“You pay fifty. I fix the paperwork. Two hundred comes back Friday.”
“You stole two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and now you want me to pay fifty thousand to recover two hundred.”
His face hardened slightly.
“Careful with words.”
“Which word bothered you?”
“Stole.”
“What would you call it?”
“Enforcement discretion.”
I stared at him.
“You practice that?”
“What?”
“Saying things like that without laughing.”
He stepped closer.
“That mouth is going to cost you.”
“There’s the badge again.”
“I’m not wearing one.”
“Men like you never take it off.”
For half a second, anger surfaced.
Then discipline returned.
“Fifty thousand.”
“And if I say no?”
“Your money enters forfeiture.”
“There is no evidence entry.”
The reaction was tiny.
But I saw it.
The pupils.
The jaw.
The two-second recalculation.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Then you’re guessing.”
“I’m usually good at it.”
He studied me.
The room felt different now.
Riggins understood I was not the man he had expected.
He still did not understand why.
“Maybe we should make this simple.”
He reached behind his waistband.
Not for a gun.
For a folded sheet.
He placed it on my desk.
A photograph.
My house.
Taken that morning.
“You live alone?”
There it was.
The threat.
Quiet.
Indirect.
Designed to leave room for denial.
I looked at the photograph.
Then at him.
“You should leave.”
“Fifty thousand.”
“You should leave now.”
He smiled.
“You think because you were Army, you’re hard?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I think you just made your situation worse.”
He laughed.
“Who exactly do you think you are?”
A new voice answered from the doorway behind him.
“His name is Edmund Hayes.”
Riggins turned.
Captain Russell Vance stood ten feet away.
Plain clothes.
No weapon drawn.
Behind him were two FBI agents.
Riggins’s face changed.
“Captain?”
Vance looked at him.
Not angry.
Disappointed.
That can be worse.
“What are you doing here, Garrett?”
Riggins looked from Vance to me.
Then back.
“Working a source.”
Vance’s expression did not move.
“You’re threatening a civilian inside his business while off duty.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
Vance glanced at me.
“I understand more than you think.”
Riggins followed the look.
Something in it bothered him.
“What?”