by Kieran Shea

Kieran Shea received help and encouragement in writing this story from Private Eye Writers of America founder Robert J. Randisi. Because of the story’s dark tone, we thought it right for our Black Mask department. However, it could as appropriately have appeared in the Department of First Stories, for it is Mr. Shea’s first published fiction. The New Jersey-born author currently lives outside of Annapolis, Maryland, with his family. He told us he’s at work on a novel featuring this story’s hero, Charlie Byrne.

The Trump Taj Mahal, Room 1223, Atlantic City. I knocked and the door was yanked open, a nine-millimeter Glock hovering a foot and a half from my face.

Man, I thought, these kids and their pop allegiances to cliched firepower.The Glock looked pretty used. Probably picked up on a blazed-out lark in somepawn shop and never cleaned or oiled properly. I knew the kid, Marty Adell, couldn’t handle it by the way he held it straight-armed, like he’d seen in Grand Theft Auto IV or maybe some direct-to-DVD cop flick. But at eighteen or so inches, accuracy was a given, so I offered a slow grin.

“Dude, you mind putting your finger on the guard instead of the trigger?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Call me nervous.”

Marty adjusted.

“Thanks.”

As an investigator, I knew that playing bagman for a half-baked, amateur shakedown would have its heavy share of cheesy melodrama, especially since I knew the supposed victim, Andy Grossman. Karma was being, in this case, quite the bitch.

About fourteen years ago I was a summer lifeguard down on the Jersey shore. Avalon to be exact ... back when summers off for me meant chasing sandy bikinis and cheap beer with equal vigor and abandon. That summer, Andy was about six years old and lost his boogie board in a rip current. I was on tower duty that afternoon and saw Andy panic in the slack water about twenty yards off the break. Twenty yards may not seem like much to an adult, but to a frightened six-year-old kid, it’s vast. I jumped down from the tower, swam out, and nabbed Andy just before he slipped under.

Afterward, Andy’s parents were so gushingly grateful that they kept in touch with me over the years, even dropping a note of congratulations when I finally hobbled through my six-year community college career and started working as an investigator. Mr. Grossman was a hotshot litigator in Philadelphia and more than happy to oblige. Plenty of deposition work and the occasional sleazy dumpster dive. When he called me at the office a few days ago I expected more of the same. What I got, unfortunately, was a staged kidnapping involving his gambling-addicted son. It was a total amateur setup from the git-go and despite his wife’s teary doubts, Mr. Grossman knew the play. After some discussion, we agreed it might be high time to teach his wayward son a lesson.

Marty Adell, Andy’s University of Pennsylvania classmate and partner in this ill-conceived scam, was a ropey-looking glamour boy, skinnier in person than his MySpace and Facebook JPEGS. Maybe twenty-one, with a dark crop of waxy, slick hair and some grubby three-day stubble backing the “look.” He sweated like he’d been caught in the rain and his outfit was total goombah, straight from David Chase central casting—a shiny black Adidas track suit, two-hundred-dollar sneakers, and lots of gold jewelry, including a Miraculous Medal and that little Italian horn thing that looks like an amputated leg. I choked to suppress a laugh; even wise guys didn’t wear that crap anymore. Must’ve been part of Marty’s attempt at Method acting, along with the thuggishly scripted ransom calls made to Andy’s parents and the secondhand gun.

Marty puffed up his chest.

“Inside,” he ordered.

I shook my head and Marty’s eyes doubled with disbelief.

“Where’s Andy?” I asked.

“In here.”

“So? Show me.”

I braced the door open with my boot and gave Marty a nod to go fetch. Marty sneered and eased back, the gun still trained on my face. A moment later he dragged Andy Grossman from behind a blind corner, hopping into my line of sight. There was a swatch of silver duct tape squared across Andy’s mouth and his eyes pleaded at me like a choked puppy. His hands and feet were bound with more duct tape and I noticed he was barefoot. Teetering like a toddler, Andy wore a navy V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt and jeans.

I liked the fact that they made the effort of appearing as if this exchange was for real, what with all the duct tape and desperate acting, but it was obvious that Andy and Marty had watched too much television. A little thoughtful research on their part would have told them that ransom go-betweens never fly solo and kidnap victims are rarely, if ever, at the ransom exchange. Typically, if the victim is at the exchange it’s a fair bet that the victim is already dead.

I looked Andy over and noticed a flutter in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. No doubt I was a familiar face, but apparently he couldn’t place me. It had been a long time since he puked up a belly full of seawater.

I lifted a duffel bag and nodded at Marty.

“Okay,” I said, “Here’s your fifty grand.”

Then the elevator down the hall pinged behind me and Marty’s face jumped off like a bomb.

“Get in here! Get in here now!”

I stepped inside and the door closed behind me with a solid chuh-chunk.

I have to admit, the Taj suite the kids were holed up in looked pretty swank. If they really wanted to go for bad-guy authenticity they should’ve selected one of the salt-swollen dives off of Atlantic Avenue and Route 322. Now, those crackhead warrens would’ve added some realistic hard-core flavor. Chickenhead hookers and Latino trannies no extra charge.

The Taj suite itself was painted a pale money green. Bright off-white accents and fresh-cut flowers. There was a parted set of curtained french doors leading from what appeared to be a sitting area to the bedroom. No doubt the suite had a turbocharged minibar and steam shower too. Say what you want about The Donald’s attitude and the infamous hair. The man has taste.

Marty backed up.

“Now the money. Throw it.”

“No,” I said.

“What?”

I wanted to have some fun. “Cut Andy loose first,” I said, “I want him behind me. When Andy is behind me, then I’ll throw you your money.”

Marty shook his head, “Uh-uh. No friggin’ way.”

“Would it help if I said please?”

“Just throw the money over here, jackass.”

I inched forward and Marty bared his teeth.

“Don’t! Don’t come any closer, man. Just don’t. I swear to God I’ll drop you where you stand.”

More lame TV talk. I wrinkled my forehead. “Drop me? Did you really just say drop me? What is this? Bonanza? I don’t think so.”

“Give me the money already.”

“Again, only if you lower your weapon and only if Andy is behind me.”

Marty released Andy’s collar and, with some awkwardness, chambered a round.

Wow—I’m telling you, the drama. I kicked myself for not dropping Marty and all his weary b.s. myself when I first came into the suite, and for the first time wondered if the Glock was really loaded at all and if Marty actually had the safety off. I couldn’t see from where I was standing, so I remained still as a shred of doubt flickered in my chest. Great, I thought. Maybe all of Marty’s stress sweat was because he forgot to unload the gun. I tried a softer tack.

“Okay,” I said in my best soothing tone. I held up both my arms so my jacket hung open and spun in a slow circle. I then lifted the cuffs of my jeans. “See? Unarmed. Just lower your weapon. I’ll give you the money and we can all go our separate ways.”

Marty snatched Andy’s collar again and backed further into the suite. Waving the gun, he gestured for me to follow.

I was fairly certain that once I called their bluff, I was going to beat Marty unconscious for pointing a potentially live gun at me, so I indulged his direction. This flash of arrogance on my part was, of course, my big mistake.

At the blind corner just off the hallway came the blur of a baseball bat. The side of my skull detonated with scorching stars and the suite tilted. My vision spun like I was on the teacup ride at Wonderland and my legs wobbled out from under me. Suddenly I was grateful that Mr. Trump knew his carpeting too.

Plush.

The suite drained black.

* * * *

Voices arguing.

I came to, but lay motionless, eyes closed, jaw set. Playing it cold as possible as I listened hard and cursed myself for being so utterly stupid. Through a pumping headache I counted their fierce whispers. Three in all. One more than I expected, but all of them whiny, all of them educated, and all of them totally pissed off.

Not half as pissed off as I was, though.

I blinked at a trickle of blood creeping past my eye and Marty saw me. He lifted a sneaker to stomp on my ribcage and as his foot came down I instinctively clasped his shin above the ankle and wrenched hard. His knee popped like a muffled champagne cork and a ridiculously high-pitched scream shrieked out of his throat. Marty then toppled into a coffee table, shattering the glass top and scattering empty Heineken bottles in a dozen different directions. I lunged to my feet. My head swam with thick waves of pulsing pain but I managed to get my balance. I seized Marty by the back of his track suit and yanked his ass back onto the jagged shards of glass.

Now it was my turn to stomp. I mashed a boot heel on Marty’s crotch. As he folded upright I quickly jabbed four tightly grouped fingers into his exposed windpipe. Marty’s eyes mushroomed as he thrashed violently back and forth for air.

I wheeled around to confront whoever’d suckered me with the bat and was shocked to find it was a girl. Blond and leggy in a black turtleneck dress, party heels, and some patterned stockings from Victoria’s Secret’s thrill-your-boy-breathless collection. Drastic hairstyle, razor bangs. It was a total surprise when she growled and actually sprang at me, her bat held high, and then bobbed left at the last second. As she made her move, I reached down and stripped Marty’s gun from the ruins of the coffee table and swung it up, aiming it at her pert little breasts.

The blonde braked. Smiled.

“It’s not loaded, tough guy.”

I cocked my head slightly to the right. “I know,” I said.

Her face short-circuited. “Huh? You know? How do you know?”

“Feels light,” I answered.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Then I whipped the gun at her head and the barrel shattered her nose.

Blood shot out of the blonde’s split face and she screamed. She crumpled to the carpet and dropped the bat. I retrieved the bat and went all Jimmy Rollins on her with a low tapping bunt to one of her biscuit-sized knees.

More screaming. Now I was looking down at the blonde.

“Five seconds, bat girl.”

The blonde’s breathing heaved. She squinted up at me from the floor, one hand spidered across her bleeding face, the other grasping her swelling knee. She bawled.

“EWBWOKEMYUKINKOSE!”

“Four...”

Tears of rage and choking, wet sounds.

“Three...”

The blonde suddenly realized it could get a whole lot worse and took the cue. She crabbed her way past me and hobbled out of the suite.

When the door shut, I picked up the Glock again, checked the chamber, and ejected the magazine just to make sure it was empty. It was. I stuffed the magazine back into the gun and dropped the gun into my jacket pocket.

Across the room, through the french doors, a red-faced Andy Grossman was now unbound and pointing at a bunch of loose bills scattered on the king-sized bed.

“What the hell is this? It’s like, what? Five grand in change? What the hell?”

I backhanded some blood off my cheek. “Hey, Andy. Remember me?”

Andy glared, “Huh?”

“Your dad sent me.”

“My dad? Yeah, like duh. No kidding. Where’s the rest of my money?”

I walked around Marty. He was still looking for wind in the broken glass so I planted a boot in his ribs to keep him down. A grunt and he went fetal. I entered the bedroom.

“Where do you get the sack to pull a stunt like this, Andy?”

Andy Grossman smacked a lamp shade.

“You said there was going to be fifty grand here!”

Christ. I couldn’t believe it. Where was the gratitude, huh? Save somebody from a watery grave and you’d think there’d be a little more respect, a little more love. But no. And there I was saving his life all over again and all I got was clobbered with a baseball bat, smart-mouth lip, and a hostile idiotic stare over money he thought he was owed for his feeble little con. Well, I thought, time to set the karma straight. In a purging frenzy I marched over and slapped Andy until he cringed beside the bed.

“Oww! Hey! Stop! Stop it! Cut it out! Stop!”

I ground the bat into his chest with both hands. “You ungrateful little priss.”

“Ow! Wait—I—”

I stopped grinding. “Did you think of taking down your pathetic MySpace page, brainiac?”

“Huh? What?”

“Did you? I mean, really. The Ivy League piece of ass that just ran out of here? And Sopranos wannabe over there? I saw the three of you trust-puppies on your MySpace page two days ago after talking with your parents. Woo-hoo. Let me tell you, spring break in St. Lucia must’ve been awesome.”

“Aw, man—”

“Christ, Andy, if you’re going to such lengths to set up a scene, you might want to consider the details. Not to mention the fact that your little play here is pretty insulting. Hell, I’m offended and I’m not even Italian.”

“I’m sorry.”

I stood straight. I touched the huge welt and split skin above my right eye and it killed. My fingertips were crimson.

“I see that girlfriend of yours again I’m going to smack her stupid. She could’ve killed me.”

“I said I’m sorry!”

“Too late,” I said. I yanked a folded white envelope from inside my jacket and threw it on the bed. “Those are legal documents dissolving your forthcoming trust and a notification that your parents have changed their wills. My advice is they keep them changed, but what can I say? They’re giving you five grand wiggle cash so I guess they’re softies. This is your reality check, genius. Quit gambling or say goodbye to the family green. Like, permanently.”

I turned and walked into the bathroom as Andy picked up the envelope with panicked hands. My veins buzzed with gritty adrenaline as I ran the faucet, selected a crisp hand towel, and swabbed the blood off the side of my cheek. I dabbed the ugly gashed egg above my eye and my marred Frankenstein reflection flinched back at me in the mirror. Thank God the blond girl hesitated and pulled her swing at the last second or it could have been a lot worse. Nothing felt broken, but so much for discreet surveillance gigs for a while. All in all, a stupid play. I should have just handed over the documents and the cash at the door and been done with it.

I returned to the bedroom and then to the suite’s sitting area. Sitting up now, Marty squirmed as I approached, his face pinching with discomfort like a fat, wet bug just shimmied up the crack of his butt. I pointed the baseball bat at the top of his skull.

“You too, Robert De Niro. Leave. Playtime is over.”

He glanced at Andy.

“Andy?”

Andy scratched his head absently and stared at the documents deep-sixing his future financial safety nets. “Do what he says, Marty. Go find Emily before she calls the police or does something stupid. I’ll call you later.”

Marty groaned and limped his way out of the suite.

I turned back to Andy, who started scooping the five grand back into the duffel.

“Hey, did you know your folks have been sending me Christmas cards every year since I saved you from that rip?”

Andy stopped.

“Rip? What rip?”

“You don’t remember nearly drowning when you were six?”

It finally dawned on him who I was and where he recognized me from. “No way. That was you? I knew you looked familiar, but—no way. You?”

“Yeah, me. Charlie Byrne, in the flesh.”

“And now ... you’re what? A cop or something? Or do you just like going around busting heads and delivering bad news?”

I stepped closer. “Never been a cop,” I said. “I’m kind of a private. I like to think of myself as a research facilitator. Your father’s law firm is a client.”

Andy must have felt a bit braver with the reminder that his father had hired me, because the snotty, rich-kid surliness was back. “Gee, did my dad also pay you to tune up me and my friends?”

I shrugged and flexed the bat up and down, “You kids wanted to play rough. Normally I go to great lengths to avoid it, but I can play rough.”

He frowned. “Nice attitude. Look, just leave, okay? You’ve done what you came to do. Just leave me alone already.”

I swung the bat and it made a big, hollow whooving sound as it sailed through the air. Andy drew back.

“You took a big risk doing this, Andy,” I said gesturing around the room. “If your father’d been dumb enough to actually believe your threat and had gone to the police, the felony counts alone would’ve been federal. False imprisonment, menacing with a deadly weapon—I’m curious. Just how bad are you in the hole?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Come on. Quit dicking around. How bad?”

Andy shook his head and scoffed at the money with contempt. “More than five measly grand, I can tell you that much.”

I stalked quickly across the room.

“Hey, wait! Wait!”

I braced the bat up under Andy’s jaw line and slammed him against the wall. The back of his head bounced and he tried to squint away the sting.

“God, you are such a pain in the ass, you know that, Andy?”

“Please ... I can’t ... breathe...”

“As far as official business is concerned, yeah, maybe you’re right. My job here was done when I served you those documents. But you know what I think? I think your parents deserve more of an explanation. Hell, I think I’m owed an explanation myself seeing that I saved your miserable life once.”

Andy struggled against the bat, “What do ... ulgk ... you want me ... to say?”

“Hmm. Well, let’s start with something simple like who. Who do you owe, huh? Tell me, please, for the love of God, tell me this is some low-level street shy.”

“S’nobody....”

“Nobody? That’s why your daddy called me up to babysit your staged kidnapping? Uh-uh. Look at me. As far as I can tell, you’ve been messing with some dangerous people lately. While I could care less if you’re a colossal disappointment to your parents, I kind of care about keeping the work flow from your old man’s law firm steady.”

“So ... emph ... what?”

“So look. I know a few shy operators in this part of the state so maybe I can help you out of whatever jam you’re in. But you need to be straight with me, okay? If you keep jerking me around, I’m collecting the fee and writing you off for good, as are your parents. Look at it this way: This here is a sink-or-swim moment for you, only this time it’s your choice. You want to try it on your own with the five grand? Fine, be my guest. Or you can play it smart, clean up your act, and apologize to your folks. Make no mistake, those documents they drew up are real.”

Andy’s face grew dark with constricting blood as I pressed the bat closer. His eyes cut around the suite. The money on the bed, the legal documents, the broken coffee table, and scattered Heineken bottles. Finally his eyes landed on mine. He nodded and I let him go.

Andy bent over, coughed, and massaged his throat.

“That hurt.”

“Supposed to. Now who is it?”

He shot me a look as he leaned back against the wall. Then his shoulders sagged. His voice was suddenly weary and scared.

“Okay. The guy ... it’s...”

“Yeah?”

“His name is Donofrio, okay?”

I stepped back and nearly tripped. A cold, trapped feeling washed up from my knees and I suppressed an intense urge to vomit.

“Anthony or Dante?” I asked.

Andy’s eyes watered. “Dante.”

I dropped the bat on the bed and pulled out the Glock. I ejected the magazine.

“Tell me you have ammunition for this,” I said.

Our elevator, tinkling with a Bach piano concerto, plunged toward the lobby. On ten we were joined by Old Man Time wheeling a white oxygen tank, making his way down to the slots. My mind spun with possible options, all of which pretty much sucked.

“Since when do University of Pennsylvania college pukes go to the street for shy money, Andy? I mean, Dante Donofrio? Are you out of your freaking mind?”

“I know ... I’m sorry. I thought ... well ... it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“What happened?”

Andy leaned in a corner. “It started with a private game with a bunch of finance hotshots out of New York. A friend of a friend of Marty’s knew about it. Back of a strip club. Anyway, I got careless and cratered. Poof.”

“Poof?”

“I’m like ace, king, and this geek with his suspenders and cufflinks was like queen, seven. The flop rainbowed Broadway ... ten, jack, queen, and I’m—like—sick, go for it. Guy pulls queens up with a seven on the turn and a full boat on the river. Someone at the club said they knew a guy who could back me, so I took the money and kept losing. Big time.”

“How much all in all? It isn’t the whole fifty large you asked for, is it? Tell me you padded the ransom.”

Old Man Time eyeballed us. I grinned crazily back at him until he looked uncomfortably away. I suddenly realized I still had the baseball bat.

“No. I padded it. Twenty-five.”

“With the vig?”

“Yeah. With the vig.”

“And how far are you behind with Dante?”

Andy pressed his fingertips into his eyelids and rubbed. “I missed the third payment last Tuesday.”

Damn it. Well that was that then. Civilities had all but dried up with Dante Donofrio. Me, I’d never seen the guy but the stink was Dante was one of those U.S. prime badasses who relished enforcing his books creatively. Loansharking, extortion, bookmaking, a little prostitution, the odd drag-down scheme to do in the assorted lost and greedy. Occasionally there were rumors of a muscled boost. A smart operator. Never backed into a corner and never tapped what was forbidden, Donofrio kicked to the right people and stepped up to do what was necessary when asked—be it wet work from Philly or making inroads with the metastasizing Latino gangs. His brother Anthony merely dabbled in bribing politicos to secure paving contracts. Both Donofrios were what newspaper columnists around Jersey tactfully called “unsavory.” Lucky me.

There could’ve been Donofrio crew peppered all over the Taj casino, right in the lobby in fact. The elevator eased to a halt and opened.

“I need to check out,” Andy said as we stepped into the lobby.

I looked left and right over the sea of faces and quickly shoved Andy towards the exit I thought was closest to my car.

“Trust me,” I muttered, “you don’t.”

Ten minutes later we were in my sand-colored Toyota Camry fleeing southwest out of A.C. at a good clip. I was pretty sure I had a concussion as my stomach continued to feel queasy and my head throbbed.

“You got Donofrio’s number on you?”

“Yeah. Here. It’s on my cell—” Andy scrolled through his glowing blue cell-phone queue and handed it to me. “But it’s not Donofrio. It’s his guy—Billy. Dante doesn’t take calls. I talk to Billy.”

I scribbled down Billy’s number on the pad mounted to my dashboard and tore off the paper. I tossed him back his cell phone and pulled into a convenience store.

“We’re stopping? Shouldn’t we be, like, heading back to Philadelphia? My parents’? Someplace safe?”

I opened my wallet and showed him a pre-paid plastic telephone card. I definitely didn’t want a couple of the calls I was about to make traceable to me.

“You want anything from inside?” I asked. “Bottle of water or something?”

“No. I’m fine. Wait. Can you snag me a pack of smokes?”

I shot him a look. “Not in my car you’re not.”

After a dozen calls and a jumbo Red Bull to keep me amped, thirty minutes later we were heading southwest again. It was just past midnight. I stared straight ahead into the darkness and chewed a handful of aspirin from a bottle I kept in the glove compartment.

“Did you call my dad? What did Billy say? Is Donofrio going to take the five thousand for now?”

My hands twisted on the steering wheel. I swallowed some scalding bile that inched up my throat as the oncoming headlights doubled and reset. No doubt about it, I thought, my brain is definitely messed up.

I thought about Marty’s gun that was now stashed under my seat and considered throwing it into a marshy tidal area as we blew by. Then I remembered the timbre of Billy’s voice on the payphone at the convenience store and reconsidered. The kids didn’t have any ammo, but even empty I might need it. Should’ve brought my own gun but, hell, I’d thought this was going to be easy.

“Hang in there,” I assured Andy, “I think it’s going to be all right. Your dad woke his finance guy and he should be transferring funds electronically to an offshore account as we speak.”

The kid’s relief was palpable, “Really? Oh, thank God. Really?”

“Yeah. But we still have to meet Billy.”

“What? Why?”

I bunched my shoulders. “Just do. You have to apologize.”

Forty minutes later we pulled into a potholed parking lot behind a boarded-up restaurant off of Route 40 in the middle of south Jersey farmlands. The night had cleared and a crescent moon hung big over the scraggly pines. In the back of the restaurant, a window in the kitchen door threw a warped rectangle of light on the oily pavement next to a garbage dumpster, a red Ford pickup, and a black GMC Yukon XL. I could see shadows moving inside the kitchen.

I killed the engine and didn’t look at Andy.

“Come on,” I said.

Andy climbed out first. When he moved I reached under my seat and shoved the empty nine-millimeter into my waistband. Andy then sheepishly followed me to the kitchen door. Even in the cold, the air smelled like rancid fry grease. I handed him the duffel bag with the five thousand.

“Ready?”

Andy visibly shook. His voice steamed in the air. “I guess so.”

We went inside.

In the center of the kitchen Billy leaned against a stainless-steel prep table. Billy was undeniably two-eighty with biceps that hammed out his yellow golf shirt sleeves like a carved set of fleshy cinderblocks. Shaved head, smoldering cigar stump clenched in his teeth, goatee trimmed tight like a Saturday-cartoon version of Satan. Two other goons flanked Billy, both slightly smaller but bouncer-formidable, wearing Carhartt canvas work coats and concrete crusted Timberlands. One rack of sputtering fluorescent tubes illuminated the scene. The rest of the kitchen was eerily dark.

Billy click-sparked a butane cigar torch over and over. The blue two-inch flame hissed from the lighter’s tip like a curse.

“Well, well ... look here. If it isn’t the college boy.”

I stepped back to square off the kitchen’s exit and touched Andy’s arm. “Relax,” I told him. “Your slate is clean with Mr. Donofrio now. Isn’t that right, Billy?”

Billy’s mouth was sour. “Yeah. I just got the call a little while ago. Cayman transfer went through without a hitch. Today is your lucky day, kid. Your buddy Byrne over there saved your ass. Word is it isn’t the first time.” Billy aimed his chin at me. “By the way, Mr. Donofrio asked me to thank you for the intel on Larry Paige’s whereabouts.”

Larry Paige was a sneaky little skell who’d burned Dante Donofrio on a small-time real-estate deal a couple of years back. Paige had disappeared from the south Jersey radar after an associate of Paige’s had his feet chopped off by some of Donofrio’s crew. I had a hunch a couple of my sources could provide a bead on Paige’s whereabouts, so I called in a few favors back at the convenience store to help placate the situation with Andy. Be some time before I could go back to those particular wells, and as for professional ethics—well—let’s just say there are only so many seats available on the quality-of-life bench. Larry Paige just lost his.

“Please tell Mr. Donofrio I appreciate his willingness to balance out this unfortunate mistake.”

Billy nodded digestively. “What’s in the bag?”

“Give him the bag, Andy.”

Andy crept over and gingerly handed Billy the bag with the five thousand.

“It’s a bonus,” I said. “A little sugar for you. No hard feelings.”

Billy unzipped the bag and looked into it without expression. He then threw it on the prep table and wrinkled his nose at the two goons. Both men seized Andy’s elbows.

Andy looked wildly over at me.

“You gonna stick around and drive him to the hospital after?” Billy asked.

I turned away as Billy’s cigar lighter clicked on and held its hiss. Andy sobbed.

“Yeah,” I said, my hand on the kitchen door. “I’ll be outside.”