More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

A NICE PLACE TO VISIT

When you’re a natural-born grifter, an operator, a player, you get this sixth sense for sniffing out opportunities, and that’s what Ricky Kelleher was doing now, watching two guys in the front of the smoky bar, near a greasy window that still had a five-year-old bullet hole in it.

Whatever was going down, neither of them looked real happy.

Ricky kept watching. He’d seen one guy here in Hanny’s a couple of times. He was wearing a suit and tie — it really made him stand out in this dive, the sore thumb thing. The other one, leather jacket and tight jeans, razor-cut bridge-and-tunnel hair, was some kind of Gambino wannabe, Ricky pegged him. Or Sopranos, more likely — yeah, he was the sort of prick who’d hock his wife for a big-screen TV. He was way pissed off, shaking his head at everything Mr. Suit was telling him. At one point he slammed his fist on the bar so hard glasses bounced. But nobody noticed. That was the kind of place Hanny’s was.

Ricky was in the rear, at the short L of the bar, his regular throne. The bartender, a dusty old guy, maybe black, maybe white, you couldn’t tell, kept an uneasy eye on the guys arguing. “It’s cool,” Ricky reassured him. “I’m on it.”

Mr. Suit had a briefcase open. A bunch of papers were inside. Most of the business in this pungent, dark Hell’s Kitchen bar, west of Midtown, involved trading bags of chopped up plants and cases of Johnnie Walker that’d fallen off the truck and were conducted in the men’s room or alley out back. This was something different. Skinny five-foot-four Ricky couldn’t tip to exactly what was going down but that magic sense, his player’s eye, told him to pay attention.

“Well, fuck that,” Wannabe said to Mr. Suit.

“Sorry.” A shrug.

“Yeah, you said that before.” Wannabe slid off the stool. “But you don’t really sound that fucking sorry. And you know why? Because I’m the one out all the money.”

“Bullshit. I’m losing my whole fucking business.”

But Ricky’d learned that other people losing money doesn’t take the sting out of you losing money. Way of the world.

Wannabe was getting more and more agitated. “Listen careful here, my friend. I’ll make some phone calls. I got people I know down there. You don’t want to fuck with these guys.”

Mr. Suit tapped what looked like a newspaper article in the briefcase. “And what’re they gonna do?” His voice lowered and he whispered something that made Wannabe’s face screw up in disgust. “Now, just go on home, keep your head down and watch your back. And pray they can’t—” Again, the lowered voice. Ricky couldn’t hear what “they” might do.

Wannabe slammed his hand down on the bar again. “This isn’t gonna fly, asshole. Now—”

“Hey, gentlemen,” Ricky called. “Volume down, okay?”

“The fuck’re you, little man?” Wannabe snapped. Mr. Suit touched his arm to quiet him but he pulled away and kept glaring.

Ricky slicked back his greasy dark-blond hair. Easing off the stool, he walked to the front of the bar, the heels of his boots tapping loudly on the scuffed floor. The guy had six inches and thirty pounds on him but Ricky had learned a long time ago that craziness scares people a fuck of a lot more than height or weight or muscle. And so he did what he always did when he was going one on one — threw a weird look into his eyes and got right up in the man’s face. He screamed, “Who I am is the guy’s gonna drag your ass into the alley and fuck you over a dozen different ways, you don’t get the fuck out of here now.”

The punk reared back and blinked. He fired off an automatic “Fuck you, asshole.”

Ricky stayed right where he was, kind of grinning, kind of not, and let this poor bastard imagine what was going to happen now that he’d accidentally shot a little spit onto Ricky’s forehead.

A few seconds passed.

Finally Wannabe drank down what was left of his beer with a shaking hand and, trying to hold on to a little dignity, he strolled out the door, laughing and muttering, “Prick.” Like it was Ricky backing down.

“Sorry about that,” Mr. Suit said, standing up, pulling out money for the drinks.

“No, you stay,” Ricky ordered.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

The man hesitated and sat back down.

Ricky glanced into the briefcase, saw some pictures of nice-looking boats. “Just gotta keep things calm ’round here, you know. Keep the peace.”

Mr. Suit slowly closed the case, looked around at the faded beer promotion cut-outs, the stained sports posters, the cobwebs. “This your place?”

The bartender was out of earshot. Ricky said, “More or less.”

“Jersey.” Mr. Suit nodded at the door that Wannabe was just walked out of. Like that explained it all.

Ricky’s sister lived in Jersey and he wondered if maybe he should be pissed at the insult. He was a loyal guy. But then he decided loyalty didn’t have anything to do with states or cities and shit like that. “So. He lost some money?”

“Business deal went bad.”

“Uh-huh. How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“Buy him another beer,” Ricky called to the bartender then turned back. “You’re in business with him and you don’t know how much money he lost?”

“What I don’t know,” the guy said, his dark eyes looking right into Ricky’s, “is why I should fucking tell you.”

This was the time when it could get ugly. There was a tough moment of silence. Then Ricky laughed. “No worries.”

The beers arrived.

“Ricky Kelleher.” He clinked glasses.

“Bob Gardino.”

“I seen you before. You live around here?”

“Florida mostly. I come up here for business some. Delaware too. Baltimore, Jersey Shore, Maryland.”

“Yeah? I got a summer place I go to a lot.”

“Where?”

“Ocean City. Four bedrooms, on the water.” Ricky didn’t mention that it was T.G.’s., not his.

“Sweet.” The man nodded, impressed.

“It’s okay. I’m looking at some other places too.”

“Man can never have too much real estate. Better than the stock market.”

“I do okay on Wall Street,” Ricky said. “You gotta know what to look for. You just can’t buy some stock ’cause it’s, you know, sexy.” He’d heard this on some TV show.

“Truer words.” Now Gardino tapped his glass into Ricky’s.

“Those were some nice fucking boats.” A nod toward the briefcase. “That your line?”

“Among other things. Whatta you do, Ricky?”

“I got my hand in a lot of stuff. Lot of businesses. All over the neighborhood here. Well, and other places too. Maryland, like I was saying. Good money to be made. For a man with a sharp eye.”

“And you have a sharp eye?”

“I think I do. Wanta know what it’s seeing right now?”

“What, your eye?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it seeing?”

“A grifter.”

“A—?”

“A scam artist.”

“I know what a grifter is,” Gardino said. “I meant why do you think that’s what I am?”

“Well, for instance, you don’t come into Hanny’s—”

“Hanny’s?”

“Here. Hanrahan’s.”

“Oh.”

“—to sell some loser asshole a boat. So what really happened?”

Gardino chuckled but said nothing.

“Look,” Ricky whispered, “I’m cool. Ask anybody on the street.”

“There’s nothing to tell. A deal went south is all. Happens.”

“I’m not a cop, that’s what you’re thinking.” Ricky looked around and reached into his pocket, and flashed a bag of hash he’d been carrying around for T.G. “I was, you think I’d have this on me?”

“Naw, I don’t think you’re a cop. And you seem like an okay guy. But I don’t need to spill my guts to every okay guy I meet.”

“I hear that. Only… I’m just wondering there’s a chance we can do business together.”

Gardino drank some more beer. “Again, why?”

“Tell me how your con works.”

“It’s not a con. I was going to sell him a boat. It didn’t work out. End of story.”

“But… see, here’s what I’m thinking,” Ricky said in his best player’s voice. “I seen people pissed off ’cause they don’t get a car they wanted, or a house, or some pussy. But that asshole, he wasn’t pissed off about not getting a boat. He was pissed off about not getting his down payment back. So, how come he didn’t?”

Gardino shrugged.

Ricky tried again. “How’s about we play a game, you and me? I’ll ask you something and you tell me if I’m right or if I’m full of shit. How’s that?”

“Twenty questions.”

“Whatever. Okay, try this on: You borrow” — he held up his fingers and made quotation marks — “a boat, sell it to some poor asshole but then on the way here it sinks—” again the quotation marks — “and there’s nothing he can do about it. He loses his down payment. He’s fucked. Too bad, but who’s he going to complain to? It’s stolen merch.”

Gardino studied his beer. Son of a bitch still wasn’t giving away squat.

Ricky added, “Only there never was any boat. You never steal a fucking thing. You just show him pictures you took on the dock and a fake police report or something.”

The guy finally laughed. But nothing else.

“Your only risk is some asshole whaling on you when he loses the money. Not a bad grift.”

“I sell boats,” Gardino said. “That’s it.”

“Okay, you sell boats,” Ricky eyed him carefully. He’d try a different approach. “So that means you’re looking for buyers. How ’bout I find one for you?”

“You know somebody who’s interested in boats?”

“There’s a guy I know. He might be.”

Gardino thought for a minute. “This a friend of yours we’re talking?”

“I wouldn’ta brought him up, he was a friend.”

The sunlight came through some clouds over Eighth Avenue and hit Gardino’s beer. It cast a tint on the counter, the yellow of a sick man’s eye. Finally he said to Ricky, “Pull your shirt up.”

“My—?”

“Your shirt. Pull it up and turn around.”

“You think I’m wired?”

“Or we just have our beers and bullshit about the Knicks and we go our separate ways. Up to you.”

Self-conscious of his skinny build, Ricky hesitated. But then he slipped off the stool, pulled up his leather jacket and lifted his dirty T-shirt. He turned around.

“Okay. You do the same.”

Gardino laughed. Ricky thought he was laughing at him more than he was laughing at the situation but he held on to his temper.

The con man pulled up his jacket and shirt. The bartender glanced at them but he was looking like nothing was weird. This was, after all, Hanny’s.

The men sat down and Ricky called for more brews.

Gardino whispered, “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’m up to. But listen. You get some idea that you’re in the mood to snitch, I got two things to say: One, what I’m doing is not exactly legal, but it’s not like I’m clipping anybody or selling crack to kids, got it? So even if you go to the cops, the best they can get me for is some bullshit misrepresentation claim. They’ll laugh you out of the station.”

“No, man, seriously—”

Gardino held up a finger. “And number two, you dime me out, I’ve got associates in Florida’ll find you and make you bleed for days.” He grinned. “We copacetic?”

Whatever the fuck that meant. But Ricky said, “No worries, mister. All I wanta do is make some money.”

“Okay, here’s how it works: Fuck down payments. The buyers pay everything right up front. A hundred, hundred fifty thousand.”

“No shit.”

“What I tell the buyer is my connections know where there’re these confiscated boats. This really happens. They’re towed off by the DEA for drugs or Coast Guard or State Police when the owner’s busted for sailing ’em while drunk. They go up for auction. But, see, what happens is, in Florida, there’s so many boats that it takes time to log ’em all in. I tell the buyers my partners break into the pound at three in the morning and tow a boat away before there’s a record of it. We ship it to Delaware or Jersey, slap a new number on it, and, bang, for a hundred thousand you get a half-million-dollar boat.

“Then, after I get the money, I break the bad news. Like I just did with our friend from Jersey.” He opened up his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper article. The headline was:

The article was about a series of thefts of confiscated boats from a federal government impound dock. It went on to add that security had been stepped up and the FBI and Florida police were looking into who might’ve bought the half dozen missing boats. They’d arrested the principals and recovered nearly a million dollars in cash from buyers on the East Coast.

Ricky looked over the article. “You, what? Printed it up yourself?”

“Word processor. Tore the edges to make it look like I ripped it out of the paper and then Xeroxed it.”

“So you keep ’em scared shitless some cop’s going to find their name or trace the money to them.”

Now, just go on home, keep your head down and watch your back.

“Some of ’em make a stink for a day or two, but mostly they just disappear.”

This warranted another clink of beer glasses. “Fucking brilliant.”

“Thanks.”

“So if I was to hook you up with a buyer? What’s in it for me?”

Gardino debated. “Twenty-five percent.”

“You give me fifty.” Ricky fixed him with the famous mad-guy Kelleher stare. Gardino held the gaze just fine. Which Ricky respected.

“I’ll give you twenty-five percent, if the buyer pays a hundred Gs or less. Thirty, if it’s more than that.”

Ricky said, “Over one fifty, I want half.”

Gardino debated. He finally said, “Deal. You really know somebody can get his hands on that kind of money?”

Ricky finished his beer and, without paying, started for the door. “That’s what I’m going to go work on right now.”

Ricky walked into Mack’s bar.

It was pretty much like Hanrahan’s, four blocks away, but was busier, since it was closer to the convention center, where hundreds of Teamsters and union electricians and carpenters would take fifteen-minute breaks that lasted two hours. The neighborhood surrounding Mack’s was better too: redeveloped town houses and some new buildings, expensive as shit, and even a Starbucks. Way fucking different from the grim, hustling combat zone that Hell’s Kitchen had been until the seventies.

T.G., a fat Irishman in his mid-thirties, was at the corner table with three, four buddies of his.

“It’s the Lime Ricky man,” T.G. shouted, not drunk, not sober — the way he usually seemed. Man used nicknames a lot, which he seemed to think was cute but always pissed off the person he was talking to mostly because of the way he said it, not so much the names themselves. Like, Ricky didn’t even know what a Lime Ricky was, some drink or something, but the sneery tone in T.G.’s voice was a putdown. Still, you had to have major balls to say anything back to the big, psycho Irishman.

“Hey,” Ricky offered, walking up to the corner table, which was like T.G.’s office.

“The fuck you been?” T.G. asked, dropping his cigarette on the floor and crushing it under his boot.

“Hanny’s.”

“Doing what, Lime Ricky Man?” Stretching out the nickname.

“Polishing me knob,” Ricky responded in a phony brogue. A lot of times he said stuff like this, sort of putting himself down in front of T.G. and his crew. He didn’t want to, didn’t like it. It just happened. Always wondered why.

“You mean, polishing some altar boy’s knob,” T.G. roared. The more sober in the crew laughed.

Ricky got a Guinness. He really didn’t like it but T.G. had once said that that and whiskey were the only things real men drank. And, since it was called stout, he figured it would make him fatter. All his life, trying to get bigger. Never succeeding.

Ricky sat down at the table, which was scarred with knife slashes and skid marks from cigarette burns. He nodded to T.G.’s crew, a half dozen losers who sorta worked the trades, sorta worked the warehouses, sorta hung out. One was so drunk he couldn’t focus and kept trying to tell a joke, forgetting it halfway through. Ricky hoped the guy wouldn’t puke before he made it to the john, like yesterday.

T.G. was rambling on, insulting some of the people at the table in his cheerful-mean way and threatening guys who weren’t here.

Ricky just sat at the table, eating peanuts and sucking down his licorice-flavored stout, and took the insults when they were aimed at him. Mostly he was thinking about Gardino and the boats.

T.G. rubbed his round, craggy face and his curly red-brown hair. He spat out, “And, fuck me, the nigger got away.”

Ricky was wondering which nigger? He thought he’d been paying attention, but sometimes T.G.’s train of thought took its own route and left you behind.

He could see T.G. was upset, though, and so Ricky muttered a sympathetic “That asshole.”

“Man, I see him, I will take that cocksucker out so fast.” He clapped his palms together in a loud slap that made a couple of the crew blink. The drunk one stood up and staggered toward the men’s room. Looked like he was going to make it this time.

“He been around?” Ricky asked.

T.G. snapped, “His black ass’s up in Buffalo. I just told you that. The fuck you asking if he’s here?”

“No, I don’t mean here,” Ricky said fast. “I mean, you know, around.”

“Oh, yeah,” T.G. said, nodding, as if he caught some other meaning. “Sure. But that don’t help me any. I see him, he’s one dead nigger.”

“Buffalo,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “Christ.” He tried to listen more carefully, but what mostly he was thinking about was the boat scam. Yeah, that Gardino’d come up with a good one. And man, making a hundred thousand in a single grift (he and T.G.’d never come close to that before).

Ricky shook his head again. He sighed. “Got half a mind to go to Buffalo and take his black ass out myself.”

“You the man, Lime Ricky. You the fucking man.” And T.G. started rambling once again.

Nodding, staring at T.G.’s not-drunk, not-sober eyes, Ricky was wondering: How much would it take to get the fuck out of Hell’s Kitchen? Get away from the bitching ex-wives, the bratty kid, away from T.G. and all the asshole losers like him. Maybe go to Florida, where Gardino was from. Maybe that’d be the place for him. From the various scams he and T.G. put together, he’d saved up about thirty thousand in cash. Nothing shabby there. But, man, if he conned just two or three guys in the boat deal, he could walk away with five times that.

Wouldn’t set him for good, but it’d be a start. Hell, Florida was full of rich, old people, most of ’em stupid, just waiting to give their money to a player had the right grift.

A fist colliding with his arm shattered the daydream. He bit the inside of his cheek and winced. He glared at T.G., who just laughed. “So, Lime Ricky, you going to Leon’s, ain’t you? On Saturday.”

“I don’t know.”

The door swung open and some out-of-towner wandered in. An older guy, in his fifties, dressed in beltless tan slacks, a white shirt and a blue blazer, a cord around his neck holding a convention badge, AOFM, whatever that was.

Association of… Ricky squinted. Association of Obese Ferret Molesters.

He laughed at his own joke. Nobody noticed. Ricky eyed the tourist. This never used to happen, seeing geeks in a bar around here. But then the convention center went in a few blocks south and, after that, Times Square got its balls cut off and turned into Disneyland. Suddenly Hell’s Kitchen was White Plains and Paramus, and the fucking yuppies and tourists took over.

The man blinked, eyes getting used to the dark. He ordered wine — T.G. snickered, wine in this place? — and drank down half right away. The guy had to’ve had money. He was wearing a Rolex and his clothes were designer shit. The man looked around slowly, and it reminded Ricky sort of the way people at the zoo look at the animals. He got pissed and enjoyed a brief fantasy of dragging the guy’s ass outside and pounding him till he gave up the watch and wallet.

But, of course, he wouldn’t. T.G. and Ricky weren’t that way; they steered clear of busting heads. Oh, a few times somebody got fucked up bad — they’d pounded a college kid when he’d taken a swing at T.G. during a scam, and Ricky’d slashed the face of some spic who’d skimmed a thousand bucks of their money. But the rule wasn’t you didn’t make people bleed if you could avoid it. If a mark lost only money, a lot of times he’d keep quiet about it, rather than go public and look like a fucking idiot. But if they got hurt, more times than not he’d go to the cops.

“You with me, Lime Ricky?” T.G. snapped “You’re off in your own fucking world.”

“Just thinking.”

“Ah, thinking. Good. He’s thinking. ’Bout your altar bitch?”

Ricky mimicked jerking off. Putting himself down again. Wondered why he did that. He glanced at the tourist again. The man was whispering to the bartender, who caught Ricky’s eye and lifted his head. Ricky pushed back from T.G.’s table and walked to the bar, his boots making loud clonks on the wooden floor.

“Whassup?”

“This guy’s from out of town.”

The tourist looked at Ricky once then down at the floor.

“No shit.” Ricky rolled his eyes at the bartender.

“Iowa,” the man said.

Where the fuck was Iowa? Ricky’d come close to finishing high school and had done okay in some subjects but geography had bored him crazy and he never paid any attention in class.

The bartender said, “He was telling me he’s in town for a conference at Javits.”

Him and the ferret molesters…

“And…” the bartender’s voice faded as he glanced at the tourist. “Well, why don’t you tell him?”

The man took another gulp of his wine. Ricky looked at his hand. Not only a Rolex, but a gold pinkie ring with a big honking diamond in it.

“Yeah, why don’t you tell me?”

The tourist did — in a halting whisper.

Ricky listened to his words. When the old guy was through, Ricky smiled and said, “This is your lucky day, mister.”

Thinking: Mine too.

A half hour later, Ricky and the tourist from Iowa were standing in the grimy lobby of the Bradford Arms, next to a warehouse at Eleventh Avenue and Fiftieth Street.

Ricky was making introductions. “This’s Darla.”

“Hello, Darla.”

A gold tooth shone like a star out of Darla’s big smile. “How you doing, honey? What’s yo’ name?”

“Uhm, Jack.”

Ricky sensed he’d nearly made up “John” instead, which would’ve been pretty funny, under the circumstances.

“Nice to meet you, Jack.” Darla, whose real name was Sha’quette Greeley, was six feet tall, beautiful and built like a runway model. She’d also been a man until three years ago. The tourist from Iowa didn’t catch on to this, or maybe he did and it turned him on. Anyway, his gaze was lapping her body like a tongue.

Jack checked them in, paying for three hours in advance.

Three hours? thought Ricky. An old fart like this? God bless him.

“Y’all have fun now,” Ricky said, falling into a redneck accent. He’d decided that Iowa was probably somewhere in the South.

Detective Robert Schaeffer could’ve been the host on one of those Fox or A&E cop shows. He was tall, silver-haired, good-looking, maybe a bit long in the face. He’d been an NYPD detective for nearly twenty years.

Schaeffer and his partner were walking down a filthy hallway that stank of sweat and Lysol. The partner pointed to a door, whispering, “That’s it.” He pulled out what looked like an electronic stethoscope and played the sensor over the scabby wood.

“Hear anything?” Schaeffer asked, also in a soft voice.

Joey Bernbaum, the partner, nodded slowly, holding up a finger. Meaning wait.

And then a nod. “Go.”

Schaeffer pulled a master key out of his pocket, and drawing his gun, unlocked the door then pushed inside.

“Police! Nobody move!”

Bernbaum followed, his own automatic in hand.

The faces of the two people inside registered identical expressions of shock at the abrupt entry, though it was only in the face of the pudgy middle-aged white man, sitting shirtless on the bed, that the shock turned instantly to horror and dismay. He had a Marine Corps tattoo on his fat upper arm and had probably been pretty tough in his day but now his narrow, pale shoulders slumped and he looked like he was going to cry. “No, no, no…”

“Oh, fuck,” Darla said.

“Stay right where you are, sweetheart. Be quiet.”

“How the fuck you find me? That little prick downstair at the desk, he dime me? I know it. I’ma pee on that boy next time I see him. I’ma—”

“You’re not going to do anything but shut up,” Bernbaum snapped. In a ghetto accent he added a sarcastic, “Yo, got that, girlfriend?”

“Man oh man.” Darla tried to wither him with a gaze. He just laughed and cuffed her.

Schaeffer put his gun away and said to the man, “Let me see some ID.”

“Oh, please, Officer, look, I didn’t—”

“Some ID?” Schaeffer said. He was polite, like always. When you had a badge in your pocket and a big fucking pistol on your hip you could afford to be civil.

The man dug his thick wallet out of his slacks and handed it to the officer, who read the license. “Mr. Shelby, this your current address? In Des Moines?”

In a quivering voice, he said, “Yessir.”

“All right, well, you’re under arrest for solicitation of prostitution.” He took his cuffs out of their holder.

“I didn’t do anything illegal, really. It was just… it was only a date.”

“Really? Then what’s this?” The detective picked up a stack of money sitting on the cockeyed nightstand. Four hundred bucks.

“I–I just thought…”

The old guy’s mind was working fast, that was obvious. Schaeffer wondered what excuse he’d come up with. He’d heard them all.

“Just to get some food and something to drink.”

That was a new one. Schaeffer tried not to laugh. You spend four hundred bucks on food and booze in this neighborhood, you could afford a block party big enough for fifty Darlas.

“He pay you to have sex?” Schaeffer asked Darla.

She grimaced.

“You lie, baby, you know what’ll happen to you. You’re honest with me, I’ll put in a word.”

“You a prick too,” she snapped. “All right, he pay me to do a ’round the world.”

“No…” Shelby protested for a moment but then he gave up and slumped even lower. “Oh, Christ, what’m I gonna do? This’ll kill my wife… and my kids…” He looked up with panicked eyes. “Will I have to go to jail?”

“That’s up to the prosecutor and the judge.”

“Why the hell’d I do this?” he moaned.

Schaeffer looked him over carefully. After a long moment he said, “Take her downstairs.”

Darla snapped, “Yo, you fat fuck, keep yo’ motherfuckin’ hands offa me.”

Bernbaum laughed again. “This mean you ain’t my girlfriend no more?” He gripped her by the arm and led her outside. The door swung shut.

“Look, Detective, it’s not like I robbed anybody. It was harmless. You know, victimless.”

“It’s still a crime. And don’t you know about AIDS, hepatitis?”

Shelby looked down again. He nodded. “Yessir,” he whispered.

Still holding the cuffs, Schaeffer eyed the man carefully. He sat down on a creaky chair. “How often you get to town?”

“To New York?”

“Yeah.”

“Once a year, if I’ve got a conference or meeting. I always enjoy it. You know what they say, ‘It’s a nice place to visit.’” His voice faded, maybe thinking that the rest of that old saw — “but you wouldn’t want to live there” — would insult the cop.

Schaeffer asked, “So, you got a conference now?” He pulled the badge out of the man’s pocket, read it.

“Yessir, it’s our annual trade show. At the Javits. Outdoor furniture manufacturers.”

“That’s your line?”

“I have a wholesale business in Iowa.”

“Yeah? Successful?”

“Number one in the state. Actually in the whole region.” He said this sadly, not proudly, probably thinking of how many customers he’d lose when word got out about his arrest.

Schaeffer nodded slowly. Finally he put the handcuffs away.

Shelby’s eyes narrowed, watching this.

“You ever done anything like this before?”

A hesitation. He decided not to lie. “I have. Yessir.”

“But I get a feeling you’re not going to again.”

“Never. I promise you. I’ve learned my lesson.”

There was a long pause.

“Stand up.”

Shelby blinked then did what he was told. He frowned as the cop patted down his trousers and jacket. With the guy not wearing a shirt, Schaeffer was 99 percent sure the man was legit, but had to make absolutely certain there were no wires.

The detective nodded toward the chair and Shelby sat down. The businessman’s eyes revealed that he now had an inkling of what was happening.

“I have a proposition for you,” Schaeffer said.

“Proposition?”

The cop nodded. “Okay. I’m convinced you’re not going to do this again.”

“Never.”

“I could let you go with a warning. But the problem is the situation got called in.”

“Called in?”

“A vice cop on the street happened to see you go into the hotel with Darla — we know all about her. He reported it and they sent me out. There’s paperwork on the incident.”

“My name?”

“No, just a John Doe at this point. But there is a report. I could make it go away but it’d take some work and it’d be a risk.”

Shelby sighed, nodding with a grimace, and opened the bidding.

It wasn’t much of an auction. Shelby kept throwing out numbers and Schaeffer kept lifting his thumb, more, more…. Finally, when the shaken man hit $150,000, Schaeffer nodded.

“Christ.”

When T.G. and Ricky Kelleher had called to say that he’d found a tourist to scam, Ricky told him the mark could go six figures. That was so far out of those stupid micks’ league that Schaeffer had to laugh. But, sure enough, he had to give the punk credit for picking out a mark with big bucks.

In a defeated voice Shelby asked, “Can I give you a check?”

Schaeffer laughed.

“Okay, okay… but I’ll need a few hours.”

“Tonight. Eight.” They arranged a place to meet. “I’ll keep your driver’s license. And the evidence.” He picked up the cash on the table. “You try to skip, I’ll put out an arrest warrant and send that to Des Moines too. They’ll extradite you and then it’ll be a serious felony. You’ll do real time.”

“Oh, no, sir. I’ll get the money. Every penny.” Shelby hurriedly dressed.

“Go out by the service door in back. I don’t know where the vice cop is.”

The tourist nodded and scurried out of the room.

In the lobby by the elevator the detective found Bernbaum and Darla sharing a smoke.

“Where my money?” the hooker demanded.

Schaeffer handed her the two hundred of the confiscated cash. He and Bernbaum split the rest, a hundred fifty for Schaeffer, fifty for his partner.

“You gonna take the afternoon off, girlfriend?” Bernbaum asked Darla.

“Me? Hell, no, I gots to work.” She glanced at the money Schaeffer’d given her. “Least till you assholes start paying me fo’ not fuckin’ same as I make fo’ fuckin’.”

Schaeffer pushed into Mack’s bar, an abrupt entrance that changed the course of at least half the conversations going on inside real fast. He was a crooked cop, sure, but he was still a cop, and the talk immediately shifted from deals and scams and drugs to sports, women and jobs. Schaeffer laughed and strode across the room. He dropped into an empty chair at the scarred table, muttered to T.G., “Get me a beer.” Schaeffer being about the only one in the universe who could get away with that.

When the brew came he tipped the glass to Ricky. “You caught us a good one. He agreed to a hundred fifty.”

“No shit,” T.G. said, cocking a red eyebrow. (The split was Schaeffer got half and then Ricky and T.G. divided the rest equally.)

T.G. asked, “Where’s he getting it from?”

“I dunno. His problem.”

Ricky squinted. “Wait. I want the watch too.”

“Watch?”

“The old guy. He had a Rolex. I want it.”

At home Schaeffer had a dozen Rolexes he’d taken off marks and suspects over the years. He didn’t need another one. “You want the watch, he’ll give up the watch. All he cares about is making sure his wife and his cornpone customers don’t find out what he was up to.”

“What’s cornpone?” Ricky asked.

“Hold on,” T.G. snarled. “Anybody gets the watch, it’s me.”

“No way. I saw it first. It was me who picked him.”

“My watch,” the fat Irishman interrupted. “Maybe he’s got a money clip or something you can have. But I get the fucking Rolex.”

“Nobody has money clips,” Ricky argued. “I don’t even want a fucking money clip.”

“Listen, little Lime Ricky,” T.G. muttered. “It’s mine. Read my lips.”

“Jesus, you two are like kids,” Schaeffer said, swilling the beer. “He’ll meet us across the street from Pier Forty-six at eight tonight.” The three men had done this same scam or variations on it for a couple of years now but still didn’t trust each other. The deal was they all went together to collect the payoff.

Schaeffer drained the beer. “See you boys then.”

After the detective was gone they watched the game for a few minutes, with T.G. bullying some guys to place bets, even though it was in the fourth quarter and there was no way Chicago could come back. Finally, Ricky said, “I’m going out for a while.”

“What, now I’m your fucking babysitter? You want to go, go.” Though he still made it sound like Ricky was a complete idiot for missing the end of a game that only had eight minutes to run.

Just as Ricky got to the door, T.G. called in a loud voice, “Hey, Lime Ricky, my Rolex? Is it gold?”

Just to be a prick.

Bob Schaeffer had walked a beat in his youth. He’d investigated a hundred felonies, he’d run a thousand scams in Manhattan and Brooklyn. All of which meant that he’d learned how to stay alive on the streets.

Now, he sensed a threat.

He was on his way to score some coke from a kid who operated out of a newsstand at Ninth and Fifty-fifth and he realized he’d been hearing the same footsteps for the past five or six minutes. A weird scraping. Somebody was tailing him. He paused to light a cigarette in a doorway and checked out the reflection in a storefront window. Sure enough, he saw a man in a cheap gray suit, wearing gloves, about thirty feet behind him. The guy paused for a moment and pretended to look into a store window.

Schaeffer didn’t recognize the guy. He’d made a lot of enemies over the years. The fact he was a cop gave him some protection — it’s risky to gun down even a crooked one — but there were plenty of nut jobs out there.

Walking on. The owner of the scraping shoes continue his tail. A glance in the rearview mirror of a car parked nearby told him the man was getting closer, but his hands were at his side, not going for a weapon. Schaeffer pulled out his cell phone and pretended to make a call, to give himself an excuse to slow up and not make the guy suspicious. His other hand slipped inside his jacket and touched the grip of his chrome-plated SIG-Sauer 9mm automatic pistol.

This time the guy didn’t slow up.

Schaeffer started to draw.

Then: “Detective, could you hang up the phone, please?”

Schaeffer turned, blinked. The pursuer was holding up a gold NYPD shield.

The fuck is this? Schaeffer thought. He relaxed, but not much. Snapped the phone closed and dropped it into his pocket. Let go of his weapon.

“Who’re you?”

The man, eyeing Schaeffer coldly, let him get a look at the ID card next to the shield.

Schaeffer thought: Fuck me. The guy was from the department’s Internal Affairs Division — the boys that tracked down corrupt cops.

Still Schaeffer kept on the offensive. “What’re you doing following me?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“What’s this all about?”

“An investigation we’re conducting.”

“Hello,” Schaeffer said sarcastically. “I sort of figured that out. Give me some fucking details.”

“We’re looking into your connection with certain individuals.”

“‘Certain individuals.’ You know, not all cops have to talk like cops.”

No response.

Schaeffer shrugged. “I have ‘connections’ with a lotta people. Maybe you’re thinking of my snitches. I hang with ’em. They feed me good information.”

“Yeah, well, we’re thinking there might be other things they feed you. Some valuable things.” He glanced at Schaeffer’s hip. “I’m going to ask you for your weapon.”

“Fuck that.”

“I’m trying to keep it low key. But you don’t cooperate, I’ll call it in and we’ll take you downtown. Then everything’ll all be public.”

Finally Schaeffer understood. It was a shakedown — only this time he was on the receiving end. And he was getting scammed by Internal Affairs, no less. This was almost fucking funny, IAD on the take too.

Schaeffer gave up his gun.

“Let’s go talk in private.”

How much was this going to cost him? he wondered.

The IAD cop nodded toward the Hudson River. “That way.”

“Talk to me,” Schaeffer said. “I got a right to know what this’s all about. If somebody told you I’m on the take, that’s bullshit. Whoever said it’s working some angle.” He wasn’t as hot as he sounded; this was all part of the negotiating.

The IAD cop said only, “Keep walking. Up there.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Offered one to Schaeffer. He took it and the guy lit it for him.

Then Schaeffer froze. He blinked in shock, staring at the matches. The name on them was McDougall’s Tavern. The official name of Mack’s — T.G.’s hangout. He glanced at the guy’s eyes, which went wide at his mistake. Christ, he was no cop. The ID and badge were fake. He was a hit man working for T.G., who was going to clip him and collect the whole hundred fifty Gs from the tourist.

“Fuck,” the phony cop muttered. He yanked a revolver out of his pocket, then shoved Schaeffer into a nearby alley.

“Listen, buddy,” Schaeffer whispered, “I’ve got some good bucks. Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll—”

“Shut up.” In his gloved hands, the guy exchanged his gun for Schaeffer’s own pistol and pushed the big chrome piece into the detective’s neck. Then the fake cop pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and stuffed it into the detective’s jacket. He leaned forward and whispered, “Here’s the message, asshole: For two years T.G.’s been setting up everything, doing all the work and you take half the money. You’ve fucked with the wrong man.”

“That’s bullshit,” Schaeffer cried desperately. “He needs me! He couldn’t do it without a cop! Please—”

“So long—” He lifted the gun to Schaeffer’s temple.

“Don’t do it! Please, man, no!”

A scream sounded from the mouth of the alley. “Oh my god.” A middle-aged woman stood twenty feet away, staring at the man with the pistol. Her hands were to her mouth. “Somebody, call the police!”

The hit man’s attention was on the woman. Schaeffer shoved him into a brick wall. Before he could recover and shoot, the detective sprinted fast down the alley.

He heard the man shout, “Goddamn it!” and start after him. But Hell’s Kitchen was Bob Schaeffer’s hunting grounds, and in five minutes the detective had raced through dozens of alleys and side streets and lost the killer. Once again on the street he paused and pulled his backup gun off his ankle holster, slipped it into his pocket. He felt the crinkle of paper — what the guy had planted on him. It was a fake suicide note, Schaeffer confessing that he’d been on the take for years and he couldn’t take the guilt anymore. He had to end it all.

Well, he thought, that was partly right.

One thing was fucking well about to end.

Smoking, staying in the shadows of an alley, Schaeffer had to wait outside Mack’s for fifteen minutes before T.G. Reilly emerged. The big man, moving like a lumbering bear, was by himself. He looked around, not seeing the cop, and turned west.

Schaeffer gave him half a block and then followed.

He kept his distance but when the street was deserted he pulled on gloves then fished into his pocket for the pistol he’d just gotten from his desk. He’d bought it on the street years ago — a cold gun, one with no registration number stamped on the frame. Gripping the weapon, he moved up fast behind the big Irishman.

The mistake a lot of shooters make during a clip is they feel they’ve gotta talk to their vic. Schaeffer remembered some old Western where this kid tracks down the gunslinger who killed his father. The kid’s holding a gun on him and explaining why he’s about to die, you killed my father, yadda, yadda, yadda, and the gunslinger gets this bored look on his face, pulls out a hidden gun and blows the kid away. He looks down at the body and says, “You gonna talk, talk. You gonna shoot, shoot.”

Which is just what Robert Schaeffer did now. T.G. must’ve heard something. He started to turn. But before he even caught sight of the detective, Schaeffer parked two rounds in the back of the fat man’s head. He dropped like a bag of sand. He tossed the gun on the sidewalk — he’d never touched it with his bare hands — and, keeping his head down, and walked right past him, hit Tenth Avenue and turned north.

You gonna shoot, shoot.

Amen…

It took only one glance.

Looking into Ricky Kelleher’s eyes, Schaeffer decided he wasn’t in on the attempted hit.

The small, goofy guy, with dirty hair and a cocky face, strode up to the spot where Schaeffer was leaning against a wall, hand inside his coat, near his new automatic. But the loser didn’t blink, didn’t show the least surprise that the cop was still alive. The detective had interviewed suspects for years and he now concluded that the asshole knew nothing about T.G.’s attempted hit.

Ricky nodded. “Hey.” Looking around, he asked, “So where’s T.G.? He said he’d be here early.”

Frowning, Schaeffer asked, “Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Damn, you didn’t. Somebody clipped him.”

“T.G.?”

“Yep.”

Ricky just stared and shook his head. “No fucking way. I didn’t hear shit about it.”

“Just happened.”

“Christ almighty,” the little man whispered. “Who did it?”

“Nobody knows yet.”

“Maybe that nigger.”

“Who?”

“Nigger from Buffalo. Or Albany. I don’t know.” Ricky then whispered, “Dead. I can’t believe it. Anybody else in the crew?”

“Just him, I think.”

Schaeffer studied the scrawny guy. Well, yeah, he did look like he couldn’t believe it. But, truth was, he didn’t look upset. Which made sense. T.G. was hardly Ricky’s buddy; he was a drunk loser bully.

Besides, in Hell’s Kitchen the living tended to forget about the dead before their bodies were cold.

Like he was proving this point, Ricky said, “So how’s this going to affect our, you know, arrangement?”

“Not at all, far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m going to want more.”

“I can go a third.”

“Fuck a third. I want half.”

“No can do. It’s riskier for me now.”

“Riskier? Why?”

“There’ll be an investigation. Somebody might turn up something at T.G.’s with my name on it. I’ll have to grease more palms.” Schaeffer shrugged. “Or you can find yourself another cop to work with.”

As if the Yellow Pages had a section, “Cops, Corrupt.”

The detective added, “Give it a few months, after things calm down, I can go up a few more points then.”

“To forty?”

“Yeah, to forty.”

The little man asked, “Can I have the Rolex?”

“The guy’s? Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“You really want it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, it’s yours.”

Ricky looked out over the river. It seemed to Schaeffer that a faint smile crossed his face.

They stood in silence for a few minutes and, right on time, the tourist, Shelby, showed up. He was looking terrified and hurt and angry, which is a fucking tricky combination to get into your face all at one time.

“I’ve got it,” he whispered. There was nothing in his hands — no briefcase or bag — but Schaeffer had been taking kickbacks and bribes for so long that he knew a lot of money can fit into a very small envelope.

Which is just what Shelby now produced. The grim-faced tourist slipped it to Schaeffer, who counted the bills carefully.

“The watch too.” Ricky pointed eagerly to the man’s wrist.

“My watch?” Shelby hesitated and, grimacing, handed it to the skinny man.

Schaeffer gave the tourist his driver’s license back. He pocketed it fast then hurried east, undoubtedly looking for a taxi that’d take him straight to the airport.

The detective laughed to himself. So, maybe New York ain’t such a nice place to visit, after all.

The men split the money. Ricky slipped the Rolex on his wrist but the metal band was too big and it dangled comically. “I’ll get it adjusted,” he said, putting the watch into his pocket. “They can shorten the bands, you know. It’s no big deal.”

They decided to have a drink to celebrate and Ricky suggested Hanny’s since he had to meet somebody over there.

As they walked along the avenue, blue-gray in the evening light, Ricky glanced at the placid Hudson River. “Check it out.”

A large yacht eased south in the dark water.

“Sweet,” Schaeffer said, admiring the beautiful lines of the vessel.

Ricky asked, “So how come you didn’t want in?”

“In?”

“The boat deal.”

“Huh?”

“That T.G. told you about. He said you were going to pass.”

“What the fuck’re you talking about?”

“The boat thing. With that guy from Florida.”

“He never said anything to me about it.”

“That prick.” Ricky shook his head. “Was a few days ago. This guy hangs at Hanny’s? He’s who I’m gonna meet. He’s got connections down in Florida. His crew perps these confiscated boats before they get logged in at the impound dock.”

“DEA?”

“Yeah. And Coast Guard.”

Schaeffer nodded, impressed at the plan. “They disappear before they’re logged. That’s some smart shit.”

“I’m thinking about getting one. He tells me I pay him, like, twenty Gs and I end up with a boat worth three times that. I thought you’d be interested.”

“Yeah, I’d be interested.” Bob Schaeffer had a couple of small boats. Had always wanted a really nice one. He asked, “He got anything bigger?”

“Think he just sold a fifty-footer. I seen it down in Battery Park. It was sweet.”

“Fifty feet? That’s a million-dollar boat.”

“He said it only cost his guy two hundred or something like that.”

“Jesus. That asshole, T.G. He never said a word to me.” Schaeffer at least felt some consolation that the punk wouldn’t be saying anything to anyone from now on.

They walked into Hanrahan’s. Like usual, the place was nearly deserted. Ricky was looking around. The boat guy apparently wasn’t here yet.

They ordered boilermakers. Clinked glasses, drank.

Ricky was telling the old bartender about T.G. getting killed, when Schaeffer’s cell phone rang.

“Schaeffer here.”

“This’s Malone from Homicide. You heard about the T.G. Reilly hit?”

“Yeah. What’s up with it? Any leads?” Heart pounding fast, Schaeffer lowered his head and listened real carefully.

“Not many. But we heard something and we’re hoping you can help us out. You know the neighborhood, right?”

“Pretty good.”

“Looks like one of T.G.’s boys was running a scam. Involved some tall paper. Six figures. We don’t know if it had anything to do with the clip, but we want to talk to him. Name of Ricky Kelleher. You know him?”

Schaeffer glanced at Ricky, five feet away. He said into the phone, “Not sure. What’s the scam?”

“This Kelleher was working with somebody from Florida. They came up with a pretty slick plan. They sell some loser a confiscated boat, only what happens is, there is no boat. It’s all a setup. Then when it’s time to deliver, they tell the poor asshole that the feds just raided ’em. He better forget about his money, shut up and go to ground.”

That little fucking prick…. Schaeffer’s hand began shaking with anger as he stared at Ricky. He told the Homicide cop, “Haven’t seen him for a while. But I’ll ask around.”

“Thanks.”

He disconnected and walked up to Ricky, who was working on his second beer.

“You know when that guy’s going to get here?” Schaeffer asked casually. “The boat guy?”

“Should be any time,” the punk said.

Schaeffer nodded, drank some of his own beer. Then he lowered his head, whispered, “That call I just got? Don’t know if you’re interested but it was my supplier. He just got a shipment from Mexico. He’s gonna meet me in the alley in a few minutes. It’s some really fine shit. He’ll give it to us for cost. You interested?”

“Fuck yes,” the little man said.

The men pushed out the back door into the alley. Letting Ricky precede him, Schaeffer reminded himself that after he’d strangled the punk to death, he’d have to be sure to take the rest of the bribe money out of his pocket.

Oh, and the watch too. The detective decided that you really couldn’t have too many Rolexes after all.

Detective Robert Schaeffer was enjoying a grande mocha outside the Starbucks on Ninth Avenue. He was sitting in a metal chair, none too comfortable, and he wondered if it was the type that outdoor furniture king Shelby distributed to his fellow hicks.

“Hey there,” a man’s voice said to him.

Schaeffer glanced over at a man sitting down at the table next to him. He was vaguely familiar and, even though the cop didn’t exactly recognize him, he smiled a greeting.

Then the realization hit him like ice water and he gasped. It was the fake Internal Affairs detective, the guy T.G. and Ricky had hired to clip him.

Christ!

The man’s right hand was inside a paper bag, where there’d be a pistol, of course.

Schaeffer froze.

“Relax,” the guy said, laughing at the cop’s expression. “Everything’s cool.” He extracted his hand from the bag. No gun. He was holding a raisin scone. He took a bite. “I’m not who you think I am.”

“Then who the fuck are you?”

“You don’t need my name. I’m a private eye. That’ll do. Now listen, we’ve got a business proposition for you.” The PI looked up and waved. To Schaeffer he said, “I want to introduce you to some folks.”

A middle-aged couple, also carrying coffee, walked outside. In shock, Schaeffer realized that the man was Shelby, the tourist they’d scammed a few days ago. The woman with him seemed familiar too. But he couldn’t place her.

“Detective,” the man said with a cold smile.

The woman’s gaze was chilly too, but no smile was involved.

“Whatta you want?” the cop snapped to the private eye.

“I’ll let them explain that.” He took a large bite of scone.

Shelby’s eyes locked onto Schaeffer’s face with a ballsy confidence that was a lot different from the timid, defeated look he’d had in the cheap hotel, sitting next to Darla, the used-to-be-a-guy hooker. “Detective, here’s the deal: A few months ago my son was on vacation here with some friends from college. He was dancing in a club near Broadway and your associates T.G. Reilly and Ricky Kelleher slipped some drugs into his pocket. Then you came in and busted him for possession. Just like with me, you set him up and told him you’d let him go if he paid you off. Only Michael decided you weren’t going to get away with it. He took a swing at you and was going to call nine-one-one. But you and T.G. Reilly dragged him into the alley and beat him so badly he’s got permanent brain damage and is going to be in therapy for years.”

Schaeffer remembered the college kid, yeah. It’d been a bad beating. But he said, “I don’t know what you’re—”

“Shhhhh,” the private eye said. “The Shelbys hired me to find out what happened to their son. I’ve spent two months in Hell’s Kitchen, learning everything there is to know about you and those two pricks you worked with.” A nod toward the tourist. “Back to you.” The PI ate some more scone.

The husband said, “We decided you were going to pay for what you did. Only we couldn’t go to the police — who knew how many of them were working with you? So my wife and I and our other son — Michael’s brother — came up with an idea. We decided to let you assholes do the work for us; you were going to double-cross each other.”

“This is bullshit. You—”

The woman snapped, “Shut up and listen.” She explained: They set up a sting in Hanny’s bar. The private eye pretended to be a scam artist from Florida selling stolen boats and their older son played a young guy from Jersey who’d been duped out of his money. This got Ricky’s attention, and he talked his way into the phony boat scam. Staring at Schaeffer, she said, “We knew you liked boats, so it made sense that Ricky’d try to set you up.”

The husband added, “Only we needed some serious cash on the table, a bunch of it — to give you losers some real incentive to betray each other.”

So he went to T.G.’s hangout and asked about a hooker, figuring that the three of them would set up an extortion scam.

He chuckled. “I kept hoping you’d keep raising the bidding when you were blackmailing me. I wanted at least six figures in the pot.”

T.G. was their first target. That afternoon the private eye pretended to be a hit man hired by T.G. to kill Schaeffer so he’d get all the money.

“You!” the detective whispered, staring at the wife. “You’re the woman who screamed.”

Shelby said, “We needed to give you the chance to escape — so you’d go straight to T.G.’s place and take care of him.”

Oh, Lord. The hit, the fake Internal Affairs cop… It was all a setup!

“Then Ricky took you to Hanrahan’s, where he was going to introduce you to the boat dealer from Florida.”

The private eye wiped his mouth and leaned forward. “Hello,” he said in a deeper voice. “This’s Malone from Homicide.”

“Oh, fuck,” Schaeffer spat out. “You let me know that Ricky’d set me up. So…” His voice faded.

The PI whispered, “You’d take care of him too.”

The cold smile on his face again, Shelby said, “Two perps down. Now, we just have the last one. You.”

“What’re you going to do?” the cop whispered.

The wife said, “Our son’s got to have years of therapy. He’ll never recover completely.”

Schaeffer shook his head. “You’ve got evidence, right?”

“Oh, you bet. Our older son was outside of Mack’s waiting for you when you went there to get T.G. We’ve got real nice footage of you shooting him. Two in the head. Real nasty.”

“And the sequel,” the private eye said. “In the alley behind Hanrahan’s. Where you strangled Ricky.” He added, “Oh, and we’ve got the license number of the truck that came to get Ricky’s body in the Dumpster. We followed it to Jersey. We can implicate a bunch of very unpleasant people, who aren’t going to be happy they’ve been fingered because of you.”

“And, in case you haven’t guessed, “Shelby said, “we made three copies of the tape and they’re sitting in three different lawyers’ office safes. Anything happens to any one of us, and off they go to Police Plaza.”

“You’re as good as murderers yourself,” Schaeffer muttered. “You used me to kill two people.”

Shelby laughed. “Semper Fi… I’m a former Marine and I’ve been in two wars. Killing vermin like you doesn’t bother me one bit.”

“All right,” the cop said in a disgusted grumble, “what do you want?”

“You’ve got the vacation house on Fire Island, you’ve got two boats moored in Oyster Bay, you’ve got—”

“I don’t need a fucking inventory. I need a number.”

“Basically your entire net worth. Eight hundred sixty thousand dollars. Plus my hundred fifty back…. And I want it in the next week. Oh, and you pay his bill too.” Shelby nodded toward the private eye.

“I’m good,” the man said. “But very expensive.” He finished the scone and brushed the crumbs onto the sidewalk.

Shelby leaned forward. “One more thing: my watch.”

Schaeffer stripped off the Rolex and tossed it to Shelby.

The couple rose. “So long, Detective,” the tourist said.

“Love to stay and talk,” Mrs. Shelby said, “but we’re going to see some sights. And then we’re going for a carriage ride in Central Park before dinner.” She paused and looked down at the cop. “I just love it here. It’s true what they say, you know. New York really is a nice place to visit.”