Bloody River Blues

had told Stevie that Lombro was paying them ten thousand—not twenty-five—to split between them. He looked at the young man with steely eyes. “Who’ve you been talking to?” he asked in a menacing voice.
    Stevie stopped exploding. He looked down at his cup and poured more cream into it. “Nobody. I mean, I was just asking around, you know. But I didn’t mention anything specific.”
    Ralph Bales sighed. “Jesus. Don’t say anything to anyone ever. Anything. Anyone. Ever. Lombro has connections you wouldn’t believe.”
    “Deals . . . connections.” Stevie rolled his eyes. He was speaking softly now, though. The look in Ralph Bales’s eyes had spooked him.
    “Okay, here’s the arrangement. We take care of the witness and Lombro’ll pay us everything, plus twenty-five percent.”
    “Well, why didn’t you just finish it the other day? By the river? We could’ve waited.”
    “Okay, think about it,” Ralph Bales said slowly.
    “Well . . .”
    “Think about it.”
    Stevie was too cool and too much of a punk to show admiration, but his smile blossomed. “I get it. You wanted to, like, goose Lombro for more money.”
    “ You just, you know, go ahead and do things,” Ralph Bales lectured. “I thought it out.”
    “Twenty-five percent?” Stevie tried to figure the numbers. What was one quarter of five thousand? Fifty percent is twenty-five hundred. Then half of that? He got lost.
    Ralph Bales said, “Means you walk away with close to seven thousand bucks. Not bad for two days’ work.”
    Close to seven? Stevie smiled. He didn’t want to but he grinned.
    Ralph Bales smiled, too. “Hey, does your buddy Ralph take care of you right? Okay?”
    Stevie said, “I guess it’s all right. When?”
    “When what?”
    “When do we do it?”
    “Well, I was thinking about that. I think we ought to wait a day or two. Make Lombro think that we’re earning the money. I’ll call him from time to time andtell him we’re close. Like, we’ve almost found him but we aren’t sure.”
    Another grin of near admiration on Stevie’s face, aimed down into the beige coffee. Then it faded and Stevie said, “But what if, you know, the asshole decides to talk to the fucking cops, what if—”
    “Excuse me, gentlemen.” A shadow loomed over them. A large man, his gray hair close-cropped, muscular shoulders in a starched plaid shirt, gazed somberly at the men. He looked exactly like an undercover detective. Ralph Bales’s doughy face burned and he felt the exact spot where his Colt rested on his hip. His hand eased toward it as he scanned the three or four dozen families surrounding them. His heart began to pound and it pounded faster when he saw Stevie Flom looking up at the man with a belligerent grin on his face.
    Oh, man . . .
    Grim-faced, the man said, “Like to ask you a question.”
    “Would you now?” Stevie tossed the words at the tall figure. “What’d that be?”
    Don’t do anything stupid, Stevie. . . .
    “I got my children over there.” He nodded toward a nearby table. “Would you mind watching your language a bit. I don’t know where you’re from but we don’t talk that way around here.”
    Stevie’s grin vanished and his eyes flared. His hand disappeared under the table, where he undoubtedly had his .25.
    Oh, Jesus, Lord . . .
    Ralph Bales’s face popped out in sweat. He leaned forward suddenly, reaching for Stevie’s arm.
    But the young man’s hand emerged with his napkin. He wiped his mouth carefully and said, “I’m mighty sorry, mister. Been a hard day. Terrible trouble on the job.”
    “That’s all right now. For myself, I don’t care. It’s the kids I was thinking of.”
    He turned away. To his back Stevie commanded, “Wait.”
    The man turned.
    Stevie paused a moment, then said, “My friend, he’ll apologize to you, too.” Grinning, he looked at Ralph Bales, who held Stevie’s eyes for a minute, then said to the gray-haired man, “Accept my apologies.”
    “Surely do.”
    THE SWING OF the car door. The reflection of a streetlight hitting him in the face. The momentum of the case of beer as he tried to grab it. The heavy crash of glass on glass. The grimacing face of the half-bald guy, saying, “Fuck you.” Bending down and looking in the car, seeing himself in the window of the car, the beer hemorrhaging at his feet . . . The Lincoln pulling away.
    That’s what Pellam told the detectives.
    One thing he couldn’t tell them was the one thing