Ken Bruen - Bust

Max hung up, shouted, “Baby!”

The quote was for $220,000 and Max knew that there was no way Takahashi wasn’t going to sign it after the night he’d have tonight. And this was only the first job for this client. Their network had over one hundred users and there could be ongoing work there. Harold had been working on this quote for weeks and hadn’t gotten anywhere and now Max had practically closed it in less than one minute. No one could sell computer networks the way Max Fisher could – no one.

Max buzzed Angela – he was hungry and wanted her to order him some breakfast – but there was no answer at her desk. He thought this was strange, since it was after nine o’clock and she was usually in by eight-thirty. He buzzed the receptionist to ask if she had called in sick or to say she was going to be late, but the receptionist said that she hadn’t called.

A few minutes later, Max was on the phone with a software vendor when there was a knock at his door.

He assumed it was Lipman, coming to beg for his job back, and Max put the vendor on hold and yelled, “Go away!”

But the knock came again, a little louder, then Max said, “Who the hell’s there?”

The door opened and Bobby Rosa wheeled into the office. Seeing the bearded cripple again made Max’s throat close up. He reached for a mug of day-old coffee on his desk and swallowed the murky crap as fast as he could. Bobby had closed the door and was smiling now, watching Max. Max looked at Bobby’s black sweatshirt with the words Average White Band inscribed on it and thought, Jesus, what’s this guy, in the KKK or something?

“Surprised?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Max said, forcing a smile. “Why would I be surprised?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it would be natural for a guy to be surprised when someone he sent a hit man to bump off shows up in his office the next morning alive. But hey, that’s just me.”

“I really don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Max said. There it was again, foggiest.

“You want to keep playing games, be my guest,” Bobby said. “It won’t matter soon anyway.”

“How the hell did you get in here?” Max said, his throat tightening again.

“Don’t blame the girl at the desk,” Bobby said. “I’m good at getting into places I’m not supposed to be. But I think you already know that.”

“Look, if you’re not out of here in two minutes I’m calling the cops.”

Bobby laughed, then said, “You still don’t realize what kind of trouble you’re in, do you? You sent Dillon after me, but that was your last card – you shot your load.”

“Dillon?” Max said. “Who the hell’s Dillon?”

“You know him as Popeye, but his real name’s Dillon. It doesn’t matter now anyway because he’s out of the picture.”

“What do you mean, out of the picture?”

“Not what you think it means. He’s working with me now.”

Max couldn’t believe this was happening, that this freakazoid in a wheelchair was really here again, trying to ruin his life.

“Oh, and your executive assistant,” Bobby went on, “the one I got in that picture with you – Angela, I think her name is. I don’t think she’ll be coming into work anymore, so you might just want to clean out her desk.”

“Why? Is she working with you too?”

“No, she’s really out of the picture, and I think you know exactly what I mean.”

Max picked up the phone and said, “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

“I’d think about that a second,” Bobby said. “I mean what are you gonna tell them?”

Max paused, realizing Bobby was right, and replaced the receiver.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Max said, feeling like he might start to cry. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You were just in the right place at the wrong time,” Bobby said. He took out a mini-cassette recorder from the pocket of his windbreaker and placed it on the desk. He said, “You want to do the honors or should I?”

Max didn’t move so Bobby went ahead and pressed the play button. “Did Max Fisher hire you?” “Ary Christ, what do you care, you’re not a Guard.”

Max looked at Bobby, but Bobby was looking down at the tape recorder, smiling. There was more conversation, something about Bobby holding a gun, then Popeye said: “Yeah, okay, he hired me.” “To knock off his wife?” “Yeah.” “And what about the college kid – the girl?” “T’was a bit of bad timing, as the tinkers say back home.” “And what about the cop?” “Him I would’ve killed for a shot of Jameson.”

Bobby pressed the stop button and said, “Oh, one other thing. I don’t want a quarter of a mill anymore.”

“Yeah?” Max said weakly. “What do you want?”

Bobby leaned forward in his wheelchair, then said, “Everything.”

Before Angela left for work, she checked to see how Dillon was doing in the bathtub. The Drano had burned through the top layer of skin on his face, turning it yellow and gooey, but at this rate it was going to take weeks until his whole body was dissolved, if it dissolved at all. Meanwhile, the room stank so bad she could hardly breathe. It figured that Dillon would come up with some stupid idea that had like zero chance of working.

Then she saw something glinting in the gooey yellow. For one awful moment, she thought maybe his gold tooth fell out and her stomach heaved. But it wasn’t a tooth, she realized, it was the pin, and she muttered out loud, “What’s with that feckin’ pin?”

She picked it out, real careful not to touch any of Dillon, going under her breath, “Sweet Jesus, oh Sweet Mother of all Heaven.”

She put the pin on the sink, figuring she’d stash it in her handbag later. The pin was tarnished from the Drano, but compared to Dillon himself it was in great shape.

Angela had already mopped up most of the blood off the floor and reluctantly she washed her hair in the kitchen sink. Even after she blew it out, it still looked flat. And, to make things worse, although the wound on her thigh had stopped bleeding, it still looked pretty bad and she couldn’t wear a skirt to work.

She was running so late she decided to take a cab. It was a nice, cool day and it felt good to get out of that stuffy apartment. As the cab headed up Third Avenue, Angela decided that she would have to slowly get her life back together. First she was going to have to get the apartment clean and wash Dillon down the drain, then she could start worrying about a relationship again.

But now that Dillon and Bobby were both gone, she wondered if she should go back to her original plan and get married to Max. She still thought he was an asshole, but the whole experience with Dillon had taught her that she had no idea what she was doing when it came to judging men. At least Max was rich and, when it came right down to it, what was more important than money?

It was ten-fifteen when Angela arrived at NetWorld. The door to Max’s office was closed and she didn’t feel like bothering him. So she turned on her computer and started to catch up on some work. When Max came out of his office he stopped and stared at Angela for a second or two, like he was surprised to see her.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

At first, Angela thought Max was talking about her being an hour and a half late, but then she realized it had to do with the bruise on her face. Where Dillon had punched her she had a big black-and-blue mark that her makeup couldn’t hide.

“Oh, that,” Angela said. “My roommate swung another door into me again. She’s a real ejit.”

“You should get rid of those swinging doors,” Max said seriously, “or that stupid roommate.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Angela said, thinking about Dillon dissolving in the bathtub.