Tonio sighed, then shot me a look. It said: permission? Or maybe: want to take over? I shook my head. This was their game. I stuck to the wall, hands in my pockets, pretending not to notice the blood drying into my bandage.
Sal looked at me. When I didn’t move, he turned back to the guy, then reached into his pocket for the kitchen knife. Bone handle, blade sharpened so many times the metal looked skeletal. He opened it slow, let the click echo in the silence, and set it upright on the table by the man’s thumb.
Tonio tapped the hilt with a knuckle. “You want me to do it, or do you want to talk?”
Silence.
Sal didn’t move. Tonio took the knife, and with a practiced grip, lined the edge right up against the first knuckle. He didn’t cut. He just let the blade rest there, cold and certain.
This time the man did twitch, but Tonio had the leverage. He pressed the hand down, until the nails scraped at the lacquer. For a second, I thought the guy would pass out, but he just spat at the floor. “Was a job,” he said, finally.
Tonio relaxed a hair. “What job?”
The man’s lips curled. “Pickup.”
Sal’s turn to speak, voice clipped. “Who?”
The man’s eyes flicked between us. “Girl.”
Tonio grinned. “We know it was a fucking girl, you idiot. But who is she? Why did you have to pick her up?”
He wouldn’t look at any of us. “Don’t know. Don’t know who she is.”
Sal didn’t even flinch. “You know her name?”
The man grunted, shrugged, then shut his mouth. But the lines in his neck betrayed him, so Tonio pushed the knife until it drew a thin bead of red.
“Who wanted the pickup?” Sal said, soft as a lullaby.
The man tried to tough it out, but the pain was real now. “Halberd,” he spit. “It was Halberd.”
The room stopped. All of us, even the younger guy in the corner, felt it. The fucking hedge fund. They had connections to dirty money, Valenti money. Someone snitched, and the managers and staff ended up in prison. Even some Valentis got tied into it. A dirty business. It should have been a dead story—everyone who mattered was locked up or dead in the ground.
“Halberd is dead,” I said. “Halberd’s in prison.”
The man bared his teeth. “Men in prison. But the money’s still out there.”
He wasn’t wrong. Money was always out there, sliding along wires and through offshore accounts, outlasting the men whomade it. Some accountant in the Caymans was still cashing invoices for the dead.
Sal asked, “What did they want with her?”
The man sucked in a breath, held it, then let it go. “Alive. That’s all. No questions.”
“Why?” I demanded, stepping closer. “Why risk importing muscle for this girl? You’re not even from here.”
He darted his eyes at me—up, down, like he was calculating my price—but he must have seen something that disagreed with him, because he just shook his head. “Not our job to know. That’s above us.”
Sal folded his arms, stared at the knife, then at the man. “You ever see her before this?”
“No.” The answer was instant.
Tonio eased the hand up, just a fraction, to give him hope. “You were to deliver her where?”
He hesitated. “Norridge. Safe house.”
“And then?” Sal pressed.
The man’s mouth went dry. He licked his lips, then said it: “Brothel. She’d be sent to the house. Like the others.”
