‘You know what they’re going to do with you yet?’ Reddick asked him now. ‘They gonna violate you or . . . ?’
It was the great risk Andrews had taken in helping Reddick out, violating his parole by getting caught holding – let alone actually using – a loaded handgun.
Andrews laughed. ‘Shit, they like to talk like they might,’ he said, ‘but they ain’t foolin’ nobody. Lizama killed that poor girl in the office and then broke into my room, big ass knife in his hand, hopin’ to do the same to some other defenseless lady. How the hell they gonna explain violatin’ my parole to all the people think I’m a hero for wastin’ the crazy motherfucker?’ He paused, laughter petering out until only a wide grin was left. ‘Man, you should’a seen the look on that fool’s face when he seen me step into that room. It would’ve made your fuckin’ day.’
Reddick couldn’t help but smile at the thought. ‘Yeah. I bet it would have.’ He looked over at Jake, found himself tickled by the sight of him, hunched down low, trying now to roll two balls down the lane at one time.
‘So how ’bout you?’ Andrews asked. ‘Guess they ain’t gonna lock you up either, huh?’
‘I think they’ll get around to it, eventually,’ Reddick said. ‘They just haven’t figured out the best way to do it, yet.’
It was the most honest answer he could give. He really didn’t know what was going to happen to him, whether he’d be a free man for the rest of his life or would be sitting in a holding cell tomorrow, awaiting permanent residency in the state pen. Winn and Lerner had given him every break possible but the task of saving his sorry ass was monumental and there was only so much they could do without putting their badges and pensions at risk. If the Feds or the DA’s office decided not to play ball, knowing as they surely must that what they were being asked to do was give a murderer a free pass out of the goodness of their hearts, the whole apparatus of lies and half-truths being told for his benefit would collapse and Reddick would go down with it. Nobody involved was a fool. The only question was how much currency Reddick’s tragic past – and present – would hold with them all, and for how long.
‘Daddy! Come on!’ Jake called.
‘Hey, that’s my cue to jet, I guess,’ Andrews said. He slid a small digital video camera across the tabletop at Reddick, the same one Reddick had used to record his bowling performance in Lancaster almost two weeks ago. Reddick had given it to him Sunday afternoon as his part of the bargain they had struck.
‘I’m not gonna find any homegrown porn on here, am I?’
‘Naw. You ain’t gonna find nothin’ on there. You can trust me on
that
.’ Andrews laughed and eased his way up from the table, demonstrating a renewed reluctance to ever use his ‘injured’ arm for leverage. ‘You sure you ain’t got no other copies somewhere? You didn’t make at least one?’
Reddick shook his head. ‘Not a chance. Looks like I’ll just have to tell the City Attorney that all that video I shot of you throwing strikes with that right arm out in Lancaster last week just got erased during transfer to my computer. Clumsy me.’
‘And if he don’t wanna believe that?’
‘Then he can kiss my ass. And for that matter, so can you.’ Reddick stood up and shook Andrews’s hand again, more warmly this time because he expected it to be the last. ‘You’re quite the gangster yourself, big man. I’ve got no illusions about that. But you came through for me, big time, and I’ll always be grateful for that. Good luck, huh?’
‘Yeah. You, too, brother. Tell the little lady I said hi.’
Andrews waved to Jake with his left hand and hobbled out of the bowling alley, right arm held close to his side like a clipped wing.
Later, as Reddick drove Jake back home to Dana, he thought about the words Andrews had used for her:
the little lady
. Was that what she was to Reddick? His little lady? Or was she just somebody who had been, once? Even that part of Reddick’s life remained undecided. His wife hadn’t yet retracted her declared intent to divorce him, so as far as he knew, the divorce was still on, but it seemed the last twelve days had somehow calmed the waters between them, given them both a greater appreciation for what they had as a couple and as a family.
Dana had always loved him, just as he loved her; it wasn’t a lack of affection that had come between them. It was his smothering over-protectiveness, his crazed belief that it was his duty to shield her and Jake from all harm, no matter the cost. He was overcompensating, trying to do for this family what he hadn’t been able to do for his first, and the effect on her was stifling. But now Dana had been given a good, long look at the flip side to his madness; she had seen for herself that, under the right set of terrible circumstances, there could indeed be some value to her husband’s particular brand of obsession. Perhaps, Dana thought now, the world was too horrible a place for her and their son to go on living in without a man like Reddick watching over them.
Maybe he and Dana still wouldn’t make it, Reddick didn’t know. But what he did know was that Dana understood him better today than she ever had before. And what she surely understood most clearly of all was something he had told her from day one, something that was as true at this moment as it had been then.
He had her back. Now and forever.