Whiplash River by Lou Berney Page B

Filene’s Basement on a Saturday afternoon. Anything you wanted, a five-hundred-year-old stone monkey demon chiseled right off the wall at Angkor. If you knew what you were doing. If you had the right connections.”
    â€œLong story short,” Shake said.
    â€œHey. You want to tell it?”
    â€œGo ahead.”
    â€œAnyway,” Quinn said. “I got to know this kid at the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh. Just starting out, assistant to the assistant something. Nice kid. I showed him the ropes. Showed him how to tie a few knots with the ropes. Okay? We made some money together. Sticky Jimmy. That’s what everyone called him. Funny story, how he got that name. Let me tell you that story.”
    Shake almost stepped into it, before he realized Quinn was having fun with him.
    â€œSo jump ahead to the present day,” Quinn said. “I’m reading the newspaper a few weeks ago. I turn the page and guess who’s looking back at me from the financial page?”
    â€œI’m gonna guess Sticky Jimmy.”
    â€œSticky Jimmy. That’s right. But now the kid’s not a kid anymore, he’s got his own company, natural gas, it’s doing well. You ever heard of fracking? Getting the gas out of the shale? Anyway, our boy came up with a way to do that, a better way. Some engineer on his payroll did, I mean to say.”
    The sun had started to set during all this.
    â€œTake it easy,” Quinn told Shake. “What I’m telling you, Sticky Jimmy is legit now. Pure as the driven snow. You think he wants any of it coming back to him, what he was up to in Cambodia?”
    â€œSo he goes after you?” Shake was dubious.
    Quinn shrugged. “I knew what he was up to. I’m the only one. We were up to it together.”
    â€œWhy now?”
    Quinn shrugged again. “You asked. It’s just an idea I have. Jimmy’s moving up the ladder, he’s getting his picture in the papers. He’s taking care of loose ends. I don’t know.”
    Shake decided that the who probably didn’t matter any more than the why. What mattered was the what.
    â€œYou know what William Faulkner wrote?” Quinn said. “William Faulkner the writer?”
    â€œNot William Faulkner the astronaut? The light heavyweight?”
    â€œHe said, ‘The past isn’t dead, it’s not even past.’ ”
    â€œI need a favor.”
    Quinn lit up like Shake had just given him the best news of his life. “Name it,” Quinn said.
    â€œI have to get out of the country.”
    Quinn mused. “You think they’ll take another shot at you? Maybe. But it’s me they really want, right? So maybe if you lay low for a while . . .”
    â€œIt’s not just that.”
    â€œThere’s someone else trying to kill you too?” Quinn looked impressed.
    â€œI have to get out of the country quietly. I thought you might be able to help.”
    Quinn frowned.
    He frowned .
    Shake, already hot and tired and his ribs aching, felt the air go out of him. You knew you were in bad shape when even your worst option wasn’t an option. He remembered what his dad used to say at times like that. He called it getting fired from the carnival. Because if you couldn’t even meet the standards of the carnie riffraff who worked the state-fair midway, you were in some bad shape, pal.
    But then Quinn laughed. “That’s it?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI owe you my life. You lost your restaurant because of me. Your livelihood and passion. Sticky Jimmy tried to have you iced because of me. And that’s all you want? You want to get out of the country? I’m disappointed, Shake, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t even get to break a sweat with this favor.”
    Quinn’s one employee, the old Kriol man, shuffled up to take the Coke cans away. Quinn waved him off. “Get out of here! You see we’re having a