Read an Excerpt
An excerpt from the big splash
Vincent Biggs’s table was in the back right corner of the caf, strategically chosen for its view of the entire room. He was using his meaty hands to delicately eat a salad too green and fresh to have been gotten from the cafeteria. Sitting to his left was his right-hand man, Kevin Carling, eating potato chips one at a time, wiping the salt from his fingers after each one.
I crossed my arms and waited for Vinny to acknowledge my arrival, but he kept right on eating his salad. I checked my watch. My lunch period was slipping away. I cleared my throat too loud and too long to be authentic. “That’s doing wonders for your figure,” I said, nodding toward Vinny’s salad.
Vinny smiled in spite of himself. He looked at me. “A fat joke? Matthew, I expected better of you.”
“I guess getting manhandled makes me cranky.”
He shrugged, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“Did you call me here just to watch you eat?” I asked. “Not that it isn’t fascinating.”
“Not quite,” he said. “Are you still for hire, or did things change over the summer?”
“I’m still a private detective, if that’s what you mean.”
“Excellent. I have a job for you.”
I stood up in a hurry. “Thanks, but no thanks. Not being one of your lackeys helps me sleep at night.”
“Matthew, why the hostility? I thought we got along.”
“We used to get along. Now we coexist.”
“Well, then let me put it to you this way . . . you were one of the few people who stood up for me before I attained my current position. I always felt like I should do you a favor somehow, so—”
“Whoa,” I said, “the people you do favors for either land in detention or end up getting popped. How about just a thank you and a hearty handshake?”
“How about a thank you, a hearty handshake, and twenty dollars?”
My mouth snapped shut. Twenty bucks was a lot of money. I mean, there’s stuff I wouldn’t do for twenty bucks, but the list was pretty short.
