“That’s the way. They’re smooth and rounded, no protrusions?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing sticking out that might rip or tear or dent?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, thanks, Barry.”

  “Sure, happy to help.”

  I ended the call and said goodbye to Maxine at the bar. She gave me her tight smile again.

  “I gotta get going,” I said.

  “Me too. Got customers soon. There’s a pay-per-view tonight.”

  I was about to slap the bar as my farewell when my phone rang. It was Longboard Kelly’s.

  “Muriel?” I asked.

  “Mick.”

  “Mick? What’s up?”

  “It’s Johnny.”

  I looked up at Maxine. “What about Johnny?”

  “He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Maxine took it hard, but she was a trooper. She’d lost the husband she had spent a lifetime loving. I suspected everything after that was a dull jab in comparison. I wanted to stay with her, but I feared there were other people taking it harder.

  I drove to the Cabrini house. It was only five minutes away, but it felt like forever. I knocked and Mick opened the door. He didn’t look good, at least to the trained eye. He more or less looked like his normal self: set jaw, stoic expression. But his eyes betrayed him. There were no tears there, but they were rimmed red with fear and uncertainty.

  My first instinct was to hug him. I wasn’t sure it would go over well, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. I needed a hug, and I didn’t really know Johnny Cabrini. But he was like a brother to Mick. I wrapped my arms around his solid frame and felt his stubby limbs go around me for a second or two. Then he banged my back with his fist and we both let go. He diverted his eyes to the house and cleared his throat like he was going to speak, but he didn’t.

  Tina and two of her daughters were on the sofa, hugging so tight they were almost one entity. The girls were weeping, and their eyes suggested there had already been heavy sobbing. I figured there was more of that to come. Tina’s demeanor of control had cracked. Tears welled in her eyes and silently ran down her cheeks. I waved gently. She looked at me but gave no response.

  I turned to Mick. “What happened?”

  “Dunno.”

  “How do you know about Johnny?”

  “The jail.”

  “The jail what?”

  “Called.”

  “What did they say?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How?”

  “Dunno.”

  “They didn’t say?”

  “Nup.”

  “Who called?”

  “Chaplain.”

  The front door burst open. The boyfriend of Tina’s oldest daughter came in followed by a woman I assumed to be the daughter.

  “Mom?”

  “Sofia, honey.”

  Sofia ran around us like we were furniture and dropped into her mother’s arms. The boyfriend stood uncomfortably looking at Mick and me.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  Mick shrugged.

  “I’m gonna find out,” I said, stepping past the boyfriend and walking outside to make a call.

  “Office of the public def—”

  “It’s me, Barry.”

  “Miami. I just locked the file away.”

  “I’m not calling about the file. Have you heard anything about Johnny?”

  “Anything like what?”

  “I’m with his family. Tina got a call from the detention center chaplain saying Johnny was dead.”

  “Oh no.”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “No. We’re on the list of people who have to be told, but we’re not that high on it. Family is number one.”

  “All they know is he’s dead, nothing more.”

  “Maybe that’s all there is to say? I don’t know.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m sorry, Miami.”

  “It’s not my husband.”

  “Pass on our sincere condolences.”

  “Thanks, Barry.”

  I hung up and made another call.

  “MJ, how’s things?” said Danielle.

  “Not great.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Johnny Cabrini is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yep.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The jail chaplain called the family.”

  “I’m so sorry for them.”

  “You and me both, but they don’t know anything.”

  “I doubt the chaplain gets into detail. Do they have support?”

  “The family is here. Do you know anyone who might know what the hell happened?”

  “I’ll call you back.”

  I stood outside by myself to gather my thoughts. I understood Mick’s sense of helplessness. There was nothing I could do to make these people feel better. I could give them information if I got it, but that was putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

  The sun had dropped away and had left the yard in darkness. I watched a woman walking a dog as if nothing else in the world mattered. Everything I knew and didn’t know rolled around my head. Johnny was dead. Fishook was committing fraud. I had a contract for $5,000 in my possession. Johnny hadn’t killed Ricky the Fudge. A family’s life was in ruins. Why?

  When I stepped back into the house, Mick was near the picture covering the hole that Johnny made. The boyfriend was in a chair, and the three sisters sat together on the sofa.

  I found Tina in the kitchen. She was wiping her face and trying in vain to keep it together. She took a deep breath. That was as good a sign as any.

  “I had to call his mother,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s in a VA home. She doesn’t know who Johnny is.”

  That didn’t feel like the worst thing at that moment. “Did the chaplain tell you anything?”

  “Johnny passed away. That’s it. He didn’t know what happened or he didn’t say. He said the sheriff would contact me with more. The sheriff. Is that right? He was in jail.”

  “The sheriff’s office runs the facility he was in. My wife used to be a deputy, so I asked her to see if she can find out anything more.”

  Tina nodded but said nothing. Perhaps she didn’t care. Perhaps she would later.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do now,” she said, now shaking her head.

  “All I can tell you is that you do one day and then the next.”

  “Have you lost someone?”

  “Both my parents. I was in middle school when I lost my mom.”

  “Sorry.”

  I shrugged. “You don’t need to hear any platitudes from me, but I’ll say this: I didn’t think I was going to ever get through it. But other people saved me. People will offer help, and you’ll be inclined to send them away. I get that compulsion. But don’t. You don’t have to have a house full of people, but let them help, however they can.”

  “I won’t even have a house soon.”

  “Tina, I got the fund to agree to five thousand dollars.”

  Her eyes went wide, as if she was seeing a sliver of hope, then her expression dropped.

  “The universe hits me again,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I bet there’s no way they’ll pay a widow. The agreement was with Johnny, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s dead. He can’t sign anything now.”

  “He signed it already.”

  “What?”

  “I visited him with the public defender. He signed it. I have a signed agreement.”

  “Will they pay it now that he’s dead?”

  “A contract is a contract.” I wasn’t so sure about that. I was glad I had made Fishook sign in his office. It would make it harder to contest. But contest it they might. So I needed to move quickly. Deaths in custody rarely made the news, so Fishook might never learn about Johnny’s passing, but I didn’t want to give him the chance.

  My phone rang. “I should take this.” I stepped out into the backyard. There was only residual light from the house, and all I could hear was the murmur of insects in the grass.

  “What do you have?”

  “Nothing good,” said Danielle.

  “Tell me.”

  “This is all unofficial, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “It looks like there was an altercation.”

  “What sort of altercation?”

  “A fight, MJ. It looks like Johnny started a fight with an inmate who had been an associate of Richard Whitecross.”

  “Johnny fought one of Ricky’s gang buddies?”

  “I don’t know if Ricky was in a gang or not, but Ricky was allegedly mentioned.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They were pulled apart, and Johnny was sent to his cell. He was found an hour later hanging in there.”

  I felt the air leave me. For a moment I forgot the process, then that damned muscle memory kicked back in and I breathed.

  “Johnny took his own life?” I asked.

  “It looks that way.”

  “How does this happen?”

  “It happens, MJ. It shouldn’t but it does.”

  I said nothing.

  “I’m sorry, MJ.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you tell them?”

  “Will the PBSO?”

  “In due course. There will have to be an investigation.”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  “Do you want me to come over?”

  “This isn’t your job.”

  “It’s not yours either, MJ.”

  “It’s okay. I got it. I’ll see you at home later.”

  “I’ll be there. Call if you need me.”

  I hung up and stared into the darkness. In his last hours, Johnny had broken Stone’s number one rule. He had fought outside the ring. I wondered if you were incarcerated, did the entire jail become the ring? Or perhaps Johnny had lost the muscle memory. His damaged brain just let it go. He had hit Ricky the Fudge outside the ring, and now he had done it in jail. He had probably been on the downswing. Probably? I shook my head at my own stupidity.

  Then I heard Johnny’s voice in my head. Something he said to me in our meeting at the detention center. Our final conversation. I had told him about the agreement for the five thousand dollars.

  “So I was worth something after all.”

  I stood in the yard wondering if that was on Johnny’s mind at the end. That he had signed the agreement to get Tina some money and that was the last useful thing he would ever do. His business on this planet was done. Was the document I had him sign his death warrant?

  I clenched my fists at my arrogance. A man was dead and a family was grieving, and I was making it about me.

  I opened the back door and found Tina still there, staring at the floor. I caught her attention and beckoned her outside. I stepped onto the grass and asked her to sit on the step.

  “I got some news. It’s not official, but I’m sure it’s accurate.”

  She didn’t move.

  “I don’t know how to say it, so I’ll just say it: Johnny took his own life.”

  Tina’s jaw set firm, but she made no sound and shed no more tears. She just sat there and breathed for a while. I couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking.

  “Don’t tell the girls,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  She stared into the darkness as I had. I watched her, wondering about truth and fact. The fact was that the mean reds had descended and Johnny was not in his right mind. Fighting in the jail showed that. The depression had gripped him so hard that he only saw one desperate way forward: to leave his wife and children and all the sadness behind.

  The truth was something else. That he had done one last good thing for his family, gotten them some money—however little—the only way he could. That perhaps he had died a proud and content man.

  I wasn’t going to verbalize any of this tonight, but when Tina and the girls were ready to hear about him, I would. And I knew that the truth was always better than the facts.

  Tina sat for a good long time until she jerked her head up like she had remembered she had left the oven on. She got up and went back inside and snuggled in between her daughters.

  I stayed outside long enough to order a couple pizzas for delivery. The family would need to eat eventually and pizza could feed them now or wait for until they were ready.

  The women didn’t leave the sofa. I told Sofia’s boyfriend that Tina had my number if she needed anything. Then Mick and I made our way out.

  “You should go home,” I told Mick as we approached his car.

  “Longboard’s.”

  “Muriel can handle Longboard’s.”

  “Longboard’s,” he repeated.

  I nodded as I realized what he meant. Longboard Kelly’s didn’t need him tonight. But he needed it.

  I watched him pull away, then I got in my car and drove to Singer Island while I thought the whole time about Allan Samson.

  I held Danielle for about half an hour. Then we sat, late into the night. I told her what I had learned about the death of Ricky the Fudge, and about what I had found out about Allan Samson.

  “I don’t think Johnny did it,” I said.

  “You might be right, but let me be devil’s advocate for a moment. You’ve got evidence that he was in the area, but none placing him at the crime scene itself. You don’t see him on the video at all.”

  “It’s not the full picture.”

  “I get that, but you can’t prove a negative. There’s also no evidence that he was in the club. It’s only theory that an assailant came through the door.”

  “You think I’m wrong?”

  “I don’t. I agree there are inconsistencies. This Samson being there at all is extremely suspicious, but I’m not thinking about whether he did it. I’m talking about what can be proven. The detectives and the prosecutors have a closed case. The alleged perpetrator is dead. No more case, move on. They won’t go looking for more work. They’re overworked as it is.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you need to present your case to Kelty, but you need to think it through first. Not now. Tomorrow or whenever. Look at the inconsistencies. Is there one link that looks better than the others, more likely to prove your point? If Kelty only has to pull one thread to make the whole thing come together, he’s more likely to go with it.”

  “If he pulls a thread, won’t it fall apart?”

  “I’m not above a mixed metaphor either.”

  I nodded. “I see what you’re saying. I’ll think it through.”

  I leaned into her on the sofa and stopped talking and tried to stop thinking. One came easier than the other.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The next morning I didn’t sit around thinking about my strategy for selling my theory to Kelty. That could wait. It wasn’t going to bring Johnny back, and it wasn’t going to help Tina and her daughters. Focusing on the job I had originally been tasked with was the best I could do for them.

  With my wife, I stood outside the Palm Beach office building that was home to Fishook Financial. She winked, and I walked in alone. I made my way to the elevator and then to the office. I pulled on the door as I had before. It buzzed and I let myself in.

  The receptionist with the eighties hair went through the same rigmarole of confirming my identity and escorting me inside. Fishook didn’t offer to shake hands, and I was okay with that. I sat down as he straightened his tie at his desk.

  “We don’t usually do this,” he said.

  “I know, you told me on the phone. But as I explained to you, my client is going to lose her house today. The sheriff has the paperwork, and the landlord has said if there’s no rent money by noon, they’re out. So a company check is no good to her. It won’t clear in time. And if it doesn’t clear in time, then she’s out on the streets, and we might as well drag this thing through the courts and see if we can’t multiply that five thousand by ten or twenty.”

  “We don’t need to get lawyers involved.”

  “I don’t think so, but either you have a cashier’s check or you don’t. If you do, then it’s as good as cash. If you don’t, then we’re done here. Which is it?”

  Fishook opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out an envelope. He closed the drawer, placed the envelope on the desk, and straightened it so it was lined up with the desk’s edge.

  “Do you have an executed agreement?” he asked.

  “I do.” I handed him a manila folder. He removed the document and flipped to the last page, where the signatures were. He then opened a filing cabinet, put the agreement into a file, and closed the metal drawer gently.

  “Now, I must make sure that you fully understand the terms. This is a one-time payment. There is no double dipping. And the nondisclosure means your client cannot mention this settlement to anyone.”

  “Don’t worry, he won’t tell a soul.”

  Fishook straightened his tie again and put his fingers on the envelope as if reconsidering the deal. Part of me wanted him to try. If he did, I was pretty sure he would try to keep the copy of the agreement document, and I was going to enjoy going through him and ripping his filing system apart to get it back.

  But he didn’t. He picked up the envelope and handed it to me. I took it but didn’t put it away. I was sure the classy move was to slip it into my jacket pocket and shake hands like gentlemen, but I wasn’t wearing a jacket and I didn’t consider him a gentleman.

  “You’re opening it?”

  “Yes.” I took the check out to make sure it was kosher.

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Not one little bit.”

  But it looked good: a cashier’s check issued by Bank of America in the amount of five thousand dollars made out to Johnny Cabrini. The money would go directly into the account he had shared with Tina. I stood, took my phone out, and slipped the check into my pocket in its place. Then I punched in a quick text message.

  “It’s been a pleasure,” I said.

  The look on Fishook’s face suggested he didn’t agree. He followed me out to reception. I didn’t think it was courtesy, more the way you shoo a pest out the door. I got to the front door and opened it. A man was standing there, so I pulled the door wider to let him in.