Enzo sighed. “She killed the mood, didn’t she?” He slumped against the couch, his skin squeaking against the leather cushions. “Do you mind?” He inclined his head toward the cookies. Vero stuffed one in his mouth. “Delicious,” he said as he began to chew. A spray of crumbs and powdered sugar dusted the carpet of dark hair on his chest. He jutted his chin toward his drink. I held the heavy glass to his lips as he slurped down a long sip.
He wiped his mouth on his wrist and sucked cookie dough from his teeth. “I guess we might as well skip the pleasantries and get to the less interesting reason for your visit. I understand you ladies had a stroke of bad luck at the craps table last night.” He clucked his tongue. “That’s areal shame. Your poker game was pretty impressive. Hated to see you lose it all on one roll like that. Take it from me,” he said, shaking a finger at us, “no good ever came out of laying everything on the table and rolling the dice. You gotta play smart.” He tapped his temple. “You look smart. Are you smart?” he asked me.
“Jesus, take the wheel,” Vero muttered.
“Because if you are, I’m prepared to make a deal.” Enzo got up, the long ties of his robe dragging along the floor as he crossed the room to a life-sized acrylic painting of Madonna (likea virgin, not the actual one) and swung it away from the wall, exposing a hidden safe. He used his nose to punch in the code and nudged open the door with his cuffed wrists, revealing stacks of bills bound in tight rubber bands.
He grabbed a thick brick of cash, dropping it onto the coffee table in front of us.
Vero reached for the money. “I like him better already.”
I slapped her hand away. “What’s that?” I asked Enzo.
“Play money. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Normally, I don’t let anyone walk out of here with this kind of cash for less than twenty percent interest, but I like you, so I’m willing to take fifteen. All I need from you is a little collateral,” he explained as he reached for a cookie. “You know, houses, boats, jewelry, cars…”
“Cars?” Vero asked.
“Whatever you’ve got. Just has to be worth enough to cover your losses.” At my frown, Enzo held up his hands. “Standard practice. Any private investor in this city will ask for the same.” My eyes slid to Vero, wondering what she had promised as collateral when she’d cut her deal with Marco for two hundred thousand.
“Not all of them,” she said defensively, as if she’d been reading my thoughts. “I’veheardthatsomeprivate investors in this town don’t require any collateral. They just chargestupidamounts of interest instead, which is howsomeone,” she emphasized, clearly directing her comment to me, “mighthappento end up owing a lot more than she originally thought she was borrowing.”
Enzo laughed. He collapsed backward onto the couch, propping afoot on the coffee table. “If you’re talking about Marco Toscano, his business has been falling apart for months. He’s spent more money chasing deadbeat clients than his interest-only schemes were ever bringing in. It’s a very high-risk model, if you ask me.” Enzo shook his head. “If Toscano had any money left to lend, the pit bosses in his own hotels wouldn’t be feeding his prospects to me. He should have let me buy him off the boardwalk when I made him the offer.”
Vero raised an eyebrow as our eyes caught. When had Enzo made this offer to Marco? Had it been as recently as Friday night? And what might have transpired when Marco refused?
“I have a car,” I offered cautiously, “but it has a few… title issues. They might make it difficult to legally sign it over to you. That is, unless you know someone who might be willing to help me with that.”
“Say no more,” Enzo said. “I know exactly what you mean. I see this sort of thing all the time. Women looking to fence their ex-husbands’ Caddies. Twentysomethings cashing in on their great-granddads’ Buicks, hoping their parents won’t find out about it.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. If you’ve got a car, I got a guy who can sell it. He’ll do whatever you need—disappear a VIN, paint it, scrap it for parts, put it on one of those container ships and dump it across the pond… whatever it takes.”
“So this man has a garage?” I asked delicately.
“Where is it?” Vero asked a little too eagerly.
Enzo jutted his chin at a notepad on the coffee table and recited a street address from memory. Vero scribbled furiously and tore the address from the pad, stuffing it inside her bra.
“Ask for Hector,” Enzo said. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll hold the car at his shop for a few days. You pay me back on time, he gives you back your car.”
“What happens if I’m late?” I asked.
“He sells it. I let him keep a slice of the profit, and everybody’s happy. It’s a win-win.” He laughed. “Unless you lose. Then it’s just a win for me. But don’t worry,” he said, the leather squeaking under him as he got up and reached for his money. “I’ve got a good feeling about you two. I’llhold on to this for you until I hear from Hector.” Vero craned her neck, peering over his shoulder as he returned the cash to the safe. “See, if I was Marco, I’d probably just let you take the money. But then you’d lose it all in the casino and I’d have to send a guy to find you and break a few of your bones. That’s no way to do business. It makes me sad. This way, we can all still be friends,” he said jovially. “And maybe next time, you’ll bring your bikinis and try the sauna.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell when we—”
“—pass up an offer like that!” I finished for Vero. “If you’ll excuse us, we should be getting to Hector’s. Thank you for your time.” Vero stole a cookie off the plate as I grabbed her gym bag and dragged her out of the condo.
“I will never be able to unsee that,” she said when we were safely in the elevator. “Did you hear that, Finn? Hector’s garage sounds like a chop shop.”
“It also sounds like Enzo and Marco were in the middle of some kind of turf war. You think Enzo could have killed him for his business?”
“It doesn’t sound like Marco had much of a business worth stealing.”
“No, but Enzo could have been doing his sister a favor. Giada hated Marco. And they were technically still married when he was murdered, so she’d likely inherit his assets. Enzo also admitted to doing business with this garage. The pieces all fit.”
“Not all of them. Louis was the one who contacted the garage about the car, not Enzo.”
“But we don’t know who actually delivered it.”
Vero thought about that as the elevator slowed. “If Enzo was the murderer, why didn’t he take Kevin Bacon and give the dog back to his sister? Why leave him locked in a bathroom for the police to find? And why wasn’t Marco’s ledger in Enzo’s safe?”
