Free Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) by Steve Ulfelder Page A

you’re the one with a thing for Rinn,” I said. “You’d step off a building for her.”
    It was a guess.
    It was a good one.
    â€œShe is something,” Donald said. “Ain’t she?”
    We ate.
    â€œHere’s why I want to know about Peter Biletnikov,” I said, and laid out a two-minute version of Gus’s story, ending with the Almost Home shootings.
    Crump eye-locked me. “You want to know did the father put a hit on the son.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œTruth is I never seen him do anything that heavy,” Crump said, wiping the corners of his mouth. “Nor heard tell of it.”
    I read his eyes. “But.”
    Half smile. “But. Hell yes, but. Wouldn’t put it past him. Ain’t much I’d put past Peter Biletnikov.”
    â€œWhy? What’s he to you?”
    â€œQuestion is, what am I to him . And what I am is Willie McCoy.”
    He smiled, waited.
    I didn’t get it. And I guess that showed on my face, because he shook his head, dropped the smile, waggled a finger at me. “You’re weak on pop culture. Remember Jim Croce? Willie McCoy’s the dude tugs on Superman’s cape.” He started singing, banging his rib on the table edge to keep time. “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.” People turned. Crump banged his rib harder. “You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.”
    Quiet laughs from nearby tables. A kid two booths over clapped. I looked at him. He stopped clapping.
    â€œPeter Biletnikov took all my money,” Donald Crump said. “And it may sound funny, but I come to get my money back.”

 
    CHAPTER NINE
    â€œI’m listening,” I said.
    â€œThink of me as a serial entrepreneur.”
    â€œHow many times you been arrested for entrepreneuring?”
    Hummingbird laugh. “Good one, good one.” Then his eyes sharpened up fast. “Tell you what, Sax. Don’t ask about my arrests, I won’t ask about yours. You ain’t no virgin. Fair?”
    â€œFair,” I said, smiling, admitting to myself I got a kick out of this cat.
    The tiny man had demolished his food. Now he fished a silver toothpick from his jacket pocket and began to use it while he told his story.
    He was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Had headed south twenty years ago and loved it right away. He’d hoped to die without ever again traveling north of Washington, D.C. But business was business. And business eventually pulled him to Westborough, a couple towns over from Framingham.
    Without saying exactly how, Crump said he was named CEO of a tiny company called SoPo Industries LLC. SoPo made lightweight glass and plastic products, mostly for solar-powered cars.
    â€œYou, a CEO? No offense, but it’s hard to picture.”
    â€œYou got to understand what a mess the company was,” he said. “It was like being CEO of a lemonade stand. At first, anyway.”
    When Crump rolled into Westborough, SoPo hadn’t met payroll for two months. Judging from the state of the building, he figured most of the employees had simply stood and walked out one day. Some left their computers turned on.
    He poked around and found a frazzled but loyal receptionist running the switchboard through her cell, a pile of dunning letters and liens, and two Chinese engineers who didn’t know a dozen words of English between them, playing NERF soccer in the conference room.
    Crump taught the engineers enough English to fire them, then persuaded the receptionist to stick around. Together they sifted through records and assets, looking for any way to turn a dollar before Crump folded up SoPo and headed south.
    There were not a lot of assets to pore through.
    Crump was about to throw in the towel, stuff a bunch of laptops in his car, and split when the receptionist came across a query letter from a