stone liar. And you do know where that little blue book is.”
“So then Sugar wouldn’t mind hurting me, is that what you’re saying?”
“Wouldn’t mind tying you up and taking the house apart, piece by piece. The book’d have to be in that house, somewhere.”
“And if he still didn’t find it …?”
“In Solly’s mind? Sugar, he’d either make you talk or make you dead.”
“What a purely evil man.”
“Not evil enough, girl. I was the best Solly had, and I never had a chance against Albie, not even against his ghost. He had it set up so Solly’d play himself out of position, no matter what. Remember, you said those guys who came around, they were the real thing. Hard men, you called them.”
“They were.”
“That’s what Solly always said about Ken. That he was a hard man. If it was Ken coming around to see you, you know what he’d do? He’d find out the truth before he did anything. He’d look real close. And Albie, he left his mark on Solly. Put him right on the spot.”
She started to open her mouth, then brought her lips together.
“You know what Albie’s mark is, girl? That ‘will’ he was supposed to have sent to Solly. If the hard men showed up and found Albie gone, they would have called Solly, right? And Solly, first thing out of his mouth, he’d tell them all about the partners desk. But once the hard men saw that paper Albie left, he’s cooked. Solly’s getting himself some visitors. When they show, no mattter what story he tells, he’s a dead man.
“Solly, all those years, he still had Albie figured wrong. That’s why he’d tell those hard men about the desk in a flash. That’s a prove-in, that he knew Albie’s secrets. Only, it was Albie who knew Solly’s secrets. See?”
“Oh God.”
“Yeah. And now that we know that, we know what we have to do. It’s easy.”
“What’s easy?”
“Making choices. When you’ve only got one, I mean. My ID, it’s not worth crap to me, but it’s gold to Solly. My credit card’s a goddamned tracking unit, like it was stuck under my skin. Solly could find me, no matter where I went.”
“So what can we do?”
“We’re gonna burn my ID.”
“And I make you a new—?”
“Not burn it with a match, Lynda. Burn it by using it.”
“Sugar, I’m not keeping up.”
I can’t really explain how her saying that made me feel. I wasn’t trying to confuse her or anything, but I could see that it was me who knew what to do. Me, not Lynda. I knew what to do. So I told her:
“We’re going back to New York. You and me. We’ll rent a car. And not just so the Caddy’s plates won’t show on any turnpike scanner, either. It’s a long drive. We’ll have to stop along the way. In a motel, like. That’s two ways to use the card. And there’s others, too. Like buying gas. Or food.
“I’m gonna tell Solly I got it done. Which I damn well did. He wouldn’t expect me to use the phone he gave me, so it wouldn’t spook him that it’s not signaling.
“But he can track me through the card; he’ll see I’m headed home. That’s perfect. He wouldn’t expect me to say what he wants to hear on the phone. And the book, that I’d have to hand over to him in person, anyway.
“So, before he even knows I’m in town, I slip back into the bank, take my money out, and stash it with you, before I go to see him.” I knew it couldn’t happen like that—I’d have to do Solly before I went near that bank. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lynda. I guess it was that old pass-the-polygraph thing in my head coming up again.
“Are you going to—?”
“After I see Solly, I don’t need any new ID. I just go back to being me. I even got a plan how I can do that. You, you’ll be Lynda Leigh.”
“We’ll see.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘We’ll see,’ didn’t I?”
“I get it. You mean, you’ll make me a perfect new ID anyway, just in case, right?”
“What part of ‘We’ll see’ didn’t you understand?”
We got started early the next morning. Lynda dropped me off a block away from a cabstand, then took the Caddy back to its garage. By the time she got to the American Airlines terminal, I’d been waiting almost an hour.
We used my Stanley Wilson credit card to rent one of those big SUVs. Then back