Page 29 of Dirty Ex-Mas
“Just over two,” David mumbles.
“Two? Two what? Hundred? Thousand?”
“Million.”
I whistle my surprise. “Wow, Dave, I gotta tell you, that’s a lot of money to owe a bookie.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Horses? Cards? Cock fights? What’s your jam, man?”
“I’m in finance, okay. I was flipping money for some clients. The first time paid big. So I took some proceeds to invest for myself, no one was the wiser. A sure thing. Only it wasn’t. I had to make the clients whole first and needed the funds immediately. Someone recommended Black Diamond, and it all kind of went from there.”
He seems so blasé about it. I want to introduce his face to my fist again. Repeatedly.
“How’d the girls get involved?”
“When I couldn’t pay, he said that’s what I had to do until I could produce the money. Which I still haven’t done. I’ve got a wedding coming up, man. I’ve got expenses. I can’t be paying interest to this guy. The girls take care of that, plus some principle.”
“You realize these are human lives that you are destroying in a truly demented kind of way?”
He doesn’t shrug again. Lucky for him. But he remains impassive. Like what I’m saying doesn’t even register. He has zero feelings about it.
“Where do we find this Black Diamond guy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s the guy at the house where you drop the girls?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“I want the address.”
“It’s different all the time, man.”
“Fine. What was the last address?”
He gives it to me. I make a note on my phone.
He really makes me want to punch him. Break his nose all over again, watch the blood fly.
From the looks she’s giving me in the rearview mirror, Daria isn’t far behind me in that sentiment. I give in to the urge and clock him with my right. He looks surprised for a second, then closes his eyes and melts into the seat, knocked out for the foreseeable future.
I turn off the recording app on my phone and double check to make sure everything recorded. Not that I got the confession legally, but I’ll figure that part out later.
“Where to?” Daria asks, her accent strong. It always is when she’s upset, and like most other things about her, it’s sexy as fuck. I’d asked her not to say anything in front of Tremblay, her voice is distinct enough he may have recognized it.
“Hit the address he gave us. I want to make sure there really aren’t any girls there.”
“And if there are?”
“Then it’s gonna get pretty crowded in this backseat, babe.”
14
Quinn
Reed drags me upstairs and into one of the guest rooms.
