Big Mango (9786167611037) by Jake Needham Page A

take it away from him.”
    There was a long pause. “Franklin’s in
France. He won’t be back until Friday.”
    “Wonderful,” Eddie said. “Is Michael there
now?”
    “He’s upstairs. I’ll get him.”
    While Eddie waited, he tried to think things
through. Was this nothing but idle teenage posturing and blossoming
machismo? Or was it something else? And if it was something else,
how was he going to get Michael to tell him what it was? The
father-son thing had been drifting a while now for reasons he was
already having difficulty understanding. It seemed an impossibly
tall order to find out why Michael had suddenly decided to cart a
gun around while he was coping with everything else, too.
    “Yeah?”
    The deep resonance of the voice startled
Eddie and for a moment he even wondered fleetingly who had picked
up the phone. Michael used to sound like his mother over the phone
when he was younger. Once, to his great embarrassment, Eddie had
mixed them up when he called and Michael’s feelings had been badly
hurt by that. At least he guessed it wouldn’t be hard to tell them
apart from now on.
    “I hear we’ve got a problem, Mike.”
    “I don’t have a problem. You might. But I
don’t.”
    “Carrying a gun’s dangerous, Mike, not to
mention illegal.”
    Jesus, Eddie thought. A half dozen words out
of my mouth and I’m already sounding like a goddamned lawyer.
    “Those scumbags you work for do a lot worse,”
Michael said. “So if they arrest me, maybe you could work for me,
too, Dad. How would that be?”
    “I don’t work for those guys, Mike. They’re
my clients.”
    It was a distinction that Eddie had always
treasured, but now it sounded embarrassingly lame. There was a
sullen silence from the other end of the line, and for once he was
grateful for it.
    “So where did you get the gun?”
    There was no answer. Eddie realized that it
had been a stupid question to ask, and worse, pointless.
    “Okay, let’s try this a different way. Why do
you have a gun?”
    This time he allowed the silence to go on,
determined to wait Michael out.
    “I just keep it around.” Eddie could hear the
shrug in his son’s voice. “Most of the time it’s not even
loaded.”
    “So why do you have it?”
    “Just…you know, protection.”
    “No, I don’t know. Protection from what?”
    “From stuff. Whatever.”
    The silence started up again and Eddie let it
go on until Mike broke it.
    “I figure I’d better start looking out for
myself.” The cruelty in his voice was unmistakable. “Who else is
going to do it? You?”
    It was a finger straight in the eye, but
Eddie blinked it away. “Is there something you’re not telling me
here, Mike?”
    “Look, let’s just cut the father-son
bullshit, huh, Dad?”
    Michael’s voice was steely and distant and
Eddie started to feel a little numb.
    “I just want to be sure my ass is covered.
You ought to understand that. You spend enough time covering
yours.”
    Eddie was fighting back his growing anger at
Michael’s wild swings when, with a sudden flash of horror, a
thought dawned on him. Had some former client of his been harassing
Mike?
    “There’s nothing going on, honest,” Michael
answered the question before Eddie could ask it. “I just want to
take care of myself if I have to. You’re sure as hell not going to
be around to help.”
    The conversation rattled around a little
after that, but essentially it was over. Mike had said his piece
and Eddie was left with no real response other than to get angry
and hit back, and he was not going to do that. If that was what his
son thought of him, that was what his son thought of him.
    The gun wasn’t the issue, Eddie knew. He was
the issue. The gun would no doubt disappear in a few days, maybe it
already had, but he wouldn’t. Jennifer could worry about the gun.
Eddie was going to worry about why his son thought he was such a
jerk.
    After he hung up, Eddie replayed the
conversation in his head several times searching