Just give them the money and we can put this behind us.”

I looked at him through my swollen eye.

“Did you know they were going to demand it from me last night?” He looked away — just slightly, just for a second — and that small shift of his gaze told me everything I needed to know.

“I only told them to talk to you,” he muttered.

“And when they called you,” I said, “to tell you they’d beaten me bloody?” He stood up and straightened his jacket.

“Stop making a scene.