Free Buy Back by Brian M Wiprud

peppy little tune.
    Now I had to decide how I would squeeze Huey. I could have told Huey either he had to cut me a big slice of the pie or I make trouble for him in the business as a fink. Or better, trouble for him in his home. With his wife.
    The green loft at Bond and Union Street?
    That’s Bridget’s place.
    She goes through a lot of sheets.
    Latina hat girl says, “Ooo, mister, I like this brown one on you, it goes with your eyes. For you, nothing too close in color to your hair. The eyes, ah, that’s muy bueno.”
    So I says, “You think so?”
    I adjusted the hat and looked at the clean-shaven Kirk Douglas in the brown overcoat and brown fedora in the mirror. I tried to ignore the stupid snowflake sweater I was wearing. He didn’t look like what I was used to. Still, chica was right. The brown hat did look good on me, didn’t make my head look like something orange ready for carving and putting on a stoop. I did need to cut my hair, though. The hat would work better with shorter hair.
    I looked at her in the mirror. “Do you know Perez Prado? His music?”
    A little confused, she said, “My grandfather, he listens to mambo.”
    “How much for the hat, chiquita?”
    “A hundred and seven.”
    If someone was going to blow my head off with a sniper bullet, I might as well have a hat on to hold the pieces together. I was so deep in shit with the pink monkey, what did another hundred matter? Besides, I was dancing inside because I knew who’d ripped me off and that I was close to making Huey hand over whatever he’d been paid so my problem with Scanlon would go away and Yvette would be completely out of my life.
    I handed the Latina hat girl my credit card and replied to Blaise’s e-mail.
    great work, BJ … stay on FG,
drop UG n BG … photos at green loft?
    My new hat and me were headed to lunch with Max when I got a reply.
    MY MAN TOOK A COUPLE CUZ HE KNOWS GRN LOFT.
XTRA $40 FOR GRN LOFT PIX.
    I sent back:
    40 aok - u r the best.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
    SUSHI OLé WAS ALL DONE in blond wood, with blond tables and chairs very close together. Max was easy to spot in a lunchtime crowd. He was as tall as I was with short black hair and a white complexion. It was like when we were kids there’d be some lad who suddenly got taller but not wider. A beanpole. Maxie was an adult beanpole. Like you saw from the way he talks, though, Max is all about precision and economy. I’ve never seen him dressed in anything other than dark suits and white button-down shirts.
    Given how Max was, I guess sushi fit his personality. The food is neat, compact, perfectly arranged. I noticed he consumed his sashimi from left to right, back to front, at regular forty-second intervals. His eyes always stayed on me.
    I’m not sure what Maxie would have done with a pork chop, peas, and mashed potatoes with gravy. I’d like to have seen that sometime.
    The corner table meant I had to sit next to the wall, and had to wade through a row of people trying to enjoy their lunch to get there. I just said excuse me a thousand times, bulldozed my way in, and sat backward on the little chair, which made a loud creak like it was complaining I wasn’t a little Japanese guy.
    “Max.”
    “Tom.”
    “Museum?”
    “Yeah, interviewed the kitchen help.”
    “McCracken?” He was talking about Sheila, the museum director I had dated.
    “Just for a second. Atkins, too.”
    “Progress?”
    “Some.”
    “Some?”
    “I know who took the paintings.”
    “And?”
    “I’m waiting for some leverage to make one flip.”
    “Leverage?”
    “He likes girls. His wife wouldn’t like it.”
    “When?”
    “Today, probably.”
    “Probably?”
    “Like I said, I’m waiting. For a photo.”
    “Photo a sure thing?”
    “I haven’t seen it, but I commissioned it. Anyway, I don’t have to have the photo to talk to the goofball.”
    “So not probably.”
    “Today. Is fifty really all you can do?”
    “Fifty.”
    “That’s not a lot for three pips. They