“You’re on the way out,” Mahoney said. “Look around, you got no pictures on the wall. And there’s a bunch of framed things all stacked up on the floor. And that box behind you, it has the pictures of your kids.”
Mills stepped to his left to block Mahoney’s view of the cabinet behind him.
“And down there,” Mahoney said, pointing at another box on the floor in the corner, “those are all the awards and stuff.”
“I’m at your security gate,” Mahoney said.
“Good, then I can tell the police where to find you,” Mills said. “Now go away.”
“No, I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not authorizing them to let you in,” Mills said. “And if you don’t leave, I’ll have them arrest you.”
Mahoney was on his phone and behind the wheel of the family’s Honda Pilot, parked at the security booth of National Innovative Technologies, high on a hill in Westchester County, just north of the city.
“You did what?” Jen asked him.
“I threw water on him. And some ice cubes,” Mahoney said.
“That was mature.”
“He’s a jerk, Jen. And sometimes jerks get wet.”
Mahoney watched his wife get up from the edge of the bed and walked across the master bedroom. She looked like she was on her way out of the room; then she stopped. Her shoulders heaved and she turned around, shaking her head as she spoke.
Jerry Mills stutter-stepped, and almost froze as he crossed the dining room of Il Rosa. It was bad enough that Phil Mahoney was in the same restaurant, but the guy was sitting with Reuben Hartman, the man he was meeting for lunch.
What the hell was this ass doing here?
He wanted to turn and leave, but he was too far into the room, and Hartman had spotted him and waved. Then Mahoney had turned around to see him.
Mahoney watched as Hartman took a drink of water, and began.
“I have an uncle, my father’s younger brother. He’s either eighty-seven or eighty-eight. Or he could be ninety-two. No one seems to know his real age for certain. He owns a bar on the corner of Fifty-fourth and Ninth. The Kildare Tavern,” Hartman said.
“Kildare?”
“It’s a county in Ireland.”
“No kidding. How the hell did one of the Hartmans come to own an Irish bar?”
Starting a serialization of a novella, Mahoney & Mills, today. Look for it to continue in the weeks ahead.
Phil Mahoney didn’t like the feel of this. He had been a big time newspaper columnist, and he knew when someone was trying to set him up. The old guy sitting across the table was up to something.
“What’s going on here, Reuben?” he asked.