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“But you said those were Thomas’s prints on the syringe.”

“Yeah. Like I told you that night, those did belong to your brother. But I am still of the opinion that he was unconscious before he went over the railing. I still believe that they stuck him and poured vodka down his throat.”

I suddenly thought I might need more than one margarita tonight.

“If you’re right…”

“I am right.”

“…somebody did that to the nicest one of all of us.”

“And went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a suicide,” Cantor said. “Maybe they didn’t want it to look like another potential murder in the family this close to your father getting tossed.”

“You’re convinced my fatherdidget tossed?”

“Aren’t you?”

“All over a football team,” I said. “And a failing newspaper. But mostly the football team.”

“Not even three dozen of them in existence,” Cantor said.

“But it’s got to be about more than just the team, for somebody to do this to my brother.”

“Somebody who doesn’t give a rip if there’s a run of Wolfs dying these days.”

He licked some salt around the rim of his glass, tasted it, smacked his lips. Then he was staring at me with those big, deep, dark eyes. I finally took a bit of rice and beans just to have a reason to look away.

Is he hitting on me?

Or am I hitting on him?

Good questions both.

I wondered if he thought something happening between the two of us was as bad an idea as I did, and not just because it was a couple of days after Thomas’s funeral. What kind of circle of life was that?

I knew the answer to that. It had hardly anything to do with the circle of life and practically everything to do with my not wanting to spend one more night alone in the house. And if Ben Cantor hadn’t asked me out, I would have been having dinner somewhere else with Ryan Morrissey.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What were you saying?”

“Was once again wondering out loud if one of your brothers or both of them might have had something to do with it.”

“We’ve gone over this. Is Jack capable of it? I think he’s capable of a lot, but maybe not that. And I think Danny is too much of a coward. Butcouldone of them have been involved? We’d both have to be nuts to rule out the possibility.”

I was trying to pace myself with my drink. I was driving. Thomas had joked before he died about getting another DUI. This would be a lousy time for me to get my first.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said to Cantor.

“What shall we talk about? The crash of the crypto market?”

He smiled then. The smile, which continued to be a pretty impressive smile, went quite nicely with his eyes.

Like some kind of matched set.

“Holy shit!”I said, slapping my forehead. “Crypto went south? Now I’m really screwed.”

Cantor laughed. Somehow, after one of the worst days of recorded worst days, I laughed along with him. I kept telling myself this wasn’t a real date. But it suddenly felt like one.

“I didn’t even trust you when I first met you.”