“Jesus. Are they coming after me?”

“No, they just think my father was murdered and the certificate was forged to hide the fact. But I figure if you were involved, there was no murder. You’re a jerk, but you’re not a killer.”

“You got that right. Of everything I am, I’m not that.”

“I still have some questions, though.”

“Okay. Sure. Whatever you want to know.”

“How did it happen? When exactly did you guys start planning this thing?”

“Can I get another beer before I tell you?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Talk.”

“Okay,” said Max. “It started when I still had my truck and was working for the funeral home. They had me delivering these bodies up to some place in Jersey for embalming. I could tell that something was wrong, there was too many bodies going up, and it was too hushhush. So I did some asking and found out they was stealing body parts and faking death certificates. The whole thing scared the hell out of me. So I decided to talk it out with a lawyer.”

“My dad.”

“Yeah, well, he was available, and he wouldn’t charge me, you know. I told him everything, and he told me to quit, but I ignored him and kept driving, because . . . hell, the money was good. I thought that was the end of it. But then, later, he came back to me with some questions.”

“When was this?”

“A week or so before the funeral. Over the phone. And then he mentioned the possibility of him getting one of them fake death certificates.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He said he was in this real-estate thing, with a partner who was going to dissolve the partnership with a gun. And he had fallen into something that might be real money, but he didn’t know if he’d be alive to keep it. And there was other stuff. He just wanted to get away. I asked about you, and his Frenchie wife. He said he had taken out insurance, that everyone would be better off. I told him he was crazy. I told him to forget about it. But then . . .”

“He offered you money.”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“Does it matter? I didn’t do it for the money. I did it to get him the hell out of her life. Kyle, he was no damn good, I’m telling you. Anyone who would run like he did . . . well, I thought you was both better off without him.”

“So when you put the file cabinet in the house, you already knew he was going to fake his death and run away.”

“Yeah, he just wanted some stuff kept safe for after. Just in case.”

“How much did he pay you for the whole thing?”

“Fifteen.”

“In cash?”

“Yeah.”

“You sold yourself cheap, Max. Did he pay you up front?”

“Nah. I wanted it that way, but he said he was working on a couple things and could only make the payment right at the time. So he gave me the envelope on the ride up. My share and the twenty the doctor demanded. Thickest envelope I ever got in my life. I had some dead alky’s body in the back of the truck, someone who I was supposed to take to get dumped in some pauper’s grave. I just did the switcheroo and had them burn it. Simple as that.”

“Did my mother ever know?”

“Nah. I tried telling her once, after I realized there wasn’t going to be anyone else, but I chickened out. And then she got sick. And then what was the point?”

“You sold her out, Max.”

“Kyle, I didn’t do it for the money. I ended up giving her the fifteen anyway, and more. Plenty more.”

“Why?”

“For you. She had too much pride to ever ask for anything for herself, but she’d swallow it to ask for you. And the insurance money she got was less than she needed to keep going. Those braces you got, when you busted your arm, the money you needed for school after the scholarship went kablooey.”

“She would rather have had my father than the money.”

“Kyle, it wasn’t my idea. I just helped. He’d deserted her before, he was deserting her again. I thought finally getting rid of the creep would be good for her, is all. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know how sorry.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” Kyle felt his anger subside and fought to keep it boiling. “You said there was other stuff that made him want to leave. What kind of other stuff?”

“I don’t know. Women stuff.”

“What are you talking about, Max?”

“Well, you know, there was his wife and your mom and—”

“Someone else?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter? There was always someone else, that’s just the way he was. And he said it was getting too complicated. He’d said he do them all a favor with the insurance and start over.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Yeah.”

“He was a son of a bitch, wasn’t he?”

“That’s what I been telling you. I thought it would work out for the best.” Pause. “So we still good?”

“No.”

“Okay. We’re still not good,” said Max. “We’ll never be good.”

Kyle took a peek at his uncle. “Maybe not never.”

“Not never, maybe, but not for a while,” said Max. “I know. I got it coming.”

“Damn right.”

“Damn right is right.” Another drag. “How you doing, Kyle? Really.”

“I don’t know. Good, I guess.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s good that you’re doing good.”

“Yeah.”

“Good that everything’s good.”

Kyle stared at his uncle for a moment, then turned his head to look at Fred, smiling like an idiot behind the bar. “You want to know something, Uncle Max? I hate this fucking place.”

CHAPTER 51

KYLE BYRNE WAS drunk with whine.

It might also have been the beers he had consumed at Bubba’s and at the Olde Pig Snout that intoxicated him, or the growl of the engine between his legs, or the bugs caught in his teeth, or the way his tie snapped behind him as he sped recklessly on Skitch’s motorcycle through the wilds of West Philadelphia. But more than anything else, it was the whine.