“We’re coworkers.”
Sal shook his head. “I’ll never get used to this polite bullshit.”
“That reminds me.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded piece of bright-pink paper. He flattened it on the table between them. “You know this girl?”
It was a Missing flyer for Melanie Moss. Sal had killed her on 9/11, accidentally. Kind of. He killed her intentionally, but she wasn’t who he thought she was. No mistakes in the first twenty years in the game then two in a row. First the FBI agents in the Parker House and then Melanie. He’d played that morning over in his mind on a loop ever since; sometimes he’d change a detail, a movement, a look, and Melanie would get out alive. But then the next day, she’d still be dead.
“No,” Sal said. “I mean, I met her once. I didn’t know her.”
“When?”
“I guess the day she disappeared.”
“A private detective came by the funeral home, interviewed Ruben about her. Apparently he knew her pretty well.” Bennie picked something out of his teeth. “I don’t like it.”
“She was a funeral-home investigator,” Sal said. “You want Ruben to know her. That’s his job. If he didn’t know her, that would be cause for concern.”
“What happens when the detective wants to talk to you?”
“I talked to the cops when they came by initially,” Sal said. He had. In October, seven months ago. A fifteen-minute conversation at the Temple. The whole time, thinking how he’d kill the cop—he’d stab him through the ear, he had a good angle from the way they were sitting at his desk, had arranged the seats for just that eventuality—where he’d bury him, ready to do it, happy to do it . . . but then it was over; the cop closed his notebook and was out the door. “The private detective wants to come by, I’ll tell him what I told them. Color of her blouse and where she parked her car. That’s all I remember.”
“Keep saying that out loud,” Bennie said, “until it sounds more believable.”
“This private detective,” Sal said, “what does he think happened to this woman?”
“Raped, murdered, left for dead in the desert,” he said, “that sort of thing. They found her car in Carson City, her purse somewhere out the same way, so who the fuck knows. All anyone can agree about is that she was last seen with you, the day she died. So unless you want to be on the Channel 8 news on the one-year anniversary of her death, we need something better than your denials, at least until she turns up.”
Melanie Moss wasn’t just a fuckup; she was a breaking of his own personal code. He didn’t kill women. That’s just how it was. Until it wasn’t.
“Have the funeral home put up a reward,” Sal said. “A big one. Get Ruben out in front, wearing a nice suit, something new, not some shit he pinched off a dead guy, talking about what a nice lady she was, how he can’t believe she’s gone, all that.”
“How much?”
“Keep in mind,” Sal said, “it’s not real money.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning if the cops were gonna find her, they would have already found her,” Sal said, “but also, they stumble on her now, you don’t pay the cops; this is private citizens only. Fine print, you make it good for six months, a year at most. Someone kicks a jawbone while jogging in ten years, you’re not on the hook.”
Bennie thought on that. “Fifty? A hundred?”
“Bigger,” Sal said. “It’s not real.”
“Quarter of a million?” Bennie said.
“Now you’re thinking,” Sal said. “And then I’ll have the shul agree to match it, dollar for dollar, which we’ll actually collect, put in an escrow account in fucking Laos, or wherever you do your business now. And you can keep my half, in light of my current banking situation, okay?”
“Well look at you,” Bennie said. “You’re still one shystie motherfucker, aren’t you?”
“Just trying to keep us both safe.”
Bennie picked up Sal’s tray and his own, went over and dumped them in the garbage, got himself a fresh cup of coffee in a to-go cup, came back to the table, but didn’t sit down. “It was real nice seeing you, Rabbi Cohen,” he said, too loudly, even the cop pausing to give notice. “Glad you’re feeling better. Can’t wait to have you back at the Temple.”
“Thank you, Mr. Savone,” Rabbi David Cohen said. “I look forward to returning as well.”
“You take your time,” he said. “We’ll be lighting candles for you at services this week.” An odd smile spread across Bennie’s face then.
“What is it, Benjamin?” Rabbi Cohen said.
“You know,” Bennie said, “I’ve kinda missed you.”
“Me,” Rabbi David Cohen said, “or the other guy?”
“All the same now,” Bennie said. “Though I wouldn’t shave if I were you.” He patted David on the shoulder, leaned into his ear. “Also? Rabbi? Don’t forget. I still own you.”
TWO
MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2002
LAS VEGAS, NV
THE PROBLEM WITH BEING ON THE FBI’S MOST WANTED LIST, MATTHEW DREW realized, was the lack of dining options. You couldn’t just go to Chili’s and plop down at the bar and order some chicken fingers and a Bud Light, because invariably there was a TV behind the bar and you never knew when you might show up on it. Twice he’d been in joints where they’d run news stories about the bodies found in Portland, actually mentioned his name but no photo, which was a relief, but even then, he immediately lost his appetite and was suddenly out twenty bucks. So he started eating at odd times, often in Chinatown, which rarely ran English-language TV unless there was a ball game on, or he’d buy something he could grill from the Rancho Swap Meet across from Lorenzi Park, where he was living in an RV, or he’d grab something from the Broadacres Marketplace, a maze of Mexican-food stalls and flea market vendors off of Pecos and Las Vegas Boulevard.
But even then, he always felt eyes on him, owing primarily to the fact that he was, generously, a huge motherfucker. He’d played lacrosse at Tufts but unlike most of his teammates, who were lean and fast, Matthew stood over six foot three and tipped the scales at 225, which had made him an imposing defender. Once he joined the FBI, he wanted to look cool in a suit, be able to chase a perp down and not break a sweat, so he dropped down to 215. Now, with nothing much to do but eat and work out, he was closer to 245, but that was fine. His job these days was to be as imposing as possible, so people didn’t stare too long for fear of pissing him off. Turns out, though, the key to being memorable was being a giant white boy fumbling your chopsticks in Chinatown or mispronouncing carnitas at the Mexican-food market. By his first month hiding in Las Vegas, vendors started to greet him with his order already written down.
So Matthew found himself eating at places owned by organized crime figures, like a Russian place called Odessa, down the block from the Hard Rock. The prices were pretty reasonable, and the clientele was primarily Eastern European goons—who would sooner shake your dick off at the urinal than make eye contact—and Russian émigrés, looking for a taste of home. The joint was owned by some Russian mobster, which didn’t mean anything in this town. The entire ethos of the city—of the state, really—was that you were about to get robbed, that the only safeguard you had against ruination was your own willpower, and even that was prone to manipulation through free alcohol, sensory deprivation, and sexual coercion. No matter where you went in Las Vegas, you were totally fucked. That these mob-owned places still operated out in the open told Matthew a simpler tale: they weren’t currently wired by the feds.
Plus, at Odessa, you could get a decent plate of sautéed liver and potatoes twenty-four hours a day, which was appealing since mornings were his nights now, the world easier to navigate under a cloak of darkness, which is why Matthew was sitting at the bar, nursing a large screwdriver, and reading the Review-Journal at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday, staring at Melanie Moss. Her family had run a full-page ad on page 3 of the paper every Tuesday for the last two months. Matthew didn’t know where she was, not for sure, but he had a good sense that Sal Cupertine had killed her. The why is what baffled him. He hadn’t asked Sal about it, not yet anyway, but he vowed to find out about that shit, give that family some rest. He’d run into her ex-husband and daughter in Carson City back in December, the fuse that sent him to Las Vegas in the first place. If he could solve her murder, that would be one more way to cover his ass. And he needed as much cover as possible.
