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Tears sprung to my eyes as I opened the cover and saw Ali again – alive and happy, untouched by tragedy.
I took a deep breath. “That’s nice, but you know what I mean.”
“The original agreement was quid pro quo. You only get information if you provide me with something on Jack Pollari.”
I stared at him in shock. “You son of a bitch – after everything you put me through – ”
“You put yourself through,” he interrupted.
“ – you’re going to hold out on me?!”
“That was the deal.”
“Fuck your deal! I almost got killed!”
“So be thankful you walked away with your life.”
“This is all your fault! None of this would have happened if you hadn’t – ”
“Bullshit. I didn’t have anything to do with Lou finding out about you. Anything that happened last night happened because of you, not me.”
His smug certainty enraged me.
“You don’t know that!” I shouted.
“Of course I do. If Lou had found out about me, I’d be dead. And you know it.”
It was a good point, and impossible to refute. So I just kept talking and tried to find another point on the way. “If you hadn’t broken into my motel room, and blackmailed me – ”
“Then you’d be sexually assaulted and probably dead. Or have you forgotten about the guy Lou sent to ‘question’ you?”
He was talking about Roach, the loathsome rapist that Lou had sent after me. Eddie had knocked him out, and then his DEA buddies had thrown Roach into a car and driven him off to God knows where.
Shit.
No matter how much of an overbearing, thuggish, blackmailing federal asshole he’d been to me, he was right: I’d probably be in a shallow desert grave right now if Eddie hadn’t been there that night.
“What happened to him?” I asked, trying to keep away from how much I did or didn’t owe Eddie for saving me from Roach.
“Let’s just say he’s safe from getting into any mischief at the moment.”
“At your super-secret CIA black site where you waterboard people?”
“I’d get things done a whole lot faster if that were the case,” he said drily.
“Tell me what you know about Ali’s murder,” I pleaded with him.
“Not until you give me something on Jack.”
“There’s nothing to give you!”
“Maybe in a week or two, when he gets over it – ”
“He’s not going to get over it. He’s never going to get over it.”
“Then I guess you’re fucked.”
He turned his back on me and walked over to his motorcycle.
