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“You there, Tommy? Want me to bring the cat around?”

What had I done in a previous life to deserve this?
Blood washes your enemy into the pit of hell
. That about summed it up.

“Tommy?”

“Bring whatever food and cat boxes are there, OK? And please don’t forget the scratching post.”

“I’m so sorry, Tommy. You want me to talk to Vinny?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll take care of it. My responsibility.”

“No, it was Yvette’s responsibility. It got stuck on you.”

“Nobody stuck me with anything but cats. I stuck myself.”

I hung up, stood, and hobbled inside. The shrapnel-wounded leg was stiff.

Poured myself a few fingers of brandy and sat on the couch.

Somehow this must all be my fault. I was a sucker, a rube, an idiot.

The bell rang.

Too soon for Carol.

I peeked out the blinds. It was a short, older gentleman in an expensive suit. Not exactly a pollster or cable TV salesman. So I went out to see what was what. Whatever he had for me could hardly be any worse than the kick in the teeth I’d already had. In fact, if I was to get any more of a beating, I’d just as soon get it all over with that afternoon. Because at four I was limping over to Monahan’s for football, martinis, and steak. I was too sore for Delilah, though maybe I’d go over to cheer myself up after I saw Vinny on Tuesday. I opened the front door.

“What’s what?”

He handed me a card. It was mine. On the back in my writing it said:

I cocked an eye at him. “Rosenburg?”

“May I come in?”

He followed me through the foyer into my dark apartment. I mean, it was daytime, but I didn’t have any lights on. I realized it looked like I was lumbering around in a cave, so I flicked on a few lamps.

Rosenburg smiled weakly at my cheap art prints.

“You want some brandy, Mr. Rosenburg? I wouldn’t be having any myself except—”

“Yes.”

“It’s not the best, but…” I felt like my life must be pretty shabby compared to his. My self-esteem has been a lot higher than it was that day.

He didn’t respond, he just waited. I splashed some brandy in a snifter and handed it down to him. Like I said, he was a little guy with bushy gray eyebrows that looked like check marks on his forehead. Dignified and small—kind of a common combination among the rich. I’m just saying.

“Have a seat.” I waved a hand at the couch, and he perched on the edge, gently swirling the snifter at his knee.

I sat down in the wing chair across from him with a groan. “I’d have offered you the good chair here, Mr. Rosenburg, except if I sit on the couch I can’t get up. I had a little accident.”

“Accident?” He cocked a gray check mark. “I wouldn’t call what you’ve been through an accident.” His nose huffed at the snifter, and he sipped.

“Whatever this week was, it left me a little busted up, temporarily. By the way, I really admire your collection of Mondrians. Top notch. That wing at the museum, just standing there surrounded by them all was kind of magical.”

“Magical?” He seemed to like that word. “You are an interesting man, Tommy.”

I felt negative energies weighing down on me. “I’m not sure interesting is exactly the right word.”

“Let me try again.” His silver eyes squinted at the brandy in his snifter and then at me. “You are a crook, and that card was an extortion note. Is there any reason I shouldn’t consider you a part of Atkins and McCracken’s cabal? You were at the museum Friday night conspiring with Atkins to sneak the paintings back into storage. Why?”

First Max, then another cat, now this. Another kick in the balls for Tommy Davin.

I says, “If I hadn’t gone to Staten Island, and if his wife hadn’t shown me those paintings, you never would have seen those two pips again. It was my idea to get the paintings back to the museum and then spring the news that there were two too many paintings at the museum. To you. To catch McCracken in a bad spot and stop the looting of the Whitbread’s storage. Also to hopefully find the Hoffman, Le Marr, and Ramirez I’d been contracted to find by United Southern Assurance. How’s that grab you?”

So he says, “McCracken tried to implicate you and Atkins.”

I shrugged. “Why would I leave you a note if I was looting the Whitbread Museum?”

“Exactly. You seem pellucid on your place in this.”

“I am.” Pellucid? I made a note to look that up in Dee’s Scrabble dictionary.

“The police have checked the records and found cash inflow from Dunwoody through a dummy corporation into the Whitbread coffers.”

I almost sipped my brandy. “So why are you here?”

He stood and handed me an envelope. “A token of our appreciation.”

I opened the envelope. There was a check for fifteen thousand dollars.

Now I drank the brandy, then looked up at him. “So why the third degree?”

He smiled like Father Christmas. “I had to be sure.”

“And you’re sure?”

“I never liked McCracken. I know character. You’ve got some.” He tugged on his bottom lip. “So what are your plans?”

I struggled to my feet. “I have some medieval icons and relics to locate. Thanks for the check, I really appreciate that. Especially because USA shafted me. Seeing as how the three paintings I was looking for never left the building, they say they were never stolen in the first place. I knock myself out for them for nothing. Cute, huhn? So thanks, this will help toward some expenses.” I still had to pay Carol and Blaise.

He responded by turning toward the front door, chuckling the way rich men do: to themselves, and deep in their profit-driven souls. Nice guy, though.

At the top of the stoop I put out a hand. “Please shake it gently—my shoulder was dislocated.”

He curled his bottom lip and shook my hand hard. I didn’t yelp.

Two steps down Rosenburg stopped. “Mr. Davin?”

He cocked one of those check marks at me, a silver eye turned my direction.

“The Whitbread has an opening for head of security. Interview.”

Rosenburg cleared his throat and went on his way. I watched until he reached Smith Street, where he hailed his limo and zoomed north toward Manhattan.

The Giants beat Dallas.

The martinis were dry.

The porterhouse was rare.

I was dancing inside.

MONDAY MORNING, THE CAT FOOD
arrived from Pet Food Pete, and I fed some of it to Turner. He looked at the food and then at me, sort of saying, “She’s not coming back, is she?”

“I’m not so bad, Turner.” I stroked his tail. “Just so you know, though, if you act out and decide to start shitting outside the box, that kind of negativity won’t help establish a positive energy flow between us.”

I suited up and went to my bank to cash the check from Lee J. Rosenburg.

After that I went to pay Vince. Didn’t matter that I was a day early. Not for nothing, but I wanted this little adventure in my life over with and done.

After that I went to see Delilah. She had to work around my dislocated shoulder, and afterward she rebandaged my left hand with comfrey leaf salve, a natural remedy. I filled her in on most of what happened.

We sat at the Scrabble board. I had mostly vowels so I played “cooee” for only seven points—the first “e” was on a double letter space. Cooee is an Australian shout. It was Delilah’s turn.

She says, “Ever find out why Yvette left you, Tommy?”

So I says, “She told the Miami cops she left me because she got word Gustav found out where she was.”

“That change anything?”

“Can’t see why it would. I know it’s early, but mind if I have a glass of wine?”

Almond eyes looked up from her tile pew. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, Tom.”

Dee’s smile meant I had permission to go to the pantry and pop a cork.

Delilah was still studying her tiles when I got back with a glass of pinot. “Detective Doh tells me Yvette skipped bail.”

“Think she’ll come back?”

“Walter tells me she showed up back in Vegas. I think I’ll be hitting Atlantic City from now on.”

“And what about the other one?”

“Other one?”

“The indie girl in the green loft.”

“I told you, I got her cat.”

Dee smiled and rolled her eyes. “You see a pattern here, Tom?”

“Women keep taking my money and sticking me with their cats. Except…”

“Except?”

“When I went to Vince, a funny thing happened.”

Those beautiful brown almond eyes met mine. “Funny how?”

I sipped my wine and leaned back. “So I hand over the envelope with the fifteen thousand I got from Rosenburg to Vince, who was in a blue jumpsuit. The pink monkey wasn’t there.

“He says, ‘All here?’

“I says, ‘Fifteen thou. We’re square.’

“He tapped the envelope against his chin, thinking, and then handed it back.

“So I says, ‘What’s this?’

“And he says, ‘The debt is already paid. Saturday.’

“So I says, ‘I was in the hospital Saturday.’

“Vinny looked a little annoyed and pointed at the envelope. He says, ‘I
could
have taken that money just now.’

“I says, ‘What’s what, Vinny? I don’t get it.’

“He says, ‘I already told you the debt is paid.’

“Now I says, ‘Not by me. You’re going to have to explain this to me, Vinny. I’m a clever guy, but I’m not too smart sometimes.’

“‘A young lady paid it,’ he says. I’m thinking Carol or you was the only lady who would have put that kind of cash up for me.

“I ask, ‘Who?’

“He says, ‘Red beret and red scarf. She paid me, you can pay her. I may be a strict lender, but I’m not a crook. I won’t steal money. Even yours.’”

Delilah began laying out some tiles. “She paid your debt with half the thirty thousand you got from Kootie?”

“Looks that way. Bridget used that cash to pay my debt on Yvette before skipping town and sticking me with her cat. Guess she felt saving her bacon out there in the scrap yard was worth something. So I can pay you for the last couple sessions, Dee. And my lawyer. And my locksmith. And Blaise for the snoops. I should have a little left over for my rent and groceries.”

Across the word “spine” she had laid out the word “sublime.”

Like Pop used to say,
What goes around, comes around
.