“Actually, make it two. I’ll be right back.”
“Now we’re cooking with gas,” Old Charlie cracked.
Gibson went out through the kitchen to the back door, ready to win a bet with himself. Sure enough, the gray Scion idled beside the van. Behind the wheel, Gibson’s faithful shadow glowered at him. Rather than glower back, Gibson smiled. He felt a sense of admiration for Swonger. A camaraderie that surprised him, especially given all the trouble Swonger had caused him. Whatever else there was to say about Gavin Swonger, there was absolutely no quit in him. Didn’t mean that Gibson didn’t want to throttle him, and strangely that gave him sympathy for all the people in his life who wanted to throttle Gibson. An insight into what it must be like to care about him. He waved for Swonger to join him inside and went back to his two tumblers of whiskey.
“You gonna drink both of those?” Old Charlie inquired.
“Don’t know yet,” Gibson replied.
After a minute, Swonger eased through the kitchen door and stood there warily. “What do you want?”
“Talk.”
“One point two seven billion. Nothing else to say,” Swonger said, but came over to the bar anyway.
“Then how about you listen?”
“Where’s the money?”
Gibson considered the best way to answer. He’d get only one shot at convincing Swonger, who wasn’t the easiest sell on his best day. And this had been no one’s best day. It would need to be a big play if he hoped to sway Swonger. Something that would put Swonger in the frame of mind to reconsider what he thought he knew for certain.
“Give me your gun.”
“What for? Don’t work.”
“I’ll give it back.”
Swonger gave him a funny look but popped the magazine before handing over the gun. Then he took a seat at the bar next to Gibson and fidgeted nervously with the magazine. Gibson slid one of the whiskeys over to him. Swonger didn’t touch it.
“You’ve pulled this on me three times now,” Gibson said and began to disassemble the .45. “First time, up in New York, I thought you were just dumb. You’re not, though, are you? Not by a long shot. But that thing they say about first impressions . . . well, yours stuck. Longer than it should have. And I’ve been treating you like you’re stupid longer than I should’ve. I mean, you don’t make it easy, but still, that’s on me. Second time, at the motor pool, I told you not to bring a gun, but you did anyway. That was kind of the last straw. I knew I couldn’t trust you, but I didn’t get rid of you. I just pretended like it didn’t happen and kept going. Couldn’t figure out why I did that. But I realized something today.”
He paused and produced the firing pin and the stop from his back pocket with a street magician’s flair.
Swonger’s face went slack. “Son of a . . . When? How?”
“Queens.”
Swonger did the math and didn’t like the sum of what it implied. “I been packing a busted piece since New York? That shit’s cold, dog.”
Gibson shrugged and put the gun back together while he told Swonger what he’d learned from Martin Yardas. He told it carefully. It was a true story, but that didn’t mean it sounded true. Especially to someone who would want so desperately for it to be a lie. Who wanted to believe that their winning lottery ticket was off by one number? He finished with Martin’s suicide.
“And then you burst in,” Gibson said.
“You expect me to believe any of that?”
Gibson took the magazine from Swonger’s hand. Swonger didn’t let it go immediately, but Gibson tugged it free without too much struggle. A good sign that maybe he’d gotten through to him. Margo looked on in mute disbelief as Gibson slapped the magazine back into place and racked the slide. He laid the gun on the bar and pushed it back to Swonger.
“Oh, I can’t even with this,” Margo said and retreated to the relative safety of her office.
Old Charlie lifted his shot in anticipation of what might come next.
Swonger stared at it skeptically. “What’s that supposed to prove?”
“It’s a grand gesture, Swonger. Have a little poetry?”
Swonger picked up the .45, feeling the weight of it, studying it in search of answers. Gibson could only wait to see whether Swonger was friend, foe, or executioner.
“Poetry, huh? I pull the trigger, it gonna fire?”
“It’ll fire,” Gibson said, the moment of truth slinking into view.
“You a conundrum, dog, know what I’m saying?”
“So I’m told.”
“So what you realize today?”
Old Charlie tapped his shot on the bar and drank.
Gibson smiled at Swonger. “That I could have been you. Or you could have been me.”
Swonger looked at him quizzically. “How you figure that?”
“If I have a billion dollars, what am I doing back in Niobe?”
“Why’d you come back if you don’t?”
“Lea. The fifth floor took her at the airfield. She’s up in the hotel.”
Swonger paled, but before Gibson could elaborate, the doors to the kitchen swung wide and Deja Noble knifed through, Truck Noble tight behind her. Terry followed, along with seven men. All armed. All grim purpose and ruthless intent.
“Oh, no,” Swonger said.
“What are they doing here?”
“I maybe called Deja.” Swonger didn’t look too happy about that decision now.
The men fanned out across the bar, checking all the doors and corners. Two disappeared into the back room and returned a moment later to take up a post at the mouth of the hallway. One of them tried the door to Margo’s office, but the door was locked. The man listened at it for a moment and then moved on. Deja traipsed toward them, trailing her hand along the bar.
“This town, ah-ahhh, is coming like a ghost town,” she crooned in a faux-English accent. She stopped so close to Swonger that she practically touched him. Humming the melody to the song in his ear like a lover. “What are you fixing to do with that gun, Swong?”
“Nothing,” Swonger said, swallowing hard.
“That’s cool, but what say you let your Deja hold on to it for you, then. For safekeeping.”
Swonger handed it to her with far less deliberation then he had with Gibson. Not that Gibson could blame him. Truck Noble glided past like an iceberg, brushing against their backs, and took the stool beside Gibson. He lifted Gibson’s whiskey, the tumbler no larger than a thimble in his hand, and held it up to his nose. His top lip curled disapprovingly, and he put it down out of Gibson’s reach. Terry stepped up behind Gibson and searched him; down the bar, Old Charlie was getting the same treatment.
“He’s clean,” Terry said.
“After all this, you still out here working your MLK game?” Deja said. “Don’t get you nonviolent types.”
“It has its advantages.”
“Yeah? I was always more of a Malcolm X girl myself.”
“Deja. Fellow over there staring,” Truck grumbled.
Old Charlie had finally found something in the Toproll more fascinating than his shot and beer.
Deja looked down the bar at Old Charlie. “Ain’t nothing to see down here, old man.”
For a half a second, Gibson feared he had something smart to say, but Old Charlie dropped his eyes.