Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

it?”
    I shrugged. “If I couldn’t save her, then maybe I can at least do this for her.”
    James looked at me for a moment, then nodded once, absently. He reached into his jacket pocket and removed his checkbook. With a pen that cost more than I made in a month he wrote out a check to me for ten thousand dollars. He tore the check out of the book and offered it to me.
    “You can put it on the table by the door,” I said.
    He looked at me and smiled at that, then stepped to the table and placed the check on it. He turned back and looked at me again.
    He removed a business card from the pocket of his shirt and handed it to me. I took it.
    “All possible ways to get hold of me are on this. Call anytime, day or night.” He reached back for his wallet, opened it, and removed ten one-hundred-dollar bills. He put that in my shirt pocket. “For expenses and what not. That car of yours must eat up gas. And your tires look about as bald as tires can get. Don’t want you following a lead and sliding off the road into a tree.”
    I looked at him but said nothing.
    “You’re probably one of those people who have a hard time accepting things. Maybe if I were a woman it would be different for you, but I’m not, I’m a guy, so it’s hard for you to say thanks. Don’t worry, I understand. I’m the same way.”
    I ignored that as best I could. “I’ll call you when I find something.”
    “Please. If possible, I’d like to hear from you every other day. So I know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
    “That’s fine. You might want to get some surveillance people to come out and check your house for bugs.”
    “Is that necessary?”
    “If we’re going to be talking on the phone, yeah. And when you talk to me, no cell phone, no cordless phone. It has to be a corded phone.”
    “I don’t mean to smile, but this strikes me as more than a little paranoid.”
    “I learned from the best,” I said. I wondered then just what Frank was up to.
    “You learned well.”
    “And don’t swing by. If you need to see me, call me and I’ll meet you somewhere out of the way. It’s best if we’re not seen together.”
    James nodded. “Okay. Whatever you say.”
    “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
    He extended his hand. I took at it. We looked each other in the eye.
    “I was starting to think I was the only person in town who cared about Amy,” he said. “I’m glad to know I was wrong.”
    We shook hands for a moment more, let go, and then he was gone. I went to the window to see what kind of car he got into. It was a black Mercedes Benz sports utility vehicle. Wet from the rain, it glimmered under the lights like stone in a stream.
    I went to the table by the door and looked at the check for a moment. All those zeros. I could live on this for a year, easy. But I had, of course, another use in mind. Augie’s defense fund. Ten grand wasn’t enough, but it was a start. I was pleased. Unwilling to actually touch the check, though, I left it where it was and grabbed my jacket and left my apartment and started down the stairs. I didn’t want to waste any time.
    The night sky was in constant flux, like something in the throes of metamorphosis. It was unclear whether what was evolving in shreds of tattered clouds and patches of dark sky was good or not, but I knew there was no point in looking for such distinctions in something still playing out.
    In the phone booth I opened the phone book and looked up Phil Concannon’s address. It was familiar to me. Then I went to George at the bar and asked him to break a hundred. I ignored the look of surprise on his face and took the money and left.
    I drove my LeMans to the gas station North Sea Road and filled the tank to the top. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that. The back of the car sat a little low because of the weight. But it felt like a sturdier drive, like the earth was holding onto me tighter, maybe even closer.
    As I sat in my car on Seven Ponds Road I kept thinking how there was a feeling that came with having money in your pocket and a tank so full of gas that the headlights of your car aim up into the trees as you drive. I would have to admit I liked that feeling. The thousand dollars in cash that James Curry had given me could easily last me a month and give me everything I’d need – rent, food, new boots and a coat, as well as time to sit in my chair and watch the train station. I even imagined that somehow it would even