Savages

166

“You rip me off and you rip me off?” Ben complains. “Christ, Alex, there’s greed and then there’s greed, but to beat me on the price and then come in and jack the short money you did pay me, that’s a hundred percent discount, which is a little much.”

They sit across from each other at a picnic table outside Papa’s Tacos in South Laguna. If you want a really good fish taco you go to Papa’s. If you don’t, you go somewhere else.

“What are you talking about?” Alex asks.

“Five freaking minutes after your guys picked up the stuff,” Ben hisses, “another set of guys came in and took the money.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Alex goes lawyer. “Hey, after the transfer is made, it’s not our responsibility.”

“Except that it was an inside job.”

Which is technically true.

“What makes you think it was an inside job?” Alex asks, getting a little pale.

“Who else knew?”

“Your people.”

Ben says, “I’ve been in business for eight years and never been ripped off by my people.”

“What did the guys look like?”

“Well, they weren’t retarded,” Ben says, “because they were wearing masks.”

“What kind of masks?”

“Madonna and Lady Gaga.”

“This is not a time for jokes.”

“I agree,” Ben says. “They didn’t say a lot, but the little they did say sounded a little south of the border to me.”

Alex thinks about this for a second, but doesn’t want to yield position. He says, “Maybe you need to beef up your security.”

“And maybe,” Ben says, wrapping his taco and getting up, “you need to look into yours. Get back to me on this. It better not happen again.”

Alex decides to go on the offensive. “Do you have the ransom money yet?”

“Still working on it,” Ben snaps.