Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“That’s them.”

“You think you could redirect their attention while I attempt to talk to Miss Bennett?”

“Be my pleasure, bawse.”

“You do a good job,” I said, “and I’ll let you wax the car later.”

“Lawdy,” Hawk said. “You just too good to me, Mista Spensah.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Sometimes it’s important to underscore the racial dynamic to our relationship.”

“Well, in that case . . .”

I found a parking space two blocks away and settled in while Hawk got out and disappeared around the corner, doubling back on Lawrence. I waited ten minutes, got out into the cold, and then strolled back toward Sydney Bennett’s town house. Steam rose out of sewer grates. A few cars zipped along the street. The white BMW had disappeared. I walked up to the front door and mashed a few buzzers. Someone let me in and I made my way into a warm marble entrance and up a flight of stairs.

I knocked on Sydney’s door, took off my hat, and turned to look in the opposite direction so as not to be seen in the peephole. Thirty seconds later, she opened up. She was wearing a blue terry-cloth robe with a white towel wrapping her head.

She took one look at me and then started to close the door. I stuck the steel tip of my Red Wing into the door frame and held firm.

“Goddamn you,” she said.

“Lovely morning,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Get your foot out of this door or I’ll call the police.”

“Be my guest.”

“Seriously,” she said. “You better get out of here. If you don’t want to get hurt.”

“You mean Mr. DeMarco’s friends in the Beamer?”

She stared at me and didn’t say a word. I slipped my ball cap back on. “They’ve gone out for a ride with a pal of mine,” I said. “I don’t know when—or if—they will return.”

“You son of a bitch.”

I shrugged. “I smell fresh coffee.”

Sydney Bennett made a grunt and turned from the door. I pushed the door open, walked inside, and shut it behind me. The apartment had probably been a crack den twenty years ago. Now it was high-end. Refinished hardwood floors, stainless-steel appliances, and a commercial stove larger than my kitchen. She had a nice mix of new leather furniture and antiques. She’d hung a lot of old family photos, some sepia-toned, on a gallery wall between two large windows. A lot of stern old white men with impressive mustaches.

Sydney walked back to the kitchen. She’d taken the towel off her head and was pouring coffee.

Unless she planned to throw scalding coffee in my lap, I took this to be a good sign. I had a seat and waited. At the end of a long hall, the door was open and I spotted an unmade bed. I listened for sounds of anyone else in the apartment but heard nothing. I had brought a new gun with me just in case. Not that I had any reason not to trust Sydney.

She thunked down a mug of coffee so hard some of it sloshed onto her coffee table.

“What do you want?” she said.

“You set me up.”

She sat down in an oversized leather chair close by. She held the front of her robe shut with one hand, her thick, naked calves poking out below. She had calf muscles like an athlete, wide shoulders, and large hands for a woman.

I sipped some coffee.

She tucked her large feet up under her. She waited.

I didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I think you know that.”

I nodded. I was the master of stringing out the silence. And I think the disappearance of DeMarco’s men had left her a little off guard.

“Why didn’t you tell the police about me?” she said.

“How do you know I didn’t?”

“Because I haven’t seen any police,” she said. “No one has come to talk to me.”

“Besides Jackie.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Besides him.”

“So how exactly does it work?” I said. “Who’s on first?”

“What?”

“Where does the money start and where does it flow?”

“I would have thought you’d had that all figured out by now.”

“I think the judges get a piece of whatever plans DeMarco and Talos have cooked up.”

She shook her head with great disappointment. I’d had that reaction from only a few women. It felt strange. I crossed my legs, ankle across my good knee. I sat up straight and drank a little more coffee. “I can always tell the police about your involvement in the shooting yesterday.”

“That you were stalking me at the mall? Go ahead. That’s all I know.”

“You texted DeMarco and he sent Arty Leblanc and his crew.”

“So you say.”

“It doesn’t bother you that Jackie DeMarco wanted to have you killed?” I said. “That Callahan and Scali were scared shitless you’d turned on them?”

She didn’t say a word. She rubbed the back of her neck and leaned back farther in the seat. She took a long, good breath and settled in.

“Are you working with the Feds?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”

“Would you?”

She looked as if I’d poured ice water onto her head. “Excuse me?”

“Would you work with the Feds if you knew you could escape being roped into this mess?” I said. “At best, you’ll be disbarred. At worst, they’ll kill you.”

She leveled her large brown eyes at me and ducked her chin. But she offered no response. I took her moment of thought to warm my hands on the mug. The coffee was terrible. It tasted like the kind of coffee you get free with an oil change.

“Did they say you were being protected?” I said. “Or watched?”

She cleared her throat and shook her head. “Nobody told me anything,” she said. “I saw the men outside and I was afraid to leave.”

I nodded.

“I saw the news last night,” she said. “I saw all those men had been shot. I didn’t know they were trying to kill you. I wasn’t told anything other than to let Arty know if I was being harassed.”

“Any of DeMarco’s people threaten you?”

She shrugged.

“How does Talos figure into all this?” I said.

She swallowed. Her hair had started to dry and curl, shining after a good wash. She wiped her eyes and nodded. “You’re going to get me killed.”

“Or save your life.”

“How’d you know they’d threatened me?”

“I spoke with a former employee of the family, remember?”

“And he told you about the judges getting greedy?”

I leaned forward, picked up the coffee mug, and took a sip. As natural as can be. I nodded with a lot of confidence that this had been my plan all along.

“They weren’t happy with the initial deal with Talos,” she said. “Callahan wanted a lot more and Scali sided with him. They couldn’t get enough money after the island facility was built. They threatened to send kids somewhere else and leave Talos with a big white elephant.”

“You can’t have that.”

“No,” she said. “And so a new deal was made. Talos first balked, but then. Well, you can imagine what happened.”

“Jackie DeMarco.”

“Ziggy didn’t want to be involved in this,” she said. “He had no interest in anything but setting up some shell companies for the judges. He’s not a bad guy. Really.”

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical.”

She nodded. She dropped her head into her hand and started to cry a little. I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I pitched the rest of my coffee into the sink. I walked to the big window and looked down on the street. I saw Hawk standing in a fur coat outside the BMW. The BMW looked empty. Hawk was smiling.

“I know someone in Tampa,” I said. “He’s a good man and can help you out of this.”

“Ziggy,” she said. “That dumb bastard. I busted my ass in college and law school all to end up stuffing FedEx boxes full of cash in the back room of his practice. When I told him I wanted to quit, that’s when they started to follow me. No one made threats.”