“Then we don’t tell them about Cheese and the other two. We wait until we have an idea what’s going on, if we tell them at all.”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Yeah, well keeping this shit to myself doesn’t sit right with me, either, but it’s still probably the right play. Call Manny, see if you can find out what Mal was up to.”
“Manny won’t talk about that kind of thing on the phone.”
“Go see him then.”
“Only if you come with me.”
“I have a feeling he’ll be hostile toward an ex-cop like myself.”
“He will, but you might have a chance to get him to talk. I won’t.”
“Why is that?”
“We’ve got a hierarchy and he’s at the top. If he orders me to shut up, I’m supposed to shut up.”
“So, if he tells me to shut up, I won’t have to?”
“It would be advisable, but you aren’t bound by any rules other than self-preservation.”
“Can we do it now?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“We need to clean up then. Did you mess with anything in the back?”
“Nope. All I touched were the doors.”
“Wipe them down. I’m not going to call the police, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t.”
“A Racer wouldn’t.”
“You’re a hundred percent sure on everybody?”
Marv thought about that for a second and then said, “I guess I’m not a hundred percent on everyone.”
“Then wipe everything down.”
“Should I wipe down the bottle?”
“Only if it would be weird for your prints to be on it.”
“This is my clubhouse and I’ve been known to bartend,” Marv said as he found a rag. He went to the back to clean up any fingerprints he might have left.
While he was doing that, Margot cleaned off her glass and the bottle of Maker’s Mark and anywhere else she touched. Unlike Marv, this wasn’t her clubhouse.
Chapter 5
Marv pulled into a mini-mall parking lot and parked his bike.
Margot rolled down her window. “Does Manny work at the iPhone repair shop or the sub sandwich place?”
“Neither. You need to ride with me the rest of the way. Manny isn’t going to be happy talking to you and if he sees you pulling into his driveway in some Japanese car, he’s going to be even more obstinate than usual.”
“You serious?”