“Everybody did. Damn, that pendejo got all the girls in school.” He nodded to the barkeep. “What can I get you?”
“Oh, just water. I … had an interesting night. I’m a little dehydrated.”
“I hear that. So, why you in my business?”
“I need info on someone you keep books for.”
“Not sure I can tell you anything, but shoot.”
I thought of how I could phrase the questions without seeming too obtrusive, but gave up before I got anywhere promising. “How much does Geoff Adams owe you?”
He was looking straight ahead. A slow grin spread across his face. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
I knew that wouldn’t work. “Then can you tell me if he owed you money?”
“I just keep the books. If he did owe, say, someone in the organization money, it damned sure wouldn’t be me.”
“Oh. Okay.” He really didn’t seem like the kingpin type. I decided to appeal to his sense of family. “Umberto,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “It’s important. His daughter is dead.”
He bit down, put his drink on the bar, and turned in to me. Then he moved closer. Put a hand on my hip. Leaned forward until his mouth was on mine.
There was no lust in his eyes. He had no intention of feeling me up. He was, however, feeling for a wire. He slipped a hand under my sweater, up my stomach, and over Danger and Will. Luckily, I wasn’t prudish. His manhandling would’ve seriously flustered someone like Cookie. But me? He could feel me up all day as long as that’s all he did. And he told me what I needed to know at the end of it.
When he’d felt around to my back and along the waistband of my jeans, slipping his fingers in a little farther than necessary, he used it to pull me across the stool until my crotch straddled his. As he did all that, he did have a niggling of lust, but just a niggling. He’d never been into me, and we both knew it.
I leaned in so he could press his mouth to my ear. The room had gone quiet. No one moved as they watched the peep show play out before them.
“I’m only telling you this because we had nothing to do with the girl’s death.”
“Works for me.”
Testing me further, seeing just how far he could take the charade, he slipped a hand between my legs, stroking me softly with his thumb.
“He owed Fernando a shit-ton. The guy was a total fuckup, and he just kept fucking up again and again. Just kept getting deeper and deeper. Deep is not a place you want to be with Fernando.”
“You could’ve stopped taking his bets.”
“Hey, if Fernando says give him a marker, I give him a marker. Seems the guy’s father is loaded, and Fernando had a plan.”
“This sounds bad.”
He let his lips caress an earlobe. The peach fuzz on his face tickled, and I almost laughed.
“Let’s just say his last bet was big. Thought he knew something about a game being thrown, but it was going to put him at over three hundred g’s.”
“Holy shit.”
“Fernando took the bet. Told Adams if he lost and couldn’t pay one more time, he’d start killing everyone he loved, starting with his daughter.”
“Umberto,” I said, suddenly wondering what he’d gotten himself into. I curled my fingers into the sleeve of his jacket.
He pulled me tighter. “You don’t understand. When the game didn’t go Adams’s way and the girl actually died, Fernando lost it. Like he came unglued, querida. He was so upset. Thought one of his crew did it without his permission, but trust me, that didn’t happen. He … questioned everyone.”
I leaned back to look at him. “Umberto, you’re sure he didn’t do it? Because that would be one hell of a coincidence.”
“Go ask him yourself, querida. You’ll see.”
“Okay. Stay out of trouble?”
He let me go and spread his hands. “Always. I’m lily white, baby.”
The men around us laughed as I stood to leave. He caught me and leaned in again. “I didn’t really need the show.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
Raising his hand to my face, he ran his thumb over my bottom lip and then licked it as though savoring the last trace of chocolate on his fingertips.
I was shocked. I didn’t feel lust coming off him in waves like I did when a guy was usually interested. Then I realized why. It wasn’t lust he felt, but something deeper.
He took my hand and pressed it to his chest. “You broke my heart once, querida. I have to guard it now. Get the fuck out.” He winked playfully and then dropped my hand and turned his back to me. It took me several long moments to realize he hadn’t been joking.
I walked out, racking my brain, trying to remember how and when I could possibly have broken Umberto’s heart. To say we’d been friends was an overstatement. We were in the same class. I knew him. He knew me. But we’d never given each other the time of day.
Misery purred to life around me, her engine only slightly louder than a 747. I was just about to head back to the office for more recon, mostly on this Fernando character, when I got a text. It must have been from Umberto. It said Fernando could see me in two hours and had an address to meet.
I didn’t text back.
* * *
Since I had some time and I wasn’t going to have to hunt down Fernando, I drove out to Mr. Adams’s house. I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been about him. I pegged him for a standup guy. A stellar father. A pillar of society. But even his own dad had only bad things to say about him.
Did Mr. Adams Sr. know that Mr. Adams Jr. was also a degenerate gambler, as cliché as that was? I didn’t think so. He would have told me. But how can someone be that deep into gambling, to lose everything again and again, and no one know? No one I’d talked to, at least.
Cookie and I chatted on everything she’d found out about Mr. Adams while I was being molested. He’d had a colorful life filled with a lot of unfortunate events. A little too many.
Mr. Adams was home when I knocked. He was a shell when he answered the door. Pale and withered like he had every intention of just wasting away. The guilt was eating him alive. Umberto had to be wrong about his boss. Fernando had to have done this.
“Mrs. Davidson. Did you find anything to exonerate Lyle Fiske?” he asked as he held the door open.