Smoke and Mirrors

99

Albert White took off his tie and put it in the drawer along with his.38. He took the two speed loaders from his jacket pocket and tossed them in before closing and locking the drawer. In the five years since his wife left him for his second cousin, a roofer, he had rarely spent any of his off time-and there was less and less of that-with other people. He didn’t much care for company. Now he was going to spend the evening with a South African jerk-off and two of his pals. The prospect made him bone-tired. Why the old Kraut hadn’t just given him a cash bonus was beyond him. He was going to sit in a restaurant for a couple of hours, eat a thick steak. Then instead of lying down, which is what he’d want to do, he would have to go out carousing with the sons of bitches. And he’d bet ten dollars against a donut they’d want free trim at casino expense.

He looked at his watch and frowned. Why was it that time passed so quickly when something unpleasant was coming at you, and so slowly when there was something tasty ahead? Well, if things worked out as planned, he’d be getting a nice bump from a real estate deal he’d been working on. He thought about Jack Beals. Although White had never cared for him, he had been useful. He may have been a preening smart-ass, but he would do anything for money, and he and White had made a few hundred grand by taking winnings from people who walked away with money they didn’t deserve. White knew the cash that had been found in Beals’s house was from their little sideline venture.

Albert had his money well hidden, and once in a while he would take it out of the vents and count it. Since he didn’t go on vacations or buy expensive toys, he had more than he needed. When he wanted sex, Albert had a colored gal who would come over and set him right as rain for a fifty-dollar bill.

Albert was saving for retirement. He had bought a small house on a lake in Florida, and when he walked out in five years, six months, two days, and fourteen hours, he would have enough to pad his retirement from the force in West Memphis, his social security, the bundle he’d saved from the years of collecting money to look the other way in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the liberated winnings he and Beals had put together. Nine hundred thousand dollars, but he planned to have well over a million before walking away into the glorious sunrise.

Albert’s thoughts were interrupted by a rapping on his office door. Finch opened it. “You ready, big buddy?”

“Yeah,” Albert said. “Where’s your two guys at?”

“Waiting outside in the limo,” Finch said, smiling. “We’re going first-class all the way, big fellow. We go eat at that steak house you were bragging about, have a few drinks with Tug at that blues club outside town, and then we get some girls and have our ashes hauled. You up for all that?”

“I reckon I am,” Albert said.

“Then let’s have a run at it.”

Albert nodded, took a look at the locked drawer, and followed Finch down the hall toward what he was sure was going to be a pure pain-in-the-ass experience.