Page 98 of Hard to Kill

He rubs the back of his neck then, blinks his eyes a few times.

“They drugged me,” he says.

It’s happened to Jimmy twice. Once at Gregg McCall’s house and once at Jimmy’s own house.

“Whodrugged you?”

“Friends of a friend, I guess you could say.” He weakly offers a hand shrug.

“Sent by your friend Anthony Licata?”

Martin opens his mouth but then closes it just as quickly, suddenly seeming far more alert at the mention of Licata’s name.

“I saw you with him outside your newest restaurant, Martin. I saw you ride off with him. I know who he is and I know what he does. And what I think he’s done. Along with a growing sense of what he’s capable of.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t talk about him.”

He sounds just like Rob Jacobson.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Perhaps a little bit of both.”

“Oh, don’t be an ass,” I snap at him. “You think it’s one of those crazy coincidences that they dumped you on my doorstep? Leave a note on your body that says ‘Undivided.’ Wake the fuck up, Martin.”

He seems stunned by the outburst, even though he heard worse language from me in the old days.

“Before we continue, might I have a drink? Whiskey if you have it.”

“Sure,” I say. “It comes with the turndown service.”

I go into the kitchen, get the bottle of Jameson back out, pour a decent amount into a shot glass, and put the glass in front of him on the coffee table.

I don’t pour one for myself.

Rip has finally stopped growling. I reserve the right to start growling again myself if Martin Elian tries to feed me a line of bullshit, always one of his specialties.

“Anthony called and said he needed to talk to me, and that he’d send a car. Two men I’d never met before came with the car. They didn’t introduce themselves. Or make much conversation. I asked where we were going and the driver said we were going to see the boss. Out east, he said. Then he told me to sitback and enjoy the ride because it was going to take a while. Before long we were on the LIE. Anthony had mentioned a place out here, Montauk maybe, or the town right before it.”

“Napeague.”

“Yes, I think that’s it.”

“I don’t need a house tour, Martin. What I need to know is what you’re doing in business with somebody like Licata in the first place. Or is he just one more poor choice you’ve made in your life.”

“Oh, don’t be naïve, Jane,” Martin says, a little snap in his own voice. “Unless you’re somehow confusing the restaurant business in New York City with church.”

In this moment, it is like the old days, and we’re about to start swinging away in the center of the ring. You hang around with Jimmy Cunniff long enough, you end up making a lot of boxing analogies. Just about all of them generally apply.

I smile and shake my head, sadly. “I’ve always loved it, Martin, when people from out of town think they need to explain the city to me. So you’re going to have to be more specific about how you ended up connected enough to Licata that you’d agree to take a ride like that.”

“It started when I needed money,” he says.

And drinks.

“And all the banks were closed at the time? What are the odds?”

He puts his glass down, leans back, rubs his eyes. “It was during COVID. I had already started the process of opening the sister restaurant when the world slammed shut. I tried to keep everything going by doing takeout at Café Elian. It was my way of furloughing as few people as possible.”

---