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Rory wasn’t much of a reader, but he was riveted by every word of the article about the missing man named Miguel Lopez. With each new detail, fact, and revelation, Rory got more and more stoked. He’d figured something out that had puzzled the cops for years.
“What?” Bryce said. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“He’s been missing for nineteen years,” Rory said.
“Albert?”
“Yeah. Hang on.” He read some more. “He used to live in Framingham, Massachusetts, which isn’t far from Boston. I always thought he sorta had a weird accent—but like he was trying to hide it.”
“They do talk funny up there,” Bryce agreed. He’d gone back to eating chips.
“He owned a kennel where you board dogs, and he was a trainer, too. He built the place on some land his dad bought back in the sixties. His dad left him that land when he died.”
“When who died?” Bryce asked.
“His dad,” Rory said. “Anyway, things were going great for him, but then—Jesus—he ran over some dude.”
“Albert’s dad?”
They were both still pretty high. Plus, Rory had learned over the past few months that Bryce wasn’t super swift.
“No, Albert. He hit a guy with his car. Hold on.” Rory read a few more paragraphs. “He was speeding and he ran over the guy, but Albert later said the guy was carrying a gun and was planning to kill him. He was trying to get away, and he ran over the guy in the process. He was about our age, this guy—the one Albert hit. Oh, wow. He was the brother of a mob boss. A Mafia guy.”
“Albert was?”
“No, the guy he ran over.”
“No shit? Like the Sopranos and all that?”
“Looks that way. Anthony Carducci.”
“That’s the guy he hit?”
“Are you not listening to me?”
“I’m trying.”
“Anthony Carducci is the mob boss. It was his brother that got killed. That brother was supposedly trying to kill Albert.”
“I thought the Mafia wasn’t a thing anymore.”
Rory kept reading.
“This article says that’s a myth. The FBI was hammering them pretty hard and might’ve been able to wipe them out, but then 9/11 happened and they had to focus more on terrorism. So the mob was able to rebuild. They aren’t as powerful as they used to be, but they’re still around. Anyway, Albert killed this guy, and then he was arrested, but he disappeared before his trial. It says Albert knew he was gonna be killed, so he supposedly hauled ass, but some people think the mob guy got to him and made sure the body couldn’t be found. Nobody knows for sure. Or knew. But we do.”
Bryce said, “Why were they trying to kill him? Just for hitting the guy accidentally?”
“I’m looking for that.”
Rory wasn’t sure any of this would actually make sense later, when he wasn’t stoned, but for the moment, he thought it was the coolest thing ever.
He said, “The cops said Miguel Lopez—meaning Albert—couldn’t or wouldn’t explain exactly why he thought the guy was trying to kill him. Oh, here we go. The author of this article says there is ‘unproven speculation’ that Miguel might’ve been having an affair with Carducci’s wife.”
“That’s the mob guy, right?”
“Right, and the rumor is Carducci’s brother was gonna kill Albert because of it. Maybe Carducci put him up to it, or maybe not.”
“So Albert might’ve run over him on purpose?” Bryce asked.
“Hell if I know. Or maybe Albert was just trying to get away.”
“But once he ran over the brother, he was fucking doomed. The mob guy wasn’t going to let that go, especially if Albert was banging his wife.”
“Exactly.”
“You sure it’s really Albert?”
“Here, look at the picture.” Rory turned his phone toward Bryce.
“But I don’t know what Albert looks like,” Bryce said.
“Oh, right. Hang on.”
Rory went to the Facebook page for Safari Adventure and looked around for a few minutes. Then a few more minutes.
“This is weird. I just realized something. Albert was always posting photos on the zoo’s Facebook and Instagram pages, but he never wanted to be in any of those pictures himself. We’d, like, do a staff photo, but he’d always take the photo instead of being in it. He said he hated the way he looked in pictures, but, duh, it was because he didn’t want anyone to recognize him. That’s obvious now.”
“So you don’t have a photo of him?”
“No, but I’m telling you—this is the same guy in this photo. He’s a lot younger, of course, because it was nineteen years ago, but it’s him.”
“I believe you.”
Bryce reached into the bag of chips for the last few crumbs, shoved them into his mouth, then got off the couch and went into the kitchen. Rory could hear him in there opening one of the cabinets under the sink, and then the other cabinet. “Where’s your trash can?”
“In the pantry,” Rory said, wondering how Bryce hadn’t noticed that when he’d gotten the chips in the first place.
Rory heard the pantry door open, and the crinkling of the bag as Bryce shoved it into the trash, and then the door closed, and now Bryce came into the living room again—with another bag of potato chips. This one was sour cream and onion.
He grinned. “You mind, man? I’ve still got the munchies. I’ll pay you back.”
Rory waved his hand dismissively, meaning Whatever.
Bryce sat down again, opened the bag, and began shoveling chips into his mouth again.
Rory leaned back on the couch and shook his head. What they’d learned was frigging amazing.
“The question is, what can we do with all of it?” he said.
“All of what?”
“This information. It’s valuable.”
“How so?”
“I bet Albert would pay a lot of money to keep it quiet.”
“You serious?”
“Hell, yes, I’m serious. I told you he’s an asshole.”
“Yeah, but enough to blackmail him? That’s what you’re talking about, right?”
“It would be kind of funny. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“I think it would be funny.”
“But why wouldn’t he just take off again? I mean, if he found out somebody knew who he really was, wouldn’t he run? I would if I was him. It wouldn’t be worth the risk to hang around. I’d be wondering if the blackmailer was telling the mob guy.”
Rory had to admit that was a possibility. Albert might run, and then what? What was the point of making that happen? It would be fun to screw up the new life Albert had built, but that was pretty extreme.
“What about the mob guy?” Rory asked.
“What about him?”
“I bet he has a lot of money,” Rory said. “And I bet he’d still want to know where Albert is. Don’t you think Carducci would pay some serious cash for that information?”