“I’m sending you my dry cleaning bill,” he said as we approached.
“You can send it.” Bram’s tone made it clear the bill would go in the trash.
The guy stood and the first thing I thought was… who the fuck is this joker?
He had some kind of product in his styled brown hair and the smooth skin of a dude who got regular facials.
His navy pants looked like they’d been tailored for his slim build and a dark green button-down under an argyle sweater vest (a fuckingsweatervest, in argyle), plus a scarf that looked like cashmere under an expensive-looking suede jacket.
The guy’s expression turned wary when he realized Bram wasn’t alone. “Who’s this?”
“A guy.”
The other guy frowned. “Aguy?That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Bram said. “If you trust me you trust him, and you can trust him because he knows I’ll cut off his balls and feed them to him in front of my little sister if he talks.”
The other guy grimaced. “Jesus. I don’t even want to know.”
“Seems like we’ve been dating long enough that you should take me someplace nicer,” the guy said, pacing to the river. “It’s cold as fuck out here.”
“I bring all my best girls here,” Bram said, deadpan.
“Haha,” the guy said. “You going to tell me what was so urgent that I had to cancel my manicure?”
“I literally could have asked you to change the oil in the Hummer and it would have been more important than your fucking manicure,” Bram said.
I had no idea what I’d walked into, but it was fucking weird. I wanted to ask the other guy’s name, but I had a feeling this wasn’t that kind of hang, had a feeling it was better to keep my mouth shut.
“Did you? Ask me to come to change the oil on the Hummer?”
“Fuck no. If someone’s going to work on my car, I want someone who knows his ass from a hole in the ground.” Bram turned to me. “Give him the cigarette.”
I hesitated, then pulled a baggie out of my jacket pocket.
Inside was a cigarette butt I’d found when I’d walked the tree line after we’d secured the house the night before.
It had shaken something loose in my memory: the flash of light in the woods outside Anna’s house, the chase through the trees, the cigarette butt I’d found on the ground.
I’d set it aside when we’d returned from England, just in case.
It was a match to the one I’d found last night.
I handed the baggie to the guy in the suede jacket.
“Know what kind of cigarette that might be?” Bram asked.
The other guy opened the baggie and inhaled. “Can I take it out?”
“It’s not official evidence if that’s what you’re asking,” Bram said.
Suede Jacket removed the cigarette and held it to his nose. He inhaled deeply, then held it up to the weak light making its way through the cloud layer.
“Only one brand has a this kind of gold filter, and you can see a little of the black paper above it… here.” He held it out for us to inspect. “See? Sobranie.”
“What’s Sobranie?” I asked.
Suede Jacket looked at me. “He speaks.”
