BooksBarbecue
Back The Deal Goes Down
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Aden Elwood had called. He often got teased that he should have been a Blues Brother because of his name. He worked ski patrol at Hunter, part time, and I taught there part time, and he lived pretty close, so we shared rides in a semi-regular way. His message was that he couldn’t commit to it this year, for medical reasons. I called him back. It was cancer. What kind? Pancreatic. He was going to have an operation. Then chemo. I said that since they’d caught it early, his chances were good. I was lying.

Aden was thirty-one years younger than me. Likely we’d never ski together again.

Madelaine McMunchun had called. “I really, really need my telephone. Everything is on my phone. All my numbers.” As she spoke, she got more and more intense. “My schedule. I really need my phone back. I do not want to tell my husband I lost it and need a new one. They’re quite expensive. Give me my phone back. It’s mine. It’s mine.” She took a deep breath, bringing herself under control, but the record time had run out and whatever her next word was going to be, it was cut off at half syllable.

She called again in order to continue her expression of her desperation and need. Also, to say whatever the problem was, it had been Elizabeth’s fault, not her own. On her third call, she left her home number, and the times that would be best to call so some wrong person wouldn’t pick up.

—

There are no spaghetti trees in Italy. Nor do rigatonis sprout among the ruins. The people of Rome obviously put out the pasta. They don’t let the cats starve, but nor do they indulge them. I felt sympathy for Madelaine’s plights, but she was hardly about to die of malnutrition, and since she was not mine, I didn’t feel like allowing her to manipulate anything more out of me.

—

Elizabeth Bloom Carter had also called. She sounded much calmer than Maddie. She was quite businesslike: “We appear to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m sure that can be rectified. Why don’t we meet for lunch?” No point in calling her cell phone, it was in a box, under a rock, in the woods. She left her office number and her extension.

She’d tried to stiff me. She’d pulled a gun on me. And been stupid enough to fire it. She had defined herself as someone not to do business with. Let alone business as full of risk—to both our souls, to whatever degree we have such things, and to our liberties—as contract murder.

I decided, sensibly, not to respond.

CHAPTER TEN

MY LAWYER IS SMALLER THAN THEIR LAWYER