John Lescroart - The Vig

"So do I have to ask?"

Hardy again remembered pulling Moses, his legs shot up, out from enemy fire, picking up some lead in his own shoulder in the process. Moses hiring him when he'd changed careers after the death of his son.

"I'm not playing any games with her, if that's what you mean."

"If I thought that, your face would already be broken."

Moses had no fear of a fist in the face. You run an Irish bar, even if you're a Ph.D. in Philosophy, as Moses was, it comes with the territory. His own nose, he said, liked to get rearranged once a year whether it needed it or not.

"I don't know. Something's happening. I don't think she knows exactly either. She call you?"

"No. I called her. Goes four or five days I don't hear from her and I start to worry."

The Mose had raised his sister from the time she was ten.

Hardy knew Moses only cared deeply about ten things in the universe, and eight of them were Frannie.

"So what'd she say?"

"That you were hiding out there a while." Moses leaned forward, elbows on the tiny table. "But I don't know, something about the tone."

Hardy finished his drink, deciding the night wouldn't be one of pure reason, and signaled Lynne to bring over another round. He put his index finger in the new drink, stirring.

"Anyway," Moses said, "it came out."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, Diz. She's my baby. I still have a hard time thinking of her as all grown up, which I also know she is." The lines deepened around his already sunken eyes. With his black beard shot now with gray, Moses was Hardy's vision of God before he got real old. He shrugged. "It just worries me. I don't want to see her hurt anymore."

"I'm not gonna hurt her, Mose. Whatever comes down, that's not happening."

"I mean, I think she probably wants what she had with Eddie-plans and family stuff. A man comes home every night."

"Maybe she wants that. I don't think she's very sure what she wants."

"She wants the baby. I think she wants a father for the baby."

"Eddie was the father, Mose. Nothing is changing that."

"You know what I mean."

Hardy knew. He sipped some whiskey. "She'll likely let me know when she figures it out."

"And then what?"

"Then I figure it out. And then it moves ahead, or it doesn't, right? Nothing got planned here, Mose. It just happened. It's real good, but Frannie doesn't know where she wants to take it, and I'm not sure either. I don't know where Jane fits in. I'm a mess. What can I tell you?"

Moses tipped his glass up. It was getting on to seven and he knew Lynne wanted to go home. "You can tell me when you're coming back to work," he said. Then, standing, starting for the bar, "I liked you better when you weren't dating…"

Now, three hours later, well into a pretty serious right-brain workout, Hardy tapped the bar gently with another empty glass. He sat at the front now, near the window, and Moses would come down and sit on his stool behind the bar whenever there was a lull.

"It probably was just a lucky guess."

"Yeah, I guess there aren't that many colors to choose from."

Moses hit him again, lots of ice, half a shot. Nurse 'em.

"Hardy," he said, leaning over, talking quietly, "you and I know for a fact that there's only three colors anybody ever mentions. Watch this."

Moses walked the length of the bar, maybe a dozen customers on stools, drinking, talking, making the moves. He put a fresh napkin and a pencil in front of each one. "Kind patrons," he said, loud, the gregarious bartender, "listen up a second. Free-drink contest." As always, it got their attention. "Quick, don't think, write down the first color comes to your mind. Quick!" He was already picking up the first napkins.

"Who wins the drink?"

"Hold on, hold on."

He was back down by Hardy. "Okay, you be the impartial judge."

"McGuire, what's the contest? Who gets the drink? Anything we want?"

"Seven blues, four greens, two reds," Hardy said.

Moses held his hands up. "Sorry," he announced, "nobody wins, but thanks for playing."

"That's not a fair contest," one of the women complained. "What were we going for?"

"Anything but blue, red, or green would have gotten the drink," Moses said.

As the mumbling died down, a couple of people saying they were going to pick yellow, Moses told Hardy you occasionally did get a yellow.

"Well, that was sure a good time," Hardy said, "but the point?"

"The point is your man Baker had a good chance of saying blue even if he'd never seen your friend's car."

"But it was blue."

"And if it was…?"

"Then Rusty was lying to me about it being stolen."

Someone called for a drink and Moses went down to pour.

Why would someone you hadn't seen in years appear out of the-pardon the word-blue and tell you a lie? Hardy was getting muscle fatigue of the right brain. He pushed his glass to the back edge of the bar.

Wait a minute, he told himself. What if he somehow got his car that afternoon? He got on the bus across the street from here, then went downtown, stopping to order a handgun he'd have to wait three days for.

The computer said the car was still missing. But then the computer lagged several days behind. If it still had Louis Baker in San Quentin, it wouldn't have the car returned either. Maybe he'd check again tomorrow.

Moses was on the stool in front of him again. Hardy raised his eyes. "I've got an idea," he said.

"Treat it carefully. It's in a strange place."

Hardy pulled his glass up, cradling it between his hands. "Rusty's got a monster vig payment, right?"

Moses nodded.

"Okay, he comes into a lot of this insurance money, he knows Louis Baker is getting out of jail and has threatened to kill him. Maybe he even starts fantasizing maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Louis did kill him-that would at least get him out from under the vig-"

"So he sets himself up to get killed? Get serious."

Hardy shook his head. "He sets himself up to look like he's been killed. The whole thing's a scam. He just wants to look dead, get the loan sharks off him."

"Why doesn't he move, disappear?"

"Because you don't move away from mob money. They find you, I don't care where. It's an honor thing. But if you're dead…"

"If you're dead they don't look…"

"Right. Give me some coffee, would you? And get rid of this."

Hardy watched Moses move, filling a few other drink orders at the bar as he passed, pouring his coffee. Hardy got his darts out from his jacket pocket and opened the leather case on the bar. He rubbed his fingers over the worn velvet inside.

One other thing the Shamrock did right was make great coffee. Ninety percent of it was served in what they called Irish coffee, which made Hardy puke. Three good liquids combined to make one bad drink. But when you wanted a cup of coffee, the straight stuff couldn't be beat.

"I don't know, Diz, there's lots of holes. Why'd he come see you?"

"Because I tie Baker to him. If I'm not in it, who finds out about Baker?"

"Weren't his prints at Rusty's place? That ties him to it."

"I don't know, Mose. It's not as good as me, an ex-D.A., making sure everybody knows Baker had a motive, was fresh out of jail, you name it. Plus, because I'm running now too, I try like hell to get Baker put away, and did it, too, didn't I?"

"He was coming after you."

"I'm not saying he wasn't. Look, if Rusty's going to get out from under his vig, he's got to be dead, not MIA. I'm his corroboration. Without the threat, he'd just be a missing person, wouldn't he? Now, with me helping him, he's presumed dead."

"His blood was on the bed, Diz. And why did he buy a gun he was never going to use?"

Hardy leaned over the bar, his elbows almost in the trough. "Rusty was the great American lawyer. Never lost a case. You can bet he's a very thorough guy who wanted his scam to work. And you know what genius is, Mose? It's endless attention to detail."