guess was her husband found you and beat your ass, but you don’t have the kind of damage from a hand-to-hand. Spin the roulette wheel. I’m dropping my stack of chips on black and betting it all on the bitch in the Hummer.”
The edges of my lips moved up again, then moved right back down, then back up, riding my irritation like a roller coaster, trying to settle on a mood. They stopped moving midway.
She asked, “Am I wrong?”
My expression remained cold and impenetrable.
She gave me a half smile, thickened her tone, asked, “So, do we do business together?”
“If I’m compensated to my satisfaction, we might be able to do something.”
“Because you have a debt to pay.”
I answered with a stiff look that told her to mind her own business.
She talked on, “What if you’re not, as you say, compensated to your satisfaction?”
“I walk. You go your way, I go mine.”
“And we’re free to run this without your interference?”
“If it goes down on my watch I want a cut.”
“Blackmail.”
I shook my head. “Business.”
“Sure you want to go out like that?”
“That a threat?”
Her eye contact was strong. “Like you said, business.”
“If you want this ship to sail, tell me who threw my name in the hat.”
She shook her head in a gentle way, that long hair doing a soft dance. “Can’t.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just call it a confidentiality agreement. I’ll protect my contact the same way I’ll protect you, the same way I protect all of my employees. If something goes wrong they can’t drag you down. And you can’t drag them down. Don’t take it personal. Business.”
She was reading me; the blueprints to my troubles were etched on the surface of my eyes.
Arizona asked, “How deep of trouble are you in? How much you owe?”
I took a pen out of my pocket, the same pen I had borrowed from Wolf’s office this morning. Heard his voice telling me to put the pen back. He had been specific, said Pilot pen.
I hesitated and read the brand. It was Pilot.
That stopped me, had me sitting like a statue for a moment.
There was a snitch in the office. Somebody was watching my every move. Even knew when I borrowed a pen from Wolf’s desk, down to the brand.
I pulled out a business card and wrote 50 on the back of it, then handed that number to Arizona. She read and whistled, leaned back and served me that ambiguous smile again.
She blew air. “You’d best keep playing the lottery.”
“Tell me something, stop yanking my chain and talk to me.”
She smiled, waited a good ten seconds before she spoke again. “My idea was somewhere between fifty and seventy-five for the job, a reasonable amount that could get us a quick turnaround, but even that depends on what information I can get about his banking accounts.”
“Banking accounts. You can get that information?”
She didn’t answer, just kept talking. “It’s good to know how much cash the mark has access to, how liquid he is, that way we have the upper hand and the mark can’t bullshit us.”
I said, “If he’s a money-smart man, he won’t have that much cash on hand.”
“True. If he’s money smart. Most people aren’t.”
“What would my cut be?”
She told me, “I get fifty percent.”
“Fifty?”
“My operation. The lion’s share is mine.”
“I see.”
“The rest is an even split.”
“How many people?”
“When it’s time to disclose that ...”
“I see. Back to the banking information.”
She steepled her hands, sat back. “If I can get that information, and his accounts reflect that kind of a balance, we’ll be in a better position when it’s time for negotiations.”
I said, “That’s a lot of dead presidents to ask for and not expect him to call in the police.”
“That’s a lot of cash to ask for without the possibility of hurting somebody.” “
I nodded my understanding. “That’s why you want me on your team.”
“Part of the reason. But we need an inside man, in case something goes wrong, in case plans change. Eyes and ears. But with those muscles and fists you have, you look like you could put a serious hurting on somebody. Sometimes that kind of labor is a requirement. Most of the time it’s not, but there are too many variables involved, too many ways shit can go wrong.”
“Better to hurt than get hurt.”
“And I thought you weren’t a poet.”
She lit up another cigarette. Took two puffs and did the same routine, ran water over the tip and tossed it in the trash. She saw me watching, looked at me like