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Page one of the Mickey Gibson notebook.
“I might get to live a little longer, Mickey. I might get to seemykids grow up.”
“You said you didn’t have children.”
“But I still could.”Pour on guilt, because why not?“Anything wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all,” replied Gibson. “Just be prepared not to sleep or eat a decent meal for about eleven years. And I hope you enjoy the comingled smell of Cheerios and banana puke. It’s quite unforgettable.”
Clarisse turned to page twenty-four. “Tactics and strategy? Shall we?”
“Okay.”
“The man I knew as Daniel Pottinger, businessman with his fingers in lots of pies, both legal and illegal, has now been revealed as Harry Langhorne, an accountant for the New Jersey mob of yesteryear. I know you know this,” she said because she could sense Gibson was about to interject. “But it doesn’t hurt to lay out everything precisely and in order. Now, whoever killed him did so for specific reasons. And I don’t think it was related to his mob activity.”
“Why not?”
“The mobsters who went to prison for the crimes Langhorne provided information on are either still in prison or dead. Without exception.”
“Not all of them went to prison.”
“The ones who did not go to prison are also dead, either from old age, ill health, via police shoot-outs, or at the hands of their fellow gangsters. As an interesting factoid, did you know the life expectancy of a mobster on the East Coast from 1950 to 1990 was forty-nine years?”
“Where the hell did you get that statistic?”
“I put together a database and ran the numbers myself. It was forty-six years on the West Coast and in Nevada during that same time period. Now that Lake Mead is drying up they’re finding lots of mob murder victims from long ago.”
“If not the mob, then who?”
“It could be the business he did later on.”
“The onesyouwere involved in?”
“I was all legit, as I told you before. Buthewasn’t. Which is what put me in the crosshairs. Which I also told you before.” She glanced at her notebook. “Don’t you write this stuff down?”
“Idowrite it down. But that doesn’t mean I believe it unless I can corroborate it by other means that to me are unimpeachable.”
“Are there really any unimpeachable sources anymore? I’m not being facetious, I really want to know.”
“I suppose you want me to thinkyouare an unimpeachable source?”
“That was a nice touch, Mickey. I couldalmostfeel the tip of your foil against my chest. Look, all I can do is provide information to you. You, in turn, have to evaluate its veracity and arrive at your own conclusions.”
“Now you sound like lawyers I ran into in the courtroom when I was a cop.”
“Maybe I am a lawyer. Or was. Or would like to be. But getting back on topic, I can provide you a list of known associates of Daniel Pottinger. You can run them down.”
“Are these his legal or illegal associates?”
“These people are dangerous, Mickey. Extremely so. And one of them is in your area. You might want to start with that person. But tread cautiously.”
“If you have names, why don’t you take them to the cops?”
“I could tell you exactly why, but it would take too long. Now, do you want me to text you the list, or not?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“I hope you realize that I was not bullshitting you about them being dangerous.”
