Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

through.”
    “What deal?”
    He looked at me. “The Shinnecock Indian reservation. It’s my deal. I’m buying it.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a deal that benefits everyone. It will release the Shinnecock from four hundred years of poverty and significantly increase land values around here, once I’ve put my finishing touches on it.”
    I said nothing.
    “Why’d I think you would have figured all this out by now.”
    “You hired me to find Amy’s killer.”
    “I already knew who that was. I hired you to stop Frank.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Your relationship with Frank isn’t exactly a big secret around town. He was close to fucking up the whole deal. I knew if anyone could bring him down, you could. I thought maybe if you got in his way that’s exactly what would happen. You have nothing to lose, Mac, that’s the beautiful thing about you. That’s what makes you so dangerous. That’s why, in a dogfight between Frank Gannon and you, I’d put my money on you. And, in effect, that’s just what I did.”
    “Why did Frank kill Amy?”
    “The Town hired Concannon to assess the ecological impact of my plans for the land. Environmentalists wanted the deal killed. They’re worried about erosion and coastline construction and bullshit like that. So I put Concannon on my payroll. He was more than eager. When he found the bones, he called me. The next day Frank Gannon appeared at my house. He knew all about my conversation with Concannon. He had put a tap on Concannon’s phone the day the town hired him. He wanted to know what I planned on doing with the information. I told him I had no interest in going to the cops or FBI. Do you think people would be lining up to buy luxury condos on land that had once been full of shallow graves?”
    “So you struck a deal.”
    “We couldn’t do anything till I owned the land. Then we could move the bodies and no one would know. We’d hire a crew to work by hand at night, in secret.”
    “So why did Frank go nuts?”
    “Frank gave a map to Concannon, so we could mark all the graves and waste little time once the deal went through. Amy stole the map from Concannon and hid it.”
    “Why?”
    “Concannon told her what we were up to, the idiot. Amy wanted to kill the deal. She liked to call herself an environmentalist, but really she just liked to do anything she could to hurt me. She’d join any group opposed to my land deals and fund them with money she stole from me. She started up with Concannon just to hurt me. She did everything a woman could to influence him and sway him against me.”
    “She must have been very angry with you to go that far.”
    “She hated my guts.”
    “So Frank killed her to shut her up and ransacked her room to get back the map,” I said.
    “He panicked. He wanted everyone who knew anything about the bones dead.”
    “Including you?”
    “I don’t think he’d dare try to kill me.”
    “Why? Because your rich?”
    “Because I’d squash him like a bug.” Curry took a step toward me. “I want the Shinnecock land deal to go through and you want to live your life and not give a shit about what goes on around you. I’m prepared to give you what you want, which is to be left alone, and all you have to do is do what you do best. Mind your own business and keep your mouth shut. We’re the only two people alive who know about Frank Gannon’s private little graveyard. I wake up one morning and find that clearing crawling with FBI agents, well, then neither of us gets what we want, if you know what I mean. I make one phone call, and before the end of the day you’re dead and buried where no one will ever find you. Do you understand?”
    Again, I said nothing.
    “All I’m asking is for you to be yourself. That’s all. It has nothing to do with you. That’s all I’m asking you to do is remember this.”
    The dim lights in my living room created a pale pocket of yellow light. Curry and I were the only beings standing in it. I wondered then how a half-dozen or so people could be killed and nothing really change all that much.
    “You see,” Curry began, “the trick, Mac, is finding a man’s price.” He held up the folder and then tossed it onto my couch.
    I looked at it and waited for a while before I said, “I don’t want your money.”
    “It’s not for your silence. We had a deal, remember. I honor my deals.”
    “You hired me to find your daughter’s killer.”
    “I hired you to bring Frank Gannon