Except the monkey cage. We didn’t get the word. Somebody’d set us up.

Sold us out.

I opened my eyes to darkness.

I sat up, shifted the recliner into its upright position.

The base of my skull ached distantly. Dim light leaked in from the kitchen, and I got up, followed it back to its source. Marcie sat at the little kitchen table, hunched over the books, reading them by the light of a low-watt bulb in the small lamp she dragged in from her bedroom nightstand. She wore a pair of grandmotherly half-glasses.

I smelled coffee.

She saw me, read my mind.

“I just made it,” she said. “Want me to pour you a cup?”

“I’ll get it.” I took a plain white cup down from the cupboard, filled it. Drank. I took the pot to the table, refilled Marcie’s cup.

“Thanks.”

She’d arranged the books on the table side by side, had her finger on a column of numbers. Her lips moved quietly as she read, the finger sliding down the page.

“I thought you’d stashed those,” I said.

She shrugged. “You needed to sleep, and nothing good was on TV.”

“A fun read?”

“I was an accounting major for two semesters.”

“Why would you want to be an accounting major?”

“That’s what I asked myself,” she said. “Why would I want to be an accounting major? Why would anyone? So I chucked it in for art.”

“So what’s with the ledgers?”

She put her hand palm down on one of the books. “These are the accounts of several businesses in South Florida, mostly in Miami. It’s all here. Let’s take Geno’s as an example.”

“Geno’s?”

“A restaurant.”

“Gotcha.”

“So according to this book,” she patted the ledger again, “Geno’s made a profit of sixty-seven thousand dollars.” She looked at me over her granny glasses, made sure she had my attention. “But according to this book,” she slapped her hand over the other ledger, “Geno’s made two point four million dollars in the same year.”

“What? Let me see that.” I grabbed the book. My eyes danced along the rows of numbers. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I didn’t need the book. I knew the rest of the story.

I held in my hands Beggar Johnson’s whole operation. Two ledgers. Two accounts of all the businesses under Beggar’s thumb in South Florida. One for public consumption, the one he showed the I.R.S. The other book contained the real numbers. The money laundering. It completely outlined the flow of cash for his whole organization. These books should have been under lock and key. No wonder Beggar wanted everyone in Toppers rubbed clean. If these books got into the wrong hands, it could be Beggar’s end.

But they were in my hands, and as far as I was concerned, they were hot potatoes.

“I got to go see somebody about this.”

Marcie took off her half-glasses, set them on the table. “How bad is it, Charlie?”

“Bad.”

“Charlie-”

“Bad, Marcie. As bad as it gets. I have to go.”

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“There’s no time. I can’t stay here.” I gulped the coffee. There was a bag of rolls on her kitchen counter. I opened it, grabbed two rolls, shoved them in my jacket pocket.

“You can stay as long as you like. You know that.”

I shook my head. “No good. If they find me, they find you. Then we’re both dead.”

I took the books, headed for the front door. Marcie followed.

“Charlie.”

I stopped, looked at her.

“Anytime, day or night,” she said.

I nodded, thought about her, the ledgers, us. I hadn’t known her long, but you got to have somebody to trust, lean on. Might as well be somebody pretty.

I kissed her. “I’ll be in touch.”

I tried to think of what I needed more, friends or answers.

My friends were all dead, at least the ones who could help. I knew I could count on Marcie and Danny and Ma to all go to the mat for me, but I didn’t see how they could help and I’d only be getting them in hot water.

I decided to settle for answers, and I figured Beggar’s toady, Alan Jeffers, might have them.

I drove to a convenience store, found a pay phone.

Information had a listing for Alan Jeffers in Heathrow. I got the number and dialed it. Nine rings. It was about four A.M., so I wasn’t surprised when Jeffers’s machine answered. “You’ve reached the home of Alan Jeffers. I can’t come to the phone right-” I hung up, put in another thirty-five cents, dialed again. “You’ve reached-” I hung up, a quarter and two nickels, dialed the digits.

“Do you know what damn time it is?” Jeffers sounded groggy and annoyed.

“Mr. Jeffers, this is Charlie Swift.”

“Swift.” He was putting the name through his brain, and I heard him suck in a big gulp of breath when he figured it out. “Holy shit, pal. Where’ve you been?”

“I got held up. When can I bring over the stuff you wanted?”

“Now. Bring them now.”

“Can’t. How about noon?”

“For crying out loud, Swift. Beggar’s having a shit fit.”

“Sorry. Noon?”

“Noon. Yeah. Okay, noon. You know where I live?”

“I know.” I hung up before he could figure out a way to give me trouble.

I drove to Heathrow and parked about half a block down from Jeffers’s place, close enough to watch. Nobody came or went. Good. Jeffers wasn’t expecting me until noon, so I was pretty sure I could catch him with his panties down at the breakfast table. I didn’t want to give him time to arrange a reception for me.

I had a dim, feeble notion of the bare bones of a plan knocking around in my head. I’d get ahold of Jeffers and make him tell me about those ledgers, about Beggar, about Stan and Jimmy Hoffa and Bigfoot and anything else I could get out of him. I didn’t have the time or the temperament to be subtle.

I explored my side with my fingers. It was tender, but I didn’t think it was infected. I’d need to change the bandage the next time I had a chance. I checked my.38, then slipped it back in the belly holster. And I still had the listening equipment Stan had wanted me to use to eavesdrop on his meeting with Beggar.

Now I just had to wait for the sun.

I snapped awake. The glow of morning spread orange over Heathrow, reflected brightly in the windows of the houses up and down the street. My stomach was coffee sour, so I fished one of Marcie’s rolls out of my pocket and ate it.

I got out of my car, rubbed my eyes, and headed for Jeffers’s front door. It occurred to me as I knocked that I wasn’t nervous. Maybe I was too tired, too sore from sleeping in the car, too God damn wrung out to be nervous.

A woman answered. She was lean, black hair bobbed at the ears, thick dark lips, nose pointed and predatory. She held a white cotton robe together with one hand and looked at me like I had a lot of nerve knocking her awake at the crack of dawn.

“Yes?”

“I’m here to see Jeffers.” I pushed past her into the house.

“Wait, you can’t just-” She padded after me, bare feet slapping against tile. “Alan!”

She shouted toward the kitchen, so that’s where I went.

Jeffers was at the kitchen table, a half-eaten slice of toast in his fingers. “Tina, it’s too early to be screaming all over the house for- oh, hell.”

He saw me and froze.

“I’m Charlie Swift.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve busting in here like this. I have a good mind to-”

“Shut up. We need to talk.”

He huffed and puffed a little. Tina stood in the doorway behind me, waiting to see what happened.

“You weren’t supposed to be here until noon,” said Jeffers. “I’m not ready for you yet.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Do you have the ledgers?”

“No.”

Jeffers frowned, then just looked confused. “What the hell’s the point then?”

“Is there someplace we can talk?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the woman. “Without your wife listening?”