Authors: J. A. Jance
Quentin shook his head. “You two were the only ones up there who ever helped me, you know,” he muttered. “You and Andy. And of all the people there, you two should have been the very last ones. I mean, with everything my family did to you . . .”
“It’s all water under the bridge, Quentin,” Mitch reassured him. “That was then, and this is now.”
“But you don’t know how bad it was for me,” Quentin continued, undeterred. “That first year after I got sent up was a nightmare. I was young and stupid and the son of a sheriff, for God’s sake, and I thought I was so tough. But I wasn’t, not nearly tough enough. Everybody in the joint was after my ass, or worse. Those guys had me six ways to Sunday. They turned me into nothing but a piece of meat.” He shuddered, remembering.
“If you and Andy hadn’t taken me under your wings, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I’d probably be dead by now.”
“Don’t give me any of the credit,” Mitch cautioned. “It was Andy’s idea, not mine.”
“But why did he do it? I’ve always wondered about that. All he had to do was put out the word that I belonged to him and that was it. After that nobody else ever touched me. I was scared shitless that he would . . . that someday he’d make a demand and I’d have to come across, but he never did.”
“No,” Mitch agreed. “Andy wasn’t like that. That’s the part nobody understood about him.”
“Not even with you?” Quentin asked.
“No, not even with me.”
“So why then?” Quentin continued. “Why did he protect me without demanding anything in return?”
“Because that’s the way he was,” Mitch answered. “Because Andrew Carlisle was a remarkable man.”
“It’s the nicest thing anybody ever did for me.” Quentin Walker’s blood alcohol level had taken him to the edge of maudlin. He ducked his head and swiped tears from his eyes.
Mitch looked away and pretended not to notice. “He helped me the same way he did you,” he said quietly. “He taught me how to survive, no matter what. In the end, he was the one who gave me a reason to go on living.”
“Hell of a guy,” Quentin murmured, raising his beer glass in a toast. “Here’s to Andy. May he rest in peace.”
Again they were both silent for a moment. “I suppose you’ve read your stepmother’s book about him?” Mitch said finally.
Quentin Walker scowled into his glass. “Are you kidding? Whatever that bitch has to say about him, I’m not interested. Just because she had a problem with Andrew Carlisle doesn’t mean I did, too.”
Mitch clicked his tongue. “Your stepmother may be famous, but it doesn’t sound as though she’s one of your favorite people.”
Quentin shook his head. “Are you kidding? She’s got my dad wound so tight around her little finger, it’s a wonder the man can even breathe on his own.”
“One of those blended families that isn’t quite working,” Mitch Johnson observed.
Quentin Walker had come back to Tucson from prison to a kind of internal exile. He was right there in town with them, but he wanted nothing whatever to do with Brandon Walker and his “second” family. He had seen his mother a few times, but the second time he hit Janie Walker Fellows Hitchcock up for a loan, Quentin’s goody-goody half-brother, Brian Fellows, had barred the door. Now Quentin was only allowed to speak to his mother in person and in the presence of either her nurse or of Brian himself.
Working construction, Quentin had developed a reputation as a loner. He caught rides to and from work with various coworkers, but having discovered how people reacted to the news that he was fresh out of the slammer, he now kept that information strictly to himself. He resisted all suggestions of possible friendship and relied on various neighborhood bartenders when he needed a shoulder to cry on.
In all those lonely months, Mitch Johnson’s was the first truly friendly face he had encountered. Here at last was someone who, however distant, qualified as a friend; someone who could be counted on to understand the depths of Quentin’s own miserable existence. Here was a kindred spirit, an ex-con himself, who didn’t automatically regard Quentin as some kind of repulsive monster. Grateful beyond measure, the younger man warmed to this prison acquaintance in the same boozy way he might have approached an old classmate at a high school reunion.
For months, for years, in fact, Quentin had kept his feelings locked behind a dam of self-pity. Now, as the floodgates opened, he spilled out his sad tale, wallowing in the injustice of it all.
“Tommy and me didn’t get blended,” Quentin replied bitterly. “Sliced and diced is more like it. Or else pureed right out of existence.”
“Tommy’s your brother then?” Mitch Johnson asked.
Quentin considered for a moment before he answered. “He was my little brother. The two of us always ended up taking a backseat to Davy, my stepmother’s kid, and even to Lani, once she came along. They got everything, and we got nothing.”
“Lani’s the Indian girl your dad and stepmother adopted?”
Quentin frowned. “How did you know that?”
“It’s in the book,” Mitch said quickly. “In your stepmother’s book. You’re all in it. You said Tommy
was
your little brother. I don’t remember the book saying anything about him being dead.”
“Tommy’s missing,” Quentin answered firmly. “He’s been missing for years. He disappeared between his freshman and sophomore years in high school. After all this time, I suppose he’s dead. Nobody’s heard from him since.”
Quentin ducked his head and took another quick sip of beer. “Sorry,” he added. “I didn’t mean to end up spilling out all this family crap.”
“It’s okay,” Mitch returned. “Families are like that, especially for people like us. All you have to do is screw up once and then you find out the whole idea of ‘unconditional love’ is a crock of shit. The people who are supposed to love you usually turn out to be the ones who break your heart. That’s why friends are so important. A lot of times, friends are it. They’re all you end up with.”
Once again Quentin gave Mitch a searching, sidelong look. “You mean you’re in the same boat?”
Mitch nodded. “Pretty much,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, there’s a whole lot of that going around.”
“As in misery loves company?”
“More or less.”
Quentin gave a bleak laugh and lifted his almost empty glass. “Here’s to friends, then,” he said.
“To friends,” Mitch agreed, touching his still almost full glass to Quentin’s nearly empty one. Quentin raised one finger and called for another beer.
“So what are you up to these days?” Quentin asked as they waited for the bartender to deliver the order.
“For the last couple of months,” Mitch Johnson said quietly, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Looking for me?” Quentin asked, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.
Mitch nodded. “I probably wouldn’t have found you now if it hadn’t been for your mother.”
“Which one, my stepmother or my real mother?”
“Your biological mother,” Mitch answered.
“You mean you actually made it past the screen and talked to her?”
“What screen?”
“My brother, Brian. My half-brother. He doesn’t let me anywhere near Mom if he can help it. He claims I upset her. What he really means is she might end up slipping me some cash. Brian wants to keep all that for himself.”
“Your brother must not have been home,” Mitch replied, “because I talked to her directly. She’s the one who told me where you were living.”
“You still haven’t told me how come you were looking for me in the first place.”
“Andy told me once that you claimed to have found some pottery—some Indian pottery—out on the reservation. Is that true?”
Quentin had been chatting easily enough. Now, though, he pulled back. “What if it is?” he asked.
Mitch ignored the sudden shift in mood. “One of the things Andy did for me before he died,” Mitch continued, “was to give me the benefit of some of his contacts. I may have found a possible buyer for those pots of yours—if they’re legit, that is.”
The conversation ground to a momentary halt. “How much money?” Quentin asked finally, looking up.
Mitch shrugged. “That depends on quality and quantity of the merchandise, of course. But before my buyer will deal on any pots, he wants me to take a look at them. He wants me to see the pots as well as where you found them.”
Before Mitch could even finish the sentence, Quentin Walker was already shaking his head. “No way!” he said. “No way in hell! I can maybe bring them out for you to see them, but you can’t go there to look at them. It’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t, that’s all.”
“But I can make it worth your while,” Mitch said.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet. He removed several bills and laid them on the bar. “Believe me, Quentin, there’s a lot more where this came from. It’s our chance to make some big bucks.”
Quentin looked at the money blankly for some time, as though lost in thought. “What’s this?” he asked at last.
“What does it look like?” Mitch Johnson smiled. “It’s a small down payment, Quentin. But remember, seeing the material on site is part of the deal. This is the first half. You get the same amount as soon as you show me the spot. After that, it’s a sixty-forty split of whatever my buyer pays.”
Mitch knew very well the kind of hand-to-mouth existence Quentin Walker had lived since being released from prison. He had expected the man to leap at the opportunity to make some fast money. Mitch found Quentin’s apparent reticence somewhat surprising. He waited impatiently while the younger man stared down at the bills without touching them.
“Drywalling money’s that good then?” Mitch asked in an effort to move things forward.
Tentatively, almost as if afraid they might bite, Quentin Walker reached out and moved the bills closer to him. He leaned down and examined them in the dim light of the bar. An unfamiliar picture stared back at him from the topmost one. Quentin may not have recognized Grover Cleveland’s likeness right off the bat, but the numbers in the corner of the bill were easily identifiable—a one and three zeros.
“There’s more where that came from.”
Not quite believing what he was seeing, Quentin thumbed through the other bills. “Five thousand dollars?” he mouthed silently.
Mitch nodded. Quentin glanced furtively around the bar. Most of the customers were engrossed in the San Diego Padres baseball game blaring from the television set at the far end of the bar. As the bartender pulled himself away from the game and started toward them with the next round, Quentin snatched the bills off the counter and stuffed them into his shirt pocket.
Watching him, Mitch suppressed a sigh of relief. The surge of power he felt was almost sexual in nature. It reminded him of that first time he had invited Lori Kiser to go on a date—a picnic in Sabino Canyon. She had said yes, even though they both knew at the time that she was saying yes to far more than just a picnic. There had been an implicit understanding in her saying yes that day, in the way she had blushed when she answered. Her yes was to the picnic, but it was also to something else. To going to bed with him, probably before the day was over. They had gone on the picnic. Mitch had taken a blanket along, just in case, and he had been absolutely right.
Sitting in the bar with Quentin Walker, Mitch sensed that this was the same thing. By taking the money, Quentin knew he was agreeing to break the law. Again. What he couldn’t possibly know was exactly which laws he would end up breaking.
“When do you want to go?” Quentin was asking.
Now it was Mitch’s turn to pull himself out of a reverie in order to answer. “How about tomorrow evening?”
He forced himself to ask the question casually, even though he knew from his scheduling discussion with Megan in New York that this was the one time when he could be reasonably sure that Brandon and Diana Walker were going to a banquet together. That meant they would both be away from the house for a predictable period of time.
Already more than a little drunk, Quentin tried to think his way through all the various ramifications. There were risks involved in selling the pottery, but that much money—ten thousand tax-free dollars—almost made the risks worthwhile. At least, it made them seem far less significant.
“I suppose that would work,” Quentin said. “In fact, it’ll probably be better if we go there in the dark. Fewer people will see us if we go then. This place is a secret, you know. I want to keep it that way. Not only that, it won’t be nearly as hot.”
“All right,” Mitch agreed. “What time?”
“Five?”
“I already have another afternoon appointment. Five may be pushing it. Let’s make it six. Where should we meet?”
“Here,” Quentin said. “I don’t have wheels at the moment.”
“No problem,” Mitch assured him. “Meet me out front. You can ride with me.” He stood up and staggered slightly, waiting for his permanently damaged knee to steady under his weight.
Quentin noticed and seemed to relax. “At least I’m not the only one who’s had one too many.”
“I guess not,” Mitch said agreeably. “See you tomorrow.”
He limped outside and climbed into his waiting Subaru. He sat there for a few moments, eyeing the bar’s vivid neon lights and thinking. Originally the plan had simply been to do the girl in her parents’ house and to leave a drunken Quentin there to take the blame. In that basic plan, the pots had been intended as nothing more than bait, something off the wall enough to dupe Quentin into going along with the program.
In the months since Mitch had been out of prison, however, he had been doing some research. He had learned that these pots—if they actually existed—were probably worth a fortune in their own right. And if he could have Quentin Walker and his pots as well, why not go for broke?
The original plan had been a perfectly good one, and it gave every indication of working in a totally predictable fashion. That didn’t mean, however, that it couldn’t be improved upon. After all, Andy hadn’t left Mitch so much money that he couldn’t do with a little more.
See you tomorrow, sucker,
Mitch thought, as he turned the key in the ignition.
We’ll have so much fun that you won’t be able to believe it.