Page 66 of Slow Burn

Her hand was trying to drop the knife. She wrapped her left hand around it, too. Lenny’s eyes stopped looking quite so calm.

“I mean it. No joking around, Velvet, put the fucking knife down or I’m going to blow a hole right through you. Don’t be stupid.”

The knife wriggled out of her hands and clanged noisily on the tile floor, spun away out of her reach underneath a cabinet. The silver tip of it winked up at her. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, and settled for holding them up.

“Come on out here,” he told her, and flicked the gun just a fraction of an inch. “Come on, I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s go.”

She didn’t remember walking from the kitchen to the couch, but the shock of leather on her legs was like a wet towel. Lenny settled in the magenta chair again, gun resting comfortably on his knee, still pointed right at her.

“You like hockey?” he asked conversationally. She shook her head and swallowed hard. “Me neither. Too much violence.”

He wanted her to laugh, but she couldn’t. Her arms ached from holding them over her head.

“Simon says put your arms down, Velvet. Relax. Nothing’s going to happen here. Why don’t you tell me what you told the paper?” He grinned that college-boy-innocent grin again. “I already paid for it, didn’t I?”

She swallowed and said, “Just what I already told you, I swear.”

“I don’t think I believe that.”

The headache was coming back, stomping iron boots along the inside of her skull; orange juice and coffee boiled in her stomach. She wondered if he’d believe her if she said she had to go to the bathroom.

“Would you please just tell me who you are?” she asked wearily. God, she was tired, her whole body ached, her throat throbbed. “Please?”

He dug in his jacket and took out a black leather wallet, flipped it open and slid it across. The plastic identification card in the top said FBI in big blue letters. Under it, he flashed his college-boy smile. His name was Garrick James.

“Now you know. Have you ever seen this man?” he asked, and dug in the pocket of his preppy jacket for a black-and-white photograph. He slid it over the table toward her. She took a quick glance at it.

“No,” she said, and then took another look. Her hesitation was too long.

“Yes.” He said it for her. “Okay, where? Where’d you see him? Who was he with? Burt Marshall?”

The photo glared at her. She swallowed hard.

“I never saw him.”

He sighed and took the picture back. She kept staring at the coffee table where it had been, as if it had left a scorch mark.

“Velvet, please, I’m not the enemy here, I promise. I’m trying to help you, but you’re making it pretty damn hard. You do understand that if you’ve seen this man, if you have any knowledge of what he’s doing, he’ll stop at nothing to kill you? I can protect you, if you’ll just level with me.”

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” she asked. “Burt, I mean. Somebody really did kill him.”

Leather squeaked as he shifted. When she looked up, he’d put the gun in a shoulder holster under the preppy jacket.

“Yes. Somebody really did. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you, too. Maybe they just didn’t get to you in time.”

Even though the hockey game was muted, a dim whisper came from the TV set, a roar as somebody scored or somebody bled. She stared blankly at the screen.

“Robby thinks it’s the wiseguys,” she said.

“Robby’s probably right. Where’d you see this guy, Velvet?”

The roar on the TV was loud enough that it was audible even through the muting. She looked up at the screen. The cameraman was confused, the picture shaking unsteadily. She couldn’t figure out why he was panning the crowd.

“At the dry cleaners. Elegance. Highland Park.”

After a stunned silence, Lenny repeated, “Elegance Dry Cleaners. Burt Marshall owned part of it.”

“Yeah. The Arab guy from the picture, he was there, and this creepy little asshole named Mr. Julian—”

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