Okay.

To California.

Hollywood?

Sure.

Okay. Yes. Let’s go.

I love you, he says. I’ll love you forever.

Yes, she says. Me too. Yes. But first, before we go away, we have to go back.

To the old man’s house?

Everything I own is there. All my belongings. We have to go back.

Forget them.

All I own is there, and more. He owes me, Jesse, don’t you see? There are unpaid wages… and there is more. He owes me. We can’t get started, she says, we can’t live the way we deserve until we get what he owes me.

“What he owes me,” said my father, from his bed, his voice now merely the softest of whispers riding over his wet sucking breath. “Only what he owes me.”

He was right, my father, once again. He wasn’t getting better. The new antibiotic wasn’t any more efficacious than the old one, and his lungs remained flooded with poison. They would have to try something new, some other wonder drug to cure his infection, though I sensed as I watched him fall into a pained sleep, with the words “What he owes me” on his lips, that there wasn’t any new wonder drug that could cure what was truly ailing him. Maybe I had been right before when I had suggested they pump him full of Iron City beer, because that was what he had been using all these years, I recognized, to keep these memories at bay. But they were coming out now, one after the other, pulled from his throat like a rope of knotted kerchiefs, as if he were some second-rate magician and I an audience of enraptured schoolkids. And as each one passed it left its own virulent strain of bitter disappointment in his blood that no antibiotic could ever hope to destroy.

The only answer was to pull it to the end, to get the entire story out of his gut, to tell it and maybe in the telling to free himself of the past, which was killing him day by day, and which had been killing him, I now believed, since long before I was born.

Chapter 23

“HE’S LATE,” I said.

“He works for the city,” said Beth, sitting next to me in my parked car.

“But he is going to come?”

“On his horse, most likely.”

“Yeah,” I said. “What is up with that?”

“He thinks he grew up in the North Country.”

“North Kensington is more like it. It’s the name of the office that gets to them. Every little boy wants to grow up to be sheriff. But he’s generally reliable. What time is it?”

“Three minutes later than the last time you asked. Why are we still doing this, Victor, if our client is lying?”

“The CEO of our client is lying, true, but there are other Jacopo stockholders to consider. Kimberly, for instance.”

“Ah, now I see,” she said.

“What?”

“And now I see why you agreed to let her accompany you as you look for Tommy Greeley’s killer.”

“I had my reasons.”

“She’s mighty pretty.”

“Yes she is, but that’s not why I find her so interesting.”

“Why then?”

“Because Eddie Dean hired her. And because he seems overly concerned with her opinion of him. That lie he told night before last, I don’t think it was for us. I think it was for her.”

“Is he sleeping with her?”

“Gad, with that face I hope not.”

“He’s dangerous, Victor. And so is that Colfax thug he’s got with him.”

“Where do guys like Dean find guys like that anyway?”

“You should ask him sometime.”

“I will.”

“What do you think he’s really after?”

“Maybe the suitcase.”

“Stop it already.”

“Answer me this, Beth. Why is there so much interest in something that happened so long ago, interest that would prompt a murder, maybe two if you count the unfortunate drowning of Bradley Babbage, a threatened disembowelment from Derek Manley, a warning from Earl Dante, and now Eddie Dean’s intricate and fabulous lie?”

“You always believe money’s at the root of everything.”

“And I haven’t been wrong yet. If everybody wants to take a look inside that damn suitcase, then I want to peek inside it too.”

“How do we do that?”

“Maintain the pressure on Derek Manley, dig up what we can about Tommy Greeley, and keep little Kimberly close.”

“Like I said, she’s mighty pretty.”

“Yes she is.”

“You going to hit on her?”

“Nah. She’s too young for me too – I don’t know – innocent?”

“Maybe she’s not sad enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Or maybe you’re just getting old.”

“Tell me about it. But truthfully, the only desire she invokes is the desire to keep her out of trouble. And you want to know the sorriest thing? Whatever is going to come down, it’s going to come down on her, and I won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. Look sharp, here he comes.”

The tow truck pulled beside us in the parking lot off Oregon Avenue, followed by a white Lumina with police lights on top and a Philadelphia Sheriff’s logo on its side. A short, wiry man with a uniform and a gun climbed out of the Lumina and hitched up his pants. His legs were splayed and bowed like he had just climbed off his quarter horse. Beth and I stepped out of the car to meet him.

“Howdy, R.T.,” I said. R.T. stuck a cowboy hat on his head, pushed its brim up as if to survey the far prairie. “Victor,” he said, nodding at me. “Beth.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said. “You’re looking spry this morning.”

“Healthy living,” said R.T. “And soy curds. You guys got the paperwork?”

“Yes we do,” said Beth, handing him a file folder.

As he examined the papers he said, “The boss is having a little shindig next week. At Chickie and Pete’s.”

“I love Chickie and Pete’s,” I said. “Especially the crab fries.”

“Potatoes.” R.T. snorted. “It’s like mainlining sugar. You know why everyone and his brother is so fat these days?”

“Potatoes?”

“There you go. Potatoes and high-fructose corn syrup. You want to know the most serious problem facing this country?”

“High-fructose corn syrup?”

“Now you’re getting it. But the roast beef is good, so long as you chuck the roll. Call the office and Shelly will send you each a special invitation. And as always, your donations will be greatly appreciated.”

I gave Beth a sad nod and mouthed the words “special invitations.” She mouthed back “donations.” Politics in Philadelphia is like politics everywhere else, except for the crab fries.

“This all looks to be in order,” said R.T. Still holding the file, he turned to face the squat, windowless white building at the edge of the parking lot. The building’s sign rose above its roof like a great beacon to weary travelers. THE EAGER BEAVER. And beneath that, just so the weary traveler wouldn’t confuse the premises with, say, a diner specializing in roadkill, were the words: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS.

“You sure it’s in there?” said R.T.

“So I heard.”

“Where in there?”

“We’ll find it,” I said. “Beth, why don’t you go around back with the truck. We’ll go in the front.”

Beth nodded, walked over to the tow truck, climbed in the passenger seat. The tow truck pulled out of the lot.

“All right, Buckaroo,” said Deputy Sheriff R.T. Pritchett, again hitching up his pants, rising to his role in the morning’s drama. “Let’s saddle on up and rope this doggy.”

It was a bright day, but you wouldn’t know it from inside the Eager Beaver. The lights were low, the music loud, the joint was practically empty and it smelled like soiled socks. Three men sat scattered at the round tables, drinking beer, all three scruffy as tomcats and evidently well practiced at wasting their days. A girl, no better at hiding her boredom than her breasts, was dancing slowly atop the bar. She was pretty enough and was wearing little enough and her shoes were high enough and her breasts were certainly big enough, but with the emptiness of the place, the smell, the tired pall of smoke, the humid heat, with everything, the scene was about as sexy as a root canal.