me and Big Matt were going to do all the heavy work, and they’d picked this guy because he was skinny enough to slip through places we couldn’t fit. But he was seriously strong, pulled his weight. I guess Albie must have known that he could.
Jessop had some ink, but you couldn’t tell much from it. Confederate flag on his chest, right over his heart, but no “88” or shamrock or other race stuff.
It looked professional, that tattoo. He had outdoor skin, too. If he’d ever been Inside, it was a while ago.
Dark-brown hair, cut pretty short, like a businessman. Dark eyes. Kind of a big nose, but nothing that’d make you look twice. The little finger on his right hand was crooked, like it was broken once and never set right. Long fingers, thin wrists. A rip scar on his left forearm—the kind you get from blocking a blade.
If I had to guess, I’d say he was somewhere around my age. No way this was his first job: he knew how to use tools, and he lifted with his back. Never tried to pick up something he didn’t think he could handle.
Didn’t talk much, but none of us did, so I didn’t know if he was naturally closemouthed or just being a pro.
He wasn’t from New York, that was for sure. I don’t know how people talk in Florida—that was where Albie lived—so he could be from there, maybe.
He was the kind of guy, you walk in a poolroom, he’s waiting for you. When I tried to picture what he did when he wasn’t working, I could see him doing that. He didn’t look like a gambler.
“Would this person know you?” the lawyer asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Even in your new glasses?”
Showing off? I didn’t know. I just said “Yeah,” again. I figured that was smarter than telling him a story like I told the girl who owned the house I was staying in. On this slickster, it would never fly.
“So you’d know him?”
“No question.”
“Say we could get a picture …?”
“That would do it. For me, I mean.”
“If he’s got a record—and I’m thinking he probably does—shouldn’t be that hard to find. Okay, so this person gets … located. What then?”
“Well, if your guy could find out some other stuff, that would be good, too.”
“Such as?”
“Like you said, if he had a record. Or if he was a drunk. Or a junkie. Things like that.”
The lawyer touched that pencil mustache of his. “Anything that might make him, should we say … unreliable?”
“Uh-huh.” Damn, I remember thinking, this one’s got a fucking stiletto for a brain.
“Mr.… Wilson, is it? Mr. Wilson, is it correct for me to assume that should he be located nothing is going to happen to this individual?”
“Absolutely.”
“No … difficult questions you want to ask him?”
“Not a one.”
“You understand, in such a situation, the investigator would be working for me, but you would be the client, yes?”
“Sure.”
“And you understand there is no way I could claim I haven’t met you before?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And the reason you want this person located?”
“An old friend of mine—I mean old-old, he was like eighty-something—he died. While I was Upstate. This guy, the one I want to find, I heard he and my friend were close. My friend, he wanted to be buried in Arlington. You know, the place where—”
“So he was a veteran, your friend?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not certain his final wishes have been carried out? And you believe this gentleman might know?”
“Exactly,” I said, trying to say it like Solly would.
“Very good,” the lawyer said. “You understand that you’ve really provided very little by way of information, yes? So this could take a while.”
“And time is money, I know. But this is real important to me.”
I left my new cell-phone number with the lawyer. And ten large in hundreds.
I was in the middle of a workout the next morning when I heard someone coming up the back stairs. Before I could … I can’t say what, exactly, because I wasn’t ready for anyone knowing about the place.
Which makes me stupid.
Then I heard, “It’s just me.” The woman from downstairs.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson,” she said, when she was standing in the front room, where I’d been working out. “I wanted to ask you something, and I thought it would be silly to call, since I could see you were home. I mean, from your car and all.”
I just looked at her.
“I didn’t want to ring the bell, either. In case you were asleep. Or on