Free Apaches by Lorenzo Carcaterra

else?” Rodriguez asked.
    “The brother, Albert, has some sort of muscular disease,” Mary said. “And his insurance doesn’t pick up all the costs. So he’s always behind the financial eight ball.”
    “He know this Jamie’s pullin’ in a few thou a week?” Johnson asked.
    “No,” Mary said. “Thinks the guy’s on the balls of his ass. In fact, Albeit lends him money. Feels sorry for him.”
    “What a prick,” Jo Jo Haynes said.
    “Albert’s over at the apartment,” Mary said, finishing her scotch. “Sees a bottle of wine and looks for a corkscrew.”
    “He finds it,” Russo said. “In a cabinet drawer next to a folded-up paper bag. Albie, curious as well as thirsty, pops open the bag.”
    “And finds the money,” Johnson said.
    “He sat on the bed for three hours,” Mary said. “Holding the corkscrew and staring at all that cash.”
    “Jamie walks in,” Russo said. “Sees poor little Albie sittin’ next to his stash and starts yellin’ at the guy.”
    “Albert snaps,” Mary said. “All those years being suckered by Jamie melt down into a couple of bloody minutes.”
    “He sliced and diced the fucker,” Russo said. “Left him hangin’, took the money, and walked out.”
    “And he never got to drink the wine,” Johnson said.
    “That’s the sad part,” Rodriguez said. “Guy comes in thirsty. Goes out the same way.”
    “Except this time with a murder rap,” Russo said. “And Mrs. Columbo here smellin’ his ass out in no time flat.”
    “What happens to the old lady?” Haynes asked. “What’s her name? Walker?”
    “Who gives a fuck, Cap,” Russo said. “She still got her feet and can swallow anything she chews.”
    “She’ll die alone,” Mary said in a low voice. “Jamie was her only real friend. After this, she’ll never let herself get close to anyone. She’ll be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And she’ll die alone.”
    “Think Albert cops an insanity?” Johnson said.
    “Wouldn’t you?” Russo said. “He comes up Mr. Clean on the sheets. Not even a parking ticket. One of those jaboes goes through life nobody notices.”
    “Two lives ruined and one ended,” Mary said. “All for a glass of wine.”
    “Let this be a lesson,” Russo said, holding up a bottle of Bud. “Drink beer. You don’t need a fuckin’ weapon to open a bottle, and anybody who drinks it sure as shit don’t have a paper bag filled with cash.”
    “I guess this means you’re not buying,” Mary said.
    “Not unless one of you got a corkscrew in your pocket,” Russo said, standing up from the table.
    “Hey, Cap,” Johnson said with a smile. “Whatta we get if we each put a bullet into Russo right here and now?”
    “A raise,” Jo Jo Haynes said.
    Mrs. Columbo and the detectives ended their night of victory over death on a loud laugh.
    •    •    •
    M ARY PARKED HER car four blocks from her Whitestone row house. The rain had stopped and the air was cool andclean, early morning smells wafting down from the trees. Overhead lights cast broken shadows across cars and patches of lawn. It was closing in on three A.M . and the streets were empty as she walked with a slow step, head down, her purse hanging from a strap off her shoulder. Sated with drink, she let her mind ease past the events of the day.
    The emptiness of Alison Walker’s life had rubbed a nerve. The woman had money, comfort, and a certain status. But none of those could fill the vacuum of years built around set routines and nights spent alone. Alison wouldn’t die broke, but the odds were strong she would die bitter.
    Mary lacked all the luxuries of Alison’s life. Her status came courtesy of the gold shield in her purse. Her money traveled on a biweekly spin cycle and her comfort was a small house with a leaky roof, bad plumbing, and two bedroom windows long painted shut. But Mary knew, as she walked down the cracked sidewalk of Thirty-seventh Avenue, that she had Alison beat by a record