‘You think either one of us knows what the fuck any of this shit is?’ Dale reached back and pushed open the door. ‘Get out.’
Sam kept up the hurt act as he jumped out of the van. Dale slammed the door shut. Angie felt her eyes sting at the sudden changes in light.
Dale fished a joint out of the ashtray. He used a plastic lighter to flame it up. He took a long drag and held it. Smoke sputtered out of his mouth when he said, ‘I took Delilah to see Wicked.’
‘Father of the year.’
Dale offered her the joint.
Angie shook her head. She already had three Vicodin on board.
Dale took another drag. He squinted at all the electronic paraphernalia. ‘If I knew how to use half this shit, I’d be a billionaire by now.’
Angie knew he’d be exactly where he was, and not just because of his shitty luck at the track. Men like Dale Harding only knew how to hold on to one thing: desperation.
He said, ‘Look. I need a favor.’
Angie was familiar with Dale’s favors. They all had one theme. ‘Did Delilah fall off the wagon?’
‘No, nothing like that. She’s solid.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘She’s gonna stay clean, right?’
The guy was delusional, but she said, ‘Right.’
‘It’s another thing. My bookie.’
Angie should’ve expected this. Even the threat of death couldn’t stop an addict from taking a hit. Delilah had the horse and Dale had the ponies.
He said, ‘I’m into Iceberg Shady for fifteen K.’
‘I know you have the money.’ Angie knew that Dale kept bricks of cash under the spare tire in the trunk of his car. ‘Just peel some off the top.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s all gotta go to Delilah. She’ll need some cash to live off of while the paperwork is moving through. You promised me you’d look after her.’
Angie leaned back against the bins. Wires poked into her back, but she was feeling too claustrophobic to move away. Dale’s neediness was eating up all the air. He’d made some kind of side deal with Kip Kilpatrick, his last-ditch attempt to do right by Delilah. There was $250,000 being held in an escrow account. In two weeks, when the All-Star Complex broke ground, the money would automatically flow into a trust fund Dale had set up for Delilah. He was holding on to the promise of the trust fund as his one chance at redemption. Like a big payday could erase the thousands of times Delilah had earned Dale’s gambling money between her legs.
Angie wasn’t interested in Dale’s redemption, and she didn’t want the job of wrangling a junkie whore. The only reason she’d said yes was because Dale was dangling the job at 110 over her head. If she had wanted to be responsible for a kid, she would’ve kept Jo.
Dale dropped the joint back into the ashtray. ‘I got this from the lawyer, okay?’ He pulled a folded stack of papers out of his inside jacket pocket. A racing form floated to the floor of the van. ‘I just need your John Hancock.’
Angie shook her head. ‘I’m the wrong person, Dale.’
‘I got you the job with Kip. I didn’t ask you any questions. You agreed to do this for me, now you’re gonna do it.’
She tried to buy some time. ‘I need to read it before I sign it, maybe talk to a lawyer.’
‘No you don’t.’ He had a pen in his hand. ‘Come on. Two copies. One for you, one for the lawyer to file.’ She still didn’t take the pen. ‘You want me to start asking questions? Like maybe about your husband? Like why do you need to crack the encryption on medical software?’
‘That dickslap,’ Angie said. Sam had ratted her out after all. She stalled for time. ‘How would it work? The trust?’
‘The executor, that’s you, is authorized to pay out for basic things, like an apartment, utilities, health-care expenses. I want to make sure she always has a roof over her head.’ He added, ‘I put it in there that you get a grand a month for taking care of it.’
Not chump change, but not enough to retire on, either. Here was the bigger problem: Angie knew Delilah Palmer. She was a selfish, spoiled brat, even without the junkie habit. The first nickel the girl got would end up melted in a spoon and shot into whatever vein she could find.
Which is the reason Angie took the pen and signed the agreement.
Dale laughed at her signature. ‘Angie Trent, huh?’
‘What about your other problem?’ She tucked her copy into her purse. ‘I’m gonna guess your bookie, Iceberg Shady, is also a pimp?’
‘He runs whores off Cheshire Bridge. That’s your old stomping ground, right?’
During her detective days, Angie had worked honey traps out of the Cheshire Motor Inn. ‘That was years ago. Those girls are all dead.’
‘You don’t gotta know their names. You just gotta get them locked up.’
‘You want me to get APD to pull a sting on Cheshire Bridge?’ She was already shaking her head. She might as well tell them to round up all the sand on Daytona Beach. ‘That’ll take mountains of paperwork. The girls will be out in hours, arraigned in a week. There’s no way they’ll do it.’
‘Denny will do it if you ask nice.’
Angie hated that Dale’s sticky fingerprints were all over her life.
‘Come on, Polaski. Give a dying man some peace. Denny would fuck a donkey if you asked him to.’
‘Denny would fuck a donkey just because.’ She reluctantly took out her phone. Angie only used burners, so she could control who got in touch with her. She pulled Denny’s number from the Rolodex in her head and started typing. She asked Dale, ‘I guess you want this to happen now?’
‘Today is good. Half of Iceberg’s bank is on Cheshire. Denny keeps him busy bailing out girls, that should buy me at least a week.’
She studied his watery eyes. Red shot through the whites like yarn. ‘Just a week? That’s all you’ve got left?’
‘I got it worked out. If my kidneys don’t get me, this will do the job.’ He pulled a small baggie of white powder out of his jacket pocket. ‘One hundred percent pure.’
‘Every dealer on the planet says his cocaine is one hundred percent pure.’ She finished typing the text. ‘It’s probably a laxative.’
‘It’s real,’ Dale said, because of course he’d tested it. ‘I figure this much coke after all these years, they’ll be peeling my heart off the ceiling.’
‘Sounds great.’ Angie sent the text to Denny. She tucked her phone into her purse. ‘Make sure I’m not the one who finds your body.’
‘Hand to God,’ he swore. ‘But lookit, I want you to promise me again, Polaski. You can take your cut of the money, but you’ll make sure Delilah is comfortable, right? Not livin’ large, but in a nice place, with good neighbors—not like that Asian bitch I gotta deal with. Plenty of healthy food and organic shampoo and all that shit.’
‘Sure.’ Another promise Angie wasn’t certain she would keep. ‘But why are you timing it like this? You can eke out another week, make sure it all goes through.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t go another couple of weeks. I’m sick of this. Sick of living. I want it over.’