Run Away(99)

“Come on,” he said. “Rocco’s waiting.”





Chapter

Thirty-Six



Ash took the Major Deegan Expressway south off the Cross Bronx.

“You have to assume,” Ash said to Dee, “that more of the fourteen sons are going to send their DNA to those genealogy sites.”

Dee Dee nodded, flipping the phone back on to check for messages.

“So what then?”

“The Truth won’t survive the week. I don’t understand all the legal stuff, but once his estate goes into probate, it’s harder to make a claim.”

“Still,” Ash said. “Someone is bound to put this together.”

“How so?”

“Another one of the Truth’s sons puts his DNA into the system.”

“Okay.”

“He sees he has three or four other brothers—and they’re all dead.”

“Right. One was shot in a robbery. One committed suicide. One is just missing, probably a runaway. One should be, I don’t know, stabbed, maybe by a drug-addled homeless nut. Horrible set of coincidences. And that’s if he’s able to track them down. Which isn’t easy. Their accounts stay active after their deaths. So first any new son would email his dead half brothers. They wouldn’t write back. He’d probably just drop it there, but even if he somehow tracks them all down and figures out the connection and somehow gets law enforcement from various states to cooperate on these old crimes, what will they find?”

Dee Dee had thought this through.

“Ash?”

“They’d find nothing,” he said.

“Right, so— Oh, hold up.”

“What?”

“A text came from Simon Greene.” She read it aloud:

Heading to Cornelius’s apartment where we first met. May find a lead. How’s it by you?



“Any thoughts on who Cornelius is?” Ash asked.

“None.”

“This isn’t good.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“And what’s the deal with Mother Adiona?” he asked.

“That I don’t know.”

“She told me not to trust you.”

“But you do, Ash.”

“I do, Dee Dee.”

She smiled at him. “We can worry about her later, okay?”

They found a spot in front of some concrete barriers in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. They both had guns on them. They also both had knives. This one was to look like a stabbing—something, Ash thought, that probably occurred a lot amongst the various drug factions on these streets.

He was about to open his door when he heard her say, “Ash?”

Her tone stopped him. He looked toward her. She gestured with her chin up ahead. She took out her phone and held up the image she’d screenshot from the PPG Wealth Management website.

“That’s him, right?” she asked.

Ash took a look. No question. Simon Greene was walking into the building.

“Who is that with him?”

“My guess? Cornelius.”

Dee Dee nodded. “I’m thinking this isn’t going to be a stabbing, Ash.”

“Yep.”

She glanced toward the weapons bag in the backseat. “I’m thinking it’s going to be more like a gun massacre.”

*



Rocco was the kind of gigantic it was hard to fathom, so that each time you saw him, you were struck anew by the sheer size of him. When he strolled around Cornelius’s apartment, Simon half expected to hear fee-fie-fo-fum à la “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Rocco squinted at the books on the shelves. “You read all these, Cornelius?”

“I have. You should try it. Reading gives you empathy.”

“Is that a fact?” Rocco grabbed a book off the shelf, paged through it. “Do you have the fifty grand, Mr. Greene?”

“Do you have my daughter?” Simon countered.

“No.”

“Then I don’t have fifty grand.”

“Where’s Luther?” Cornelius asked.

“Stay cool, Cornelius. He’s close by.” Rocco lifted his mobile phone. “Luther?”

A voice came through the phone’s tinny speaker. “I’m here, Rocco.”

“Just stay put,” Rocco said. “Our friend here doesn’t have the money.”

“I have money,” Simon said. “It’s not fifty grand, but if whatever you tell me helps me find my daughter, you get the full amount. You have my word.”

“Your word?” Rocco was a big man and had a laugh to match. “And what, I’m just supposed to trust you because you white guys are so trustworthy?”

“No, none of that,” Simon said.

“Then why?”

“Because I’m a father.”

“Oooo.” Rocco wiggled his fingers. “You think that impresses me?”

Simon said nothing.

“Only thing that impresses me right now is cash money.”

Simon dropped the cash on the coffee table. “Almost ten thousand.”

“That’s not enough.”