for you,” he said. His suit jacket was rumpled, his black hair mussed, and his right hand looked red and sore. His sangfroid seemed to be intact.
I said, “CN Telegraph’s still in business.”
I had a firm grip on the gun and pointed it at Nash’s chest. The gun didn’t feel right. My acquaintance with handguns was limited to holding them in court while I examined and cross-examined witnesses. The guns were trial exhibits that the police had allegedly taken from clients of mine who were facing armed-robbery charges. I’d never pulled a trigger in anger or out of any other compelling motive. Sol Nash’s gun, the one in my hand, seemed without the heft of the weapon that Tony Flanagan had described the day before. I put a tighter grip on it.
“Message is,” Nash said, “Mr. Grimaldi says you should butt out. Permanent, he means.”
“For that you need Tony’s fists?”
“Make sure you get the idea.”
“Maybe Grimaldi didn’t get my idea,” I said. “I put a transaction to him this morning of mutual benefit to all parties.”
“You tried to squeeze him,” Nash said. “Thing like that, Mr. Grimaldi don’t take from nobody. You especially, guy like you.”
Nash waved a hand as if something unpleasant had come to the notice of his ample nostrils.
“A guy like who?” I said.
“Guy doesn’t show respect,” Nash said. “Comes to a man’s house, no appointment, nothing, man’s brother’s visiting, and shit, you’re looking to jam Mr. Grimaldi.”
Nash crossed his legs in the chair, as casual as if the gun in my hand was part of the furniture.
“Reason Mr. Grimaldi sent me,” he said, “you forget everything you said about a deal. None of that bullshit, and Mr. Grimaldi wants the papers you said you took out of the office.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll slam you.”
“That didn’t work right here this afternoon.”
“Slam you when you’re not looking. Professional.”
“Without Tony?”
Nash turned his flat gaze on the floor. Tony’s chest heaved and little bubbles of saliva floated out of his slightly opened mouth. Eyes shut, fists clenched, he was as immobile as the end table that lay across his shoulders.
“Kid was a good driver,” Nash said.
I clutched the gun and kept it aimed at Nash’s breastbone. It still felt insubstantial.
“Something’s wrong with your gun,” I said.
“Safety’s on,” Nash said. “Won’t fire that way.”
I looked at the gun and back to Nash.
I said, “How come you haven’t tried to take it away from me?”
“Figured you knew how to push it off, the safety.”
“You figured incorrectly.”
“Dumb fuck.”
“You or me?”
Nash didn’t uncross his legs. I held on to the gun.
Nash said, “What’re you talking about, gun’s got something wrong?”
“Too light,” I said. “Tony down there told me you carry a cannon.”
“Sometimes.”
“Blows holes through people.”
“That ain’t it, gun in your hand,” Nash said. “Forty-four Mag you’re talking about.” His voice had grown instructive. “It’s for when I go see tough guys. Guys who I need to make an impression on, you understand what I’m saying.”
I didn’t know whether to feel insulted or relieved.
“That one you took off me, that gun,” Nash went on, “it’s for pussycats.”
I said, “One thing about us pussycats, we land on our feet.”
Nash shrugged.
“You got lucky,” he said. “Gimme back the gun.”
“You’ll shoot me.”
“Not till somebody says I should.”
I turned the gun over in my hand.
“How do you unload this thing?” I said.
“Little switch at the bottom of the barrel, thing your hand’s on, push it.”
A clip of six bullets slid from the barrel. I flicked them out of the clip, put the bullets in my jeans pocket, and handed Nash his unloaded gun.
“You bluffing about the papers?” he said, returning the gun to its holster. “The ones Mr. Grimaldi wants back? You really got them?”
“I’ve got them,” I said. “In a secure place.”
“No place’s secure somebody wants them bad enough.”
Nash was right. The invoices and Harry Hein’s computer printouts were still in the trunk of the Volks. I wouldn’t call that secure. I could transfer them to a safety deposit box. Or maybe secrete them down the hollow in the third tree from the left in the park across the street.
“I’ll tell you something,” Nash said. “Mr. Grimaldi’s screwing up here. Between you and me, there’s too much commotion going on. You, shit, you’re not worth all the jacking around.”
“Sol,” I said, “you can’t keep buttering me up this way.”
“I’m talking to you confidential,” Nash said. He uncrossed his leg. “You oughta go away quiet on this thing. It isn’t like you’re arguing a parking ticket for some guy. This is something where there’s serious money involved and certain people’s jobs.”
“Yours, for instance.”
“Yeah.”
“And part of your job was to take the documents back to Grimaldi.”
“Yeah.”
“You failed.”
“For now.”
As Nash spoke, he bent from the chair, picked up the wallet on the floor with his left hand, and came up fast with the back of his right hand. It was aimed at the side of my face. Nash wasn’t quick enough. Maybe advancing age, maybe he’d underestimated me. I hadn’t underestimated him. Instinct or fear had me suspecting a snaky move from Sol, and as he swung, I slipped inside the arc of the punch and it passed over the top of
