Absent friends by S. J. Rozan

Author:S. J. Rozan [S. J. Rozan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Policier
ISBN: 9780385339230
Published: 2005-08-30T07:00:00+00:00

That Phil and Marian couldn't resist some sniping had been glaringly apparent two days ago, when, drink unfinished, Marian had stood, scowled, and strode away, leaving Phil alone in the damn foodie bar in SoHo that had been her choice in the first place. They'd done something they'd spent decades avoiding: they'd met alone, Phil and Marian face-to-face. They had to talk, Marian had said when she called.

Harry Randall, then, was still alive, and who knew how many more pieces he was planning, what he might say? Randall's last story had convinced Marian (and how many others? and how many of them did he give a damn about, besides Sally?) that Phil had been cheating Sally from the beginning. The joke was this: everyone else was chasing the money—how deep was Phil Constantine in? what was it he was deep into?—but Marian had higher things on her mind.

“You lied to her,” she sniffed, denouncing him over their drinks (beer for him, and though he generally preferred his beer in a glass, with Marian he made a point of drinking from the bottle; a seabreeze, whatever the hell that was, for her).

He hadn't wanted to meet her, except that he'd had some mad thought that if he could explain to Marian, she could make Sally understand. But as soon as he saw Marian's straight-backed progress through the room (God, did this woman stride everywhere, did she never just walk?), her turquoise and coral earrings (likely picked up at some tony Free Tibet fund-raiser), and her unsmiling face (this he knew was hard for her, her natural inclination being to set others at ease: but not him, never him), he wondered what spell of insanity had made him think she might ever be on his side.

“I lied, Marian,” he agreed, and drank some beer.

“How could you do that? She loves you!”

“Marian, the whole thing is none of your fucking business.” He watched her flush as she took a sip of her pink drink.

“After all she's been through. How could you?”

“Is the point of this meeting to tell me what a shit I am?”

“No!” She sat up even straighter and glared at him. “I'm here so you can tell me the truth.” She made it sound like it was an opportunity for him, an offer he was lucky to get.

“Why?”

She blinked, and he almost laughed.

“Screw you, Marian. I don't owe you anything.”

“You owe Sally.”

“Sally and I—” But there was nothing about himself and Sally that he was interested in telling Marian, so he stopped.

“The truth might help you.” As though pointing out something he hadn't thought of.

“Help me what? Help me how? Fix things between me and Sally? Is that what you want? To help us patch things up?”

That was a lie she couldn't tell, and to her credit she said nothing.

He signaled for another beer, put his near-empty bottle down so that the ring it made added to the chain of rings he was forging left to right across the tabletop. “I got the money from Jimmy McCaffery,” he suddenly heard himself say.

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