Losers Live Longer

know what it was like. This big dopey Jethro on his knees, offering one of his suitcases up, telling me there’s a million dollars inside. A million dollars cash, Payton. And all he wants me to do is give him a head start.

“But I knew it would have been a waste of time—his head start maybe would’ve bought him a day or two but they’d have caught him just the same. And then you’d better believe he’d’ve turned me in—he’d have done any damn thing he could just to save his neck.

“And as I stood there with my gun drawn and the son of a bitch kneeling and whimpering, I realized that the only fucking thing that was keeping me from taking him up on his offer was that he was going to get caught, and that meant I’d get caught, and that meant I’d lose my job, I’d lose my kid, I sure as hell would never see the million bucks.

“But I’m looking down at this poor fuck’s pleading eyes, feeling pity, and I start thinking maybe there is a way it could work. If I coached him every step of the way. Got him out of state and stashed away for a few months until the hunt died down. Got him a new identity, and fucking drilled into him every day how to stay under the radar—because it wouldn’t be just his safety and liberty at stake anymore, it’d be mine, too, my liberty, my family’s safety, and—

“Ah, fuck,” Matt said. “I shot him.”

For a while all I could hear were Elena’s muffled sobs and the whistle of her breath through her nose.

I cleared my throat.

“Yeh,” I said. “All that would’ve been a lot of work.”

“You shittin’ me? No way. And wherever he went, sooner or later, he’d blow it. Or someone would spot him from America’s Most Wanted—that show goes worldwide these days. How’m I suppose to live with that hanging over my head, my family’s head?

“One shot…and it all went away. The money’s mine, not just one mil but all of it, and no Jethro to worry about screwing everything up. And you know something, Payton, when you step out of bounds like that? It’s a shock when the earth just doesn’t open up and swallow you. But it doesn’t. The world goes grinding on. I tell you, I felt good. I felt peaceful.

“I popped open one of those suitcases and there was nothing inside it but money. Wads of used U.S. currency packed sideways, neat as sardines. Well-thumbed fifties and hundreds. The other two bags were the same. Would you believe, he hadn’t even packed a shaving kit? Guess he figured he could always buy one.”

He lowered his head and laughed into his chest.

“But I didn’t make his mistake. I looked after practical matters. Getting rid of his body. Over the years, you hear of so many guys and that’s what trips ’em up. They get caught transporting it or disposing of it. And I thought, out of the blue, then don’t touch it, leave it where it was. Let it ride. Wasn’t until later, after I’d counted up the money, I got the idea of buying this place.”

“But first you had to prep the body,” I said. “I saw the Raid and Black Flag shower you gave it to shoo the shoo flies.”

“Yeah, had to do that right away. I knew it would mean some coming and going, and there was the fucking garage attendant to deal with. But I’d slipped him a twenty on the way in, when I was following Addison, and I got the impression his palm would stand a bit more greasing.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Jeff.”

He nodded. “He was more than willing to look the other way—if that’s all he had to do—as long as the price was right. And I made sure the price was right.”

“Seventy thousand bucks plus free rent and board for him and his girlfriend,” I said. “Pretty generous, Matt. But that’s where things started to unravel. It was just your bad luck his girlfriend was an old friend of George Rowell’s. And that Owl happened to be visiting her when Michael Cassidy showed up at the apartment. She was running scared after that botched attempt on her life by your drug dealer friend. She ran to Addison’s old hideout on Avenue C.”

“Jesus Christ,” Matt said. “Owl made her right away, I’ll bet.”

“More than that—he got her to spill her story about the kind-hearted private investigator who cut her a break, sending her off to rehab instead of letting her get collared with Law Addison. I’m sure you didn’t give her your real name, but somehow he must’ve guessed it was you. Addison was a Metro job after all.”

Matt shook his head. “Can you beat that? The one guy I take in to make it work for me, and ends up his girl knows Owl. That’s fuckin’ New York for ya. What’re the fucking odds?”

“Astronomical. Too bad no one made book, got a little money down on it.”

Matt leaned his head back and stretched his neck with little rotations. “Yeah, well, I did have money down, a load. In fact, I still got a fucking load riding on this.”

“How much, Matt? How much did it all finally come to? What was the tally? I’m curious.”

He brought his head back in line. His gray eyes pinned me.

“You’re curious. You’re curious. You’re curious. Shit, Payton, you don’t need to tell me you’re fucking curious. I get it, already. I know you.”

“Let me rephrase the question,” I said. “How much, and is it worth all that you’ve done to keep it?”

Matt’s eyebrows rose in baffled innocence, furrowing his brow.

“What? What have I done? C’mon, really?”

“You killed eight people.”

“Eight? That can’t be right.”

He started counting them off on the fingers of his left hand. As I watched him, I realized I could raise my gun and shoot him now, that I should shoot him now. But I didn’t. I watched him.

His thumb was Law Addison stuck in the car trunk.

His forefinger was George Rowell, pushed into traffic so he couldn’t put me on the case.

He didn’t count Craig Wales’ O.D., because that had been an accident, the hot bag meant for Michael Cassidy alone. I didn’t argue the point.

His middle finger.

“That guy at the Crystalview.”

He didn’t remember his name.

“Paul Windmann,” I told him.

“Saw his address on your desk, when I was still looking for Cassidy, I thought it was where she was stashed. I only went there to sniff around. But I knock on the door and next thing this guy’s waving a gun in my face. It was over before I even knew what happened. Idiot pulled the trigger, shot himself. I just went over there to ask a few questions and he freaked out and got himself shot.”

“Another accident then?” I asked.

He kept his middle finger up.

I said, “Then there’s the kid you shot over in East River Park, after your play with the drug dealer went bust. Why did he have to die so bad?”

Matt said, “That little cocksucker, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I didn’t believe he had it in him until he fucking showed me. He stopped me when I was coming out of your building. Skidded his skateboard in front of me, then flashed his cell phone up in my face. What’s the picture of, but me with my hands on Owl’s chest, pushin’ as the black car rounds the turn. Before I could grab the fucking phone, he was off in a shot. Like he just wanted me to know what he had on me. I guess he was planning to shake me down. But Homey don’t play that.”

He flicked up his fourth finger, his wedding ring finger.

The pinkie was for Michael Cassidy.

Matt said, “Can’t believe she was over at that hotel all the while. By the time I got there, she was flying so high, she just let me in the room when I knocked. There was a gun on the bed. She made it so…easy. I mean after trying so hard to hide. And then there she was all sort of laid out for me, ready, almost comatose. It should’ve been easy. Just pick up the gun and badabing. But I couldn’t do it at first. Maybe ’cause she was a woman, I don’t know. But then I thought of Jeanne and the baby and what this woman could do to us, and I shot her in the head. Very final, that is. Very final.”

But it wasn’t final at all. It wasn’t over.

I asked, “And where’s Jeff? He went off to meet you more than an hour ago, and here you are, but no Jeff.”