stretch must have been sweet, since I was looking so good.
Places I knew I couldn’t go near. Maybe Solly thought I was already down in Florida. He gave me a list of all these people who Albie might talk to, but I knew that was a shuck—no way Solly hadn’t already talked to those guys himself.
So, I could go down there, play a hunch that Jessop was a local.
But what I couldn’t do was lie to Solly. If he ran across me still here, I could always tell him the truth about me hiring the PI through that lawyer. But it would be better if it didn’t come to that.
The story Solly told me, on the surface it made sense. If he wanted Jessop canceled, he would have called Big Matt, like he said. I worked with Big Matt twice before. He was an angry guy. I don’t mean he had a temper or anything like that. But he was so angry, you could feel it standing next to him. He walked around like that. I guess maybe he wasn’t angry anymore, not with all Solly told me. But if Big Matt thought anyone might knock his new train off the rails, he’d kill them. Not a doubt in my mind.
I didn’t know any way to reach him. I never did; that isn’t the way it works. Guys like Solly, they’re all over the country. They’re the ones with the numbers. And even those numbers, they’re just message drops.
So I was thinking two things: Big Matt had closed down his contact number. He was out of the business, what did he need it for? I was also thinking about that responsibility thing Solly went on and on about. If Jessop could give up Big Matt, why couldn’t I? The way Solly put it, I had that statute-of-limitations thing going for me, so Big Matt wouldn’t worry about me. Just Jessop.
I had to concentrate. That’s a lot harder than pushing weight. When I concentrate, really, really hard, I can feel my brain—it burns just like muscles do when you work them to their limit.
But I did it. Some guys, they say it helps to write stuff down. Draw lines, make things connect. I could never do that—it always made me think of other things, instead of what I was trying to figure out.
If I’m Big Matt, I know there’s a bunch of people who can put me in on that jewelry job. And not just Jessop. That statute-of-limitations thing, it was just … a misdirection. The kind of trick you pull on purpose. Like training yourself to drop your left shoulder and throw the right hand over at the same time. A guy sees your left shoulder drop, he thinks the hook is coming from that side. All you have to do is distract him for a little piece of a second.
The way Solly told it, if Jessop got caught, he was dead meat, because he couldn’t use the statute-of-limitations thing. Okay, so that meant Big Matt wasn’t safe, either. But Big Matt’s not going to work anymore, so there’s no chance he’ll get dropped pulling a job. Jessop, why would he retire? Me, why would I?
Big Matt knew I could have dealt him on the jewelry job, and he’d know I hadn’t done that. Jessop, he’d know that, too. But I was still just as dangerous to either of them if I ever got caught again. It was like I held this trump card, and I could play it anytime.
I’m not a killer. But when you do my kind of work, it can happen. Like with Ken. I’m still a pretty young guy. Looking at another bit wouldn’t change my mind about who I was. Jessop, he was around my age. At least, I think he was.
But for Solly, even a nickel would be a death sentence. You can buy protection Inside. Buy almost anything you could imagine, if you’ve got the money. And Solly had the money. But, no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy a decent hospital. Get serious-sick in prison, chances are you won’t get better. Throw in Solly being such an old man, you know he’d never finish out the bit.
Solly knew me. He knew Big Matt. He knew neither of us would ever go outside the rules. Jessop, he didn’t know. But Jessop, what did he know? Maybe, if he was close to Albie, he knew a lot.