Thick as Thieves

20

Carr arrives at the workhouse at three p.m. on Friday. He has swum, showered, shaved, and dressed in a blazer, jeans, and dark glasses. No one inside the house looks as good.

Bobby is bristled and fragile, and he’s working slowly though a liter of Coke and an egg sandwich. Latin Mike is also unshaven, vaguely jaundiced, and unconcerned with anything beyond the cup of coffee on the table before him, the cigarette burning in his ashtray, and the bottle of Advil in his hand. Dennis is green, shaking death. Carr lets the door slam behind him and smiles when they wince.

“I see you’ve been busy while I was away,” he says loudly. Mike ignores him, and Bobby flips him the bird over his sandwich. Carr chuckles. “How’s our man Bessemer doing?” he asks.

Dennis wipes sweat from his forehead. “Pickled. He was at the gin again last night, and didn’t get up until noon. Hasn’t been out of the house yet today. Stearn called him an hour ago, to check that his party was still on for tonight.”

“And?”

“Howie told him nine o’clock.”

“Has he spoken to Prager again?”

“He’s tried twice-yesterday and the day before-and got nowhere.” Carr nods. “And Amy Chun? How’s she coming along?”

Dennis taps on his keyboard. “Good. I pulled some stuff from her laptop-her personal one, not the Isla Privada equipment.”

“And?”

Dennis manages a smile. “She’s been e-mailing Val-Jill, I mean. She talks about how she misses her, how much she enjoys hanging out with her.”

“Fuckin’ Vee,” Bobby says through a mouthful of egg.

“Chun’s also been searching for anything and everything about Jill Creary on the Web,” Dennis says.

“No more stalking Janice Lessig?”

“Not for a while now.”

“What’s she finding on Jill?”

“Everything we put out there, everything Val asked for. Footprints in New York and in Boston. Modeling, PR, cooking school.”

“Chun does all the looking herself? No professional help?”

“All by herself,” Dennis says, and scrolls through some e-mail. “Her last note to Jill, she talks about the two of them going on vacation together.”

Carr shakes his head. “That’s fast.”

Mike rouses himself from his coffee to smile bitterly. “A real heart-breaker, that Vee.”

Bobby laughs, takes a bite of his sandwich, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks at Carr. “You gonna say how your trip went?”

“It went fine, Bobby.”

“Fine as in you had a nice little vacation, or fine as in you found something out about Bessemer?”

Carr smiles, but says nothing.

“Asshole,” Bobby says, and he takes a long swallow of Coke. “What time do we set up at Howie’s tonight?”

Carr’s smile widens. “I’m thinking six.”

Latin Mike scowls. “Why the hell we need to get there so early? Stearn won’t show till nine, and the pimp’s people won’t be any sooner.”

“We don’t need to wait for them,” Carr says. “We don’t need them.”

Dennis looks up. “What?”

“We don’t need them. We’re set for tonight, without them.”

Confusion and relief play across Dennis’s pale face. “What about Stearn, and Lamp? They’re expecting-”

“Howie will sort them out for us.”

Latin Mike shakes his head. “Guess jefe ’s trip worked out okay.”

Bobby looks at Carr. “How do you want to work it tonight?”

“We give Bessemer no time to think,” Carr says. “I want fear, confusion, and compliance.”

Bobby nods, and burps loudly. “You sound just like my ex,” he says.