slaughtered there than you could ever imagine. Ten thousand people worked there when the meatpacking business was booming. Lot of people got rich. Not one of them an Indian.”
“I know there’s a point to this and I do appreciate the history lesson, but where’s my drunk?”
Blues made another quarter turn to the southwest. “Over that way, back into Kansas—you can’t really see it from here—is where the government put the Shawnee tribe to get them out of the way of all that progress. They kept moving the tribes farther west, each time promising them that they could have those lands forever. Course, it didn’t work out that way.”
“Look, if this is some kind of sensitivity test, let me know. I’ll tell you the story about my Jewish ancestors sneaking out of their Lithuanian village in the middle of the night so that they wouldn’t be killed in the monthly pogrom. They ended up here with a set of candlesticks and nothing else. My great-grandfather helped cut the stones they used for those streets and my grandfather slaughtered his share of those animals. Nobody said it was fair. I don’t need for you to know about that or to give a shit. I just want to know if you found my drunk.”
Blues looked at him with a half smile. “Just wanted you to know, that’s all.”
“Know what?”
“I’ve got more faith in my system of justice than in the one you’re going to use to squeeze a few bucks out of your drunk’s insurance company. I’ll help you when I want to and you’ll pay me. I don’t like what you’re doing or I decide I don’t like you—that’s it. That’s my justice system.”
“Fair enough. But if I don’t get my drunk, you don’t get paid.”
“I’ve got your drunk. By the way,” he added with mock surprise, “I didn’t know Mason was a Jewish name.”
Mason couldn’t hold back his grin. “Yeah? Well, I guess that means we’re even since I didn’t know there were any Indian piano players.”
Their arrangement had worked well over the years. Blues could find just about anyone who didn’t want to be found and find out most things that people didn’t want someone else to know. And he did it with a confidence and fearlessness that made it difficult for people to resist. When they did, they regretted it.
Blues didn’t volunteer much about himself. Eventually Mason strung together enough bits and pieces to know that he’d been married and divorced before he was twenty, served in the army special forces, and spent six years as a cop in Kansas City.
He quit the police force after he shot and killed a woman suspected of smothering her baby to stop her from crying. Blues never went into the details except to say that the brass gave him the choice to quit or be fired. He quit being a cop but kept playing piano and moonlighting as a freelance problem solver.
Mason suspected that something more than reading history had shaped Blues’s uncompromising solutions for the problems people brought to him. But Mason had yet to turn over that rock. Nor could Mason explain why Blues had agreed to help him with the drunk and his other cases he’d needed help with since he quit playing piano. The one time he’d asked, Blues told him it was the only way he could make certain that Mason didn’t start playing again.
They met for breakfast Wednesday morning at a midtown diner where the upwardly mobile have breakfast and the down-and-out spend hours with a cup of coffee.
“Sounds like you and your pinstriped partners are in deep shit, man,” Blues said after Mason finished telling him what had happened over the last three days. “You want me to watch your back until this is over?”
“You think my back needs to be watched?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got one dead partner and somebody wants you to either join him or be convicted for killing him.”
Mason couldn’t ignore the warning in Blues’s offer. His willingness to accept it after he’d turned down a similar offer from
“I know there’s a point to this and I do appreciate the history lesson, but where’s my drunk?”
Blues made another quarter turn to the southwest. “Over that way, back into Kansas—you can’t really see it from here—is where the government put the Shawnee tribe to get them out of the way of all that progress. They kept moving the tribes farther west, each time promising them that they could have those lands forever. Course, it didn’t work out that way.”
“Look, if this is some kind of sensitivity test, let me know. I’ll tell you the story about my Jewish ancestors sneaking out of their Lithuanian village in the middle of the night so that they wouldn’t be killed in the monthly pogrom. They ended up here with a set of candlesticks and nothing else. My great-grandfather helped cut the stones they used for those streets and my grandfather slaughtered his share of those animals. Nobody said it was fair. I don’t need for you to know about that or to give a shit. I just want to know if you found my drunk.”
Blues looked at him with a half smile. “Just wanted you to know, that’s all.”
“Know what?”
“I’ve got more faith in my system of justice than in the one you’re going to use to squeeze a few bucks out of your drunk’s insurance company. I’ll help you when I want to and you’ll pay me. I don’t like what you’re doing or I decide I don’t like you—that’s it. That’s my justice system.”
“Fair enough. But if I don’t get my drunk, you don’t get paid.”
“I’ve got your drunk. By the way,” he added with mock surprise, “I didn’t know Mason was a Jewish name.”
Mason couldn’t hold back his grin. “Yeah? Well, I guess that means we’re even since I didn’t know there were any Indian piano players.”
Their arrangement had worked well over the years. Blues could find just about anyone who didn’t want to be found and find out most things that people didn’t want someone else to know. And he did it with a confidence and fearlessness that made it difficult for people to resist. When they did, they regretted it.
Blues didn’t volunteer much about himself. Eventually Mason strung together enough bits and pieces to know that he’d been married and divorced before he was twenty, served in the army special forces, and spent six years as a cop in Kansas City.
He quit the police force after he shot and killed a woman suspected of smothering her baby to stop her from crying. Blues never went into the details except to say that the brass gave him the choice to quit or be fired. He quit being a cop but kept playing piano and moonlighting as a freelance problem solver.
Mason suspected that something more than reading history had shaped Blues’s uncompromising solutions for the problems people brought to him. But Mason had yet to turn over that rock. Nor could Mason explain why Blues had agreed to help him with the drunk and his other cases he’d needed help with since he quit playing piano. The one time he’d asked, Blues told him it was the only way he could make certain that Mason didn’t start playing again.
They met for breakfast Wednesday morning at a midtown diner where the upwardly mobile have breakfast and the down-and-out spend hours with a cup of coffee.
“Sounds like you and your pinstriped partners are in deep shit, man,” Blues said after Mason finished telling him what had happened over the last three days. “You want me to watch your back until this is over?”
“You think my back needs to be watched?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got one dead partner and somebody wants you to either join him or be convicted for killing him.”
Mason couldn’t ignore the warning in Blues’s offer. His willingness to accept it after he’d turned down a similar offer from
Similar Books
