Patas pimentón . . . ,” Charles Mirho said, pushing the plastic menu across the table at the taquería in downtown Yonkers. “They’re basically potatoes in kind of an omelet, lots of garlic and paprika . . .”
“I’m not really hungry,” Dennis Finch replied, glancing around uncomfortably. The motor vehicles clerk was the wrong side of fifty, with the pasty coloration of someone who had spent the last decade behind a counter in a government office and wire-rims that seemed a size too large for his narrow face. “Why don’t we just get on with it?”
“Suit yourself.” Mirho shrugged, taking another bite. “Empanadas are good too.”
“Look,” Dennis said, “I narrowed the information you gave me down to four names.” He took a manila envelope from under his jacket. “First name Jeanine, a recent-model Acura SUV—it’s called the MDX, by the way—and a Westchester address.”
“Lower Westchester,” Mirho said, not looking up while eating. “You sure I can’t interest you in something here?”
“You realize I could lose my job for what I’m doing?” Dennis hissed under his breath.
“You want me not to call you again?” Mirho shrugged, dipping a forkful of potato in oil. “Just say the word. You don’t think there’s a dozen underpaid dweebs—one probably in the booth right next to yours—who’d be thrilled to make a couple of grand for half an hour’s work? Next time, you oughta think about things like that when you push your kid to go to law school.”
The clerk glared and pushed his glasses higher on his nose. This would have been the time to get up and take what he had back with him, which was probably what he should have done in the first place.
Instead, he sighed, “Look, let’s just get on with it.” He pushed the envelope across the table. Mirho wiped his fingers clean and opened it, pulling out what was inside.
Four printed-off pages.
“First, I think you owe me something,” the DMV clerk said, putting his palm over Mirho’s hand.
Mirho’s gaze settled on Dennis’s hand. “Three . . . two . . . one,” he counted and lifted his eyes to meet Dennis’s. “And trust me, Dennis, you don’t want to find out what happens next.”
Slowly the DMV clerk removed his hand, Mirho’s jaw barely twitching into a smile that read something like Right decision, pal. He sifted through each of the four identities, each with its vehicle info and driving history and a grainy, printed-off photograph.
The first was Jeanine Farancino. Not bad looking. A 2009 MDX. But she was from all the way up in Peekskill, definitely too far north, if Rollie’s version of what happened down there was true. Anyway, according to the records she was twenty-four, and as per Rollie, his Jeanine had a kid old enough to be at basketball practice.
The second was a Jeanine Lisa Kramer. She was from Dobbs Ferry, which definitely made her a possible.
But Rollie called the woman at the accident site “pretty,” and with her square, pressed-in face and chopped-off hair, this Jeanine looked like she wouldn’t be able to get herself laid on a prison conjugal visit.
Mirho turned the sheet again.
Jeanine Ann Jackson. Thirty-one. New Rochelle. Another possibility, he thought, or would have, until he saw the photo. Black as freshly laid tar. Not sure exactly what ol’ Rollie went in for, Mirho thought, but while he was shitting himself up on the rafters, that fact might definitely have come up.
“So are we square?” Dennis pulled the top of the sheet down. “I have to get back to work.”
“Sure. We’re square, Denny boy.” Mirho stared back at him.
There was a kind of ice in his tone that said to Dennis maybe he shouldn’t have said that, but Mirho just took an envelope from his jacket and slowly pushed it across. Dennis put his hand over it and surreptitiously brought it back in.
“You said it was debt collection, right?”
“Debt collection . . . ?” Mirho was giving some consideration to taking the guy behind the restaurant, stuffing him into a garbage bin, and slamming his head flat with the metal cover. And taking the two grand back, which at this point looked like it might not have bought anything of value.
“You said this was about a debt? Someone owed a friend of yours rent money?” Dennis asked again, pushing up his glasses.
“Sure. Debt collection,” Mirho said, chuckling. “Whatever gives you a good night’s sleep. Now, toodleoo, Dennis, get yourself back to your desk. There must be a line waiting for you.”
The DMV clerk stood up and stuffed the money into his jacket. “Enjoy your meal.”
Mirho waited until he had left the diner and then looked at the last sheet.
He exhaled, disappointed. Jeanine wasn’t even her given name, but a middle name.
This might not pan out at all.
But she was pretty. And about the right age. Thirty-six. And the records said she lived in Armonk. Not too far away.
He stared at the name again. Hilary Jeanine Cantor.
Didn’t hurt to check it out.