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“If they talk I listen,” said Kilic. “Then I forget. I don’t ask. Besides, Meagin didn’t talk.”
“But she wanted two receipts.”
Another inhalation, more coughing that ended up sounding theatrical.
We stood there.
Bobby Kilic said, “It was nothing evil, just strategy.”
“For?”
“Convincing the husband he got a huge bargain, she said he was money-obsessed, got off on getting deals.”
“That,” I said, “would explain one receipt for half the price, not two.”
“Okay, okay, okay, fine, okay.” Kilic stepped to the side and dragged one foot next to the other. Solo rumba. He reversed it. “Okay, she wanted to impress someone else. No big deal.”
“About getting a bargain.”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say.”
“What did she sayabouthim?”
“Nothing,” said Kilic.
We waited.
“What I assumed,” said Kilic, “was someone she was also…messing with.”
“A lover.”
“I don’t know what it was. There’s all kinds of messing.”
I said, “Serious enough messing to get him to spend a hundred thou.”
“To some people, that’s nothing,” said Bobby Kilic. “To a lot of my clients it’s nothing.”
“What about to you?” said Milo.
“To me? Depends what day you get me. The day I sold that intense purple, a hundred K was no big deal because it was less than I paid for it.”
A beat. “But it was still a bargain for Meg. It made her happy. That’s what I do. Make people happy and bank a few bucks for myself. You want to tell me I did something wrong, read me the law on what it was.”
Milo said, “No one’s saying you did anything wrong, sir. Which is why frankly we’re not getting your attitude. If you admired Meagin like you just said, we’d expect cooperation.”
“That’s what I just gave you. Cooperation. It’s not complicated, I sold her a stone at a great price—she bargained me down, I wanted two forty, she wanted one eighty, she’d bought other pieces from me and I figured I was still doing okay even with fucking Qantas for sixteen hours. So I made her happy and settled on two hundred and if she wanted two pieces of paper what the fuck did I care? Now you’re telling me someone killed her and I’munhappy. Going to have an unhappy day and an unhappy night and who knows for how long it’s going to be unhappy.”
—
A few more questions left us with nothing more. Kilic’s demeanor—fatigued, not cagey—led Milo to thank him and hand over a card.
Kilic reached into the same pocket and drew out something wrapped in red foil. Chocolate truffle that he unwrapped with a flourish,announcing, “Chemically active goodness, burnt caramel, coated with Maldon sea salt.”
Maintaining eye contact, he dropped the foil to the ground, popped the chocolate into his mouth, and said, “Yum.”
