Free Reversible Errors by Scott Turow Page B

and sue you, they don't care if it's a buck ninety-five. Zero tolerance. It works, too. They got everybody scared shitless. How'd your talk go with Genevieve? She got any clue where Luisa was hiding her money tree?"
    Larry grunted. "Three monkeys."
    "Really?" Erno made a face.
    "Really. Any chance she was into the same shit as Luisa?"
    "Never say never-but I'll say it anyway. Too goody-goody. Follows every rule. Why not lay a grand jury subpoena on her? Somebody like that won't stiff you, once you make her swear an oath to God. I bet if you squeeze her, you'll find out what Luisa was up to."
    It was an idea, and Larry wrote it down in his notebook, but Muriel and Tommy Molto wouldn't sign off. The grand jury meant defense lawyers who'd start howling about busting on nice white people for no better reason than a hunch.
    Erno asked what else Larry was thinking.
    "Well, there isn't that much left, right?" Larry said. "I don't see Luisa keeping a book-especially with half the people coming through here on their way to Las Vegas."
    Erno acknowledged the logic of that.
    "So what kind of problems do you have?" Larry asked him.
    "Right now, this is still a small town. Our biggest issue is the bums in the winter. You know, these pooches who're on the street in the North End want a warm place to hide out. We got these guys everywhere-in the johns, hiding in back on the baggage claim carousels. They steal, they scare people, they puke on the floor."
    "Any hookers?"
    There were a lot of lonely travelers looking for company. A young lady like Luisa, in her airline attire, might pass for somebody's fantasy of a flight attendant-lunchtime, coffee break, after work, the dead of night when nothing was doing anyway. But as Erno pointed out, there was barely any hotel space around here for a young lady in that line of work to ply her trade.
    "I wouldn't say you've been a fuck of a lot of help," said Larry.
    Erno pushed his tongue into the side of his mouth, which in his case was what passed for a smile.
    "Actually," he said, gesturing with the toothpick, "I may have one thing for you. I don't even know if I oughta be mentioning it. There's a kid -well, he's no kid -there's a guy I know. Well, not a guy, not just a guy. To be straight with you, Larry, he's my fucking nephew. You wouldn't necessarily know that when you see him."
    "Not as good-looking?"
    "No, he's good-looking. His dad was a big good-looking stud, and he's a big good-looking stud, too. But he's a different tint than you and me."
    "Ah," said Larry.
    "My sister, you know-when I was a kid in the South End, all the old guys were ever on about was running the Nubians outta town. You know, we had 'em on three sides, and it's like we don't want them brown bastards, with their drugs and whoring. Fekete. Dark. That's the word in Hungarian. All the time, 'Fekete!' like it's cussing. So naturally, there are chicks, they get to the age when it's, Fuck you, Momma, Daddy, and all this Roman Catholic bullshit. Their idea of living dangerous is to give it up as fast as they can for the first black guy to say howdy-do. My kid sister, Ilona, she's one of these hunky broads, just couldn't stuff enough black meat into her cannoli.
    "So this is how my nephew stumbles into the world. My parents, you know, they can't figure who to kill first, my sister or themselves, so right from the jump, its the big brother, Yours Truly, who's giving them a helping hand. And that's a soap opera with about six hundred installments. You got time for the skinny version? It'll help make sense of the rest of it."
    "I'll put in for overtime," said Larry.
    "Well, the kid, you know, he's a brown-skinned fatherless bastard, just to put it in a nutshell. The old neighborhood don't have much use for him and he got even less use for the neighborhood. My sister, she means to do right and only makes things worse. She sends him to public school, instead of Saint Jerome's, so he's not the only black kid, and soon enough, that's what