YOU STILL HAD THAT FIFTY-DOLLAR BILL, didn’t you? David Peterson asks when Ruben Hart lumbers back from the kitchen, carrying two glasses of lemonade. Outside, a summer rain is cascading down on the yard. They’ve taken shelter in the dark parlor. The room is hot, even with the windows open.
Don’t expect much. It’s store-bought, Mr. Hart says, handing over the lemonade. If my wife were here, we’d be having the real thing.
That’s okay, David says. I like store-bought. The truth is, he’s never had any other kind.
Did you still have that tobacco pouch under your mattress? David asks again.
Of course.
With the half a fifty rolled up inside?
Would you throw something like that away?
No. One thing I don’t understand. Why did Tony Mordello’s freighter take so long to show up? Was it lost at sea or something?
For six months? No.
So?
It was always scheduled for a December delivery. That’s how Tony Mordello had set it up. He wanted his shipment in time for the holiday season, when he knew he could sell it at a good price. He was buying low and selling high, good business practice.
And then he was shot with the ticket on him, David says.
Hidden in his tobacco pouch, that’s right.
How does that work, using a torn bill as a ticket? I still don’t get it.
Easy. The captain of the freighter Tony hired to bring his liquor down here has the other half. They did the deal face-to-face up in Canada. Then, when Tony’s runners go out to get the shipment in their speedboats, they have Tony’s bill and match it with the captain’s. Everybody knows they’re dealing with the right outfit.
Pretty cool, David says. It’s like a signed contract.
Mr. Hart smiles grimly. It’s better. There are no names written down, and bills can be folded small. They stand up longer, too—in seawater, for instance. Tony Mordello ran a smart operation. If the College Boys hadn’t murdered him, he’d have made a second fortune off the huge cargo coming in on this freighter. His wife could’ve bought herself another diamond necklace and Cadillacs for the kids.
So now the Boston College Boys were after you?
Not only them. The New York mob, too. At least, that’s what Billy Brady had sent Marina to tell me. I didn’t believe him, though, knucklehead that I was.
But how would they have known you even had that fifty? You’d kept it secret all that time.
One person knew.
Who?
Mr. Hart gets up painfully from his chair. Wet weather raises havoc with his joints.
Let me show you something. He shuffles over to one of the formal, white-doilied parlor tables and fumbles around amid the framed photographs, bending low, trying to find the right one in the parlor’s gloom. Whatever pruning Mr. Hart has managed so far with his medieval clippers hasn’t improved visibility in here. David, who’s had more gardening experience via Peterson’s Landscaping than he likes to admit, offered to lend a hand but was turned down. Help is a not a word in the old man’s dictionary.
Finally Mr. Hart selects a small photo in a silver frame and walks back across the room. He holds it out to David: a black-and-white snapshot of a skinny kid wearing a baseball cap and standing beside a bicycle.
Who do you think that is?
I don’t know.
Guess.
Jeddy McKenzie? David says.
You’re right. Mr. Hart nods solemnly. My old friend Jeddy. He’d seen me with the bill in front of my locker.
But . . . did he tell?
I believe he did. He told the chief.
How could he? He was setting you up.
He was. In the name of police business, that’s what he was doing.
He must’ve thought his dad would step in, somehow. He wouldn’t have done it on purpose, would he?
That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. Maybe I don’t want to know.