Midas

“He paid the bookie back with his own money?” Gary said.

Bruno nodded and the cops all burst into laughter.

“Good story,” Thomas said.

Justin finished off his shot of scotch. “It’s still not over.”

“Ahh,” Bruno said. “I don’t think the rest is. .”

“Tell ’em the end,” Justin said. “I think they’ll like it.”

Bruno shrugged his wide shoulders. “Well, the thing is,” he said, “when the bookie goes to the window to place his bet, he realizes what happened. He didn’t get paid ten grand, he actually got picked for three.”

“Christ,” Thomas said. “What’d he do?”

“You know,” Bruno decided, “this part’s not really too interesting.”

“Tell ’em what happened,” Justin said. His voice was flat but insistent.

“Yeah, what’d the bookie do?”

Bruno shrugged again. “He got some guy to glue Marty’s hands to a piece of cement. And then they tossed Marty in the river.”

Mike was still laughing. “And then what happened?”

“Nothin’ happened,” Bruno said. “That’s the end of the story.”

“I mean, what happened to Marty?”

“He died.”

“They killed him? They killed Marty?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God.” This was Thomas. “Did they arrest the bookie?”

“Not really. See, he had an alibi. Pretty airtight.” He glanced over at Justin, whose expression was still neutral. “And the cops never could find out who did the actual, you know. . deed. Marty was kind of a scumbag, so I don’t think they looked all that hard. That’s my theory, anyway.”

“Geez,” Thomas said. “The ending’s not so funny as the beginning, is it?”

Bruno yawned and glanced at his watch. “I got an early call tomorrow. Big scene comin’ up.” He put his meaty hand on Justin’s back. “Can I buy you dinner tomorrow, Jay? We can do a little catchin’ up. Maybe you’ll actually do some talkin’ so I don’t have to listen to my big yap anymore.”

Justin nodded. Bruno stuck his hand out and Justin shook it. They all watched as the big guy lumbered out of the bar, first tossing a hundred-dollar bill down on the table, saying, “For my round.”

When he was out the door, all the cops started talking about what a great guy he was, what great stories he told.

“You good friends with him?” Mike asked Justin.

“We used to be pretty friendly. Haven’t seen him for a while.”

“How do you know him?”

“From up in Providence.”

“Great guy. Really great guy,” Gary said. “What’d he used to do? Before he was a technical adviser and facilitator?”

“The same thing he probably does now,” Justin said. “In between his facilitating.” He finished the last of his mug of beer. “Bruno’s a hit man. For the mob. Last time I saw him he was at fifteen kills and counting. My guess is he’s way over twenty by now.” He grabbed the check, Bruno’s hundred, and stood up. “He does tell great stories, though, doesn’t he?”

8

Justin couldn’t quite place the noise. Some kind of horrible bird? A fire alarm? Maybe a smoke detector. Whatever it was, it was awful and it seemed to be emanating from the middle of his hungover brain.

He opened his eyes-a big mistake-then rolled over in his bed. He waited for sunlight to come streaking through the window and put an end to his hazy darkness, but no light came. He realized it was still dark outside. And that damn noise kept hammering away at him.

It took another moment or two to realize the sound wasn’t vibrating inside his head. It was coming from the end table next to his bed. From the general direction of the telephone. No, it was actually coming from the telephone. An evil invention, Justin decided. The world would be a lot better off with nice quiet tin cans and some string.

Justin sighed, regretted every shot and every beer he’d downed the night before, then picked up the phone and heard:

“What the hell are you trying to do to me?!”

“Hello?” he croaked.

“You told me there was no trouble! You said it was just a favor! You almost got me goddamn fired a year ago and what, now you’re trying to finish me off?! And you don’t even return my calls?!”

“Wanda?”

“Of course it’s Wanda. Who the hell else do you think it is? I left five goddamn messages for you!”

“I never check my machine. What time is it?”

“Well start checking! And it’s six.”

“In the morning?”

“Wake up, Jay! I’m not kidding around here! Why the hell didn’t you tell me what I was getting into?!”

He sat up-another mistake-and tried to rub his eyes to full awake position. He had a plastic bottle of Fiji Water next to his bed, which he grabbed and swigged down half the water in two gulps.

“Wanda, I swear to God, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I spent half the night being interrogated about your goddamn fingerprints!”

Now he was awake. “Tell me.”

“I am telling you, you asshole. I want you to tell me!”

“I get you’re angry. But what happened?”

“You set me up, is what happened. I put through the prints and found the same thing-no clearance. So I called in a favor, trying to bypass the clearance. You got me curious, too, you bastard. And within five fucking minutes, I got a call.”

“From who?”

“It doesn’t matter. But I spent the whole day and night in D.C. I didn’t get home till after midnight.”

“You had to go to Washington?”

“Will you pay attention, please? You sent me to get you absolutely top-secret, classified information, you bastard! And I almost got my ass fried.”

“Wanda, I swear, what I told you is everything I know. I don’t have a clue what’s going on, I don’t have any idea who this guy is. All I know is that somebody’s getting away with murder.”

“Murder?”

He sighed. And told her about the airplane manifold and the conversation he’d had with Ray Lockhardt.

“Thanks for telling me before.”

“Look, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t tell you.”

“And why is that?”

“The people you were conversing with last night, did you tell them why you were looking for the info?”

“Of course I did.”

“Did you tell them about me?”

Her voice softened for the first time in the conversation. “Yes. You didn’t tell me there was anything to hide here.”

“It’s not a problem. I didn’t know there was anything to hide. But clearly there is. So it’s better you didn’t know the plane was sabotaged. Less for you to have told them.”

“What I should do is go tell them now.”