“Yeah,” I said. “What about Raj?”
“No one had anything bad to say about him. Like we thought, he’s an eagle scout except that he’s involved with Johnson. Of the four guys I asked, three said he’s the person they would go to if they were in trouble and needed help.”
“Yeah, for a thief, part-owner of a whorehouse, and racketeer, he seems okay. You get anything else?”
“That’s it. I’m going to make more calls, but then I’ve got to wash my hair, paint my toenails, and get ready for my date.”
“Ha,” I said as humorlessly as I could and added, “Be careful tonight.”
“I will.”
“And call me when you get back.”
She laughed at that, said, “What are you going to do?”
“Spend about ten more minutes at my office, then go home and try to get more sleep.”
She said, “I’ll talk with you later then, right?”
“Right,” I said and we hung up.
The mail was bills, a catalogue of office equipment, payment for an employee background check I’d done, and more bills. The package had no return address. I had friends in the business who never opened a package without one. Too many unsatisfied customers-the ones whose suspicions about their wives or husbands you’d been unable to confirm, and the ones whose suspicions you’d confirmed. Too much chance that the package would contain something ugly.
I snapped the packing tape and opened the top.
I would have preferred a bomb.
I lifted out a stack of photographs. They were mostly of a woman and David Russo, the cop I’d shot. The photo on top was a formal portrait of them, him in a tuxedo, her in a yellow dress-probably taken at someone else’s wedding. The next showed their own wedding, him in another tuxedo, her in white. The next three photos showed them inside and outside a house which I figured must be their own. Dozens more showed them on vacations, with friends, at a birthday party, with a dog. He looked happy. She looked happy. I looked at every one. She’d sent me a record of the life they’d lived together. She wanted me to see what I’d taken away.
I set down the photos and moved the box from my desk. Something shifted inside it-a tissue bundled into a packet.
I took it out and unwrapped it.
“Jesus!” I said.
It was a man’s wedding band. It had to be her husband’s. Who else’s?
Why would she send it to me? What was I supposed to do with it?
I put it on my desk like someone had accused me of trying to steal it, pushed my chair away, and went back to the window. The lake still gleamed calm and gold. Sun still shined on the insurance building.
I went back to the desk, sat, and picked up the ring. I slipped it over the end of my left ring finger, lowered it to the first knuckle, slid it to the second knuckle.
It fit.
Corrine once had slid a ring like this one onto my finger.
I took off the ring and looked at it for awhile. Then I slid it onto my right ring finger, past the second knuckle until it rested against the thin web of skin that holds the hand together. David Russo’s wife had sent the ring so I wouldn’t forget. It might’ve been the most valuable thing that she still had from her husband, and she’d sent it to the man who’d killed him. The least I could do was wear it.
Someone knocked at the office door. I jumped. For a moment, I had the weird feeling that Russo’s wife had come to visit.
I felt the unfamiliar weight of the ring as I went to the door and opened it.
Rafael, the Latino gang member who’d challenged Earl Johnson last night, was standing in the corridor.
TWENTY
RAFAEL LOOKED HARD AT my face. “What’s wrong with you?”
I tried to look calm. “Nothing. Come in.”
He stepped into the office, carrying a small vinyl bag, and looked around like hidden men might jump him. Maybe checking every room he entered had saved him a time or two. He had a marine haircut, short everywhere but a little shorter on the sides than on top. He had a diamond stud in his right earlobe and another diamond clipped high on his outer ear. He had a raised brown spot on his cheek-a mole or a birthmark, something you could identify his corpse with, sooner or later. Except for the brown spot, he probably was handsome.
He sat in the chair I kept for clients and I went to my desk chair. “What can I do for you?” I said.
He put the vinyl bag on my desk. It clunked when it hit the desktop, metal against metal.
“What’s that? A gun?”
“Don’t be a dickhead. It’s money. First payment.”
“You’ve got coins in there?”
“Some. We kick in what we’ve got.”
“I thought you weren’t going to pay.”
“I won’t pay Johnson. But me and my friends don’t want to commit suicide by cop, especially a fucked-up cop like Johnson. This is stay-alive money, right?”
“You know I’ve got to take it back to Johnson, or else it doesn’t do you any good.”
“So take it to him. But I don’t trust him and I won’t deal with him.”
“Seems like a good call,” I said. “Why do you trust me?”
“I don’t. But I could find you. You’re on the news and you’re in the Yellow Pages. I can do two plus two.”
I thought about that and asked something that had started nagging me. “You think two plus two equals four in Johnson’s scam?”
A corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “You mean, do I think he’s not all he says he is?”
I nodded.
“Hell, yeah.”
“What do you think he’s up to?”
He shrugged. “As long as it don’t get me killed, I don’t give a fuck. Seems like you’re the one who’s got to worry about that.”
He glanced at my hands. I realized I was playing with David Russo’s ring on my finger and I stopped. I said, “Why don’t you trust Johnson?”
He looked up at my eyes, like he was figuring how much to tell me. He said, “We used to deal with Monroe. Monroe’s a fuckhead but we knew what to expect from him, right? Then Johnson shows up and says he’s the man, not Monroe. He says he won’t bother us if we pay him, but I don’t believe it. He wants to bust our balls.”
“Seems like the argument’s personal between you and Johnson,” I said.
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “He blew my friend’s head off. Yeah, it’s fucking personal.”
“Before that. You came into the meeting looking for a fight.”
“See this arm?” He extended his left arm across the desk. It had plenty of muscle on it. “Last summer he broke it.”
“Looks like it’s healed okay. What did you do to make him break it?”
Anger flashed across his face. “Nothing. I mind my own business.”
I shook my head. “You mind your own business like last night when you threw the chair through the window?”
A mischievous smile played on his lips. “He deserved that.”
“So why pay if you think he’s going to keep busting you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe the money slows him down.” Something in his voice sounded almost like hope.
“What’s the business you were minding when he came into your neighborhood?”
“Nothing. Selling reefer. A little meth.”
“Meth is nothing?”
“You ever see the fuckheads that buy it?”
“I see why he broke your arm.”
“You want the money?”
“Not really.” I picked up the bag. “Coins. No one wants you breaking into your piggy banks.”
He sighed. “Do I leave the money?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Leave it.”
He stood and headed to the door, but hesitated and turned back to me. “Two plus two isn’t four with you either, right?”
I considered that. “To tell the truth, I’m not sure what it is.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Me neither.”
When he was gone, I unlocked the file cabinet drawer where I’d stashed the bottle of Jim Beam and the Baggie of coke. Either one would make my day happier. I dropped in the bag of money, closed the drawer, and locked it.