Page 98 of The Instruments of Darkness

“You told me you were going to Sonny’s to watch TV.” Antoine’s eyes flicked to Leo’s associate. “Is that what you did, Sonny?”

To his credit, Sonny was shrewd enough to know when he was screwed. We could see him assessing the risks involved in lying and the chances of being successful, before deciding that honesty was, if not the best policy, then marginally better than the alternative.

“We went back to my place after,” he said.

“After?”

Sonny looked to Leo, hoping he wouldn’t have to commit to this path alone, but Leo, I guessed, had also run the odds and come up with a different outcome, which only proved he didn’t have a future as a gambler.

“Don’t look at him, Sonny,” said Antoine, “look at me.”

“We took a ride by a house. Maybe we threw something at it.”

“Like what?”

“We were just trying to—”

“Like what?” Antoine repeated.

“A bottle, with gasoline in it, and some sugar.”

Sonny bowed his head.

“And why’d you do that?”

Again, Sonny’s eyes flicked to Leo, but this time with more hostility: Sonny had been doing whatever Leo told him to do. Antoine had come to the same conclusion, likely long before the two men had returned to the bar, and was now focused on Leo. The show was for our benefit, but Antoine would also grasp the opportunity to teach his brother a lesson by making his humiliation lengthy and public. I doubted it was the first such lesson Antoine had tried to teach him. If nothing else, one had to admire Antoine’s perseverance, because Leo wasn’t the learning type.

“Well,” said Antoine, “you want to tell me?”

“We did it for Bobby O.”

Bobby O? I’d never heard Bobby Ocean called that before. Perhaps he was trying to be down with the kids.

“Bobby asked you to burn a woman’s house?” said Antoine, not even trying to conceal his incredulity.

“Not in so many words,” said Leo.

“Not in so many words, huh? Then how about you tell me the words he did use, unless he sent the message by fucking Morse code.”

Leo licked his lips.

“He said someone ought to teach the bitch a lesson.”

“What ‘bitch’?”

“The Clark woman, the one who killed her kid.”

“When did he say this?”

“Yesterday. And not just her.” Leo jerked his chin in my direction. “Him, too, and his kike lawyer.”

Moxie wasn’t Jewish, not that it mattered, but Antoine saw me react to the slur. He raised his hand.

“You do anything to my brother and this will become about us, not him.”

“He needs to modify his language,” I said. “If he doesn’t, I’ll take my chances.”

Louis, meanwhile, was grinning at Leo. It wasn’t a friendly grin, but resembled what a mouse might see moments before a cat got tired of watching it squirm beneath its paw.

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