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Chapter 36
DARREN
Past
From outside my office door, I watch Felipe give Bridget a long hug after she tells him the good news that he has his ten thousand dollars. I’m not sure why Felipe was hesitant to ask me himself. I would have given him the money. He knows too much about what goes on in the club, so I need to keep him happy. But I’m glad Bridget did the asking because I got something out of it that I wasn’t expecting. Per her usual MO, she wants to think about the choices I left her. Maybe run a regression analysis on the options, she joked. I didn’t laugh because I don’t know what the hell a regression analysis is.
“Thanks for the heads-up about Amy,” JD says to me on the phone as I step into the office. “I was thinking to come over, but I don’t feel like hanging out with her tonight.”
“Are you done with her?” I ask.
“I think so.”
I pour myself some baijiu from a sideboard even though I’d had some earlier. “Then let her know.”
“Shit, I hate having those types of conversations. She should just get the message.”
I down the baijiu. “You can beat the crap out of a guy, but you can’t say a few words to a woman? Man up, bro.”
“I guess I can text her.”
That’s better than nothing.
“What’d you do with Manny’s body?” I ask.
“Actually gave him a decent end, nice guy that I am. Had him cremated. Old Dog knows the owner of a funeral parlor.”
I picture Manny’s mother riddled with anxiety when she realizes her son has disappeared. “We just going to leave it at that?”
“Why not? Nobody’s going to miss him.”
“His mom will report him missing.”
“So? It’s not going to lead anywhere.”
JD’s right. Manny’s family isn’t high up or as significant in the triad as JD, so I doubt anyone in the Jing San is going to look too closely into it. And if they did, they would have to side with JD. Manny wrote his own death warrant.
“What if Manny told someone else his plan?” I ask. “People besides Tran or the PSB. We might have just started something with the PSB.”
“You think I’m fucking scared of the PSB?”
“If they know something, they might go to the cops.”
“That’s what we’ve got Trawley for. You worried?”
Not really. I don’t know who else Manny would have confided his plans to. Possibly his mom. If I share that thought with JD, he might want to take care of Mrs. Wu to be on the safe side.
I decide to pour myself more baijiu before sitting down at my desk.
We killed Manny too soon. Now I’m going to have to figure out what, if anything, Mrs. Wu knows. The easiest way would be through my mom, who’s fairly close to Manny’s mom, but I don’t want to drag my mother into this.
From the corner of my eye, I see from one of the security screens that Kimberly is outside my office.
“Kimberly’s just walked in,” I tell JD.
“You ever think about getting back together with her?” JD asks. “She’s super-hot. You guys made a good-looking couple.”
I don’t answer. “I’ll catch you later.”
