Free Disturbed Earth by Reggie Nadelson

drunk, OK? She's a good girl. She loves you, you know. Come on, say you'll bring her over."
    Mike took a UPS package from under the counter.
    "This came. I forgot."
    "Thanks," I said, and put on my jacket and, on the way across the street, ripped open the package. It was a book on fish for Billy whose birthday was coming up. Twelve already. He'd be twelve.

8
     
    "How the hell do you know it's a girl," I said to Sonny over the phone, the half opened package still in my hand, my front door ajar. It came to me out of the blue: maybe it wasn't a girl.
    "Where are you?"
    "I just got home."
    "Listen to me, Art. It's a girl. Every other case, it's been a girl. The case I told you, the other case, the girl with the green sneakers before, it was the same. The girl on Long Island. This is the same. He goes for girls."
    "You're sure?"
    "What's the matter with you?" he said and hung up.
    I shut the door and put the package on the kitchen counter. Billy would be twelve in a few weeks. Gen had called to say it was a big birthday for him, so I got the book. I also planned on taking him fishing somewhere great, maybe out to Montauk if the weather held. One day I'd take him out to Montana for the real thing. Some day if Gen let me. It was the way I felt about the kid that had made me crazy out in Brooklyn earlier, but it was OK now, he was upstate, the blood-soaked clothes were not his, I told myself for the fourth time and then I got a beer out of the fridge.
    The last of the day's sun was coming through the big loft windows and it lit up the place. When I first bought into the building, the space was pretty raw. It took years to fix it right, I did the floors myself, I scraped down the industrial windows. It was the only place I'd ever owned.
    I put Little Richard singing 'Tutti Frutti' on the CD player, turned it up loud and ignored the banging on the wall from the next door apartment. The music, the meaningless lyrics, were good and raucous and the beer was cold. I sat on the floor and began looking at the pile of paper Johnny Farone had given me.
    Farone's accounts were a mess. I was surprised Genia let him get away with it. Maybe she didn't want to rock the boat. Johnny was her American dreamboat, wasn't he? I dialed Genia's number again; there was no answer. I called her cell phone. Nothing.
    For half an hour, I sorted paper. Little Richard irritated me after a while, all that falsetto howling, and I turned it off and put the radio on, listened to Sinatra, then put on Stan Getz's 'Spring Is Here'. It made me think of Lily.
    I matched up the receipts with Johnny's books. I put the disk into my computer. A couple of hours later it was clear to me who was taking from Farone's. Hard to believe, I thought, and went back and checked everything again, called Johnny and asked who had access to his books.
    "You found something?" he said into the phone.
    "Not yet," I said. "I'm on it, OK?" I added, but I was lying.
    I was pretty sure it was Genia taking the money from Johnny. Only Gen had access to his checkbooks, his accounts, the cash box. Farone's was a high cash business, like he said, and there was cash missing. Every time I went through it, it came back to Genia.
    Maybe she was salting it away for Billy; maybe there was someone in Russia she sent money to; maybe it was for a rainy day or she planned on leaving Farone. But why? He was the best thing that ever happened to her, wasn't he?
    And Genia was studying to be an accountant; she'd insisted on doing Farone's books. She was smart; she could fool Farone. I didn't know if she was swiping the truffles and the wine; the cash I was sure about.
    I picked up the phone to call her, then put it back. We weren't close. Genia was a distant cousin of my father's who looked me up when she got to New York years ago. I didn't pay much attention. I didn't want to own any part of my past.
    After she had Billy, I saw her more often, and she called regularly and invited me to eat with them. Except for my