Beck noted how long Manny had sat with it.
“How long since this happened?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“Okay,” said Beck. “What should we do?”
“James, I appreciate the we, but ain’t no we here. This is my thing. I just wanted to let you know about it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to break every bone in the motherfucker’s hand. And then I’m going to break every bone in his other hand, and his arms and his face until I get tired of breaking bones. And then I’m going to kill him.”
Beck nodded. “Then what?”
“Then I send word to her boss that he better turn the fucking clock back.”
Beck pursed his lips like he was considering Manny’s plan.
“Don’t worry, James. This thing won’t be anywhere near us. Not a hundred miles anywhere near us.”
Beck nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But you think that plan’s going to work for Olivia?”
Manny didn’t respond.
Beck leaned across the table. “Let’s step back a second. This situation with your cousin, I get it. She’s family. But there’s another family.” Beck tapped the kitchen table with his index finger. “This one. You, me, Demarco, Ciro. It’s all connected.”
Beck raised a hand before Manny could protest.
“Hear me out. I’m not saying you can’t do something about this. I’m saying you can’t do it without me. Without us.”
“No, you guys can’t be involved. I have to take care of this on my own.”
Beck shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. You’re involved, we’re involved.”
Manny didn’t want to agree. Wouldn’t agree. But he couldn’t disagree. Beck had trapped him. He couldn’t answer, so he didn’t.
“Just think it through with me for a second, Manny. What does your cousin want? Say we break all this guy’s fingers, and his toes and face and arms and legs. You cut off his head and drop it on the boss’s desk. But you can’t put any of that shit in your cousin’s life. You said it yourself, she’s a civilian.” Beck continued. “This guy disappears after she makes all these complaints? She’s going to be the first one they look at.”
Manny started to speak, but Beck kept talking.
“All right, so she stands up. Takes the heat, doubtful, but say she does. How long before they connect her to you? Then it all falls apart. They’ll arrest you. You’ll beat it. But they’ll never grant you bail. You’ll sit in jail for maybe two years waiting for trial. Her reputation is dead. She’ll never work in that industry.”
Manny finished his shot of rum. Glared. Asked quietly, “So what the fuck should I do?”
“What does she want?”
“She doesn’t say. She’s scared. She lost her job. She wants this asshole out of her life. She wants everything back the way it was, man. But she don’t know what that means. Or she don’t want to think about what that means.”
“I understand.”
“Yeah, so do I. But what do you want to do? What should we do?” For the first time in the conversation, Manny’s voice rose. “These fucking assholes don’t get a pass just because they work in a big office and have some fucking money.”
Beck’s voice hardened. “Nobody gets a pass. Not for what they did. But not now. Not until we figure this out.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Take care of your cousin.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you until I talk to her,” said Beck. “Let me hear from her what happened. Let me understand more about all this. Let me hear what she wants. Then we’ll take it from there.”
Manny shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t like this.”
“I know you don’t. But this has got to be done right. First, we help put her life back together.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to figure it out.”
Manny took in what Beck said.
“Let me talk to her.”
Manny squinted, struggled with it, nodding his head imperceptibly over and over. Finally, he said, “Okay.”
That was it. He had deferred to Beck. At some level, they both knew that was going to happen. But now it was agreed.
Beck sat back. The wood chair creaked under his weight.
He changed the subject. “So, thanks for this morning. You got out there and around those guys fast.”
“Bullshit. Not nearly as fast as I used to be. I got downstairs and through the basement, but that fucking hatch door to the street had so much ice and shit on it I could hardly get it open. And the fucking snow and mess between the buildings, shit. Next time I just go out the front door.”
“Nah. You did the right thing. You never want them to see you coming, Manny. Even if it takes a little longer.”
Manny looked at Beck. The corner of his mouth lifted, conceding Beck’s point.
“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose.”
3
A tall, lanky man named Brandon Wright had just finished gently prying open Willie Reese’s nearly swollen-shut eye and examining it with a pen flashlight.
Wright looked more like a cowboy than a doctor. He wore blue jeans, a flannel shirt, tan leather ankle boots. He had thick brown hair flecked with gray he didn’t bother combing. And he had big, sturdy hands.
Wright worked with the calm, focused attention of a highly trained doctor who had spent seventeen years as an emergency room physician.
Wright was a man of many interests: Eastern religions, quantum physics, French cuisine, art history. Right now, Willie Reese and his injuries interested him, and he took his time tending to them.
James Beck sat at the bar, watching the doctor work on the large, muscular man who clearly had a very high tolerance for pain. Wright had already completed the excruciating maneuver required to position Reese’s broken septum. Watching it made Beck cringe. Reese barely uttered a sound.
The doctor stepped back and just looked at Reese for a moment, his lips pursed, running through a silent analysis. Once he confirmed to himself he had done everything he could, he turned to Beck and started checking out his complaints, which were mostly about his collar bone and sore hands.