Page 120 of Witness 8

‘Why? Why isn’t she dead? Didn’t you kill her when you took the money? What the fuck are you doing?’

Mr. Christmas felt his jaw tighten as he strode forward. When he was within five feet of Ellis he dropped the bag. Stepped back a pace. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth again it would only make things worse and, for the moment, he was struggling to contain his anger.

Snatching the bag, Ellis dropped to the balls of his feet and unzipped it.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he said.

Mr. Christmas gazed at the bag, and the bundles of copy paper inside. They were not blank, those pages – on each one was a picture. A familiar one.

An image of Marlon Brando.

‘Isaid, what the fuck is this? Are you trying to screw me over?’

Ellis stood, his neck burning red, spit flying from his mouth as he swore.

Mr. Christmas planted his feet. Tensed. Said, ‘You need to calm down, sir. I don’t know what has happened here—’

‘You’re trying to screw me. You’ve made a deal with that bitch. You have no idea who you’re fucking with. I’m going todestroyyou. Do you understand? I’m going to—’

Ellis didn’t even have time to change his expression. He was still ranting, his lips curled in a snarl of rage, as the first nine-millimeter round tore through his chest.

The second one went through his mouth.

Mr. Christmas lowered his weapon, picked up the gym bag and dragged Ellis’s body out of the building. He burned the Lincoln, the body and the bag some miles away in an empty parking lot.

As he watched the car go up in flames, he thought about one man.

The man who had conned him.

Eddie Flynn.

54

Eddie

I watched the hitman take the gym bag from under the table, get up and leave the Back Room speakeasy. I waited for a full minute, making sure he’d gone. The hostess, Anne, stuck her head through the door, said, ‘He left.’

I got up out of the booth, turned and knelt down. Knocked on the wood panel beneath the seat that I had occupied. The panel slid open and a gym bag appeared. I slid it out, then I reached in and pulled Little Sacks out of the hidden panel behind the seat. While Mr. Christmas and I had talked, Little Sacks had slid the panel back, taken the gym bag with the cash and replaced it with the identical bag I’d bought that afternoon, which Denise had filled with exactly eleven pounds of copy paper, with a little message for Mr. Christmas printed on the pages.

God bless corrupt mayors. Jimmy Walker had sat in this booth for many hours when he ran the city. And everyone sat down opposite him with a bag at their feet. When they got up, the bag wasn’t there. Jimmy may have been crooked, but he wasn’t dumb. Even in a hidden area inside an illegal speakeasy in the 1920s, there could be a cop at the next table. This way, even if a cop was standing right next to Jimmy, no one would be able to see money changing hands.

I put the gym bag on the table just as Bugs came into the room.

I opened it, stared inside at the cash and then counted it.

A quarter of a million dollars.

‘That going to be enough for New York’s finest?’ asked Bugs.

I nodded, took fifty grand from the bag and gave it to Bugs.

‘I’m putting my life in your hands – you understand that?’ I asked.

‘You gave me my life back when you stopped me going to jail. I owe you,’ he said. We talked for almost an hour, going over everything in detail.

‘You know what to do?’

He nodded.