by Mike Dennis
It all added up to ninety-five thousand in found money. And make no mistake, I could use it. I'd been scraping along on whatever I could squeeze out of the low-limit poker games downtown at Binion's, and something like this would give me a lot of breathing room.
But, as the sun disappeared into night, the questions stayed with me, like bad shrimp. Time for a few answers.
I went to my computer and googled Blake Enterprises. Their website revealed they were a real estate outfit, operating all over Nevada and elsewhere, with a headquarters address in the big Bank of America building downtown. It looked as though they did mostly large commercial projects, and their top dog was a guy named John Brendan Blake.
His photo, a head shot, showed him to be about forty, with the faintest trace of gray attacking his full head of hair. His eyes appeared to be bluish-green, while high cheekbones defined his face. He was handsome, all right, but in the photo he tried for a smile that couldn't quite get there. According to the website, he started the company from nothing.
I made a note of the address and phone number and looked back at the money splayed all over my couch. God damn, I really could have used it, but I'm cursed with what I call the honest bone. Some would call it a blessing, but I know different.
Early on in my adulthood, I became a big believer in karma. Our lives are linked, a succession of lives, really. Call it reincarnation if you want, but I'm pretty sure that each of our lives is one long test, to see if we can handle what we are given and to make sure we act accordingly when something is right or wrong. If we consistently do the right thing in one life, we get an easier go of it next time around, like a reward.
But if we fuck up, we pay.
If the dough really did belong to this guy Blake, I knew I would have to return it to him, as much as it killed me to do it.
But first I had to be absolutely certain it was his. And in order to know that, I needed to know more about the man who died in my arms.
That meant waiting for the five o'clock news.
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