St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking
Page 28
“Fashion over function,” she murmured, unzipping her painted-on leather jacket and flopping down on the red leather bench next to him. She noticed the label on the wine bottle and smiled. “I love this wine. Thank you.”
They waited until the appetizers arrived, and Finnigan filled their glasses. “So, here’s some good news. Lazar Aleksić got stabbed in jail.”
Fiero touched her glass to his. “Lovely.”
“Better news: he didn’t die. Which means he’s free to heal up, go back, and get stabbed again.”
They ate in silence. The coast of Turkey hovered blue-green across the sparkling water. Unbidden, the proprietor brought them a platter of copra and baked sea bream. He didn’t offer the dish often, but knew it to be a favorite of his upstairs neighbors.
They dug in.
After a while, Fiero spoke without looking up from her plate. “D’you remember what you told me when we started this company, three years ago?”
Finnigan spooned a little more of the citrus sauce onto his fish. He ripped off a quarter moon of the aromatic flatbread. “I told you we’d be great catching bad guys. Me a cop, you a spy. We’d get the assholes nobody else could touch.”
“Yes. And d’you remember your one absolute condition?”
“We’d break rules. We’d break laws. But we wouldn’t be assassins.”
They ate in silence.
“Do we need to talk about—”
Finnigan said, “Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
He sopped up juices with the bread. “I knew what would happen when I went after Shan and sent you upstairs after Basha. I’m as guilty as—”
“Guilty? Michael, that family was corrupt. Their family creed was based on a psychotic level of bigotry and hatred. They were going to kill Hélene Betancourt. They turned their house over to a death squad. Marija Aleksić had murdered her own husband. She told me she was fully aware that her son was trafficking immigrant children. They condoned the torture and maiming of Shan.”
“Look, I said …” Finnigan paused, regathering his thoughts. “You’re not wrong. Okay? You did the necessary thing. The thing I couldn’t do. And I was there the whole way: eyes wide open.”
“But there’s more than that,” she said, and took his hand in hers. “All I could see was vengeance. I went into that house to kill Basha and the Aleksićs. That’s all. You went in to save Shan.”
Finnigan sat back. He paused, then squeezed her fingers in his fist.
“Your way saved Shan,” she said. “Your way also resulted in the arrest and trial of Lazar Aleksić.”
“And your way saved Judge Betancourt,” he said. “Your play was the only one left on the board. Given their money, their power, their position, they’d have gotten away with it and tried again. And again. They were gorilla-shit crazy. There was no other way. I get that. I didn’t, but I do now.”
They sat for a while. They stared out at the Eastern Mediterranean, watched the gently bobbing sails of the boats heading into and out of the marina.
After a while, Finnigan sighed. “I wanted to grow up to be a policeman, like my old man. Turns out, my old man is a hood, forever on the take. You wanted to grow up to protect the world and to be a force for peace, like your parents. Turns out, your gifts lie in being just as ruthless as your enemy.”
Fiero squinted into the westering sun. She used a knuckle to dab at her eyes. “Sounds about right.”
Finnigan drained the last dregs of the Spanish red into both glasses and held his up.
She matched the gesture.
“St. Nicholas isn’t the patron saint of the desired,” he said. “He’s the patron saint of the necessary.”
They toasted.