He didn’t seem to be asking.
Margot checked the time on her phone. If she left now, she could beat him there and be ready if he had some surprise in mind.
Chapter 7
Margot wished she had time to set up some backup. Since she was sliding into legally dubious territory, she wasn’t sure how comfortable she was asking Shaw or Radcliff. They were both probably busy with their own work, anyway. She didn’t doubt either one of them would do it, busy or not, which was part of the problem. She thought too highly of both of them to risk dragging them down to her level.
That was the nice thing about Mal. Working for Margot was as close as he got to going straight, but he always had her back, no questions asked. At least, until recently. It was that loyalty that had her going to talk to Harry Lee before she went to the police.
Layla's West was never full, but there were a few more customers drinking their way through lunch than there were the afternoon they’d met before. Margot was still able to get a table that let her put her back against the wall. Even though she’d turned down Phoebe and tried to take her no drinking during work policy seriously, Margot ordered her usual Makers Mark on ice. She justified it by telling herself this could be her last drink. Her last anything really; Harry Lee had a reputation for making people who got in the way of his business disappear. The fact she was working for him didn’t really change that.
Harry arrived a half an hour before he said he would get there.
Unlike last time, he had Bobby with him. Harry sent his thug/bodyguard to the bar and went over to join her at the table.
“Finish your drink. I had Bobby get you a fresh one,” Harry said as he sat down.
“Thanks, but I’m only going to have one. I’m working.”
“Bobby’s bringing it anyway. What you do with it is up to you.”
Margot didn’t want to make him mad, so she said, “Thanks, I appreciate the effort.”
“Good to see you’re not in custody.”
“Being innocent helps.”
Harry smiled. “I wouldn’t know much about that. What can I do for you, Margot?”
“Mal used to work for you back in the day.”
“That was the rumor.”
“It wasn’t a rumor.”
“He told you that?”
“No, but that doesn’t matter. Mal would never lie to me, but he would choose not to say if I put the question to him.”
“I take it he wouldn’t say anything about me.”
“Exactly. I’m not going to ask what he did for you—I don’t want to know—but I need to know if he’s back in your employ.”
“Why would you think that?”
“He’s in town, and he’s involved in this whole thing somehow.”
“What makes you think that?”
“A video Cassandra Cole showed to me.”
“The one they arrested you for trying to kill?”
“Technically, they never arrested me, but yeah,” Margot told him, “the video is the man they think contracted Lucas’s murder. The man looks a lot like Mal.”
“Looks a lot like Mal is not the same as being Mal.”
“No, but whoever he was he used the name Dennis Thorn.”