“You like your whiskey neat or over ice?”
“Neat.”
“Alright. Come in and sit down. I’ll pour you one.”
“Thanks, Margot.”
Marv sat on the couch opposite the easy chair Margot had been sitting in. She brought in the bottle and tumbler, refreshed her drink, and then poured two fingers for Marv.
She sat and took a sip of her drink before asking again, “What kind of help did Mal want?”
Marv laughed. “You know I came here to ask you questions.”
“You should have known better.”
Marv laughed again and then told her, “You know, for the most part, the Racers are just a bunch of guys who dig riding bikes, but for better or worse, there’s more to us than that. Some are in deeper than others. Mal wanted me to hook him up with someone immersed in the outlaw side of Racer operations.”
“He say why?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. That kind of thing is usually better not to know. He also asked for a place to lay low a while. He said he might be in some trouble. I didn’t ask about that either.”
Margot could have told him what the trouble was but she didn’t.
“I put him up at a clubhouse and set up the meeting. The next thing I know, Manny is calling me asking why my brother didn’t show up. I head out to the clubhouse to ask him the same thing, Manny isn’t somebody you want to be on the bad side of and Mal didn’t do me any favors not showing up. His car is still there, but he isn’t.”
“So, you start looking for him.”
“Yeah. So, have you seen him?”
“Not for a couple of weeks.”
“You know what he might want with a guy like Manny?”
“No idea.”
“How about who he was hiding from?”
“I have an idea on that one.”
When Margot didn’t elaborate, Marv asked, “Could you share it with me?”
“Mal and I got on the wrong side of one of the cartels a while back.”
“That was a dumb thing to do.”
“Yeah it was, but it wasn’t like we set out to do it. The whole thing started with an infidelity case that wasn’t what it seemed. It got worse from there when I decided not to let them murder me and a house full of people.”
“Yet, you’re still alive and I don’t see you hiding.”
Margot nodded and drank some more whiskey before she told him, “Maybe I shouldn’t be the first and should be doing the second. From what I understand, a deal was made and Mal and I are in the clear.”
“He wasn’t acting like someone in the clear.”
“Yeah, he told me we might not have been as much in the clear as we thought and I think there was something to it. They sent someone who made a deal with Mal to kill a man. That was supposed to make things square, but I didn’t let him do it. If you’re wondering why we had a falling out, that was it. After all that, the deal to get them off our backs was still made, but according to Mal, the guy they sent didn’t see our business with him as being completed.”
“You said him, not them.”
“You don’t miss much do you?”