Big Mango (9786167611037) by Jake Needham Page A

streak?”
    “The minute I saw that red circle around my
head.”
    Eddie thought back to what he had seen in
Wuntz’s face when he talked about his son. He never thought much
before about how far he would be willing to trust Wuntz if he ever
had to, but now he knew. He just couldn’t work out how to explain
it to Winnebago.
    “Don’t worry about Wuntz,” Eddie said. “He’s
okay.”
    Eddie fell silent again, not sure he had said
enough yet not knowing what else to say, but Winnebago didn’t seem
to mind.
    “You think that maybe it’s all just
bullshit?” Winnebago asked after a while. “How could that much
money just disappear anyway? It would have to weigh a ton.”
    “More like ten.”
    “Ten tons? Of money?”
    Eddie nodded and Winnebago gave a low whistle
under his breath.
    “It’s a real shame about the captain,”
Winnebago went on after a respectful pause. “He could have
straightened all this out, I’ll bet.”
    Eddie had been trying not to think too much
about Austin, but the picture of his caved-in skull and broken body
dumped in a Bangkok mud-hole kept coming back to him with unhappy
clarity.
    “Say, Eddie, you don’t think the captain
might’ve been killed because…”
    Eddie turned his head very slowly and gave
Winnebago a dead-eyed stare.
    “Oh, man, like I really want to hear that
kind of shit,” Winnebago mumbled, looking away.
    A dirty, brown Ford pulled into a handicapped
parking slot a little off to their left and Wuntz blinked his
lights at them. He got out, ambled slowly over to the bench, and
sat down.
    “You’re not handicapped,” Eddie observed.
    “Sure I am,” Wuntz replied, smiling
pleasantly. “I’m psychotic.”
    Eddie looked thoughtful and Wuntz jabbed a
thumb toward Winnebago. “Who’s he?”
    “He’s the guy who was circled in the second
picture.”
    Winnebago leaned around Eddie and offered
Wuntz his hand. “I’m Winnebago Jones.”
    “You a half Chinaman or something?” Wuntz
asked as they shook.
    “I’m a Native American,” Winnebago replied,
and Eddie gave him a long look.
    “So let’s have whatever this hot news is,”
Wuntz said as he leaned back and laced his fingers together behind
his head. “The night’s passing and I’ve got hookers to harass.”
    While they all pondered the twin towers of
St. Peter and Paul’s, glistening so whitely in their bath of
powerful floodlights that they seemed achromatic, Eddie told Wuntz
the story his visitors had told him.
    “No fucking shit,” Wuntz said when Eddie
finished.
    “Do you think you could find out if these
guys were kosher, Wuntz?”
    “Didn’t their ID look real?”
    “Sure they did, but so does that Russian
passport I bought in Hong Kong last year.”
    “You sure you don’t know anything about the
money they were asking about?”
    “I’ve never lied to you before, Wuntz.”
    “No, but we’ve never talked about
$400,000,000 before either.”
    “We’re not talking about $400,000,000 now.
We’re talking about some people who claim they’re the Secret
Service and who think I know where $400,000,000 might be. Which I
don’t.”
    Wuntz looked hard at Eddie, but he didn’t say
anything. After a moment he pulled a telephone from the inside
pocket of his jacket, pushed himself to his feet, and walked across
the square out of earshot while he dialed.
    Winnebago lit a Camel and smoked silently.
Eddie slouched down on the bench, stretched out his legs, and
crossed his ankles. Neither spoke while they waited for Wuntz.
Winnebago finished his first cigarette and was most of the way
through another before Wuntz came back.
    “It’s illegal to smoke almost everywhere in
San Francisco these days,” he said as he settled back onto the
bench and returned his phone to his pocket.
    “Then naturally I’ll put this out right
away,” Winnebago replied as he offered Wuntz a cigarette.
    Wuntz took it and bent forward so Winnebago
could give him a light with his old Zippo. Inhaling deeply