“Alright, then I’ll start. Two hundred K.”

“What are you talking about? I’m repeating myself here. What are you talking about?”

“I was thinking I could make this just about the money and not say those things that should never be spoken aloud.”

“Don’t worry. Spit it out.”

“The McMunchun murder,” he said.

“What McMunchun murder?”

“Mick McMunchun, dead on a Saturday night.”

“What is that, a Tom Waits song? Dead on a Saturday night?”

“And you did it.”

“Owen…” I did my best to sound unfazed. I was about to go into a detailed defense, but as I opened my mouth I realized that I didn’t need to tell him things, I needed him to tell me things, so I just shrugged and offered a limp, “That’s crazy.”

“I know you did it.”

“How do you know I did it?”

“Schmuck, what makes you think you were their first stop?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TWO LEGAL SCHOLARS

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness. You’d rather be a shmuck…”

BABA RAM DASS

THE LITTLE PANIC CELLS IN my body came up like gophers from their holes, their heads swiveling all around, looking for what they had to run from. I did my best not to let that show. “First stop at what?” I said.

“They approached Winston.”

Those two idiots. My heart was beating faster. Physiology too deep to immediately control. But I kept my breathing slow and even. I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer, “To do what?”

“Fuck you, Cassella,” with a snarl. “Exactly like they did with you.”

“How do you know they approached Winston?”

“Because he came to me. Because Winston knew we Hebrews have alert, scheming minds, flashy trickiness, and artful dodging. He was right to come to me. Because I did my homework.” That’s what Owen wanted. Aside from money. To show that he was the smartest guy around. Maybe he was. I hadn’t done the homework. I hadn’t thought. I hadn’t planned.

“When the river came to me, I’d just stepped in and let the river decide where we would go. Because…good question…best answer…only answer…because when the river came for me the river cared and I did not.”

“I found out McMunchkin”—he liked the derisive nickname, it was part of the same impulse to display superiority—“was worth a hundred million, give or take. Mrs. McMunchkin had a severe prenup problem, due to drinking, drugging, and the usual fucking of people who weren’t Mr. McMunchkin. She was going to end up with maybe five hundred thousand, and just one domicile, which is fine by normal people standards, but pitiful and sad and disappointing for people like her.