Free Palindrome by E. Z. Rinsky Page B

jerk to attention. For a moment he says nothing. Courtney stands behind me, itching to burst out of here.
    â€œWhat kind of cassette tape?” Orange says slowly, carefully.
    â€œMaybe one that . . . well we were speculating it may contain something related to . . . life after death.”
    The glare of Orange’s small black eyes pierces through the steam.
    â€œTape . . . That’s what she was looking for,” he wheezes. “That . . . whore .” The sudden tremor in his voice is terrifying. “Courtney, Frankie, sit back down. We’re not done here.”
    I bite my lip. This is a side of Orange I haven’t seen before. I sit back down beside him on the bench.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Courtney says, slowly reclaiming his seat beside the perspiring giant.
    Orange doesn’t seem to have even heard Courtney. “Egnaro’s tape . . .” he says, half to himself, half to us. “What did she tell you? What does it say?” His voice picks up intensity. He’s breathing heavily through his bulbous nose. “Tell me everything you know. And if you lie to me, you two leave here in little pieces. I swear it.”
    The steam fires up again. My face is tingling, bordering on numb. I’m sweating so much that I wonder when I’ll simply dry out. It’s getting really hard to concentrate. How much do we tell Orange? How much does he already know?
    Courtney says, “Greta approached Frank two days ago to find this tape. She said she heard about us from you.”
    Orange chews on this a moment. “Keep going,” he says.
    â€œShe said she’d pay us three hundred fifty grand to find it,” I add.
    Orange smacks his wet lips and cracks his knuckles. “Keep going.”
    â€œI . . .” I try to probe my boiling brain for details that I want to share with this blob. “She wore gloves the whole time, I thought that was weird—­”
    â€œYes, her gloves,” Orange says, rubbing his sweaty tummy impatiently. “What else?”
    â€œI don’t—­”
    â€œTell me what’s on the fucking tape !” Orange roars, the echo of his rage seeming to linger for full seconds, dissipated only by the returning hiss of the steam.
    I’m about to mention Savannah and Silas when Courtney speaks up:
    â€œThat’s all you get, Matty. Not until you give us something back.”
    Orange growls something indecipherable. For a moment I’m sure he’s about to simply lunge at Courtney and try to beat the information out of him. I picture myself wrapping my forearms around Orange’s slick neck from behind and trying to yank his amoeba-­like form off my partner, the whole thing rendered moot because there are undoubtedly cameras in here and Orange’s goons would arrive the second I laid a hand on their boss.
    I realize I haven’t breathed in about two minutes. But the fact that Orange hasn’t snapped his fingers and had us both flayed by his Ukrainians means we have more leverage than we thought: He really wants to know about this tape.
    Orange traces some kind of design on his belly. Coughs a bit but manages to contain it this time.
    â€œ Sensible, Courtney. You may be an ungrateful, smug little self-­righ­teous guido, but you are sensible. So yes, I’m a fair man. Let’s make a deal.” Orange clears his throat. “I’ll tell you everything I know about the tape. But in exchange—­”
    â€œI can’t do the banana trick, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Courtney says.
    Orange pretends he didn’t hear. “In exchange, if you find it, I want to hear it first, before you give it to her. I understand that she hired you first and you two gentlemen are too honest to drop her, even if I could match her price. So I won’t even try. My request is humble. One listen. Fair? It’s your