51

Tom let Hathaway start in. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

The brother didn’t answer. Tom watched him. The tie was a little off-center, the slacks not crisply creased. Things had changed since their last meeting. Jason stopped inside his office, holding the door. He nodded them in.

Tom led the way. “Your boss doesn’t like us hanging around. Must be bad for business.”

Jason Dunn slammed the door. “I told you to stay away from here.”

“You see?” Hathaway slapped Tom’s chest with the back of his hand. “I told you.” He turned to Jason with a smirk on his face. “He thought you said keep coming by. I told him you said stay away, but he didn’t believe me.”

Hathaway sat on the sofa and kicked his feet onto the cushions. He looked like he should be holding a TV remote. Tom stood with his back to the door.

Jason faced Hathaway. “You want to look under my desk? Phil isn’t here. I haven’t seen him. Same thing I told you last time. If I see him, I’ll call you. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Hathaway asked again. He tossed a wad of gum across the room and missed the trash can.

The brother turned to Hathaway. “If you’re asking about Brenda, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s my administrative assistant. And I don’t know where she is. Lunch, I guess. Can we get this over with? What do you want?”

“We want to talk to your girlfriend.” A stick of gum went into Hathaway’s mouth. He stripped the foil back from another, his eyes on Jason.

“I told you—she’s not my girlfriend. What do you want with her? I thought this was about Phil.”

“You ever peel an onion?” Hathaway asked.

“Oh, come on.” Jason took off his jacket and wanted past Tom to hang it up. Tom didn’t budge. He caught a whiff of perfume drifting up from Jason. So she was his girlfriend after all. And they’d just been together. Hathaway was right. Again.

“Will you excuse me?” Jason gestured with his jacket.

Tom stepped aside.

Hathaway went on. “You peel one layer, there’s another one. Then another one.”

Jason turned from the door, his jacket on a hanger in its proper spot, keeping free of wrinkles while he worked the afternoon away at his desk. Tom wondered how these guys kept their sanity, locked up in buildings all the time.

“I’m familiar with the analogy, but it’s weak.” Jason said. “The thing is, you keep peeling them, and there’s nothing inside but more onion. There’s nothing under all the layers. That’s your problem.”

He sat behind his desk and reached for a pen. He held it in his fist, his thumb clicking the end. Between that and the snapping of Hathaway’s gum, Tom didn’t think he could stand being in this room too long.

“Yeah, but we’ve got something here. I can feel it,” Hathaway said. “You lie to me. Your girlfriend lies to me—and don’t bother saying she’s not your girlfriend.” Hathaway scanned the room, the ceiling. “I told you, I can tell when people are lying.”

“It’s a gift.”

Hathaway smiled at him. “Right.”

Tom stepped to the desk. “Something stinks around here. We’re going to find out what it is.”

A knock on the door, and Tom turned. The blonde leaned in. When she recognized what was going on, her face lost the look of warm expectation and turned into a frown.

Hathaway stood. “Come on in, baby.”

She hesitated.

“Or we can talk in front of all your friends out there.”

She looked at Jason and must have gotten some kind of signal because she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Tom watched her move. Chin up, shoulders back, she carried the image of the enduring salary slave all the way across the room.

It was an act.

She didn’t look at Jason, but the banker let his eyes linger on her. Tom would have sensed the connection between them even if he hadn’t smelled her perfume on him. It was as obvious as the clock ticking on the wall.

She nestled into the chair and crossed her legs. Tom caught himself taking in their shape.

Hathaway’s voice shook his attention away. “So what we’ve got here is a convict on the run.” He started ticking things off on his fingers. “A brother with access to all kinds of dough. That same brother tumbling with his secretary in his spare time—”

“That’s enough.” Jason held the button in on the pen in his fist. “I told you—”

“No, see, you two kids have to get your stories straight. We caught her in a lie last time, and she spilled it about the little thing you’ve got going.”

The banker shot a glance at her. It only stumbled him for a second. “Whatever she told you, I’m a married man. There’s nothing between Brenda and me but what you see right here.”

Hathaway laughed. He sat back into the sofa and rolled his eyes. Tom could see the wad of gum pinched between the surfer’s teeth.

The banker didn’t let his eyes go back to the secretary. Tom wished he could listen in on their conversation after he and Hathaway left the room.

Hathaway settled down. “A married man. I guess not all guys wear a wedding ring, huh? We talk to your wife, what’s she going to tell us? Maybe we should go talk to Mrs. Dunn, Tommy. What do you think?”

“I think we should.” He turned for the door.

“You talk to whoever you want.” The brother stood behind his desk. “I’ve got nothing to hide, you understand? I’m not the convict here. I’m not the one who’s been in and out of prison all his life. I’ve never been him. I never will be. You getting this?”

Tom watched him. Something here. Something real. “So you’re the good one. He’s the black sheep. That’s the story?”

“Yeah. That’s the story.” The brother’s chest was pumping, his back hunched to pin both fists knotted against the desktop. “You’re leaning on the wrong guy.”

“Nothing here but more onion, huh?”

Jason stood away from the desk and folded his arms over his pressed shirt. This guy had some of Flip’s bulk, but he was softer. No pumping iron in the yard like his little brother, but there was some toughness hidden underneath.

He turned to face him. “Let me see your hands.”

“What?”

“Your hands. I want to see how clean they are.”

“Cute. They’re clean. I’m not the one you need to worry about. Like I said, if I see him, I’ll call you. You have my word.”

Tom wanted to make a crack about the word of bankers, but he let it go. He went back to the door.

“Hold on a second, Tommy. I got one more thing.” Hathaway slid forward on the sofa. That gum would be worn out soon. He leaned toward the secretary.

“What school in Philly’d you go to, baby?”

“Stop calling me baby.”

No tears now. Letting that cat with bared claws out just enough. She had it on a tight leash.

“What school? Penn? Drexel?”

“None of your business.”

Hathaway smiled. He stood. “That’s okay. We can find out. I just thought you might want to save us a little time. You know, support your local law enforcement.”

Her face shifted. Something back there behind her eyes working. It didn’t take long. “All right. I’m sorry. You just . . . I went to school at University of the Arts. Graduated in ’04.”

Tom looked at Hathaway.

“Oh, sure. That’s up by Wister Woods, isn’t it?”

She leveled her green eyes at him. “No. It’s near city hall, and you know it.”

Hathaway smiled at her again. “You caught me, baby.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

He stood. The smile didn’t fade at all, but his constant gnawing at the gum warped the smile into a smirk. “Well, Tommy, I’d say we better get on.”

* * *

Jason watched Brenda shut the door behind them. She turned the latch to keep everyone out, put her back to the door, and locked her eyes on Jason.

They melted him every time. That color, the shape of them. They were visual music. Nothing else was like them. They hit him in a place he’d forgotten existed.

“I’m getting the IDs.” She said it quietly. A secret between them like all the others.

He came around to the open space between them, and as soon as he was past the desk he wanted to close in on her. A smile spread across his face, and she answered it.

“Then it’s on.”

“It’s on.” She put her arms around him, and all space went away.

This close, he lost himself in that greenness, sunlight refracted inside green jewels. He kissed her.

She nodded over her shoulder. “What about them?”

He pulled away. “You’d better unlock the door. We’ve got to play it cool around here. It’s hard, though, being so close to you and keeping my hands off you.” He touched her side. Her hand ran down his arm.

“We have to do something about them, Jason.”

“I’ll rub them out.” He made a gun with his fingers.

“I’m not kidding.” Those eyes, so clear, crisp as a cloudless country sky. They held something he hadn’t seen before. They’d become cold.

Time stopped. The ticking of the clock on the wall continued, but here with Brenda, the planet stopped spinning. He heard phones ringing outside the door, the murmur of dozens of voices conducting business. A different kind of business than what was happening in here.

“What do you have in mind?”

“They’re not going to stop until they find something out.”

“They won’t find anything. Or if they do, it’ll be too late.”

Her arms folded. “I thought you were all-in on this.”

“Sure I’m all-in.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Like I said before, we just have to get it right. You get the IDs. Keep practicing that signature. That’s your part. I’ll handle the heavy lifting.”

“The heavy lifting just left. We have to get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them? How?”

She stared at him. Jason had the sense that they were standing alone on ice so thin the wrong step would drown them forever.

“I’m not killing anybody,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Neither are you.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I couldn’t. I’m just saying—”

“You’d better get back to your desk. We don’t want to give them anything else to talk about.”

She held her stare for another few seconds. Then she turned and left the door open. Rounding her desk, she caught his eyes again for an instant and then disappeared behind the wall.

He was afraid to take a step. Afraid of drowning in the icy waters.

His own words echoed in his mind. “I’m not killing anybody.”