuri tried to, as a matter of fact. He wanted to give me some money.'
'I hope you took it.'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'I don't know why not. It's uncharacteristic behavior on my part, I'll tell you that much.'
'Not the way they taught you at the Seventy-eighth Precinct?'
'Not at all what they taught me at the Seven-Eight. I told them I already had a client and I'd been paid in full. Maybe what you said about blood money struck some kind of chord.'
'Man, that makes no sense. You were working and you did good work. He wants to give you something, you ought to take it.'
'That's okay. I told him he could give TJ something.'
'What did he give him?'
'I don't know. A couple of bucks.'
'Two hundred,' TJ said.
'Oh, you awake, TJ? I thought you were asleep.'
'No, just closed my eyes is all.'
'You stick with Matt here. I think he's a good influence.'
'He be lost without me.'
'Is that right, Matt? Would you be lost without him?'
'Absolutely,' I said. 'We all would.'
I TOOK the BQE and the bridge, and when we came off it on the Manhattan side I asked TJ where I could drop him.
'Deuce be fine,' he said.
'It's three in the morning.'
'Ain't no gate around the Deuce, Bruce. They don't close it up.'
'Have you got a place to sleep?'
'Hey, I got money in my pocket,' he said. 'Maybe I see if they got my old room at the Frontenac. Take me three or four showers, call down for room service. I got a place to sleep, man. You don't need to be worryin' about me.'
'Anyway, you're resourceful.'
'You think you jokin' but you know it be true.'
'And attentive.'
'Both them things.'
We dropped him at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-second Street and caught a light at Forty-fourth. I looked both ways and there was no one around, but neither was I in a hurry. I waited until it changed.
