I Will Find You(58)

“Hey, Eddie.”

He goes slack-jawed when he sees me. The dangling cigarette falls from his lips, but Eddie grabs it midair. That makes me smile. Eddie had the fastest hands. He was the best ping pong player, the group pool shark, a whiz at video games or pinball or bowling or mini-golf—anything involving hand-eye coordination and little else.

“Holy shit,” Eddie says.

“Do I have to ask you not to scream?”

“Fuck no, you kidding me?” He hurries over to me. “I’m so happy to see you, man.”

He hugs me—that new/old sensation—and I stiffen, afraid that if I give in to this I’ll collapse and never get back up. Still, the hug is welcome. Even the stench of cigarette is welcome. “Me too, Eddie.”

“I saw on the news about your escape.” He points to the top of my head. “You losing your hair too?”

“No, I’m in disguise.”

“Clever,” Eddie says. “Can we get one thing out of the way?”

“Sure.”

“You didn’t kill Matthew, did you?”

“I did not.”

“Knew it. You got a plan? Forget it, the less I know the better. You need cash?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Business is in the crapper, but I got some money in the safe. Whatever’s there, it’s yours.”

I try not to well up. “Thanks, Eddie.”

“That why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Talk to me.”

“You still running book?”

“Nah. That’s why business is so bad. We used to do it all in the old days. I mean, my grandfather ran numbers. My dad, he took everyone’s bets. The cops called them both crooks. No offense to your old man.”

“None taken.”

“How is he, by the way?”

“You probably know more than I do, Eddie.”

“Yeah, I guess. Where was I?”

“The cops called your dad and granddad crooks.”

“Right. But you know who finally put us out of business? The government. Used to be numbers were illegal. Then the government called it a lottery and gives shittier odds than we ever did and now, bam, it’s legit. Gambling was illegal too, and then some online assholes paid off a bunch of politicians and now, boom, you click online and your bets are in. Marijuana too, not that my old man ever sold that.”

“But you were booking five years ago?”

“That’s around when it all started to tank. Why?”

“Do you remember a client named Ellen Winslow?”

He frowned. “She wasn’t one of mine. Reggie on Shirley Avenue took her bets.”

“But you know the name?”

“She was in deep, yeah. But I can’t imagine why you’d care.”

Eddie still wears the white pharmacy smock. Like he’s a doctor or a cosmetics salesman at Filene’s.

“So she’d have owed the Fisher brothers?”

Eddie doesn’t love where this conversation is headed. “Yeah, I guess. Davey, why are you asking me all this?”

“I need to talk to Kyle.”

Silence.

“Kyle as in Skunk Kyle?”

“They still call him that?”

“He prefers it.”

That had been his nickname when we were kids. I don’t remember when Kyle moved to town. First grade, maybe second. He had the white forelock even then. With the white streak against the black hair and kids being kids, he immediately got the obvious nickname Skunk. Some kids would have hated that. Young Kyle seemed to revel in it.

“Let me get this straight,” Eddie says. “You want to talk to Skunk Kyle about an old debt?”

“Yes.”

Eddie whistled. “You remember him, right?”

“Yes.”

“Remember when he pushed Lisa Millstone off that roof when we were nine?”

“I do.”

“And Mrs. Bailey’s cats. The ones that kept disappearing when we were like, twelve?”

“Yes.”

“And the Pallone girl. What was her name again? Mary Anne—”

“I remember,” I say.

“Skunk hasn’t gotten better, Davey.”

“I know. I assume he still works for the Fishers?”

Eddie gives his face a vigorous rub with his right hand. “You going to tell me what this is about?”

I see no reason not to. “I think the Fishers kidnapped my son and set me up for murder.”

I give him the abridged version. Eddie doesn’t tell me I’m crazy, but he thinks it. I show him the amusement-park photo. He looks at it quickly, but his eyes stay mostly on me. He drops his cigarette butt to the cracked pavement and lights another one. He doesn’t interrupt.

When I finish, Eddie says, “I’m not going to try to talk you out of this. You’re a big boy.”

“I appreciate that. You can set it up?”

“I can make a call.”

“Thank you.”

“You know the old man retired, right?”

“Nicky Fisher retired?” I say.

“Yep, retired, moved someplace warm. I hear Nicky golfs every day now. Spent his life murdering, robbing, extorting, pillaging, maiming, but now he’s in his eighties enjoying golf and spa massages and dinners out in Florida. Karma, right?”