True Grift
Page 25
“Man, he’s a mess,” Carrie said, wiping up the bar sweat from where J.T.’s glasses had rested.
“I had a case against him not too long ago,” said Hector.
“Believe me, it’s all he talks about.”
“Really?”
“He’s in here every night saying how Wanda screwed him.”
“I only met her once. She seemed nice.” The sound of a crowd roaring on the TV in the background got Hector’s attention. Following a three-run homer by the DH, Baltimore was up by one over the Angels on the last night of the season. The Orioles had just recorded the first out in the top of the ninth. “Guess she’s not working here anymore?”
“You didn’t hear? She bought a place in Puerto Vallarta with the insurance money. She moved her mom down there and everything.”
“What insurance money? She withdrew the claim. GSAC never paid out.”
Carrie looked at Hector, confused, then rolled her eyes. “Not the thing when Mack got hurt.” She leaned in toward Hector. “I heard about that. Totally gross. They said he was yankin’ it in a Port-a-Potty when he got hit by a tractor. What a perv.”
“What insurance are you talking about?”
“The life insurance. When they got married, Mack took out, like, a half-million-dollar policy. Wanda was the beneficiary.”
Hector smiled, sipped his beer, and shook his head. The Amazon barmaid with the dimples and heart-melting smile had hustled them all.
Sid Stewart, now a hero within SAICO, had a tee time for the next morning with Hector, to whom he was ready to give all the business he could handle—even if he didn’t know how Hector had pulled it off. Until now, Hector hadn’t been sure himself.
J.T. emerged from the hallway, his trousers wet from where he’d half wiped his hands, and reached in his pocket for his car keys. He suppressed another burp, threw back his shoulders, and shuffled toward the door.
“J.T., you sure you’re okay to drive?” Hector said.
“I will be. Once I get home.”
“How about a taxi?”
J.T. looked at Hector, then at Carrie. He stepped back to the bar, reached over it, and grabbed three limes, his tie dipping into a puddle of maraschino cherry juice on the bartender’s tray. He looked at Carrie and Hector again and sighed. He juggled the limes, tossing them each at least half-a-dozen times, then catching all three and returning them to the bar. He looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
“Three hundred and fifty grand,” he said. Then he stepped through the door and into the twilight.
“Ohmigod,” said Carrie. “Did you see that?”
From the parking lot a few seconds later, the flatulent combustion of a broken muffler seeped into the room as the pneumatic door to the 19th Hole closed. Through the wall’s tinted glass, Hector watched J.T. drive away in a paint-blistered, two-tone, blue-gray Monte Carlo.
When he heard the commentators mention the Angels were down to their last at bat of the season, Hector turned his head to the TV. They weren’t going to make the playoffs anyway, but it was going to be a long plane ride back to Anaheim if they didn’t score. When the Angels’ third baseman watched a called third strike to end the game, Hector turned around in his barstool. He tipped up his bottle to finish his beer.
Can’t win ’em all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a trial lawyer, Jack Bunker has ridden the legal rails from a large international firm to solo practice, the U.S. Department of Justice, and a stint as a legal editor with Thomson Reuters in Dubai. He has the distinction of having both clerked for former Chief Judge Boyce F. Martin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and played scout team tight end for Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoles. Jack received his law degree from St. John’s University in New York, and he is (or has been) a member of the bars of New York, California, Georgia, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association. He splits his time between the home he shares in Northern Virginia with his wife and four children, and their family farm in Virginia’s breathtaking Bluegrass Valley. This is his first novel.