“My secretary,” I said, “is accusing me of ambulance chasing, coming around here. But really it’s just my damn curiosity getting the best of me. As usual.”
He was squinting at me again, or maybe that was a wince. “What got you curious? It was an accident, wasn’t it? Not that I wouldn’t like to get a hold of that son of a bitch!”
He demonstrated with clawed hands. And the eyes weren’t squinting now.
“Yeah,” I said with a grin, “I been there. You may have heard that I’m kind of known for settling grudges in my own way.”
He smiled. “Are they exaggerating?”
“Understating. Look, I’m told I have a nose for certain things—murder, for example.”
“I don’t seem to be dead, Mike.”
“Well, this snout of mine can also sniff out attempted murder. Do you have anybody in your life who might like to see you turned into a stain on the pavement?”
He risked a small shrug. “I suppose I have enemies. Work and private life alike. But not that kind of enemy. No. Not at all.”
“Well. You think about it. Just don’t think yourself into an even worse headache. But if there’s something I can do for you, say the word. I can leave a card if you like.”
He grinned; even in this lighting, it was dazzling. “Are you sure you aren’t ambulance chasing?”
I grinned back. “Pretty sure. You mind if I ask you something?”
“Won’t know till you do.”
“Out in the hall, I ran into the hostess from Pete’s—Sheila Ryan. Are you two…anything?”
He started to shake his head and then the pain of that stopped him. “No. We’re just pals. I’m a regular and she’s a cute kid. Joke around. Flirt. You know how it is.”
I worked up a lascivious grin. “I just figured, guy like you, good-looking, with all that bread, and here she’s just working at a mid-range restaurant…”
He frowned. “Figured what?”
“I don’t know. That she might be on the make. I know I wouldn’t be immune to that.”
“To what?”
“That ripe a piece of tail.”
Colby jerked upright and both of his hands made fists out of themselves. “Watch what you say, Hammer! Or I’ll feed you that tough-guy reputation one tooth at a time!” He grabbed my card off the nightstand and flipped it at me. “Stick that up your ass, you fucking prick!”
I raised both hands. “No offense meant.”
I slipped out into the hall, shutting the door behind me, grinning to myself.
“Thought so,” I said.
CHAPTER THREE
The offices of Colby, Daltree & Levine, near Wall Street, took up the thirty-seventh floor of a glass and concrete tower, just another giant tombstone marking, some would say, the graveyard that was Manhattan’s Financial District—a place where at times it seemed that integrity had gone to die.
Just two years ago the Wall Street boom had gone bust, thanks to corporate raiders, leveraged buyouts, junk bonds, and especially insider trading, where high finance had become street corner deals where cash-filled suitcases were passed from one dirty white-collar hand to another.