“I’m not signed in,” Owen said with a smirk, and Allison shook her head, no she hadn’t signed in.

“Yeah, you are. The security guy signed you in. He’s got to protect his job. I saw it when I signed in. Owen Cohen and guest, destination TCI, Inc. It means he recognized you, it wasn’t someone pretending to be you or some shit like that,” I said, making it up as I went along. As long as I was lying, I kept at it, “Then I signed in. Also going to TCI, Inc.”

“You don’t walk out of here until I’ve got my share.”

“Whatever you imagine it is, do you think I have it on me?”

“You have the information on you. And so does she, and I’m going to get it out of one of you. Or both of you. I’m going to get what’s mine.”

“What’s he talking about?” Allison said.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I said to her.

“I want to know,” she said.

“You don’t know?” Owen said. “Your murder was a multimillion-dollar enterprise. A hundred-million-dollar enterprise. This motherfucker got a nice piece of change, what was it, Cassella? A hundred grand? Two hundred? You could’ve gotten more. I’m guessing…”

“What murder?” Allison said, her voice, for once, without confidence or bravado, guessing—knowing—what it was.

“There was no murder,” I said, adamantly. “It was an accident.”

“Mr. McMunchun?” Allison said, her innocent act back, nearly intact, “It was an accident.” Good girl, sticking to her story. With good reason. If there was anyone to blame—besides stoned, horny McMunchun himself—it was her.

Owen sneered, “Sure it was.”

“It was,” she said.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Miziz McMunchkin was looking for a contract on her husband.”

“What?”

“This one,” Owen pointed his gun at me, “took that contract. Then he used you to make it happen. Didn’t you, Tony?”

“No. I agreed to investigate. Go ahead, Allie, tell him what I asked you to do. To just find out how he’d react to a fourteen-year-old girl. Right?”

“That’s leading the witness. Excessively. Putting words in her mouth instead of a dick.”

“Hey. You heard me,” Allison said, sassy, talking back. “I’ve swallowed the thesaurus, a lot more than semen. I don’t need anyone to put words in my mouth. That’s exactly what he asked me to do. Just find out how the sleazy husband acted with underage girls. Which he did. He showed off a hot car like he was a stupid teenager and I would be impressed by it, and drove too fucking fast, and not using his seat belt so he could wave his dick around. It was icy rain, and he drove off the road.”