Page 31 of Lies He Told Me

“My girlfriend went nuts over that video of him rescuing that man,” Tommy says. “Me, I’ve never seen anything so brave. No way I’d have the guts to do what he did. Any chance — any chance I could take a picture with him and send it to her?”

“David,” Gwinne says as she walks away, attending to another customer. “Customer wants a picture with the Cotton River hero.”

David walks over and greets Tommy with an extended hand, lighting up with a smile.

Could be an act for the customer, sure, but Tommy senses otherwise. That’s David’s default position, Tommy figures, happy and positive energy and all that shit.

“Having a good time tonight?” he asks Tommy. “Everything good?”

“Yeah, great. Nice selection of bourbon. So … any chance at a photo? So I can impress my girlfriend?”

“Nah, nah, I’m not into that stuff. How about a drink on the house instead?” David manages to blow him off without seeming like he’s blowing him off.

“Ah, okay. Hey, could you sign something?”

He laughs. “Like an autograph?” David shakes his head but ultimately shrugs. “I guess that’s fine.” He grabs the back of a blank receipt, poises his left hand over it with a pen. “Actually, I’d feel like a pompous jerk signing an autograph.”

Tommy decides not to push it and returns to the booth. He didn’t really want the autograph anyway. He just wanted to see which hand David would use to write.

Left. He used his left hand.

Tommy leaves at seven and walks around to the rear of the restaurant, where his rental car is parked and where, not coincidentally, the supply entrance to the restaurant is located.

The entrance is surrounded by a tall wooden fence, but for purely cosmetic reasons — concealing the dumpsters and air conditioner — not security. It’s easy enough to open the swinging gate to gain access to the entrance, which is protected by a knobless metal door that looks quite thick. Next to it, an alarm pad.

Tommy turns back to the swinging gate. He reaches up and removes his “eye” device, a small motion-sensitive contraption he stuck high up on the interior of the gate two days ago. The device, facing the metal door and alarm pad, surely has picked up the alarm code by now, because this is the entrance used by the manager who opens the restaurant every morning.

Tommy drops the device into his pocket, walks to his car, and drives away.

“See you tomorrow night, David,” he says to himself.

TWENTY-SEVEN

AGENT BLAIR TAKES THE elevator to the fourth floor, shows his credentials at the front desk, and heads down the hallway. Rebecca Crandall is on the phone when he walks in. She gives him a surprised-happy look when she sees him and motions for him to sit.

“Well, don’tIfeel honored!” she says, hanging up the phone, pushing herself out of her chair, and giving Blair a hug. “A visit from no less than Special Agent Francis Xavier Blair.” She pats him on the chest. “How ya doin’, Frankie?”

“Never had it so good,” he says, his standard line.

Blair goes way back with Becky Crandall, back to their days together at the Bureau, before Becky moved over to a different part of the alphabet-soup club, becoming a supervisor in the criminal division of the IRS’s Chicago office.

They play some quick catch-up. Becky’s on her second marriage and has three kids, all in their teens. Blair’s personal life, on the other hand, is not much of a story — one divorce, nobody since, and no kids to show for it.

“You’re still in OC, I hear,” she says.

Blair makes a face. “Yeah, but I got roped into a task force with Customs. Cargo theft. Real exciting stuff. Anyway, OC isn’t the Organized Crime it used to be. Now it means street gangs and drugs, maybe a few small-time extortion rings.”

“No more Michael Cagninas. Hey, you know,” she says, snapping her fingers, “I thought of you — what, five, six months ago? — when Cagnina got sprung.”

Blair makes a face. “What a world, right? Thirteen years he gets. All the rackets he ran, the people he terrorized and killed — not to mention killing the three witnesses who would’ve nailed him on all that. And all he goes down for is a paper crime.”

Becky nods, gets serious, checking him out. “Somebody needs to let the past go,” she says. “Yeah, he only went down for tax evasion, but that’s something, at least. That’s thirteen years inside.”

Every damn person says that. But Blair can’t let it go. He won’t let it go.

“That’s why you’ve stayed in the Bureau, in Organized Crime, no less, all this time,” says Becky. “Am I right? I mean, you’re the only one left. Everyone else on that team moved on from the Bureau after that debacle with the witnesses. Not you, though. What, you’re hoping Cagnina will reopen for business so you can catch him?”

Blair waves her off. “Nothing like that. I’m just a glutton for punishment is all.”

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