“I forgot to ask you,” Robby says. “How’d your meet with Cunniff go?”
“I’ll know if I got through to him when I see if he and the lawyer are still trying to fuck with me.”
“And if they continue to do that?”
“You’llknow what to do.”
Robby feels a smile slowly crossing his lips. “Send me into the game, coach,” he says.
When Blum ends the call, Robby hits Play, and now he’s singing along.
“One more disaster, I can add to my generous supply …”
Robby opens up the menu they’ve left in the room, just to see if they’ve added anything since the last time he was here, when he spent the night after Bobby Salvatore’s unfortunate and untimely demise.
He is smiling again when he sees that the butternut minestrone is still listed with the appetizers, he’s been thinking about it almost since he put the second bullet into Allen Reese. Then his voice is rising suddenly, like he’s playing to the balcony at the Gershwin, almost like he’s singing for his supper.
“Let his blood leave no stain …”
Well,Robby thinks,impossible to have everything.
He walks over to the minibar now and pours himself a glass of Scotch.
Mr. Reese had an accident.
And people keep saying irony is dead.
EIGHTY-FOUR
JIMMY AND ESPOSITO AND I eventually decide that there is nothing further for us to do, or learn, at Allen Reese’s home, and leave things in the capable hands of the Southampton police.
We decide to stay in Southampton for burgers and beers at Fellingham’s, a sports bar and grill tucked away on Cameron Street, in the center of town.
Chief Carlos Quintero, a rising star in local law enforcement, destined for bigger things, walks me to my car.
“You have any dealings with Reese?” he asks.
“Just once,” I say. “I crashed one of his parties.”
“You know anything about him that I might find productive?”
“Bobby Salvatore was a friend of his, I know that.”
“Friend,” Quintero says, “or foe?”
“Bobby was in Sonny Blum’s crew,” Quintero continues. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I have a lot of interests.”
“So I’ve been told. From whatIknow, Bobby did a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” Chief Quintero says. “I’m wondering who might be doing what my old man used to call Sonny’s button work.”
“Jimmy met a young guy who’s an up-and-comer as abookie,” I say. “But from the way he described him, he’s not your shooter.”
“You think this was over a debt?”
“Don’t you?”
“You think Sonny had this done?”
