“Nice cars,” Morgan said as he straightened up and looked over the roof at the blond asshole. “Boyd didn’t say what you did.”
Maybe he thought it would be too much temptation for Morgan, with his rap sheet. Or Morgan just hadn’t asked. He still wasn’t entirely clear what Boyd did, other than he made enough to not miss fifteen grand in bail money. Or that’s what Morgan wanted to believe, anyhow.
He squashed the thought for now, as though Shay might smell his bad intentions on the air, and rapped his knuckles against the roof of the car.
“It belong to some collector?” he asked.
Shay gave the car an odd look. It wasn’t easy to read. “No,” he said. “He’s mine. My first love. Pretty sure my ex would have named him in the divorce if she could. Come on in. I’ll pour you a coffee.”
Morgan stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Why? You don’t want any witnesses when you punch me?” he asked. “Or you just punch guys you know aren’t going to hit you back?”
Emotions chased each other over Shay’s face. A flash of anger tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes. Then it was promptly punctured by shame. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and swallowed hard.
“I’m not going to hit you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have hit Boyd. I’m not proud of that. I’m not like that anymore, and I’ve apologized to him. But don’t try to take the high road with me. I still think you’re a con artist.”
Morgan would have taken offense if he hadn’t just worked out what he could get if he boosted Shay’s car.
“Like I care,” he said. “But in that case, why did you want to talk to me?”
Shay curled up the corner of his mouth in a wry smile. “Because no one else has seen through you. Yet,” he said. “So you’re a con artist I have to deal with. Do you want coffee or not?”
He waited, eyebrows raised expectantly, and Morgan scowled at him. After he split Boyd’s lip, Morgan had been ready to dislike Shay anyhow, but add to that Shay Calloway was tall, clean-cut, and broad-shouldered. Handsome enough, Morgan supposed, but respectable looking. The sort of man mothers approved of and dads made plans to watch the game with.
“Whatever.” Morgan pulled his hand out of his pocket and waved toward the shop. “After you.”
Shay rolled his eyes and led the way across the cracked asphalt into the shop. Yellow fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling on dusty chains, and it smelled of oil, damp concrete, and flux. A half-rebuilt Impala, the undignified canary-yellow paint job stripped back to raw metal on the door and roof, was jacked up over the pit.
It was familiar, even down to the owner being an asshole, and Morgan let his guard down a bit.
“Business slow?” he asked. “Or you just shit at it?”
Shay snorted an unexpected laugh. “Bit of both,” he said “Mostly the latter. Grab a seat.”
His office was a corner of the workshop, walled off by filing cabinets and a heavy-duty steel table that supported what looked like the remains of three different engines. There was a kettle balanced on top of a stack of files, and Shay briefly lifted it to check the heft before he turned it on.
Morgan spun the chair around, straddled it, and folded his arms over the backrest. Last night’s brawl had worked some of it out of his system, but he was still spoiling for a fight, even if it was just words, not punches. The odd, shabby domesticity of the off-white cups and the kettle that spat as it boiled undercut that urge.
“You’re not my brother,” Shay said. He tipped coffee and a spoonful of creamer into a cup and then left it while they waited for the water to boil.
“Never said I was,” Morgan said.
Shay leaned his hips back against the desk and crossed his arms. “I never said you were stupid. You don’t need to say anything. The less you say, the easier it is for us to fill in the gaps with what we want. My brother used to sit like that.” Shay nodded at the turned-backward chair. Morgan straightened up and leaned back, suddenly awkward. “So do a dozen people I know. It means nothing unless I want it to. Then it means everything.”
“Fuck off,” Morgan told him. “You think I wanted this? I’ve lost my job, my apartment, and I could end up in prison. All because some asshole can’t run DNA properly. What am I going to get here that makes it worth my time? Your mother rich or something?”
“No. Never. And less now that she’s doled out what she had to anyone who turned up at her door with a ‘clue’ or a piece of evidence the cops missed. She paid nine hundred dollars once for a backpack this woman said was Sammy’s. Only it turned out that she’d seen it in the paper and copied it—right down to the badge he got the summer before. Now I pay her bills, give her some cash, and sometimes she still finds a way to stuff an envelope with fifties for a psychic reading. Tell me, Morgan, you ever thought you might have a gift?”
He raised his eyebrows with bitter humor. The kettle spewed out steam and flicked off.
“Only for getting into trouble,” Morgan said. “I’m an ex-con, but I figure you know that already.”
Shay nodded that he did.
“I’ve got a juvie file as thick as your head too, and I have a mean streak. One thing I’m not is a con artist.”
“So it wasn’t you who cheated a grand out of Robbie at the Red Lion the other night?” he asked.
“Hustled. It’s different. He didn’t seem like he missed it.”
