There’s always other guys in the office. I just look at them, one at a time. They never say anything themselves.
That’s why I only took cash jobs, the kind where you get paid after every shift.
Just let it go. That’s what I kept telling myself.
“Go” was the word, not “no.”
Go on down to Florida and see about this Jessop, like Solly wanted me to do. Don’t say no to him.
“Buying time,” those words go either way. Could mean you’re playing it smart; could mean you’re playing it stupid. I couldn’t find this Jessop, but maybe the PI the lawyer used could.
I knew I didn’t actually have to find the guy. But I had to be able to tell Solly I tried. And it had to be the truth.
Talking to that cop, that had been insane. Way too close to the edge. I should only talk to my own kind.
But I just couldn’t get that girl out of my mind. Not her, the guy who raped her. The guy whose time I did.
Something else was off about the whole thing. But I could never get my mind to open up and show me, no matter how hard I tried.
So I just let it go.
“I’ll take the bus,” I told Solly.
He kind of smiled. “That’s smart, Sugar. You don’t need a credit card for the Greyhound. I’ll set it up for Albie’s niece to pick you up at the depot.”
“Okay.”
“By his neighbors, Albie was just another old retired guy, moved to Florida to get away from the cold. Tallahassee, it’s not where you go if you like boats, stuff like that. The whole town’s built around the college. Big-time sports school, that’s about it.
“But it was perfect for Albie. Prices—for land, I mean—prices were real cheap, especially to a guy used to paying Miami scale. So Albie got himself, like, twenty acres. Had a house built. Then he could do what he’s always wanted. Albie, he was a stamp collector. Talk your damn ear off about them, you gave him a chance.
“Albie made me executor of his will. That means I got to make sure everybody gets what’s coming to them. The house, his cars, everything. Especially those damn stamps. Meant so much to him, ten-to-one whoever gets them sells them in a week.
“Ah, so what?” He looked sad for a second, then said, “You know who wants to see that will? Rena, that’s her name. She’s down there now, living in the house. Driving the car, too, maybe—that I don’t know. She’ll do old Uncle Solly a favor, guaranteed. Just get yourself to the bus depot, and she’ll meet you.
“That’s the way we worked it out, Albie and me. If I went first, Grace—you see how she calls me Uncle Solly, too?—would get all my stuff.
“You understand, we’re talking about legit stuff. House, car, bank-account stuff. For that, you need paper. Cash, that’s something else. Grace knows where I keep my will; it would be up to Albie to what they call ‘probate’ it. In court, with a lawyer. But Albie’s girl, she don’t know where Albie kept his will except with me, understand?”
I could tell more was coming, so I just kept quiet.
“And there’s one more thing,” Solly said, “and, for that, this girl won’t know where it is.”
“The cash?”
“Forget cash. Albie’s book, that’s what she won’t know about.”
“Book?”
Solly took a little book out of his jacket. It was real old. You could tell because the leather covers were a faded-pale shade of blue, and it was all cracked, like a windshield gets if you hit it with a rock. Small, too. And thin. “Exactly like this one,” he said. “There were two of these, a long time ago. Twins. The writing inside, it wouldn’t make sense to anyone. It’s in code. Albie and me, we’re the only ones who could understand it, because we made it up between ourselves.”
“Exactly like that one?”
“Yeah. And this is how you make sure,” Solly told me. He opened the little blue book. On the first page, there was a thumbprint. Looked like it was once done in blood, now it looked more like a brownish color. “You don’t see the same thing in Albie’s book, it’s not the one you want.”
“What’s that under the print? I can see—”
“Forget the print, Sugar. Just that there’ll be one, you with me?”
I nodded, so he’d know I was. “This girl, the one in Florida, is she like … is she like Grace?”