As it pulled away, he and John looked at each other andbegan laughing. “We did it, bro,” Mitch said, pulling John into a hug. They slapped each other on the back. “We pulled it off. There were times when even I was convinced it was for real and wanted to club you.”
“You were a total prick,” John said. “Of course, you’re always a prick.”
Mitch pulled back his fist as though to slug John, and that was when he saw Dylan out of the corner of his eye, standing under the pediment above the entrance to the building. She was looking at him with stark disillusionment.
Realizing what she must have overheard, his stomach dropped.
John said something unintelligible and moved away.
Dylan seemed not to notice. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Mitch. “It was all an act?”
“I admitted to you that it was an act.”
“You didn’t admit all of it, Mitch. You didn’t tell me that you and John cooked it up, or that I was an unknowing participant in a… a police operation.”
“No, Dylan. Listen.” He jogged toward her, but she backed away from him. He stopped where he was, held up both hands, and patted the air. “All right, all right. Just like I told you, I devised it. Laid it out for John. He and I set it up. The whole shebang, the whole pretense. But you know what part of it became real.”
“What part was that, Mitch?”
“You know what part. I—Oh dammit!” His phone vibrated in his hand. He glanced at it. Tucker. He looked at her imploringly. “I’ve got to get this, but this conversation between us is not over.Weare not over.”
The way she folded her arms across her middle indicated otherwise, but he couldn’t miss this call. He clicked on. “I’m here.”
“Greer called me.”
As hard as it was to do while she was looking at him as though ready to kill, he turned his back to her and took several steps away, saying into the phone, “He was supposed to call me.”
“Couldn’t get you, so he called me. Marvin Davis came through. He was an errand boy for Malone, who had him doing chickenshit jobs like delivering packages periodically to a mansion in the Garden District.
“He never saw anybody, just put the envelopes in a lockbox hidden in some bushes. On one such errand, curiosity got the best of him. He peeled back a corner of the envelope, and it was—”
“Cash.”
“No. Better. Reports on intake and outgo of cash and product. The recipient must’ve noticed that the envelope had been tampered with, because days after his meddling, Davis sensed that Malone was watching him. Like a hawk, he said. Asking questions. Was he happy working for him? Like that. About that time, Davis was arrested for a mail fraud scheme, money laundering, so on and so on.
“But he told Greer today that he was actually relieved when he was taken into custody. He was afraid that Malone was working up to killing him. He made his deal with the federal prosecutor and has been babysat by marshals ever since.”
“Who’d the mansion belong to?”
“An LLC.”
“But it’s Busby’s.”
“You’re batting a thousand, Mitch. It’s him.”
Mitch exhaled in a gust, looked over at John, and gave him a wide grin and thumbs-up. But it was too early to celebrate any more than that. Busby still wasn’t in custody.
He went back to Tucker on his phone. “After the raid today that cost him plenty, and with his heaviest heavy hanging in a meat locker, and El Paso in the slammer, Busby’s got to be feeling the pressure. We’ve gotta grab him.”
Tucker said, “He’s got a private jet. He shows it in his commercials. I’ve dispatched a couple of agents out there to snoop around.”
Mitch chewed the inside of his cheek, looked at Dylan, who still appeared hurt and furious in equal measure, then looked at John, who was now talking on his phone.
Mitch said, “I can give you some info on Oz’s flight plans, but I want to be invited to the party.”
“Can’t do it, Mitch.”
“I deserve to be there. You know why.”
