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“We’re going to have to go on a budget,” he said.
“Said the man who just ordered a nine-dollar glass of wine.”
“It’s rude of you to point that out.”
We were quiet for a bit. Well, longer than a bit; long enough for me to wonder if something was wrong. Then Ronnie said, “They accepted my offer on the co-op by the way.”
“That’s great. Isn’t it?”
“Doyouwant the co-op?”
“I gave you money for it, didn’t I?”
He gave me a look that made it clear he noticed I’d avoided answering the question. I tried changing the subject.
“I drove up to Corcoran today. I’ve been looking into a twenty-year-old murder. The guy who’s in prison for the murder is innocent. But I can’t prove it. I had to tell him we couldn’t take his case.”
“That must have been depressing.”
“It was.”
Rod returned with Ronnie’s wine and my iced tea. The wine he set down carefully for Ronnie; my iced tea nearly ended up in my lap. When Rod was gone, Ronnie said, “I have a mortgage guy at Chase. He thinks he can get us into a decent mortgage with twenty percent down, and then we can put an immediate second on it with a hundred and ten percent cap. That would give us close to twenty thousand to begins renovation.”
“Begin?”
“I don’t think twenty thousand is enough. But if I can convince everyone in the building to go condo...”
“There’s a cost related to that as well, though, isn’t there?”
“It’s not awful. We’ll deal with it when we get there.”
“Twenty percent down is about twelve thousand dollars. Where is that coming from?”
“My commission is almost two thousand, that gets applied. John is paying two months’ rent in advance. That’s another thousand. If I can manage to launder two thousand of what you gave me, that’s five of it. I have another five coming in commissions over the next six weeks. That leaves me only two thousand short.”
He sipped his wine, then asked, “You don’t have any more money stashed away, do you?”
“No.” I lied. I was tempted to give him more, but I knew better than to short myself. If I was going to run away, I needed to stay away.
“You know I’m still upset with you.”
“Because I gave you twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“Don’t try to sound like a hero. You keep too many secrets.”
I had to admit that was true. Not that it got us anywhere.
Ronnie took a sip of his wine, and said, “It may be a nine-dollar glass of wine, but it tastes like twelve.”
24
April 19, 1996
Friday dead of night
Idreamed there was a chipmunk chirping in the bedroom. First, he was scurrying around the floorboards. Then he burrowed his way into my pants. And then I woke up enough to realize it wasn’t a chipmunk chirping. It was the damn cellular phone Ronnie bought me. I crawled off the bed, found my jeans on a chair, pulled the phone out of my pocket, and answered—well, croaked into it.
“’Lo?”
