Something for Nothing (41 page)

He opened the trunk. Peering into the darkness, he spotted the shovel, and set it against the bumper of the car. Then he lifted out the metal box. It felt heavy—substantial.

It was dark, but the backyard lights from the Weavers' house and the people who lived next to them, to Martin's left (the Hermans), gave off just enough of a glow to allow him to see what he was doing. He walked about twenty feet, and then he picked a tree that was directly behind Miriam's house, three rows back. He measured out from the tree the length of two shovels, aiming directly away from Miriam's house; due east, he was pretty sure. Then he started digging.

Soon he was panting and sweating with the effort of pushing the shovel into the ground and moving spade after spade of dirt. The top
layer was awkward because of the big chunks of hard dirt left from the most recent plow job. But once he was past this, it wasn't too bad. It was good soil, not too dry or hard.

As he dug, he thought about pirates—Captain Kidd, Long John Silver, and the rest of them, burying their treasure along the Atlantic coast or in the Caribbean somewhere. He had a dim memory of reading
Treasure Island
at some point. Had he read it with Peter? Maybe an abridged version? He wasn't sure. Anyway, he knew that he was too far inland for any self-respecting pirate. The ocean was forty or fifty miles away. But maybe he was a new kind of pirate. A suburban pirate. Yes, that was it—he was a new brand of outlaw, one who lived on the other side of the coastal hills. He stole from either the rich or other criminals—it didn't matter to him. But like the pirates of old, he didn't put his money into banks or other places where it might be traced. Because he was off the radar. He buried his money, and kept it safe from recessions, depressions, and all the other financial crises lurking out there. It would just be there in the ground, waiting for him, and whenever he needed some, he could go dig up his metal box—his treasure chest—and inside would be the solution to his troubles.

He dug for about fifteen minutes. He could've stopped sooner, but he wanted to make sure that he buried the box deep enough to really hide it. He didn't want the blades of some plow to rip into it, open it, and let the moisture in. And he sure as hell didn't want Hal Weaver's kids to find it. Imagine that. First the guy inherits a steel mill, then he manages to land Miriam as his wife. And then, out of nowhere, one of his kids wanders into the house with a treasure chest full of money. “Guess I'm just lucky,” he'd say to Martin at one of their cocktail parties (if Martin ever managed to get himself invited to one of these again, that is).

When he was finished digging—or thought he was finished—he stepped into the hole. It came up to his thighs, almost. This will work, he thought. He set the box into the hole, climbed out, and worked quickly to fill it back up. When it was full, he very carefully picked up
a bunch of large dirt clods like those covering the top layer of the orchard, and set them on top of the area he'd disturbed. This took longer than digging the hole itself, but that was okay. It's all in the details, he thought.

The whole thing had taken less than an hour, probably only forty-five minutes. But he was exhausted. Sitting in his car, sweating, dirty, Martin took in the view from behind his street—from the east side of Miwok Drive. Most of the houses had lights on in the backyards, and in several of the yards people were outside, talking, laughing, listening to music. In two of the ones he could see, people were swimming in their pools. You could hear the kids splashing and yelling. At one house they were playing Marco Polo. It was all very pleasant and dreamy. Isn't that what they'd paid for when they'd moved to the suburbs?

Actually, though, Martin thought, with the exception of the Weavers, he didn't know anything about his neighbors. And certainly Martin's family had never been invited over for any of these little backyard activities. No late-evening phone call with an offer to bring the kids over for a swim, we'll have a drink. No, this was as close as he'd ever come to knowing any of them. And while, yes, they'd been invited to the Weavers a couple of times, they'd barely scratched the surface of any kind of real interaction.

Martin had a sudden urge to be in his own house. The one sitting just a few hundred yards away, down the street on Miwok Drive. He was dirty, his clothes were soiled and smelly, and he just wanted to feel the feel of his own house, even if only for a few minutes. Yes, Derek Hano might be sitting in the living room, waiting silently and patiently for Martin to come blundering in, but Martin didn't care. Or at least he didn't care enough to not want to take the chance. He really wanted to go home.

Plus, he did have a gun. It was only a .22, but he might be able to surprise Hano, and put a couple of slugs in him before he had a chance to react—before he had a chance to realize that Martin Anderson wasn't fucking around, at least not when it came to some cocksucker breaking
into his house and messing with his stuff, his furniture, his life. (He had a sudden, excruciating vision of Hano walking into his bedroom and discovering his Styrofoam heads and their fake hair. What would Hano think of that? Martin pictured him standing in the bedroom, pissed off. He's searched the room, searched the whole house, but no money. He doesn't lose his cool, though. Instead, he picks up one of Linda's eyeliner things and draws a frowning face on one of Martin's Styrofoam heads. That would be his warning to Martin. I'm not done, it would say.)

He started the car and, with his eyes fully adjusted to the darkness, negotiated his way back out of the orchard. He pulled out onto the frontage road, careful lest a cop was lurking. But all was quiet in Walnut Station, and he drove quickly back around to his street—took a left onto Muwekma Way, stopped at the four-way intersection of Muwekma and Miwok, and then drove toward his house, which was about a dozen houses up, on the right. He kept driving, barely glancing at it. Everything looked quiet enough. But of course he wasn't sure. When he was well past his house, he turned around, pulled over, and parked.

He took a deep breath, made sure he had his gun securely in hand, and hopped out of the car. At least there wouldn't be any glow from the interior light. He started to walk, realizing that no one actually walked around in this neighborhood, especially after dark. People didn't even walk their dogs—and if they did they seemed odd. So he wondered if he was a bit conspicuous as he moved along. The street was pretty dark, and it was likely that no one could even see him (and that no one would have cared if they did). But he had a feeling that his effort to affect an ambling gate—just a guy out walking in his neighborhood—was transparent. Which was absurd, because he really was in his own neighborhood, just outside his own house. Had a cop stopped him, his story would have been pretty hard to challenge—better, even, than his planned alibi for being out in the orchard: “I live right there. See? That's my house. What's the problem?”

Martin walked quickly up the left side of his circular driveway (he
liked the fact that he had this setup, thought that it set him apart from all the people with the boring, perpendicular driveways). Then, quietly (he remembered with relief that Arrow wasn't around to bark), he undid the latch on the gate and slipped into the backyard. The house was dark, except for the light in the kitchen. It cast a dim glow out into the backyard, and reflected quietly off the water in the pool. It looked peaceful. Another peaceful aquatic setting out in Walnut Station.

He made his way toward the back door, which opened into the laundry room, stopping every step or two to listen. No sound. He leaned down, found the spare key under the potted plant that was sitting by the door, and inserted it into the doorknob. Click. It unlocked. He opened the door and walked into the laundry room. It occurred to him that someone (Hano) might shoot him right there, right in the laundry room (“Walnut Station Man Gunned Down in Laundry Room by Prowler”). But nothing happened. And so he stood there for a minute, trying to decide how to proceed. (Move stealthily forward? Turn the light on and charge down the hall? Call out to Hano? . . . Taunt him?)

Then he heard the phone ringing.
Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
It was the last thing he expected, and it threw him off his game plan.

Ring-ring.

He knew he should sit tight, not move, wait it out; it would stop ringing in a minute. But he couldn't. He really needed to answer it. So without thinking—almost instinctively, really—he walked out of the laundry room and toward his bedroom, where there was a phone by his bedside. He didn't hit the light switch, just walked forward, feeling his way in the familiar environment of his house (it immediately felt good to be in his own house).

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Outside he could see light reflecting off the pool.

Ring-ring.

He reached out and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he said.

There was a pause on the other end. He knew someone was there, but there was no response.

“Hello?” he said again, more forcefully this time.

“Martin?” a voice said. “Is this Martin? Martin Anderson?”

Martin was quiet for a second, listening, thinking. He knew who it was, but he needed to think for just a second.

“Yeah,” he said. “This is Martin. Who is this?”

“Martin, it's me, Derek. Derek Hano. Listen, I just got a call from someone up in the Bay Area. In Oakland. He said he was just watching the news, and he heard . . . he saw a story that said that Val is dead. That someone broke into his house and killed him and his wife. Have you heard about this?”

Martin nodded, sitting there in the dark. Yes, he thought. I do know about that. But he was also thinking, suddenly, that this call meant that Hano wasn't sitting in another part of his house, waiting for him. This was a relief.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know. I mean, yeah, I heard about it. I've been getting calls all evening.”

He heard Hano let out a big sigh. He sounded very upset.

“Jesus Christ, Martin,” he said. “What the fuck? Do you know what this means? This is about Ramirez—you know, the job. The thing.” He paused for a second. “Fuck,” he said. “I can't believe this. I can't fucking believe this.”

Martin didn't say anything—didn't know what to say, how to respond. The guy was a great fucking liar, that was for sure.

“Where are you?” Martin asked.

There was a pause—Martin could hear the line buzzing faintly. “I'm in fucking Santa Barbara,” Hano said. He sounded impatient. “At home. I'm at home. For now, at least. I just got back a few hours ago. Jesus. I can't believe this. I wasn't sure you'd be around—or if you were all right. You should get out of there, you know. I mean, if they came after Val, you never know. . . . Do you think anyone would connect you to Val? About the drugs, I mean?”

Still holding onto the phone, Martin stood up. The cord connected to the receiver bobbed as he moved. He could see the faint outline of himself in a wall mirror that was to the left of the king-size bed. He stood in front of it and looked at his shadowy image—more like a silhouette—in the darkness of his room.

“How did you get my number?” he asked.

Another pause on Hano's end.

“How did I get your number?” Hano asked. “I called Directory Assistance. I picked up the phone, dialed four-one-one, and asked for your number. What do you think I did? Are you all right?”

Martin was confused. What sort of game was Hano playing? Was this a subtle message that he wasn't planning to kill Martin or his family—as long as he left town? Or just so long as he kept quiet? Or was this just the classic move of the guilty one being the first to come forward? Like toward the end of
The Godfather,
when Marlon Brando tells Michael to watch out for the double-cross. Martin had memorized the line—mostly after hearing Ludwig say it over and over in his rasping Marlon-Brando-as-the-Godfather voice.

“Listen,” Don Corleone says to Michael, “whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting, he's the traitor. Don't forget that.”

“Hano, I need to go,” Martin said.

“Okay, but wait,” Hano said. “Hold on. We need to talk, okay? How about if we meet up? I mean, shit, we've got a few things to work out—get our story straight. Also, Martin—I'm getting the fuck out of my house. Tonight—right now. And I think you should do the same. Get out of there, and get your fucking family out of there.”

Martin nodded.

“So is there a way I can reach you?” Hano asked. “I'm coming up there in a few days. Or I'm supposed to, anyway. Let's meet up, and we can figure this out.”

Martin looked at his shadow reflection, and then leaned over and hung up the phone. He could see all right in the dark now, but he still struggled to get the receiver in the cradle. It clattered before it settled into place.

He stood up straight again, listening. Then the house was completely quiet. He wondered if the phone was going to begin ringing again. He hoped it wouldn't. He waited, but nothing happened. He turned and looked back again at the mirror next to his bed. But he couldn't really see anything—just a dim shape. Hardly a reflection at all.

He looked out through the sliding glass door of the bedroom, out at the shimmering light on his pool. He felt a sudden urge to take off his clothes and take a swim. He felt dirty and tired. He knew he wasn't going to do it (he was too tired, for one thing), but he thought that it would be just the thing. And as he stood there, considering the possibility, he thought that if he turned on the backyard lights and made some noise, splashed around, maybe shouted a little, the neighbors might think that the Andersons were finally getting into the swing of things, figuring out how to spend a summer evening in Walnut Station.

M
artin fell asleep the second he put his head down on the cool plastic mattress of the bunk. No sheets, no sleeping bag, no nothing. He didn't even have the energy to pull a pillow out from the drawer underneath the bottom bunk. When he woke up the sun was streaming in through the two little portal windows of the boat's
V
-shaped bedroom. The curtains were drawn, but the sun was insistent: Wake up, get out of bed. He looked at his watch. It was 6:20, maybe 6:21. Late for the marina.