Free In This Rain by S. J. Rozan Page A

hostility of the ones who, from this job or some other, did. Sonny O’Doul double-timed out of his trailer. He hustled Joe inside before word of his arrival could spread.
    “The fuck you trying to do to me, Cole?” Sonny banged the door shut, dropped himself behind the paper-drifts that engulfed his desk.
    “How’re things, Sonny?” Uninvited, Joe sat in the opposite chair.
    “Like you give a fuck. Every time you show your ugly Yid face on a jobsite, six guys disappear in case you catch them at shit I don’t even know they’re doing. Last job you cost me my bonus, asshole.”
    “Come on, Sonny, it’s not like you needed it. On kickbacks alone, you ought to be getting rich.”
    “Cocksucker. You have a warrant, show me. Otherwise, get off my job.”
    “I don’t know. I thought I’d take a look around.”
    “Listen, Cole: I’m three days behind from the rain last week. I can’t afford this shit.”
    Meaning: How much will it cost me to get you to leave?
    “I’m tired of being indoors. All this rain, you know? Seems like this might be a good day to hang around outside, shoot the shit with your men.”
    Meaning: Trying to buy me, that was a mistake, Sonny.
    “This is fucking harassment, Cole. I’m gonna call my lawyer.”
    “That might be a good idea.”
    Joe reached for his pack, pulled out a thick folder labeled “Dolan/ Manelli,” and flipped it to Sonny. He left Sonny and the folder alone together while he ambled to the other end of the trailer, poured a cup of coffee, and took it outside. He stood beside a puddle, gazing at geometric lines of scaffolding against gray sky.
    “Your coffee stinks,” he told Sonny when he returned.
    “What do you want? Shut the door.” Sonny slapped the folder down.
    “A decaf latte?”
    “Oh, fuck your mother, Cole, don’t play— ”
    “I want Larry Manelli.”
    Sonny glared at the folder as though his smoldering hate could ignite it, then raised that look to Joe. “Seems to me you’ve already got his ass in a sling.”
    “I do. You. You’re the sling, Sonny.”
    “So why are you here? This your victory lap?”
    “No. Your chance.”
    “To do what?”
    Joe gave Sonny time to see if he could figure a way out. But the folder was a roach motel; there was no way out.
    Sonny asked, “How?”
    “This crap”— Joe cocked a finger at the file folder— “is so small-time, I don’t know why you bother.” He held up a hand to fend off Sonny’s answer. “And I don’t care. Don’t get me confused with someone who gives a shit about you, Sonny, or this won’t play out well.”
    “So what the— ”
    “If I give this amateur-hour junk to the DA, you and Manelli will do sixteen months apiece. For a double-dipping shit like Manelli, that’s not nearly enough. For you, Sonny— well, like I said, I don’t really care. You following me?”
    With obvious effort Sonny kept his mouth shut.
    “If Manelli got more,” Joe said, “that would be better. If Manelli got a long time, and you got a slap on the wrist, wouldn’t that be the best?”
    Sonny O’Doul knew everything there was to know about the Brooklyn Bridge site and he gave it all to Joe. Joe took it in notes, not on tape: that was part of the deal. If he could bag Larry Manelli by squeezing the people Sonny was pointing him to, he’d leave Sonny and his low-grade crap alone.
    “As long as you clean up your act, Sonny. Because the next time your name shows up on my desk— you know I can smell it before I see it, your name?— you’re toast.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “Uh-huh. Go back to the stuff about the property line.”
    A couple of hours, that was all it took. Joe kept his eyes on Sonny, asked short questions to clarify points. Eventually Sonny slowed and stopped, like an out-of-gas car coasting into a stall. Joe closed his notebook, slung his pack over his shoulder. “You can keep the file,” he said, knowing that Sonny would now have to spend the day worrying about where to hide it and the drive home searching for a place to ditch it. “I have a copy.”
    And then, standing in the open