Free Sinner's Ball by Ira Berkowitz Page A

hands?”
    Jonas read my eyes and scooched his chair back a few inches.
    â€œWhoa,” he said. “I just did what any father would do raising up two wild ones. Nothing wrong with that.”
    â€œDid you get that from the Good Book too?”
    He jumped to his feet.
    â€œI’m a good father. And don’t need to take this from you.”
    Memories of Dominic danced in my head. But at least he hadn’t used God’s word as an excuse.
    â€œYou son of a bitch.”
    â€œNo reason to talk to me like that. I did right.”
    â€œAngela is dead. And who in hell knows where Wanda is. And you honestly believe you did
right?”
    Jonas headed for the door “I’m out of here,” he said. “Can’t blame me for what happened.”
    I let him go. Another minute and I’d have taken him apart.
    I walked out to the street and waited for Luce.
    Overhead, purple-bellied clouds fringed with gray the color of smoke drifted like an armada of ghost ships.
    A few minutes later she joined me.
    â€œHow did it go with Adele?” I asked.
    â€œI got an earful. Old Jonas is quite the taskmaster. She said it wasn’t his fault. The kids needed it. And she needed it too.”
    â€œAll-American family,” I said.
    â€œPollutants is more like it. And she’s as bad as he is. She enabled him. Probably encouraged him to whack the kids around so he’d lay off her.”
    â€œThey deserve each other.”
    â€œThat they do.”
    â€œPeople like that need to have their pilot light put out.”
    â€œNot your job, Jackson. Remember, you’re a consultant.”
    â€œYou ought to try it sometime,” I said. “It’s actually quite freeing.”
    â€œI notice,” she said.
    â€œI need another favor.”
    â€œI’m about fresh out, Jackson.”
    â€œRun Wanda Klemper through the system.”
    â€œWhy not,” she said with a sigh.
    In the
Inferno
, Dante said that each of hell’s flames was a sinner. If he was right, Jonas and Adele would soon help light the lower reaches of hell.
    But the image was small comfort.
    They’d driven one daughter into the streets and theother to a fiery death in a Hell’s Kitchen warehouse. No charges would ever be brought. There would be no final reckoning. At least not in this world. And Jonas and Adele would spend the rest of their truly twisted lives playing the grieving parents to anyone who would listen.

15
    A llie sculpted geometric shapes in the orzo with her fork, DeeDee’s attention was hovering somewhere in the ether, and my snappy repartee was greeted with sublime indifference.
    The dinner was supposed to be a celebration, but it had all the trappings of a wake.
    Allie and I had been together for a year. To mark the occasion, I’d made reservations at Bird, a trendy SoHo bistro where the lights were dim, the portions fit for gnomes, and the waitstaff annoyingly cheerful. I’d neglected the ladies in my life and expected some time in the penalty box. But this was purgatory.
    I threw my napkin on the table.
    â€œWhat’s going on?”
    Allie set the fork down and looked at me. “I have a new boss,” she said.
    â€œBut you run the creative department. Hell, you were their first hire when they started the agency.”
    â€œBusiness stinks, Steeg. The economy is in a sludge pit and client budgets are cut to the bone.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound like a creative problem.”
    â€œIt’s not. But the imbeciles who run my crazy house think that change has a revivifying power. So they create a new title. Creative executive. Catchy, huh?”
    â€œWho’s the lucky man … or woman?”
    â€œRemember the guy who had his caricature nailed to the wall at Café Buffo?”
    DeeDee snapped out of her reverie. I noticed the mascara was gone.
    â€œYou mean the chinless Brit?” she said.
    â€œMr. Fly-Front Adult Diaper