Devils in Exile

Ness

Lash couldn’t say why the fatherly impulse had come on so late in the game, or why it had come on so strong. It really is a love affair, your relationship with your kids. It’s powerful and frustrating because there is no real consummation. No finish line. The closest you get are the moments when you can share in your child’s triumphs — as when watching them on the field of play — though even those successes are tinged with sadness because every accomplishment only pulls them further away from you, toward an adulthood all their own.

He was fighting afternoon traffic out of the city because he had missed too many of Rosey’s lacrosse matches to miss another. He liked to stand on the sidelines, apart from the other spectators, watching his boy play, this chunk of him that had broken away and grown whole into a man.

This was why, when Lash’s phone buzzed in his cupholder, he answered it expecting to hear Rosey.

“What up, M.L.?” Tricky’s serious voice.

“Everything good?”

“Breezy. Checking in.”

Not true, but better that than trouble. “I heard some bullshit about somebody rounding up the bandits.”

“Nonsense rumor,” said Tricky. “Junkies trying to turn in their brothers for twenty-five long.”

“They showed up that cop though, didn’t they?”

“Everything but put a pink party dress on him. Pretty good, maybe edging toward showboating. Fifteen-yard penalty for dancing in the end zone.”

“Could be they’re getting cocky. Could be anger.”

“You sounding sympathetic. You get anything from the cop?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” But, no, Lash hadn’t. The only people who lawyer up faster than dirty cops are dirty lawyers.

“Major haul, I heard.”

Couldn’t hurt to say. “Fifty-odd keys.”

“Blow?” The ensuing silence was Tricky figuring out the wholesale amount in his head, with a dealer’s facility for numbers. “Whoo, damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’m in the wrong line of business.”

Lash said, “You are in the wrong line of business.”

“So lemme ask then. You want these guys because they’re in your way? Or because that was your money?”

“My money? What’s that mean?”

“Your task force’s. These bandits are copping your style, Eliot Ness. Only cutting out the middleman — in this case, the U.S. gov.”

“What’s your point, Trey?”

“They eating all your pie, is what I’m saying. Can’t feel good seeing that. Hell, we should go freelance, you and me. There’s a team.”

Lash said, “Maybe you’re trying to be funny.”

“Maybe, yeah. Maybe I’m just working my way up to telling you this.” Tricky’s pause wasn’t meant to be dramatic. “I’m cooking up something for you. Something big. Real big.”

“In terms of? Men or money?”

Tricky answered that with a question. “What percentage can I get of seized assets?”

“Percentage of product? Zero.”

“I know that.”

Tricky had never asked about money before. Never discussed a payment package. Everything he and Lash had was personal, one-to-one. “There is a contingency fee. Twenty percent commission is standard, with a quarter-mil cap.”

“That’s tax-free?”

“Afraid not.”

Silence. “A cap, huh? Any give there? Cost of living increase, say?”

This discussion was making Lash’s palms sweaty. “Out of my league.”

“But you could ask.”

“I could ask. You gonna give me something to chew on, or what?”

More silence, the moment weighing heavily on Tricky. “This could change a lot of things for me. Change everything. I’ll hit you back when I can.”