Page 20 of Spark
“A bit of a security risk, don’t you think?”Simon asked, his eyes following the path the woman had taken further into the house.
Leo rolled his eyes.“We have cameras all over the house.Plus, she’s so high she could barely find my dick to suck it.”
“Sounds enchanting,” Simon said, eliciting a smug laugh from Leo.
“You’re so fucking formal,” Leo scoffed.“She was polishing my knob, not doing ballet.Anyway, they resist less when they’re relaxed.Please tell me you didn’t barge in here for a lesson on personal safety.”
“No.”Simon ignored the twinge in his chest as he moved into the room.His brother had taken over their mother’s larger, grander home office space after she’d died, leaving Simon with what had been a utilitarian spare bedroom on the main floor.Leo had redecorated to “man up” the suite—his phrase—but it still reeked of pretentious extravagance, just in different packaging.Sleek ebony hardwood floors.Modern furniture made of mostly glass and chrome.Custom floor-to-ceiling windows along the back wall.Carefully curated books that Leo had probably never heard of, let alone read, marching across the backlit shelves like showgirls, and Simon shook his head, returning to the matter at hand.
“I came to talk about Sal Brinkman.”
Guilt flashed in Leo’s eyes, replaced quickly by manufactured boredom.“What about him?”
“For starters, he’s dead,” Simon said.“But I’m assuming you knew that.”
Leo’s surprise was just a touch too overdone to be genuine.“What?Why would I know that?”
“I think,” Simon said, very calmly so he wouldn’t scream, “for the sake of this conversation, we can drop pretenses.Did you kill him?”
“Me?Are you serious?”Leo splayed both hands over his heart and huffed out a laugh.“You know, I should be offended that you’d think I would do such a thing.”
Simon inhaled slowly through his nose.“Did you?”
Leo stuck with his indignance, eyes wide.“What?No.”
“So, you didn’t attend his regularly scheduled business meeting two nights ago?”Simon pushed.
Ah, there it was.That flinch of guilt in his eyes that Simon had known since they’d been boys.“Look, don’t freak out, okay?I went to the drop.I know, I know.”He paused his trip to the black lacquer sideboard that served as a bar, rolling his eyes.“I’m not supposed to, or whatever.But Sal was a dirtbag.He was ripping me off.I was just gonna go have a word with him, you know?Man to man, so we could address the issue.”
Simon shouldn’t be surprised that Leo knew what Brinkman had been up to.Yes, Leo was impulsive and arrogant, and no, they’d never have grown their business as they had without Simon pulling the puppet strings.But Leo wasn’t entirely stupid.
Neither was Simon.“How did you know about Brinkman?”
“Runner said there’s been a rise in ODs in Brinkman’s territory lately.I wouldn’t normally give a fuck—people make their choices, and that shit keeps me in business.But my product is pure.I wasn’t going to let some fucking shit stain like Brinkman cut it in with garbage and keep the profits.That money belongs to me.Plus, after enough ODs, the cops start connecting the spots, you know?”
“The dots,” Simon said, and Leo rolled his eyes.
“That’s what I said.”
“So, you went to confront him,” Simon said, making a mental note to remind their contact not to talk so much to Leo.
Out came the Macallan 30, which Leo poured into one Baccarat crystal tumbler without offering a second.“Maybe I was going to be a little stern with him.Set him straight.That kind of thing.”He sipped the whiskey with a shrug.“But he didn’t show.”
Christ, Leo was so arrogant, he didn’t even smell what he was shoveling.“One of our business associates doesn’t show up for a deal, and you don’t think to say anything about it?”
“Come on, Si,” Leo said, the nickname making Simon want to plant his fist directly in Leo’s mouth.“Don’t be so serious.”
“The man was stabbed to death at the location of the meet,” Simon pointed out.“He obviously showed up.”
Leo was, not shockingly, unfazed when confronted with the gaping hole in his story.“Okay.Not to speak ill of the dead, but he might have—and I just mean maybe, here—kind of deserved it.Plus, given the guy’s line of work, it was probably bound to happen eventually, anyway.Who knows how many other people he was ripping off.You know what, I’m just gonna say it.Whoever popped him probably did the world a favor.”
Simon took on the herculean task of gathering his patience.But he hadn’t gotten this far by losing control, no matter how much Leo had earned it, and he had to know what he was dealing with so he could clean it up.“The truth, Leo.Were you with Brinkman at the exchange?”
Leo made apsshsound and a face to match, but then recanted.“Okay, so Imighthave been there for, like, a minute, and kind of lost my temper with him.”
“So, you lied to me.”
“No.Well, I mean, technically, yes, but I only lied because I knew you’d get all worked up over it, and it’s not a big deal.I just, you know.Took care of the problem.That’s all.”
