Page 70 of Into the Fire

“Yes. Do you have the necklace?”

“You a cop?”

“No, I’m not a—”

“You hafta say, you know. Or it’s like entrapment or some shit.”

“No. I’m not a cop. May I see the necklace?”

Jerry Z hunched forward, his massy chest pressing into his picked-over tray and bringing forth a waft of body odor that smelled vaguely like barbecue potato chips. He shot a glance over his shoulder, taking in a couple holding hands at the booth over by the stairs. They looked like models. Or fitness trainers. Or television doctors.

“I always forget how many faggots there are all over WeHo,” Jerry Z said. “Always checking out my shit.”

Evan noted his gel-sticky hair, the unwashed scent, the 1989-vintage shaved lines in his hair. “I’m sure they find you irresistible.”

Jerry Z reached into his sweat-suit jacket, retrieved a black velvet bag, and spilled its contents onto the table next to his tray. A jumble of rings, several necklaces, solid-gold bracelets hinged open like horseshoes.

A diamond earring with dried blood on the post.

Evan imagined Jerry Z sidling up behind a woman and tearing her earrings straight through the lobes. He pictured Ida Rosenbaum in her bed, one hand raised self-consciously to block the bruising that had turned the right side of her face into a mottled mess. I’m an eighty-seven-year-old widow. That’s about as unspecial as you can be. And that young man today proved it. Compared to Ida, Jerry seemed like a different species. A man of his size hitting a woman of hers. Closed-handed. In the face.

Evan set his jaw, reached for the First Commandment: Assume nothing.

“Whoa,” he said, in his best Jean Pate–from–San Bernardino impersonation. “You’re not a fence, are you?”

“What? No.” Jerry Z’s stubby fingers picked through the jewelry and plucked out Ida’s necklace. “I get all my shit legally. Trust me. I procured this particular item myself.”

“Where’d you get it?”

Jerry’s smile conveyed more menace than joy. “My granny.”

Evan reached across the table and lifted the necklace from Jerry’s hands.

“Your grandmother was into Victorian marcasite, was she?”

“Yeah, you fucking racist. Or classist. Or whatever the fuck.”

Evan turned the glinting amethyst pendant around. An inscription on the back, worn from a thousand touches. TO IDA, I’LL ALWAYS BE HERE BY YOUR HEART.–H.

“And she was named Ida?” Evan said. “Your grandmother?”

Jerry flattened his hands on the table. His face tensed, a fan of crow’s-feet bunching his left eye. Trying to figure out how to play it. He swung his Oakley shades from the back of his head to the bridge of his nose. Crossed his arms. Leaned back.

“Fine. Tell me what you wanna hear. My cousin runs a pawnshop?”

The group of students headed out, two of them arguing vehemently, a girlfriend on tilt. “Well, maybe if you stopped dating your phone…” The others weighed in, offering support, stoking the fire. The attractive couple by the stairs were tucked into their Quarter Pounders, occupied with chewing. In the reflection of the Oakleys, Evan could see the elderly women behind him lost in conversation.

He pooled Ida’s necklace in the palm of his hand. Pocketed it.

“The money,” Jerry Z said.

Evan held up a wait-a-sec finger. Then he plucked the straw out of Jerry’s orange soda.

“The fuck you think you’re doing, bitch?”

Evan folded the straw twice, gripped it so the triangle of bent plastic protruded a quarter inch from between his index and middle fingers.

A makeshift push dagger.