The three of them stood there like that waiting for the next moment to pass.
Staring into the old man’s icy-gray eyes, Chase asked, “Are you going to help me or what?”
Without lowering the gun, Jonah said, “Talk.”
3
Paring down the details of the last ten years, it only took Chase twenty minutes to lay out his whole life up to the moment that Lila was killed. It left him stunned and a little angry to realize it.
It took another twenty minutes to cover the rest of it because Jonah would need to know every detail Chase had found out about Marisa Iverson and her crew. He left nothing out. When he mentioned the part where he’d worked her over with body shots, Angie let out a wild laugh and said, “Chip off the old boy’s block, eh? Your technique must be genetic.”
By the time Chase was done his hair was crawling with sweat, but at least that part of it was over.
The next local came through, the whistle like a bayonet slicing through the slim, water-damaged motel walls. Now that he could relax he heard noises wafting in from the other rooms. The noise of a whiny john haggling over the price, trying to get a cut-rate deal on some kind of deviant action. The whore held steady because it wasn’t part of her regular policy. Working girls of her caliber didn’t go in for that kind of kink. Sixty extra, and he had to pick up another fifth of gin. A door slammed. A figure rushed by the window, heading for the bar to purchase a bottle under the table, which would cost him an extra ten over retail. This guy really wanted to do his nasty thing.
“How do you know I wasn’t in on it?” Jonah asked. “The ice score.”
Chase sat up. “At the time you were on the run after pulling a score with Matteo and Lorelli in Aspen. You tried to clear out two side-by-side mansions in a gated community, using a couple of the private security guards as inside men. One got scared at the eleventh hour and called the cops, hoping to be a hero. When the job went sour you nearly got pinched. It’s rough making a getaway from mountain towns. Both guards went down. Lorelli was aced. You left him there. A couple of his buddies apparently have issues with that. Now you’re in White Plains. Casing the Connecticut rez casino?”
“You did a good job of checking me out. You still have connections besides Georgie Murphy.”
“A few. Some of them helped because they respect you. Some because they hate you.”
“No,” his grandfather said, “it’s because you paid.”
“Sure, but it doesn’t change what they feel.”
Jonah kept those eyes like polished river stone on Chase, seeing if he could crack him with the stare. “Maybe you’ll give me those names later on.”
“No.”
Jonah nodded and turned away, thinking about it all so far, maybe realizing that he wasn’t as on top of the game as he thought he was.
The nasty guy came back, slammed his room door again, and got busy drinking gin and doing his thing. Chase gave a little more attention to Angie, who was sitting there making her silent assessments.
She had a natural provocativeness but wasn’t what you would call beautiful. Black hair, dark features, he thought she must be Spanish. Nose a little too long, her lips not quite matching up. Small, thin scars were almost hidden in the seams around her eyes. Some stitching indents at the corners of her mouth. She’d been mishandled and had had some plastic surgery along the way to put her looks back where they belonged.
He wondered how much weight her word carried with Jonah. Was she a full partner or just a piece of some string who’d come along with Jonah for the fun of it? Was she in on the rez deal, if there was one?
He supposed it didn’t really matter. She was merely someone else he couldn’t trust. The.25 wasn’t on view and he couldn’t decide if she’d jammed it back under the cushion or had it tucked somewhere on her person. If she had it on her, under those skintight clothes, he couldn’t figure out where it might be.
Angie spotted him looking and mistook his intention. She let out a little smile and held his gaze, attempting to appear demure. It didn’t work and she seemed to know it but was determined to give it a go anyhow. Maybe practicing on him, gauging his reaction. When she didn’t see what she wanted to see she glanced away, took an unbroken glass off the floor, filled it, and offered it to him. He threw it back. She poured another and sat there sipping it.
“Letting the woman go was stupid,” Jonah said. “She was the one advantage you had and you gave it up. Phoning them was even worse. Now they know you’re on to them.”
“I want them to know,” Chase said.
“That’s not the way to do it.”
“It’s the way I’m doing it. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Depends. I still don’t know what you want.”
“I want the driver.”
4
He looked over at Jonah and the Jonah inside his mind said, He wants to ace you, but he’s waiting. He’ll grab the score, put one in your head, and leave you at the scene.
Chase didn’t need to give Angie directions to his house. She already knew the way, which was pretty good for someone who hadn’t had more than a couple of days to set up the snatch and memorize the roads. He thought more and more that she wasn’t just along for the ride. Nobody had mentioned her being in on the Aspen heist, but Chase wondered if she’d been there with Jonah and Lorelli, and if she’d been the driver who’d gotten them out of the tight mountain town.
She caught his eye in the rearview. He still couldn’t figure her but decided to think the worst for now.
They came down his street toward the house. He got out, keyed in the garage door code, and said, “Pull all the way in.”
He’d taken down the heavy bag so there was room for the van beside the Chevelle. Angie threw it into park They got out and Jonah stared at the black Chevelle.
“You still got something to shred the road,” he said.
“It’s new,” Chase told him.
He opened the door to the house and led them inside.
“You don’t keep it locked,” Angie noted.
“You’ve got no burglar alarm. You’d think a cop and a thief would know better.”
Chase said nothing. It bothered him having Jonah here, in the home he and Lila had made, even though this wasn’t the same home anymore without her. It meant less and less to him every day. But he could sense his grandfather already scoping the silverware, checking around for loose cash, plotting to walk off with something.
