“How are we moving the body, then?” Lou straightened from the car and exhaled twin streams of smoke from her nostrils. For the first time, I noticed she was wearing a black dress, silk and tight. She’d swapped shoes that would’ve matched the outfit for sneakers. Whatever she’d been doing, she’d had enough time to grab the right footwear, but not to change.

“Bungee cords from my car,” I said.

Lou’s mouth dropped open. “You did not.”

“Back seat.”

Lou walked around the side of the car and peered into the back seat, which caused a fresh eruption of wails from Ellen. When she turned back to me, Lou had an expression on her face I’d never seen before. She brought her fists up to her eyes and knuckled them, swaying back and forth until she swayed into my chest, her head against my collarbone for a few seconds, and that’s when I realized she was laughing.

“This isn’t funny, Lou. Come on, I need you.” She pulled back, but I could still feel the weight of her against me. It wasn’t a good feeling, the phantom heft of her. “Stop laughing at me and be helpful,” I snapped.

I’d have been better paid if bodies were a regular occurrence in our line of work. In three years, this was my first. My fingers were accustomed to the glossy coating of hotel key cards and silky scraps of lingerie. Not the oil slick of blood and viscera and other things leaking out of Hiram Klein. Before this week, I’d never expected bodies to be part of our work. I wondered if Lou had ever handled any before this.

“We could drive him to the river. Push the car in,” I said.

“There’s no water in the river,” she said. “And the ocean’s too far. The sun will be coming up by then.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, okay, okay. So here are the facts. We have a dead body in the trunk.”

“Yes.”

“Along with this dead body, we have . . . we have some paper trail about Klein being our mark. We have someone who hired us, who knows that Klein was being professionally played. We also have a grieving widow who will want answers.” Ellen’s wailing hit a fever pitch, and I leaned forward and smacked the back window with the palm of my hand. “Goddammit, be quiet for one minute!”

“Jo.”

“The body has to go,” I said. “The car has to go. But they can’t really go. Klein is too visible to disappear.”

Lou nodded, her cheeks hollowed like she was sucking on a lemon. She was waiting for me. She was trying so hard not to tell me what she’d already figured out.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How much was the contract? Has it already been paid?”