“Like an Energizer bunny on amphetamine.”
“Exactly! Has he always behaved like that?”
“For as long as I’ve known him, yeah.” Corey popped another knuckle. He was afraid to ask his next question. “So what did he say?”
“Nothing important,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I was surprised to see him there, but he said he frequents the place so, whatever. Coincidence, I guess.”
Coincidence, my ass.
But Simone didn’t sound suspicious. He saw no reason to worry her and no reason to delve into more info about Leon, either.
“Well, stranger things have happened,” Corey said. “I’ll be home in a bit, babe.”
“C-Note?”
He stammered, convinced he had heard incorrectly. “Excuse me?”
“Leon used that nickname for you. C-Note. What’s the story behind that?”
“It was only a stupid nickname he made up for me. As you saw for yourself, he says a lot of nonsense.”
“Hmph. No disagreement there.”
“I’ll see you guys soon,” he said.
It required all of his self-control to keep from slamming the phone onto the cradle.
What the hell was Leon up to?
8
As Corey was walking across the parking lot to his car, a blue Ford truck rolled up behind him and honked.
It was Leon, again. Shit. Corey got a quivery feeling in his knees.
“Corey!” Leon waved from the driver’s side window. “Slow up, man!”
Corey looked around to see if anyone was watching them. They were alone in the parking lot. Evening rush-hour traffic traveled back and forth on the adjoining road, the bleat of horns and rumble of engines like discordant music.
He approached Leon’s truck. Leon wore a pair of wraparound mirror sunglasses. He was the only one inside the vehicle. The dull-eyed pervert was gone.
“What’re you doing here?” Corey asked.
“I was in the area, my man, thought I’d drop by,” Leon said. He took a draw on a cigarette. “I figured we could grab a cold one and chitchat a bit.”
Corey glared at him. “My wife told me she ran in to you at lunch. Why the hell are you following us?”
“Following you?” Leon grinned. “Don’t be a paranoid. Come on, it was pure, unadulterated coincidence. I’ve been going to that Chipotle spot for weeks. I love Mexican cuisine, amo el alimento mexicano.”
“Whatever. That’s bullshit. I know you better than that. What kind of game are you trying to run on me?”
Smirking, Leon pointed ahead with his cigarette, reflections of passing traffic floating across the lenses of his sunglasses. “There’s a sports bar down the road, you still guzzle Heineken by the keg, I know you haven’t changed that much, let’s roll, vamos, climb up in the saddle here and let’s go get that brewski, it’s so damn hot and smoggy in this bitch nothing’ll hit the sweet spot like an ice cold lager.”
Sucking in a breath, Corey looked around again. All clear.
“I’ll take my own car,” Corey said. “Follow me.”
As he drove, he tried to think of what he was going to say to Leon. His earlier conversation with Todd replayed through his thoughts. I don’t think I ’d snitch, but I’d probably try to talk you into turning yourself in peacefully.
He decided, finally, that that was what he would do: he would convince Leon to turn himself in to the FBI. Leon had been gifted with the kind of raw intelligence that defied standardized tests and regimented school curriculums, and he had the cold-blooded cunning of a rattlesnake, but no one, not even him, could elude the FBI forever. The Feds had mind-boggling resources, highly trained professionals, and access to a worldwide intelligence network. Sooner or later, they would catch him-and Corey did not intend to find himself and his family caught in the crossfire.
They went to a sports bar called Shooters. Corey had been there once with Todd and their staff. They had a wide selection of beers on draught, good burgers, buffalo wings at five different levels of spiciness, and an abundance of big TV screens positioned to give you a prize view of a sporting event no matter where you sat.
At Leon’s request, they took one of the high-backed booths in the far corner of the dining room, in the smoking section, near the restrooms and a rear emergency exit. Leon settled onto the side that gave him a direct view of the entrance.
He’s positioning himself to see everyone who comes inside, Corey thought. And to make a quick getaway, if he needs to.
It was early yet, the happy hour crowd just beginning to drift in. Corey noted, for his own benefit, that none of the patrons were uniformed police officers.
An energetic young brunette stopped by to take their orders. Leon asked for two Heinekens, on draft. When the waitress flitted away, he removed his sunglasses.
“My man, C-Note,” Leon said. He twirled the shades in his fingers. “Another day, another dollar, nothing like hitting the bar after putting in a hard day of honest work.”
“You know all about putting in that hard day of honest work, I take it.”
“You know it, I’ve had my nose to the grindstone all day, painting houses in this damn near tropical jungle climate is enough to make a grown man cry uncle, but I doubt you know anything about that, sitting up there as you do in your plush, air-conditioned office, looking out the window at the hoi polloi while you sip on chilled Perrier and monitor your stock portfolio.”
Corey let the veiled insult pass. “What’s the address of the house you were painting today, Leon?”
“It’s on Wainwright Way, a stone’s throw from here, a mansion, actually, stucco, eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, Jacuzzi, wine cellar, swimming pool, the whole nine. They had some annoying little rat dog skittering around all over the place. I almost had to kick that sucker in the teeth to get him out of my way.”
“A Chihuahua,” Corey said.
“Yeah, that’s what they call them, one of those Taco Bell mutts. The bastard pissed on my paint brushes and I could’ve wrung his scrawny goddamn neck like a towel, but the lady of the house was there, fine bitch, old as Methuselah but fine. Most definitely she’d had about a million dollars of plastic surgery done, she had these crazy perfect D-cup knockers that made me want to nurse like a newborn, you know what I mean, huh, huh?”
Corey could only shake his head. It was impossible to know whether Leon was telling the truth. He lied with a glibness that Corey had never seen before in anyone else.
There was likely a road nearby called Wainwright Way, and there might have been a home that fit Leon’s thumbnail description. Leon might have even driven past and observed a crew of painters at work there, too. But who knew whether he had worked there himself or not, unless you’d seen him with your own eyes? That was what made him such a good liar. He spun his fabrications from a loom of reality and wove the threads as he saw fit to suit his purposes.
The waitress delivered their beers. Leon raised his mug. “To the good old days.”
Leon took a long sip, belched with satisfaction.
Quiet, Corey left his beer untouched. He was struggling to find the words to express himself, and as far as he was concerned, this meeting of theirs was by no means a celebration of anything.
“Ah, that hits the spot,” Leon said. He grinned. “Remember how we used to do, how we’d kick back and lounge after we put in real work?”
Corey slid his mug aside. “I don’t think about those days any more, Leon. I’m a husband now, a father. I run a business, a legit business.”
“All right, all right, yeah, yeah, I feel you. You’re Mr. Home Security now.” He giggled. “Ironic, still, you know, deliciously ironic.”
“I’m an upstanding member of society. I have a reputation in the community. A good name.”
Leon drank more beer. “A man’s only as good as his name, uh-huh, yeah, that’s what I always say, right, right, right.”