Tommy was driving Angela’s Mercedes, so new it still had the leather smell and the slippery seats. Cara was in the passenger seat texting someone while the sun was setting in the Arizona sky.
Cara pointed to the satellite radio display. “I’ve never heard of this band.”
“Nada Surf,” Tommy said. “Catchy, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“Been around forever. I saw them in Baltimore last year. Great show. Maybe five hundred people there. Loved it.”
Cara bobbed her head to the beat and returned to her text. She stopped what she was doing, then touched Tommy’s arm. “Hey, thanks for doing this.”
“Sure,” Tommy said. “I thought you could use a little diversion.”
“I could,” she said. “What’s the name of the band we’re going to see?”
“The Doorknobs,” Tommy said. “Zelman’s son Jerry is the lead singer. I thought we’d try a different tactic.”
“Will there be Chechens there?”
Tommy glanced at her. “Don’t worry, he’s not involved with the business. I have a hunch about something that’s all.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I’m with you.”
Tommy squeezed her hand while keeping his eye on the road. “Who are you chatting with?” he asked.
“A friend who knows a lot about cryptocurrency.”
“You looking for a way into the Zelman business?”
“Nick asked me if I could help. I’ve written a couple of articles about the world of cryptocurrency and their connection with the criminal world.”
They were on the US-60 freeway heading toward downtown Phoenix. Rush hour was nearing an end and the traffic was letting up a bit. Tommy’s phone buzzed on the console and Cara grabbed it for him.
“It’s a Gino Verrado,” she said.
“Put him on speaker.”
Cara placed the phone back onto the console and swiped.
“What’s up?” Tommy asked.
“We got a problem.”
Tommy sighed. “Gino, I put you in charge while I’m gone so you can take care of the problems. That’s your job.”
“I know, I know, but Marty skipped town on us, and I thought you could help.”
“What do you mean, he skipped town?”
“I mean his family said he’s gone.”
“How much is he into us for?”
“Twelve.”
Tommy shook his head. “Are you serious? Where did he go?”
“Phoenix.”
Tommy glanced over at Cara to gauge her reaction to the conversation.
“How do you know he’s here in Phoenix?” Tommy asked.
“His girlfriend found an email receipt from Southwest Airlines, says he left yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s nice, but Phoenix is a pretty big city.”
“His sister lives there. Maybe you could check it out.”
“No,” Tommy said firmly. “I’ve got stuff going on. We’ll figure something out.”
“It’s okay,” Cara said loudly so Gino could hear. “We’re in no rush.”
“No, we—”
“It’s okay,” Cara interrupted Tommy. “We’ve got time.” She looked down at the phone. “Do you know his sister’s address?”
Tommy shook his head.
“Someplace called Tempe,” Gino said. “That anywhere near you?”
Cara looked up at signs overhead. The next three exits were for Tempe. “It’s practically on our way,” she said. “Can you text Tommy her name and address?”
“On its way,” Gino said.
Tommy pressed the end button and said to Cara, “What are you doing?”
“Well, it just seems you’ve been doing so much for me and my family that you deserve some time to take care of your own business.”
“Yeah, but, c’mon, I’m not interested in chasing down some deadbeat tonight.” Tommy gestured to Cara’s outfit, a short blue dress with bright pearls hanging around her neck. “This isn’t what I had in mind.”
Cara smiled for the first time in days. And that forced Tommy to smile back and put on his right blinker.
“All right,” he said, turning onto the exit ramp. “You win.”
After a couple of miles, they ended up drifting down a residential street with overgrown trees and uneven landscaping. A mature neighborhood with a mixture of families and rentals.
Tommy stopped the Mercedes in front of a small stucco house with no toys or basketball hoop out front. Just hedges and an untrimmed walkway.
“Listen,” he said, turning off the engine. “I might need to behave a certain way that might not seem very uh—”
“You mean you’re going to break someone’s leg?” Cara said with a straight face.
Tommy winced.
Cara smirked.
“Just stay here,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
He got out of the car and made his way up the path. When he got to the front door, he tried to glimpse through any windows, but all the shutters were closed. He rang the doorbell and put his hands in his pocket.
Nothing.
The guy must’ve thought Tommy had come all the way from Baltimore just to retrieve his money, so he waited.
After a minute, Tommy rang the bell again.
The garage door creaked open and Tommy made his way toward the driveway, half-expecting to see a car come flying out. Instead a burly guy with thinning hair and a Pink Floyd T-shirt walked out in flip-flops.
He walked up to Tommy with his hand extended like he was greeting an old friend.
Tommy shook his hand, while scanning his surroundings, leery of the guy’s intentions.
“What’s going on, Marty?” Tommy asked.
“I needed work,” he said with a casual demeanor, “so I came out here to start over. I was going to call you, but one thing led to another. You know I would never stiff you.”
Tommy tilted his head. “Not really.”
“C’mon,” the guy said. “I’ve always paid my losses.”
Tommy looked at the house. “Can’t you borrow money from your sister?”
“Who?”
Tommy stared. “Your—”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, my sister. Oh, well, that’s tough because she’s got three kids and a mortgage and she really doesn’t have that kind of money. But I promise as soon as I get on my feet, I’ll send you every penny.”
“Uh huh,” Tommy said, not ready to leave and trying to put it together in his mind. Then a spark of recognition came to him. Marty had a familiar behavior that took Tommy a few minutes to figure out. “What exactly is going on, Marty?”
The guy hesitated, probably trying to wiggle out of something that was beginning to unravel.
“C’mon,” Tommy said. “You know who my cousin is. He has all sorts of computer data that could tell me who owns this place and how much their mortgage is, where they work. Shit, I could show up at your sister’s job and make a real scene. You really want that?”
The guy shuffled his feet and looked around for help from someone who didn’t exist.
“She isn’t your sister,” Tommy said, making a conclusion. “Is she?”
Marty shook his head while avoiding eye contact.
“And your girlfriend in Baltimore doesn’t exactly know about her.”
Again, a head shake.
“When were you planning on going back?”
The guy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Tommy looked over at the car and saw Cara pretending to punch her left palm with her right fist.
Tommy sighed. “All right, well, here’s the thing. I’m going to make you the best deal you’ll get all year.”
A slash of skepticism crossed Marty’s face. “Yeah?”
“You owe me $12,000,” Tommy said. “You find a way to scrounge up five grand somehow—”
Marty was about to speak, when Tommy stopped him.
“No no,” Tommy said, holding up his hand. “This isn’t negotiable.” He looked around the middle-class neighborhood, trying to avoid Cara’s gestures from the passenger seat. “You scrounge up $5,000 within two days. Forty-eight hours. I don’t care how. Borrow from your parents, your girlfriend, your gambling buddies. Then you send it to Gino. Wire it, mail it, again, I don’t care. After that I will remove the rest of the debt. That means you pay just forty cents on the dollar. Capisce?”
Marty seemed confused.
Tommy moved closer now and grabbed his T-shirt. “I’m writing off the rest of your debt. You understand? I’m lowering your balance by $7,000. How much simpler can I make it?”
Marty’s face melted into a quivering mess of fear. “What are you going to do to me if I can’t pay the five grand?”
That question was asked once or twice a year, and Tommy always had a different answer for each circumstance. He let go of Marty’s shirt and spun around to think. The guy needed consequences, but a lowdown compulsive gambler didn’t have a whole lot to lose.
He turned back to face Marty and said, “What kind of jobs have you been able to hold?”
The guy shrugged. “I thought you knew. I’m a chef. I’ve worked all over the world. Some of the best restaurants in Paris, New York, Lisbon.”
“But you can’t keep a job?”
“Mostly because of the disease.”
“What disease?”
“My gambling addiction. It’s a disease.”
Tommy shut his eyes and leaned his head back. “You are such a loser, Marty.”
“I know. That’s my problem. I keep losing. All I need is a little winning streak and I’ll get right back on my feet. I was thinking that if I could let it all ride on USC this weekend, I could make it all the way back to even. That freshman quarterback is a wizard.”
Tommy glanced over at the Mercedes and saw Cara gripping her throat, showing Tommy how it was done in the Perrino family. He swung around to face Marty, then turned away and ran a hand through his hair.
“Forget what I told you about the debt,” Tommy said. “You’re paying me in full.”
“But—”
Tommy turned back. “I have a client who owns a bunch of restaurants in the Phoenix area. Upscale. The types of places that need chefs and experienced cooks. You think you could handle that?”
“I guess.”
“Then this friend will give me one half of your pay every two weeks until you’re paid up.”
“But that might take me months.”
“Marty, you’re not grasping the gravity of the situation. I’ll have someone watching you and if you miss any workdays or try to skip town again, I swear . . .”
“All right, all right, I’ll do it.” The guy looked down at his attire, the Pink Floyd T-shirt stretching under the bulge of his stomach in the December chill. “Can I get a couple of days to relax before I start?”
“When was the last time you worked?”
Marty stood there stone-faced for a few moments thinking. “July?”
Tommy shook his head ever so slightly, then said, “I should’ve gone into law enforcement with my cousin. I wouldn’t have to deal with this type of ignorance.”
He started back to the car and said over his shoulder, “I’ll text you where and when to start.”
“Don’t make it too far,” Marty said. “I’ll have to take an Uber.”
Tommy was about to pull open his door, when he looked over the roof of the car and said, “You are officially cut off from any bookmakers. Gino will put the word out. And don’t try to make book with Lucia or Mancini either.”
Marty made a face. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Tommy got into the car and saw Cara smirking at him.
“Well,” she said. “Did you scare him?”
Tommy was about to drive away, when he thought about the question. “No,” he said. “Not really.” He hopped out of the car and shouted to Marty just as he was about to enter the garage.
The guy turned.
Tommy pointed toward the house. “There are things in Baltimore that might be best left in Baltimore.”
Marty looked confused.
Tommy shook his head, then ducked below the roof to look at Cara. “You see what I’m dealing with here?”
Marty was moving across the lawn now, maybe sensing something unsavory happening.
“What did you say?” Marty asked when he was twenty feet away.
“I said, you wouldn’t want your current girlfriend knowing anything about your girlfriend in Baltimore. You know, the one you were living with for the past two years.”
Marty’s eyes suddenly registered the threat. “Wait a minute. That’s not right. I told you I’d pay you back.”
Tommy got in the car, shut the door, and stepped on the gas.
In his rearview mirror he could see Marty’s round body lumbering down the street in his flip-flops, waving his arms like he was signaling for help from a desert island.
Cara turned in her seat to watch the spectacle. “Now he seems scared.”
“I should’ve been a cop,” Tommy muttered.