Read Online The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 by Elizabeth George - Free Book Online Page B

community theater production had just stage-whispered at him to gesture toward the sky. “Who wants to be standing around in a parking lot? Not me.”
    â€œTo review,” Tony Bennett said. “You throw this party, what, two weeks ago? All these kids bringing your daughter gifts and whatnot. So then, just as a common—”
    â€œHow do you know what’s going on in my house?” Loomis said. “Have you been spying on us?”
    Scarface exhaled through his nose, as if he’d been expecting Loomis to behave this way and it bored him. “Nobody’s spying on anybody. You’re missing the point, Mr. Loomis. Just
listen.
”
    â€œAs a courtesy,” Tony Bennett continued, “your wife went out and bought some nice thank-you cards. And you, Mr. Loomis, told her there was no need to waste good money on such an extravagance. Then you threw the cards straight into the
garbagio.
”
    â€œI didn’t throw them in the garbage,” Loomis said. “I dropped them into a wastepaper basket. I was making a point.”
    Scarface ran a thumb down his nose. “What exact point would that be, Mr. Loomis?”
    â€œThat it was overkill. We’d already thrown these kids a whole party with lunch and two art activities and gift bags, and I was just sick and tired of feeding into this never-ending arms race of bourgeois pieties.”
    Tony Bennett yawned. “I don’t understand what you just said, Mr. Loomis. But I didn’t like the tone.” He stretched in such a way as to make visible the outline of something gun-buttish against his sport coat.
    Loomis felt the flutter in his gut go spastic. The air took on a sour radiance. Scarface’s hand was on his shoulder again, again very gently. “Calm down, Mr. Loomis.”
    â€œI feel like you’re threatening me.”
    â€œNobody’s threatening anybody.”
    â€œWe’re having a conversation.”
    â€œWho
are
you? What do you want from me?”
    â€œYou don’t ask the questions,” Tony Bennett said quietly. “That’s not how this relationship works.” He slipped his hand inside his jacket and let it stay there. “How it works is you go get in your car there and drive home and kiss your wife and send those thank-you notes.”
    â€œAnd you do one more thing,” Scarface said. “You play it smart and keep your mouth shut.”
    Â 
    Loomis drove straight to Taco Bell and ordered three chalupas and a Diet Pepsi and ate them in his car, like an American, then fished a Camel Light from the pack hidden in the wheel well. Later he would vomit or have the runs, perhaps both, perhaps simultaneously.
    The police officer he spoke to on the phone was a female who sounded black, which was fine.
    â€œWhen you say
accosted,
can you be more specific?”
    â€œThey approached me in a threatening manner. They spoke about my wife and daughter, about intimate details of our life.”
    â€œIntimate details
being what?”
    â€œJust, you know, domestic issues between my wife and I.”
    â€œAre you in the midst of a dispute with your wife?”
    â€œNo,” Loomis said. “That’s not the point. Wait a second. Are you accusing me—”
    â€œNobody’s accusing you, sir.”
    â€œI’m practically gunned down in broad daylight by a couple of mooks who’ve been surveilling my family, and your response is to suggest that I beat my wife?”
    The officer took some time to absorb this. “What do you mean by
mook
?” she said finally.
    Loomis closed his eyes and whispered, just in his mind,
Nigger, kike, spic.
    â€œDid either of these gentlemen make an explicit threat?”
    â€œThey didn’t say,
We’re going to kill you.
We were in a parking lot. One of them had a
gun!”
    â€œDid he aim the gun at you, sir?”
    â€œHe stretched in a way that made it obvious he had a gun.”
    â€œSo you