Chapter 10: What Ethan Sold

I put the photograph in my bra before Dominic turned the corner.

"They're called off," he said. "Both of them. Your friend is safe."

"Thank you."

"I should have asked you first."

"Yes."

He waited for me to say more.

I didn't, because the paper against my skin was burning, and I wanted to see Ethan's face when I put it in front of him.

"We'll talk about it after Sunday," I said.

He studied me for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

On Sunday morning I rode up in the elevator of the building where I had lived for two years, and Dominic stayed in his car at the curb.

That was my rule. He hated it, and he followed it.

The apartment door was unlocked.

Boxes stood in the hall where I'd left them.

The living room curtains were pulled.

Ethan sat on the floor with his back against the couch and a bottle of whiskey between his knees.

He looked up and started to cry.

"You came."

"You said to come early."

"I didn't think you would."

I took the photograph out of my bra and dropped it in his lap.

"Explain."

He stared at it.

"Ari. I can't."

"Then I leave, and you explain it to the people who come at noon."

He flinched.

It took him a while. I stood over him with my arms crossed and my phone in my pocket, recording.

He said it all in one long, wet rush.

He had been losing money for three years. Cards at first, then sports, then a private book a coworker had told him about.

The book belonged to a man named Silvio Greco, who was always so kind about extending a little more.

In the spring he owed two hundred and forty thousand dollars.

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