Page 64 of Dirty Reads

“$3,650,000. And that ain’t a guess. Been waitin’ for it to come up for a while now, but ain’t seen it yet.”

“Heard anything about it?”

Beer Belly nodded. He took a sip of his coffee. “Asians. Rumor was they had it up for sale. I put a call in for it, but it disappeared.”

“How long ago?” Dick asked.

“How long ago what?”

“How fucking long ago was it up for sale?”

“Couple weeks ago. In fact, I was gonna go give a bid on it, and then the fucker up and disappeared. Why so many questions?”

Dick shrugged. “Just curious. Heard a rumor a 10 carat rock was going out for bids and $1,000,000 was the price. Caught my interest, and then, like you said, it disappeared.”

“Somebody’s sellin’ a rock like that for $1,000,000, they’re either a cop or a dumbass.”

“Agreed.”

Beer Belly reached for his neck and rubbed his scar. “So you lookin’ to buy it?”

Dick shook his head. “Just heard about it. Sounded too good to be true. Never been much of a dream chaser.”

Beer Belly glared at me. “What the fuck are you lookin’ at?”

Shit.

In all of the excitement of listening to the stories, I stopped reading lips and started paying attention. I wasn’t staring, but I was following the conversation closely. In doing so, I ended up gazing blankly at Beer Belly.

“I uhhm…” I looked away.

He stood up. “You uhhm what? You lookin’ at my fuckin’ neck?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Sure as fuck was.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was not.”

“Leave her alone. She wasn’t looking at your neck.”

Beer Belly glared at Dick. “How the fuck do you know?”

“I told her not to.”

“You told her not to what? Not to look at my neck?”

Dick nodded.

“Why the fuck would you tell somebody that shit?” Beer Belly growled.

“Because you’re sensitive about it. And you always end up doing this kind of shit when you think someone’s looking at it.”

“Fucker tried to cut off my head. You’d be sensitive about it too.”