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“Take a seat,” I say.
He sits heavily across from me, then takes his coat off and slings it across his lap. Seeing him do it prompts me to do the same.
Big Mike studies me and folds his hands on the tabletop. “You’re probably wondering why I’ve been wanting to meet with you.”
I shrug, then figure fuck it. Maybe I’m about to get myself arrested, but there’s been enough artifice going around. I’d prefer for us to be straight with each other. “I’m guessing you must be lonely if you’ve resorted to buying hamsters from little girls.”
He clears his throat. I’m guessing he’s panicked and trying to look confused, but the result is that his eyes are bulging. “Pumpkin is my daughter’s hamster.”
“But that little girl we saw in the stairwell a few weeks ago wasn’t your daughter, was she?”
He swallows that for a second before hedging, “I never said she was.”
“No, but you were happy to imply it. Why? We both know you don’t want to spend time with me for the pleasure of my company.”
“Your girlfriend saw me at the police station,” he says flatly, watching me.
“Yes, but I knew there was something weird going on with you before that. If you’re going to pretend to be a single dad again, you’ll want to have some kid stuff around the apartment. Something other than a stolen hamster.”
“I bought it from her.” He makes a face. “Hamsters are more work than I thought.”
“And don’t tell me you’re interested in me because of the Burkes. They don’t give a shit about me, and I’m guessing neither of them could pick me out of a lineup.”
“Okay, Reaper,” he says pointedly, and my heart speeds up in my chest. Because this is it, isn’t it? The moment of truth. Sink or swim.
I nod, owning it. Part of me wants to correct him, to tell him that’s not what they’re calling me these days, but it’s possible he doesn’t know about my Bo Peep persona. If he doesn’t, I won’t be the one to spoon feed it to him.
He flexes his jaw, getting ready to make some pronouncement, but I see Azalea coming with the drinks, so I hold out my palm.
“Two Moments of Truth,” she says, serving one to each of us.
“Oh, it’s a drink,” he says, his relief obvious.
As she walks away, I find myself smiling, though maybe it’s the smile of a prisoner on Death Row as he breaks open his pint of Ben & Jerry’s. “What’d you think it was?”
He smiles back, and this time I’m pretty sure it’s genuine. “I was having flashbacks to theGodfather. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
He opens his mouth—hopefully to level with me about what he wants, but his phone chooses that moment to ring. He frowns as he pulls it out, then answers it, lifting a finger to me. He listens for a moment before saying, “Fuck. Okay. I’ll be right there.”
Looking across the table at me, he says, “We’re going to have a conversation, Danny Traeger. And when that happens, it’ll be to your benefit to listen to me. I know who you are, and I know what you’ve been doing.”
My blood feels cold and sluggish in my veins, even as my heart speeds up. I think of Mira. Of Ruthie and Izzy. I think of how, for the first time in a long, long time, I really feel like I’m living my life—and now I might be torn away from it.
I nod. “When?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Damn, leave it to Big Mike to follow me for the past three weeks like a dog after someone with bacon in his pockets, only to take off the second I turn in his direction.
“Okay.”
He takes off and I slide his drink over to my side of the table, because why not? I could use both of them.
By the time Daphne shows up, Mike’s drink is half empty, and I’m feeling a pleasant buzz that hasn’t drowned out the knowledge that I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, and I may soon be asked to pay the price.
Daphne looks like she could have stepped out of the past. If age has touched her over the past eight years, it doesn’t show. Her auburn hair is pulled back, and she’s wearing a slate gray skirt suit. She’s lovely in a way that I don’t feel at all in my chest, which seems to develop a case of heartburn whenever Mira is near.
“Daniel,” she says with a smile. “I’m so happy you came. You look…different.”
