What Life Throws at You

I shuttered. "You might want to wait till I get over this case of the clap." It was the best lie I could think of on short notice.

"I'll take a rain check Sweetie." she pouted. "So why do you want to know?"

"My buddy, Shane up at the 8th precinct Said the money might be still up for grabs."

She laughed. Well, it was more like an earthquake. "He's blowing smoke up that cute ass of yours, darling. Father Paul from St Mary came to visit Uncle Vince, shortly after Greco tripped and had his accident."

"Tripped over what Gina, a machine gun? Heard there was enough lead in him to use him for an anchor."

"Don't know anything about that Ricky." She responded. "Anyway, the Padre told my Uncle that the two million dollar donation he made to the church was too much. He was grateful but gave more than half of the money back. Somebody must have donated it in my uncle's name."

I had to take time to digest this. "What about the 500 g's left over Angel?"

"He wrote it off on his taxes, Sugar." She eyed my crotch. "Let me know when you get over being indisposed, Ricky. You owe me big time."

As I walked out I thought, "That's a bill I'm never going to pay."

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So the money angle was a wash. I was beginning to think Dumont's death was an accident. I had one more stop to make before checking back in with Kelly. An hour later I was knocking on the door of one of Kelly's old neighbors. I explained who I was and asked Mrs. Myers about Lee. She used to be the kids daycare a while back and since everything was a dead end anyway, I thought I get a better read on Dumont.

"Why I haven't seen Lee or Cali in about 5 years or so." The elderly woman was spry for her age. "Beautiful kids though; nice and polite. The only contact we have any more is the Christmas cards they send me." She started rummaging around and pulled some cards from and old china hutch. "Here are the ones they sent me last year. Cali has a family of her own now; such sweet children."