Page 93 of The Dearly Departed

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Was it you? Shawn?" He chuckled, the sound a breathless huff as he sat down on the twin sofa across from me. "Certainly not your brother. Honestly blows my mind that he even managed to graduate high school, let alone college."

"Shawn found it," I admitted easily. "He was looking through Leonard's records and saw the deposits. That’s what he does. If he finds something, he goes digging, and then he came to me about it."

Gerald nodded, an expression of pride on his face. "And so you just assumed Lenny was gettin’ the money from me?"

"Where the fuck else would he get it from?" I challenged him, tipping my head. "He was barely getting by. The place was falling apart. The three of us figured business was suddenly booming, but no. Apparently, it was you, keeping the whole damn thing afloat. And I'm here now, trying to figure out why the hell you would do that."

The smile wilted from his face as he sucked in a breath and tipped his head slightly, assessing me with a hardened glare. "I told you before, Abraham, he was my—"

"Oh, knock it off, Gerald," I fired back, feeling the power slipping into my grasp, even just a little bit. "You want me to believe Leonard was your friend? Sure, fine, I could maybe entertain the idea that you grew to like him over the years—he was a likable kind of guy—but that's not what happened initially. Not in the beginning. No, you made a deal with him, didn’t you? What was it?"

He was perturbed now, shifting his jaw from side to side and poking his inner cheek with the tip of his tongue. I had rattled his cage, asked the right questions, gotten beneath his skin in a way that made his typical I don't give a shit attitude wash away to reveal the scumbag businessman underneath.

He stood up, circled to the back of the couch I sat on, and asked, "You want a drink?"

"Nope."

"One day, you will."

I laughed at that. "Nah, I've seen too many people throw their lives away with drugs and booze. I don't suspect I'll ever be one of them."

His chuckle was bitter and rough as he poured himself some whiskey from the crystal decanter. "Oh, my boy … you're new to this life, but that means you're still naive. You think you'll be able to get by on sobriety, but let me tell you something. Sooner or later, kiddo, you're gonna do something, you're gonna see something …" With a glass in his hand, he walked around the couches again to resume his seat. "And you're not gonna have a choice but to pop a few pills, stick a needle in your vein, or down a bottle of something or other … just to grab a few hours of sleep."

The hardened look in his eyes made me wonder what it was he had seen or done. I wondered if I even wanted to know. But then he seemed to consider something, tipping his head and pursing his lips as he studied my face.

"Or maybe you're already too fucked up," he said, as if thinking aloud.

"Maybe I am," I challenged, my eyes narrowed on him.

With a sigh, he knocked the drink back, took a hearty gulp, then lowered the glass to rest against his thigh as he said, "Anyway, as for the money, think of it as, uh …” He snapped his fingers a few times, his brow pinched, as if trying to find the words he was looking for, then pointed at me and exclaimed, “Child support! That’s it. It was child support."

The words startled a laugh from my chest.

"Child support?" I repeated, incredulous. “Give me a fucking break.”

He offered a nod. "No, that’s exactly what it was. A hundred grand a year for each of my kids," he said. "Paid your salaries. Paid for the roof over your head. Food, clothing, school. Whatever you needed."

I was silent, mulling the explanation over in my mind. I wanted it to be bullshit, but it made sense, didn't it? It added up. Nothing was much of a struggle after Leonard started receiving that money—unbeknownst to any of us at the time.

But there was still something else. Something I hadn't mentioned yet.

"No," I said, shaking my head.

He raised a brow. "No?"

"You weren't giving him money out of the goodness of your heart," I said. "You did it in exchange for funerals. We found that out too. There were funerals we were doing for nothing, and that money you gave him … that was payment."

But Gerald shook his head. "Those funerals, kiddo … that was Lenny’s idea. I offered the money with zero stipulations—"

"Oh, give me a fucking break with this shit," I said, rolling my eyes.

He stood his ground though, his expression unmoving. "He told me no, unless it was in exchange for something. But he had nothing to give other than funeral services, and since my guys had a way of getting themselves killed on occasion, I took him up on the offer."

My lips pressed into a terse line as I waited for him to continue, certain there had to be more. But he only shrugged and took another sip from his glass.

The grip I had on my faith in my old friend was slipping. I wanted what Gerald was saying to be a lie. I was desperate for it to be so. But there was no other logical explanation for it.