Page 41 - WTP VOl. XI #1

grinned and snapped his fingers.
“Now I see you,” Mitch said. “But who do I see?” “Say what?” The man looked carefully at Mitch.
Mitch said nothing. He was thinking about identity- theft con artists who coaxed money from the elderly by pretending to be, say, a grandson. Maybe the reason the man didn’t look like the driver’s license picture was simple: he wasn’t the man in the pic- ture. If anybody had done something to Billy, they’d have Billy’s wallet and license now if they wanted them. And if they had really been his associates, they probably knew a lot about his past—perhaps even about old friends from college and what hap- pened when he crashed on their sofa a few years after graduation. There were plenty of reasons guys like that might need quick money and a big truck that couldn’t be traced to them. So naturally they might track down one of Billy’s old friends and try to leverage the friend’s guilt feelings, supplemented by offers of money for cooperation and implied threats of violence against noncooperation, to get what they wanted.
But of course they wouldn’t try something like that unless they were desperate. And thus, dangerous.
Mitch glanced at the man and then looked away, try- ing to stay poker-faced. The man had called him clue- less. Well, he’d show that he could put clues together. But he needed to avoid tipping his hand.
“It’s just that you look so different from your driver’s license picture,” he said, seeking a nonthreatening way to justify his earlier “Who do I see?” comment.
“Pretty good cover, huh?”
Mitch wasn’t sure whether the man meant the driver’s license picture or his current appearance, but he nodded his head anyway.
The man smiled. “Not good enough to fool Becca, though.”
Mitch froze. “Becca?”
“Becca. Sent you that text from the bedroom. Blew my cover. Better for all of us if she hadn’t.” The man gestured at his surroundings and laughed. “I know where you live.”
Mitch took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t—”
“Always promised myself I’d never do nothin’ to her she didn’t want done. And she made me swear I’d never do nothin’ to you. But now—well, shit happens.”
“What are you—”
“Leave the daughter out of it, though. Wouldn’t never hurt l’il Emily.”
Stall for time, a voice within Mitch said. Becca had surely called the police by now, they must be on their way.
“Listen, can we talk about this?” he asked. “Becca was just—”
“Right. Prob’ly meant well. Wanted to protect her nice l’il family, bless her ass.” The man looked straight at Mitch and added, “Her otherwise-perfect ass with the birthmark on the right cheek.”
In the silence that followed, Mitch thought he could hear movement in the bedroom. But it might’ve been just the air conditioning.
“What?” he whispered.
“Becca’s ass. Birthmark on the right cheek. L’il bigger than the one on her left boob, just over the nipple. Married to her all these years an’ you never noticed?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Hey, I say somethin’ I shunt’ve?” “How’d you know?”
The man sat still for a moment, his face a picture of theatrically-exaggerated chagrin. Then he laughed and said, “You musta told me, man! Geez, I’d think you’d remember somethin’ like that!”
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