Something for Nothing (45 page)

“Well,” Slater said, raising his hands and then bringing them down hard onto his thighs, slapping himself. It was a kind of punctuation to his comment. “I should have called you. You were a big help. Flying me out over Livermore and everything. And yeah, I don't know, I just had the feeling that you were an all-right guy. You were honest about your daughter's drug bust. And you brought her to that class, which shows something. Or I think it does, anyway. And your son with the baseball thing. Really cute.”

He nodded, looked at Martin, raised his eyebrows. I approve, his expression said. Which was baffling to Martin, because the guy had just punched him in the stomach and kicked him in the kidney.

“So listen, Martin,” Slater said. “You're not stupid, are you? I mean, like that guy up in Humboldt? Look at you—this boat, your nice house, your business. Please tell me you're not stupid.”

“No,” Martin said, shaking his head. “I'm not stupid.” (Yes, he thought, I'm stupid. I'm a fucking idiot—I'm the very definition of a stupid person.)

“No,” Slater said. “It doesn't seem like it. And that's why I was so surprised to see all those pictures of you and Val Desmond together. You know, up on the wall in your living room—the horses and everything. I mean, Val Desmond is—or was, I should say—a pretty nasty guy. We've been looking at him for a while now. I'll bet you didn't know that, did you? But anyway, when I saw the pictures of you guys together . . . well, I was surprised. You know? I just think a smart person would steer pretty wide of a guy like that.”

Martin looked at him for a second, not sure what he meant about the pictures. But then he remembered. When he'd been sitting there at
the counter in his living room, looking at the mug shots that Slater had brought for him to look at, Slater had walked around the room, looking at pictures, books, and so on. And, Martin remembered now, he'd even muttered to himself a couple of times as he looked at the pictures of Martin and Val and various other people standing in the Winner's Circle after some races. “Huh,” he'd said. And, “Mmm.”

“Well,” Martin said, trying again to think, to maintain his composure (even if his dignity was gone—look at me, sitting on the fucking floor of my own boat). “I don't know, he's just my horse trainer. Or he was, I mean. That's not exactly illegal, is it?”

Slater shook his head, and then raised his hand and wagged his forefinger at Martin. It was an admonishing gesture, one Martin had always found incredibly irritating, but one that here was very unsettling.

“Don't bullshit me, Martin,” he said. His voice had become sharp again. “I hate it when people do that. The last person that bullshitted with me was Val Desmond. And look what happened to him.”

There was a silence in the room after Slater said that. Martin could hear it—it was the sound of a menacing quiet right there in the cabin of
By a Nose
. It blocked out the sounds of the marina outside, on the docks and in the water. Boat engines, horns, the occasional voice. Here in the cabin, there was only the empty vacuum of nonsound that followed in the wake of what Jim Slater had just said.

And then the thoughts started to flood in. The fact that the boat had been ransacked, just like Val's house was torn apart. The fact that Slater seemed to know a lot about Val. The fact that Slater's questions seemed to have less to do with Val's murder, or with drugs, than with Val's money.

And then he was hit by the realization that it might not have been Hano who'd broken into Val's house after all. No, in fact, it might have been—probably had been—Slater. Just as it had probably been—must have been—Slater who'd killed Val and Angela. And cut off Val's finger.

But that didn't seem possible. He felt a wave of nausea. He pulled his knees up to his chest again and took a couple of deep breaths.

“Martin,” Slater said. His voice was flat. No more irony. Just flat words. “Where's the rest of the money?”

Martin had to pull himself back into the now of the moment. He'd been starting to fade. He took one more deep breath, then raised his head and looked at Slater.

“The money?” he asked. He wasn't trying to be evasive. The problem was that he was having trouble with words, suddenly. They were like spoken blobs, and he had to concentrate to make them cohere into meaning.

“Listen, Martin,” Slater said. He sounded patient now, like he didn't mind being expansive for a minute. “When I came back to Val's house—the second time, after I got the call from the precinct and drove out there again, to the murder scene, acting like I didn't know what the fuck had happened—I saw that you'd broken into the dog's shed. I couldn't fucking believe it. The broken window, the hole in the ground. I almost said it right out loud. I mean, I tore that whole fucking house apart looking for the money, and it was in the dog's kennel the whole time.”

He shook his head, and then he pointed at Martin, smiling his cat smile. “That was smart,” he said, looking at Martin and nodding. “Though maybe you knew that that was where Val kept it, so it wasn't really so brilliant. I don't know and it doesn't matter. But it was still ballsy—that dog is fucking scary. I would have just shot it. But that doesn't matter, because you got the money, and I didn't.”

Slater sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he stood up, a move that made Martin fold up and cringe. He was certain he was about to get another kick in the side.

“It's all right, Martin,” Slater said. More baby talk. “I'm not gonna kick you again. Because I don't need to, right?” He reached over and patted Martin on the head.

“But,” Slater said, “if you don't mind, what I
am
gonna do is get something to drink out of your fridge here. I saw that you've got some beer stashed in there, and I'm dying for one. In fact, I can get one for you, too, if you want.”

Slater walked over to the mini-fridge, crouched, opened it, and took out three cans of Coors. Then he stood up, set them down on the counter, and opened them. First one, and then the other, and the other.
Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop.
He looked at Martin, smiled, and flashed him the two-fingered V sign—the peace sign. Jesus, Martin thought. Talk about inappropriate. Or off the mark. Or just brutally sarcastic—which was the point, he realized.

Slater took a big gulp of his beer and burped. He picked up the three beers by the tops of the cans, walked around the counter, and handed one to Martin where he was still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room.

“‘Ere you go, mate,” he said. “Cheers.” He was affecting what Martin thought might be an Australian accent. Or maybe a British accent of some sort. He wasn't sure. But it was unsettling, whatever it was.

Slater stepped over the coffee table, set his beers down, and sat down on the couch with a grunt. He grabbed a beer, took another big swig, and then looked at Martin. Martin took a sip of his beer, and found to his surprise that he was really thirsty—or that he really needed a drink of beer. He took another long swallow, and then another. Then he burped, too.

“Okay, then,” Slater said. “So this is the part where you tell me where the rest of Val's money is. Because I know that you guys were planning a buy in Mexico in a few days, and that Val had the money for it at his house.”

He took another long gulp of beer, and Martin watched his big Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

“That's right,” Slater said, looking at Martin and smiling. “I know all about that. And do you want to know how I know? Because I had a bug on Val's phone line. Pretty good, huh? I set it up myself. Climbed up the telephone pole, did the whole fucking thing. No one else in the department knows about it. I'm the expert from Oakland, you know? The big-time drug guy. I'm like . . . I don't know, the Reggie Jackson of narcotics detectives out there. Which means that these suburban narco
clowns, they let me do whatever the fuck I want.” He laughed and held his hands out in a can-you-believe-that? kind of gesture.

Then he sat forward, took a long swig, and looked down at Martin.

“Not that it matters,” he said. “But I'll tell you that this whole bad cop thing is actually pretty new for me. It's only since I switched out to the suburbs. I mean, I'm running all these wire taps, on Val Desmond's house and a few other places, and basically I'm spending my time listening to guys like you talk to guys like Val. And I'm thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I'm used to dealing with real criminals, the fucking blacks and the Mexicans and the Asians out in Oakland and Richmond and those places. Or the Hells Angels. Those guys are bad news. Scary. And gangs? You don't want to know.” He shook his head. He emptied his beer and threw it toward the kitchen, where it landed with a tinny, bouncy clatter. Then he burped again.

“But you guys,” he said. “I mean, Jesus Christ. Race horses and boats and planes and on and on. And I thought, this is different. This is the suburbs. No one gets hurt out here. It's just rich kids in daddy's car. So I began thinking, what if I can tap into a little of that? I mean, enough is enough. I live out in fucking Martinez, you know? 'Tinez. My wife is a waitress, I'm a cop, and we live with two kids in a shitty little three-room ranchhouse. And in a smelly neighborhood. Because of the fucking refineries. It's terrible. Who knows what the cancer rate is out there. And the schools, they suck, because what teachers want to live out there?”

He picked up his second beer, took another long draw from it, and sat back again on the couch. He looked like a guy digging in for a Sunday of football watching. Maybe the Raiders and the Steelers. Ken Stabler and Franco Harris. What the hell.

“And the kicker is that I've been shot not once but twice,” Slater said. He was talking to Martin, but he was looking across the room, over Martin's shoulder and toward the door. Martin was tempted to turn and see what he was looking at, but he was afraid to distract him.

“And what do I have to show for it?” he asked. “For two bullets in the line of duty? Nothing. Some big ugly scars that I can show off to
other cops. Or at drug classes like the one your daughter took. And then I see guys like you, skimming off the top, working the system—all of you. You all want a free ride, no questions asked. And from what I can tell, you're all getting it. So I thought, fuck it, I'm gonna get a little for me, too.”

Now, finally, Slater was quiet for a minute or two. He seemed suddenly like an overwound clock that had run down. Martin was quiet, too. Thinking. Slater's rant had given him time to think, and the beer was helping him sort things out, feel less confused. Not less scared—he was more scared every second, in fact. Because he was fully aware now that Slater was really, genuinely dangerous. Crazy dangerous. This guy is nuts, he thought, and unless I figure something out pretty quick, I'm dead. He's gonna get me to tell him where the money is, and then he's gonna kill me, just like he killed Val and Angela. Why wouldn't he? He shot Angela right in the back, for Christ's sake. And he'll make it look like I was killed by the same guy who gunned down Val and Angela.

In fact, Martin thought, he might even frame Hano for it. Because if he'd been bugging Val's phones, he knew who Hano was. (And how ironic was that, by the way? Coppola had been right.) Why
not
frame Hano?

But then it occurred to Martin that there were probably plenty of Hanos out there for Slater to choose from. Including Martin himself. That's right—maybe Slater would frame
Martin
for killing Val and Angela. He'd kill him, and then set it up so that he looked like the guy. What would Linda and the kids make of that? Would Linda refuse to believe that her husband was capable of such a thing, even in the face of overwhelming evidence? Probably not. She'd be horrified, but she'd think it was simply part of whatever had started a year or so ago, and that had included his theft of a jewelry box from his neighbor's house. He'd simply unraveled, until she really didn't even know who he was anymore.

The thought of his family suddenly overwhelmed him, and he was pretty sure he was going to start crying. His stomach and his side were
incredibly sore, and he was running out of energy. But, he knew, this wasn't the time to give in. He needed to think clearly, come up with a plan of some sort.

“All right, Slater,” Martin said. His voice croaked when he spoke; even though he'd finished his beer, his mouth was dry. “I'll tell you where the money is. No problem. We can go there right now. I don't give a shit. Really.”

And it was true. He didn't care about the money. But still, if he could have pulled it out of his pocket right now and given it to Slater, he wouldn't have done it. Because Slater would kill him right there, no question about it. And Martin wanted to live.

Slater nodded, a slow up and down movement, definitive. “Good,” he said. “That's the answer I wanted to hear. You're not so stupid after all, Martin. I knew it. I knew I could count on you. Fucking Val Desmond. He gave me all kinds of attitude. He was a real prick. Unbelievable. But you're gonna make this easy, right?”

“That's right,” Martin said. “All we have to do is run the boat out to Suisun Bay. It's out there. We've got plenty of time if we leave right now.”

Slater looked confused. “Suisun Bay? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you mean up by Benicia and Martinez?”

Martin gave an exaggerated shrug. “Yeah,” he said. “That's where I hid it. I didn't want it anywhere near me. I didn't want to be tempted to go and get it, at least not for a while.”

“Suisun Bay,” Slater said again. “Okay, whatever.” He shook his head. “But we'll just drive. I don't have all night to play around on your boat, Martin. I'm supposed to be tracking down the ruthless drug dealer that gunned down Val Desmond and his wife. I've got a job, you know.”