Page 72 of Tamed Enemy
“How much did you lose?” Best asks.
“Online? About eighty.”
“Eighty thousand dollars. While you were on disability. Sixty percent of your salary. What about not online?”
“Sir?”
“How much did you lose in person?”
“I played some poker trying to make up the difference.”
Kate makes another strangled sound. I wonder how much money Barry Lynch made over the years from executive poker games. I’m willing to bet Kate could tell me, to the last red-hot cent.
Best pushes Collins. “How much total?”
“Two hundred and fifty grand.”
Best doesn’t react. “Then what happened?”
Collins starts to cry without making a sound. The tears just squeeze out of the swollen flesh around his eyes, dripping from his chin onto his bruised chest. I’m surprised by how badly I want to throttle him.
But Best leans forward over the back of his chair. He rests his left hand on Collins’ head, like a priest delivering absolution. The stump of his missing pinky looks stretched and white in the harsh light. “What happened, son?” he asks.
Collins’ mouth works, but no sound comes out. He swallows noisily. His lips quiver. Finally, he says, “The bratva said they’d make a deal.”
Kate turns to marble beside me. I wonder if she’s thinking what I am—how differently things might have gone if Collins had turned to the Irish mob instead of the Russians.
Best asks, “What sort of deal?”
“I didn’t have to pay them back the money. Instead, I could give them information.”
“Information?”
“Stupid shit at first. The license plate for my Sawgrass car. They could have gotten that at DMV.”
“What else?”
“How many men we deployed on jobs. Who was scheduled on which shifts. When we made new hires.”
“What else?”
“They wanted to know aboutthatgoddamn bitch.”
The admission, when he finally gets to it, is shocking. Best has lulled all of us, rocking from question to answer and back again, without a hint of emotion. Collins unhinged rage sounds obscene.
I glance at Kate. Her face remains perfectly smooth, but her fist clenches at her side.
“You’re referring to Ms. Lynch?” Best asks, almost like he’s a lawyer in a crowded courtroom.
“Fucking cunt,” Collins sneers.
Best lashes out, his fist connecting hard with Collins’ solar plexus. The bound man almost tips over his chair before he slumps against his duct tape. His belly rises and falls as he gasps for breath.
Not one of the Sawgrass men moves.
Kate blinks.
“Our client,” Best corrects, his voice perfectly even. “Ms. Lynch.”
