He opened the folder.A photograph of the buff-colored notebook lay on top, its curled pages captured mid-fan.He turned it so the image faced Tommy.“This yours?”
Tommy chewed his lip.“Never seen it.”
“Good,” Marcus said.“Then you won’t mind us checking it for prints, DNA…”
“Wait.”Panic cracked through the bravado.“It’s just names.That’s all.”
The door opened with a soft whisper.Kate came in with a second coffee and no smile.She took the chair beside Marcus, angled slightly toward Tommy so he had to turn his head to avoid her.She didn’t offer the coffee.
“Tommy,” she said, cool as a scalpel.“I’m Special Agent Valentine.I don’t have a lot of time for fairy tales.You’re going to tell us about the list.”
“Ain’t mine.”
“It’s in your handwriting,” Kate said.“It was found with your belongings.Next lie, you’re out of freebies.”
He swallowed.The muscles in his jaw moved like he was grinding stones.“It’s just research.”
“For who?”
He kept his eyes down.The tendon at his throat jumped.
Kate didn’t raise her voice.“I think it’s a hit list,” she said.“And making a hit list makes you an accessory to murder.You can go down for life for that, Tommy.Even if we never find the person who swings the knife.Do you want that?”
The words landed.Colour rose and fell in his face.For a second he looked twelve.
“I didn’t… I didn’t know,” he said.“Iswearto God.”
“Who asked for the names?”Kate asked.
Silence stretched.In the glass, Tommy’s reflection looked smaller than the real man.
“The Reverend,” he said, barely audible.
Marcus glanced at Kate.She didn’t move.“The Reverend who?”
“That’s what people call him,” Tommy said, louder now, like rehearsed.“It’s what he told me to call him.I’m Man Friday, ormostlyjust Friday.He the Reverend.”
“Where’d you meet him?”Marcus asked.
“Soup van,” Tommy said.“Under the 3rdAvenue Bridge.Thursdays.”
“How long ago?”
“Six, seven weeks.”
“Which?”
“Maybe eight,” he replied, with a grin.
“And he gave you this job?”
Tommy nodded, then added quickly, “Paid job.He pays right away, too.None of this IOU crap.”
“How much for a name?”Marcus asked.
“Twenty for me, twenty for...”His voice died away, but they didn’t push it, for now.They’d circle back.
Kate put the untouched coffee in front of Tommy now.“Drink.”
