More Twisted

husband said, “We decided you were going to pay for what you did. Only we couldn’t go to the police—who knew how many of them were working with you? So my wife and I and our other son—Michael’s brother—cameup with an idea. We decided to let you assholes do the work for us; you were going to double-cross each other.”
    “This is bullshit. You—”
    The woman snapped, “Shut up and listen.” She explained: They set up a sting in Hanny’s bar. The private eye pretended to be a scam artist from Florida selling stolen boats and their older son played a young guy from Jersey who’d been duped out of his money. This got Ricky’s attention, and he talked his way into the phony boat scam. Staring at Schaeffer, she said, “We knew you liked boats, so it made sense that Ricky’d try to set you up.”
    The husband added, “Only we needed some serious cash on the table, a bunch of it—to give you losers some real incentive to betray each other.”
    So he went to T.G.’s hangout and asked about a hooker, figuring that the three of them would set up an extortion scam.
    He chuckled. “I kept hoping you’d keep raising the bidding when you were blackmailing me. I wanted at least six figures in the pot.”
    T.G. was their first target. That afternoon the private eye pretended to be a hit man hired by T.G. to kill Schaeffer so he’d get all the money.
    “You!” the detective whispered, staring at the wife. “You’re the woman who screamed.”
    Shelby said, “We needed to give you the chance to escape—so you’d go straight to T.G.’s place and take care of him.”
    Oh, Lord. The hit, the fake Internal Affairs cop . . . It was all a setup!
    “Then Ricky took you to Hanrahan’s, where he was going to introduce you to the boat dealer from Florida.”
    The private eye wiped his mouth and leaned forward. “Hello,” he said in a deeper voice. “This’s Malone from Homicide.”
    “Oh, fuck,” Schaeffer spat out. “You let me know that Ricky’d set me up. So . . .” His voice faded.
    The PI whispered, “You’d take care of him too.”
    The cold smile on his face again, Shelby said, “Two perps down. Now, we just have the last one. You.”
    “What’re you going to do?” the cop whispered.
    The wife said, “Our son’s got to have years of therapy. He’ll never recover completely.”
    Schaeffer shook his head. “You’ve got evidence, right?”
    “Oh, you bet. Our older son was outside of Mack’s waiting for you when you went there to get T.G. We’ve got real nice footage of you shooting him. Two in the head. Real nasty.”
    “And the sequel,” the private eye said. “In the alley behind Hanrahan’s. Where you strangled Ricky.” He added, “Oh, and we’ve got the license number of the truck that came to get Ricky’s body in the Dumpster. We followed it to Jersey. We can implicate a bunch of very unpleasant people, who aren’t going to be happy they’ve been fingered because of you.”
    “And, in case you haven’t guessed, “ Shelby said, “we made three copies of the tape and they’re sitting in three different lawyers’ office safes. Anything happens to any one of us, and off they go to Police Plaza.”
    “You’re as good as murderers yourself,” Schaeffer muttered. “You used me to kill two people.”
    Shelby laughed. “ Semper Fi  . . . I’m a former Marine and I’ve been in two wars. Killing vermin like you doesn’t bother me one bit.”
    “All right,” the cop said in a disgusted grumble, “what do you want?”
    “You’ve got the vacation house on Fire Island, you’ve got two boats moored in Oyster Bay, you’ve got—”
    “I don’t need a fucking inventory. I need a number.”
    “Basically your entire net worth. Eight hundred sixty thousand dollars. Plus my hundred fifty back . . . . And I want it in the next week. Oh, and you pay his bill too.” Shelby nodded toward the private eye.
    “I’m good,” the man said. “But very expensive.” He finished the scone and brushed the crumbs onto the sidewalk.
    Shelby leaned forward. “One more thing: my watch.”
    Schaeffer stripped off the Rolex and tossed it to Shelby.
    The couple rose. “So long, Detective,” the tourist said.
    “Love to stay and talk,” Mrs. Shelby said, “but we’re going to see some sights. And then we’re going for a carriage ride in Central Park before dinner.” She paused and looked down at the cop. “I just love it here. It’s true what they say, you