Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro 4)

“McCready,” Poole said.

Cheese pursed his lips, seemed to give it about a millisecond’s worth of thought, then shrugged. “Don’t ring a bell. What’s this about a bag of cash?”

Broussard chuckled softly and shook his head.

“Let’s try a hypothetical,” Poole said.

Cheese clasped his hands together between his legs and looked at Poole with an eager small-boy’s expression on his buttery face. “Okeydokey.”

Poole placed a foot up on the bench by Cheese’s. “Let us say, just for argument—”

“Just for argument,” Cheese said happily.

“—that someone stole some money from a gentleman on the same day he was incarcerated by the state for a parole violation.”

“This story got any tit in it?” Cheese asked. “The Cheese likes him some story with tit.”

“I’m getting to it,” Poole said. “I promise.”

Cheese nudged me with his elbow, gave me a huge grin, then turned back to Poole. Broussard leaned back on his heels, looked out at the guard towers.

“So this person—who does in fact have breasts—steals from a man she shouldn’t. And a few months later, her child disappears.”

“Pity,” Cheese said. “A goddamn shame, you ask the Cheese.”

“Yes,” Poole said. “A shame. Now a known associate of the man this woman angered—”

“Stole from,” Cheese said.

“Excuse me.” Poole tipped an imaginary hat. “A known associate of the man this woman stole from was seen in the crowd gathered outside the woman’s house the night her daughter disappeared.”

Cheese rubbed his chin. “Interesting.”

“And that man works for you, Mr. Olamon.”

Cheese raised his eyebrows. “Straight up and shit?”

“Mmm.”

“You said there was a crowd outside this house?”

“I did.”

“So, lookee here, I bets a whole boatload of folks were standing there who don’t work for me.”

“This is true.”

“You gonna question them, too?”

“The mother didn’t rip them off,” I said.

Cheese turned his head. “How do you know? A bitch crazy enough to take from the Cheese, she may be ripping off the whole motherfucking neighborhood. Am I right, brother?”

“So you admit she stole from you?” Broussard said.

Cheese looked at me, jerked his thumb in Broussard’s direction. “I thought this was a hypothetical.”

“Of course.” Broussard held up a hand. “Excuse me, Your Cheeseness.”

“Here’s the deal,” Poole said.

“Oooh,” Cheese said. “A deal.”

“Mr. Olamon, we’ll keep this quiet. Between just us.”

“Just us,” Cheese said, and rolled his eyes at me.

“But we want that child returned safely.”

Cheese looked at him for a long time, a smile steadily growing on his face. “Let me get this straight. You saying that you—the Man—are going to let my hypothetical boy pick up this hypothetical money in return for one hypothetical kid, and then we all’s just walk away friends? That the shit you trying to sell me, officer?”

“Detective sergeant,” Poole said.

“Whatever.” Cheese snorted, threw his hands out in front of him.

“You’re familiar with the law, Mr. Olamon. Just by offering you this deal, we are entrapping you. Legally, you can do whatever you want with this offer and not suffer any charges.”

“Bullshit.”

“No shit,” Poole said.

“Cheese,” I said, “who gets hurt with this deal?”

“Huh?”

“Seriously. Someone gets his money back. Someone else gets her kid back. Everyone walks away happy.”

He wagged a finger at me. “Patrick, my brother, do not attempt a career in sales. Who gets hurt? That what you’re asking? Who gets motherfucking hurt?”

“Yeah. Tell me.”

“The motherfucker who got ripped off, that’s who!” He threw his hands up in the air, slapped them down on his enormous thighs, leaned his head in toward mine until we were almost touching. “That motherfucker gets hurt. That motherfucker gets motherfucking butt-fucked. What, he supposed to trust the Man? The Man and his deal?” He put a hand on the back of my neck, squeezed, “Fuck, nigger, you been smoking motherfucking crack?”

“Mr. Olamon,” Poole said, “how do we convince you that we’re on the level?”

Cheese let go of my neck. “You don’t. Y’all step back, maybe let things cool down a bit, let folks work shit out amongst themselves.” He wagged his thick finger at Poole. “Maybe then, everybody get happy.”

Poole extended his arms, palms up. “We can’t do that, Mr. Olamon. You must know that.”

“Okay, okay.” Cheese nodded hurriedly. “Maybe someone needs to offer a certain righteous motherfucker some kind of reduction of sentence for his help in facilitating a certain transaction. What you think about that?”

“That would mean bringing in the District Attorney,” Poole said.

“So?”

“Maybe you missed the part where we said we want to keep this quiet,” Broussard said. “Get the girl back, go on our merry way.”

“Well, then, your hypothetical man, he take that sort of deal, he’s a chump. Motherfucking hypothetical dumb-ass, and that’s for damn sure.”

“We just want Amanda McCready,” Broussard said. He placed his palm on the back of his neck, kneaded the flesh. “Alive.”

Cheese leaned back on the table, tilted his head to the sun, sucked in the air through nostrils so wide they could vacuum rolls of quarters off a rug.

Poole stepped back from the table, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited.

“Used to keep a bitch in my stable name of McCready,” Cheese said eventually. “Occasional trade, not regular. Didn’t look like much, but you gave her the right party favor, that girl could go. Know what I’m saying?”

“Stable?” Broussard stepped over to the table. “Are you telling us you exploited Helene McCready for the purposes of prostitution, Cheese Whiz?”

Cheese leaned forward and laughed. “P-p-p-purposes of p-p-p-prostitution. Dang, that’s got a nice ring to it, don’t it now? Form myself a band, call it Purposes of Prostitution, pack the clubs like a motherfucker.”