Past Due

“Who?”

“An old friend, he said. From out of state. So the twins got hold of everything that was lying around and put it in the suitcase.”

“Just the odd scraps lying around? It doesn’t sound like much.”

“You don’t understand, do you? How much business they were doing. How everything was in cash. How hard it is to do anything with cash, especially if you can’t prove where you got it. When it comes in like it was coming in sometimes you just stuff it into drawers and deal with it later.”

“And later had arrived. How much?”

“It seemed like more back then. It seemed like an impossible amount, now baseball players make ten times as much. Still.”

I did the math. Alex Rodriguez gets twenty-five mil a year to play shortstop for Texas. A tenth of that, she said. My heart ticked a little faster.

“Who knew about the suitcase?” I said.

“The twins.”

“Anyone else?”

“Lo

“Why Lo

“He was the guard. That kind of delivery, there was always two. Cooper trusted Lo

“So, Lo

“He doesn’t remember. One moment he was with Tommy and the suitcase, heading toward where Tommy was supposed to hand it over, and the next he was in the hospital with the back of his head split open. He lost so much blood there were doubts as to whether he would survive. Sixty-seven stitches. He was the last one of us ever to see Tommy or the suitcase.”

“And now Cooper Prod wants it back.”

“He’s just curious. It’s a loose end. He wants to tie up all his loose ends before he gets out.”

“I’m sure he does,” I said. “Who knows about it now? Other than Cooper and you and Lo

“A lot. Everyone. Right after the arrests came down, people started talking about it, the suitcase full of money. It was just a rumor, but a rumor people listened to.”

“And where did the rumors say it ended up?”

“The bottom of the lake in Roosevelt Park. The top of a church steeple. In a secret space at the law school. Buried under a tree in the backyard of the apartment building where Tommy lived. There have been fools caught digging around that tree, but they’ve found nothing.”

“The mysterious missing suitcase. What would you do if you found it?”

She looked at me as if I had just said something incomprehensible. “I’d give it to Cooper,” she said. “It’s his money.”

“But he’s in prison and the money was drug money.”

“Why would I steal from a friend?”

“Why would you sell drugs?”

She turned her head quickly, as if she had been slapped, then took hold of her drink and swallowed the rest. The lemon twist sat forlornly at the edge of a spent blue pool. I motioned the bartender for another. We sat and waited as he filled the mixer with ice, added the gin, vermouth, and blue curaçao, shook it vigorously, bruising the hell out of the gin, and then poured it through the strainer into a fresh frosted glass.

“I guess I was out of line,” I said.

“Yes, you were. But it’s not like you think. It’s nothing like you think. I skipped college to go out on my own, a small walk-up the size of a closet, waitressing. There was a guy with money and charm who showed interest in me and at that age, for me, that was enough. He was educated, arrogant, clever, and he had all these amazing friends. His world was magical and he invited me in.”

“Tommy?”

“Yes. We were together before I married Lo

“Tommy Fucking Greeley.”

“It was the happiest time of my life.”

“But the engine of it all was his drug business. Didn’t that matter?”

“No, not really. It made it more exciting, sure. Getting a load in, doing the breaks, getting it sold, getting the money together for the next round, it was all part of it, but just a small part. Everything else was bigger. The whole society of it. And even when Tommy dropped me for someone else, for Sylvia, he was still sweet to me, allowed me to remain in his world. That’s when I hooked up with Lo

“I can see that,” I said. “Except when you get right down to it, the charm, the car, the vacations, the fawning friends, they were all about the money, weren’t they?”

“I suppose.”

“And the money, it was all about the drugs.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Sometimes it is.”

“I have to go.”

“Don’t. At least finish your drink.”

“Screw yourself.”

“All righty,” I said.

I watched her as she slipped off the stool without glancing my way and headed out the door, tall, slim, clutching at herself as she hurried away. I didn’t chase after her. I wanted to, I wanted to so badly, to chase after her and grab her by the arms and apologize profusely and fall to my knees and abase myself before her, to do whatever I needed to do to get her to smile at me, to get her to let me get closer to that body, the images of which I had pi

My clothes smelled like they had been cured in some sort of barbecue pit. I could only imagine the state of Lo

I had been flirting with her, all the time feeling some deeper co

And yet here, on my wall, was part of it too. The pictures, the body, the emotions. Her neck. Her shoulder. The bend of her elbow. The curve of her wrist. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was me. Maybe I had pushed her away because I was afraid. Afraid of getting too close to this, of getting consumed, or maybe of being consumed with disappointment. Answer me this, when had reality ever lived up to fevered expectation? Barely touching the paper I traced the bulge of her calf, the curve of her knee, the smooth inside of her thigh.

The phone rang.

I spun around. I snapped the towel off my neck and tied it around my waist.

The phone rang.

I panicked for a second, thinking it must be her, it had to be her. What should I say? How could I apologize? What were the magic words? There were always magic words. I’m a fool. Forgive me, please. You’re so so special. You frightened me, that’s what it was. Or the old standby, Did you know I can lick my eyebrow?