Past Due by William Lashner Read Free Book Online Page A

seat was the size of a small dog. Mr. Magoo would have seen that spliff from across the street. But I have a plan.”
    She sighed, turned again to look out the window, saw, I was certain, not the grimy strip of Twenty-first Street visible from her office but the great Plateau of Tibet at the base of the Himalayas.
    “Without some paying clients,” she said, “we’re not going to survive through the summer.”
    “Oh come on. We’ll make it, we always do.”
    “Struggling to pay the rent was charming when we were first out of law school,” she said, “but it’s getting old.”
    “Don’t go south on me, Beth. I have a hunch about the Parma case. I think there is money here.”
    “You always think there’s money here, but it always ends up being there, not here. What was Joey’s nickname, Victor?”
    “Joey Cheaps.”
    “And he died owing us thirty-five hundred dollars. What makes you think a man whose life was so devoid of value he earned the moniker ‘Cheaps’ could suddenly become a cash cow in his death?”
    “It’s that image from his story, the one I can’t seem to shake. A moonlit night on the waterfront. A man lies dead. Joey Parma holds a bloody baseball bat in his hand. And in the distance, Joey’s partner in crime is walking away with a suitcase full of cash.”
    “Victor, wise up. The suitcase is empty. The money’s long gone. Cash gets spent, that’s the beauty of cash.”
    “Maybe, but twenty years pass and then two goons show up, beat the hell out of Joey, and then start asking about the suitcase? That same suitcase? Joey was scared out of his wits, scared enough to call me, and then twelve hours later he’s dead. There’s a connection here between Joey’s death and that suitcase. I think it’s still around, I think it’s still in play. You find that suitcase, you find a murderer, Beth. A murderer with a pile of money.”
    “And how do we do that?”
    “McDeiss is looking into Joey’s homicide, but we know things he doesn’t know, things we’re not allowed to tell him. Maybe we should do what we can to help his investigation. Twelve hours passed from the time I met with Joey at La Vigna to the time of his murder. If we can suss out those twelve hours, we’ll be far on the road to finding our killer. We know Joey saw his mother in the afternoon. And we know he was one other place for sure.”
    “Where?”
    “Let’s go out for a drink. Let’s you and I step out for a drink at Jimmy T’s.”

Chapter
8
    T HEY SAY P HILLY is a city of neighborhoods, but it’s really a city of neighborhood taps. There they sit, one on every corner, with the same hanging sign, the same glass block windows, the same softball trophies, the same loyalty among their denizens. When you’re a Philly guy you can count your crucial affiliations on the fingers of one hand; you got your mom, you got your church, you got your string band, you got your saloon, you got your wife, and the only thing you ever think of changing is your wife.
    Jimmy T’s was just such a neighborhood joint. When Beth and I stepped inside we were immediately eyed, and for good reason. We were strangers, we were wearing suits, we had all our teeth.
    The dank, narrow bar was decorated like a VFW hall, Flyers pictures taped to bare walls, cheap Formica tables, a pool table wedged into the back, a jukebox in the corner with its clear plastic cover smashed. Someone had made an unwise selection, maybe something not sung by Sinatra. Workingmen of all ages slumped at the bar, leaned on the tables, wiped their noses, sucked down beers, complained about politics, the economy, the Eagles, the cheese steaks at Geno’s, the riffraff moving in from the west, their girlfriends, their wives, their kids, their lives, their goddamned lives. Before we stepped in, it had been sullenly loud, but the moment we opened the door it had quieted as if for a show. It didn’t takelong to realize we were it. I figured we might as well make it a good