Ukulele of Death, page 26
‘I’m the NYPD. I know all.’ He took another bite while I gave him a withering stare. ‘OK. Miller called me, too. He thought the whole anonymous package thing smelled a little fishy and when we checked with the USPS we found that whoever mailed the package had insured it for five hundred thousand dollars and listed the contents as a rare ukulele. How many of those could there be in New York today? What are you going to do with it?’
‘Give it back to the people it was stolen from. I don’t want it.’
Mank, chewing, nodded his agreement. When he could, he said, ‘Probably smart. That thing has bad juju.’
‘Bad … juju?’
‘Like us trying to find an open Thai restaurant in a city filled with them,’ Mank noted. Then he studied the fries without actually eating one as a way of avoiding my eyes. ‘Last time we talked, you know, before the billionaire took a nose dive off your roof, I said we needed to have a serious conversation.’
I’d prepared a very intricate and involved explanation of a lot of the things he was going to ask me about. I’d been preparing it, actually, for most of my life. How Ken and I came from a line of very strong, large people and how we’d trained all our lives to build up our bodies, how in our line of work it helped to be defensively capable and alert. It had never failed me as a cover story.
So I stayed silent until Mank looked up from his plate to see my expression and I looked him directly in the eyes. Because, finally, he deserved it.
‘OK, you’re going to think this is the weirdest thing you’ve ever heard in your life, and you’ll be right,’ I said. ‘Brace yourself.’
E. J. Copperman, Ukulele of Death
