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Hunter
* * *
I’m still thinking about her when I arrive at the airport. Toby’s waiting for me in the first-class lounge, a glass of beer in his hand. He hands me a file and a glass of my own. I pass him the memory card, and he makes it vanish.
“She clean?” I ask as I flick to the first page of the file.
“You mean will you step on anyone’s toes if you fuck her? Not as far as I can tell. Not a hint of connection to the five families.”
“Good.” I take a sip of my drink. “Sum it up for me.”
“Bex Fox, eighteen years old for now.”
“For now?”
“Birthday tomorrow, turning nineteen.”
“I see.”
“Lives with Ursula Shaw, also eighteen, in an apartment in Bridgeport, takes the metro to Union, and then a five-minute walk to her office.”
“What else?”
“What do you need? I’ve got enough here to write her biography.”
“Family?”
“Her dad is fifty-one and was the drummer in The Try Hards in the 90s. Mom died last year aged thirty-six. He’s in prison for killing her. Far as I can tell, Bex’s had no contact with him since she was sixteen. The two of them were real pieces of work. Burglary, drugs charges, vice got involved for a while.”
“Anything else I need to know?”
“She moved to Chicago when she turned sixteen after breaking up with a guy called Oswald Lewis. The local paper covered it because she had to take out a restraining order against him. He went psycho when she dumped him and attacked her a bunch of times. She came to the city to get away from him by the looks of it.”
“Got herself a surrogate daddy to replace the shitty one but went for the same type of man he was. No wonder he fucked her over when it ended. He’s still hovering around like a fly you can’t swat. She got a record at all?”
“Like I say, she’s clean. Done well to stay clean with those pieces of shit for parents. No record and no connections. Nothing that could hurt us.”
I hear a voice I recognize over by the door.
“Why not? Isn’t my money good enough?”
Bex is arguing with the doorman.
I whistle, and he looks my way. “She’s with me,” I tell him. “Let her through.”
She wheels her case past him, heading my way as I mutter to Toby. “Get lost.”
He’s gone like he was never here. That’s what makes him such a goodconsigliere. He knows when he’s not needed.
“What are you doing here?” Bex asks as she approaches.
“First-class lounge. I’ve got a first-class ticket. How about you?”
“Me too, but apparently, my sneakers aren’t appropriate for this place. Stuck-up asshole.”
“Told you to get new ones. Want a drink?”
“God, yes.”
