When the Thrill Is Gone

33

As I explained the particulars of the case, Hush and I walked back to his door. He took two steps up and stopped when he realized that I was not coming with him.

“You want some coffee?” he offered.

“No, thanks. I need to be getting along, figuring out what to do next.”

“If you want my advice I’d say take a vacation. I hear Tokyo’s nice.”

Warnings, even from Hush, always brought a smirk to my lips.

“My client left six kids to fend for themselves.”

“She lied to you.”

“So? Why should she be any different?”

Hush winced. This was an expression of his concern.

“Thanks for the talk, LT. I’m not a lost cause, you know.”

“Say good night to Tam and Thackery.”

“We have to do this again soon,” he said.

I nodded and turned away, ruminating over the little scenes of my life. I was like a bug that had learned to live close to, maybe even inside of, fire, so that the predators would be scared away — going to hell to keep the bad men off my tail.

Thinking of bugs, I pulled out my cell phone and punched a few digits.

He answered on the second ring, “Hey, LT.”

“Bug.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You get an answer?”

“An envelope with a MetroCard wrapped in a small sheet of lined notepaper. I took it down to the subway on my evening power-walk and ran it through the machine they got down there to show the amount. It had forty-nine dollars and fifty cents on it. The card looked a little beat up. I figure Twill has a read-write stripe machine and he gets people to pick up discarded cards in the subways. He might even be tapped into the MTA computer system. He takes the money you transfer and gives back more than four times as much.”

“You sound impressed,” I said.

“I am. I mean, it’s a pretty simple scheme, but it took your son to implement it. He’s only a kid but he’s way ahead of everybody else.”

“I’ll call you back,” I said, breaking off the connection.

“Hello?”

“Twill?”

“Hey, Pop. What’s up?”

“Katrina there?”

“Mom went out with Dorrie to a movie.”

It was a phrase that might as well have been code for: She was out with a man who had a Y-shaped scar on his left buttock.

“You hear from D?” I asked.

Twill hesitated. That was good for my purposes.

“Come on, boy, I know that Tatyana called and Dimitri borrowed money from Bertrand.”

“That Bertrand’s a dog, Dad,” Twill replied.

“I was asking you about Dimitri.”

“He’s in France, man. Flew to Warsaw, met Taty at the airport, and then they both winged it down to Nice. He called me because he needed some more cash.”

“He came to you because of all your savings from that box-boy job at the supermarket?”

Twill went quiet.

“Where’d you get the money, Twill?”

“I thought you wanted to find out about D.”

“Where’d you get the money to send to your brother?”

“It was only a couple a hundred. I used the money I got from Uncle Gordo that time.”

“You’re going to be eighteen soon, son.”

“Uh-huh. I know.”

“They bust you again and I won’t be able to get you out of it.”

“I ain’t doin’ nuthin’ to get busted for, LT. My hands are clean.”

“Don’t jerk me around, son.”

“No sir, not me.”

“Okay. The next time Dimitri calls tell him I need to hear from him. All right?”

“You got it.”

After we said our goodbyes and got off I called Bug again.

“Hey, LT.”

“Can you hack into Twill’s account?”

“Can a hot knife cut through butter?”

“Empty it,” I said, “every centavo. Put it somewhere safe.”

“Okay.” There was reluctance in Bug’s voice.

“One day you’ll have kids,” I said in response to the hacker’s tone, “and when you do you’ll understand.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “I’ll get on this right now.”