“I called the store. They danced me around. Then they gave me a number for you. No one answered. I was starting to feel like people were avoiding me.”
“Everything's mobile these days, dawg. I ain't never in one place for too long. Got your message and got back to you soon as I could, though, didn't I? I knew you'd be ready, hungry to get down to it. And as far as the store, man ⦠Joey don't hardly go there no more. He still got the office
upstairs and all, but mostly does his business elsewhere. Couple different places. Keep a jump on the suckers, you know? But here, I got something else you gonna like.”
He reached into a pocket, came out with a small vial of cocaine, waved it once in the air, put it on the desk. The vial was sealed with a metal screw cap, a tiny spoon inside.
“Take a blast of that,” Lindell said. “Shit will open your eyes but good.”
Johnny shook his head.
“No.”
“What? You used to love that shit, dawg. Suck it up like an Oreck.”
“No more.”
“I hear you.” He slipped the vial back in his pocket.
Johnny took a sip from his beer.
“You looking lean and mean, man,” Lindell said. “They make you cut your hair inside?”
“Did it myself.”
“Got yourself an early release too. How that happen?”
“My lawyer pulled some strings. Made it work. Walked out of there with nothing but my kick-out money, though. Spent most of it getting up here.”
“I hear that.” He stroked his goatee.
“I could use a little of what's owed me.”
Lindell shrugged.
“Hey, that's up to Joey, man. I mean, the man's business is his business. I don't question how he runs it. But if you asking me, âLindell, do you think he owes me money?' then I gotta say yes. But it ain't up to me to give it to you.”
Johnny said nothing.
“Now, some things have changed since you been away, that's true. Most of those old fucks, they long gone. Ain't no OGs left among the spaghetti benders, man. They in the pen or they headed for the pen or they in the ground. What we got now is a wide-open market. No more bullshit, no more hogging the tit. These days everybody get paid.”
“That's good to hear.”
“No doubt. And you gonna get your share too. Ain't nobody
gonna keep it away from Johnny Too Bad. If they do, he just gonna go take it anyway, right?”
“I only want what's mine.”
“Like everybody. And Joey gonna get it to you too, man. He don't forget nothing.”
“Good.”
“So what you need? Some snaps to walk around with? Get your swerve on? 'Cause I
can
help you out with that.”
He got up, went over to the filing cabinet, pulled out a drawer. There was a metal strongbox inside.
“We keep some petty cash in here, cover the betting money,” he said. “Not too much, though.”
He opened the box, took out two bound bundles of cash, held them up, looked at Johnny.
“'Bout six hundred here I can spare,” he said. “That do it?”
Johnny looked at him.
“Six hundred?”
Lindell didn't answer.
“You know where I been the last seven years? And why?”
Lindell lowered the money, shook his head, put it back in the box.
“Like I said, man. It's all I got right now. If you don't want itâ”
“Give it here.”
Lindell smiled, took out the bundles again. Johnny caught the first in midair, let the second fall into his lap.
“Joey want to see you,” Lindell said. “He gave me the word. We gonna set it up for tomorrow. Tuesday at the latest. He happy you out. And I think he gonna have some good news for you.” He closed the box, pushed the drawer shut.
Johnny thumbed through the money.
“Let's hope.” He put a bundle in each jacket pocket.
“Get yourself some pussy yet?”
“Why?”
“You want some, I hook you up. Fine sistas. Work your jimmy like to make your head spin.”
“I'll keep that in mind.”
He got up.
“Listen, Johnny.”
He stopped halfway to the door, looked back at Lindell.
“I know you're mad. About what happened and all down there. But Joey gonna make it up to you, man. I guarantee.”
“Give me a number where I can reach you without getting jerked around.”
Lindell took a business card from his jacket pocket.
“My cell, man,” he said. “Now you got the access.”
Johnny took the card. It was blank except for a handwritten number.
“I'll call you tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
“You got it, bro. I have some word for you then.”
Johnny turned and went back down the stairs. There was a lull in the fighting and the bettors watched him as he walked past. At the doorway to the anteroom, he turned and saw Lindell standing at the office window, looking down at him.
Topcoat and the tall man were still outside. They watched as he walked to the Firebird.
He was at the driver's-side door, key in hand, when he saw movement in the jeep next to him. He turned, saw the rottweiler's body laid out in the back, the blanket open, the kid sitting Indian fashion with the dog's bloody head in his lap. The kid looked at him and Johnny saw tear lines running down his smooth face. Johnny held his glance for a moment, then turned away and got in the car.
Â
Back at the motel, he sat on the edge of the narrow bed, pulled the phone into his lap. A sticker on the front of it said it belonged to a Best Western in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
He dialed the beeper. At the tone, he punched in the motel number, the pound sign and then the room number. He hung up, set the phone beside him on the bed, lay back. The ceiling was spotted with water stains, but there was no sound from the floors above or below. Besides the Korean man at the front desk, he had seen only two other people since he'd been here, both welfare residents. As far as he
knew, he was the only person on the floor. At night, he heard only the wind.
The phone rang less than five minutes later. He put the receiver to his ear.
“Yeah?”
“About time,” Connor said. “I was worried you hadn't made it. This where you're going to be staying?”
“For now.”
“You had contact?”
“With Johnson. In Newark. I just came from there.”
“What about Joey?”
“Tomorrow. Lindell's setting it up.”
“He's screening you.”
“Maybe.”
“Where's the meeting?”
“I don't know. Maybe the place on Twenty-Two.”
“The porn shop? He hasn't been there in weeks.”
“That's what Johnson told me. Said Joey's been keeping a low profile.”
“That's a laugh. Low profile? It isn't in his personality.”
“I'll call you afterward.”
“Be careful,” Connor said. “You can't trust either of them. Keep your eyes open. Look and listen. How you doing on cash?”
“I could use some more. A grand doesn't go very far.”
“I'll see what I can do. Might take a few days.”
“What about that other thing?”
“I'm working on it. I told you.”
“I'm worried you're not properly motivated.”
“You start showing me results, John, and I'll get motivated.”
“That wasn't the deal. I told you I wanted one thing out of this. That hasn't changed.”
A pause on the line.
“I'm expecting some news soon. It's tough. Records are sealed, there's privacy issues involved.”
“But you can do it?”
“I can do it.”
“Good, because if you can't, if you're jerking me around, then the whole thing's off. I vanish and you're on your own.”
“Don't talk foolish, John. You already owe me. You want to go back to Glades?”
“You know the deal. You know what we agreed.”
“I told you. I'm on it.”
“Then make it happen. When I call you tomorrow, I'll more than likely have something for you. You should have something for me.”
He hung up.
“NFW,” Harry said. “No fucking way.”
They were in Ray's office, bright sun pouring through the window.
“You're the one went chasing after her,” Ray said.
“I learn from my mistakes.”
“She called me again. She has a valid situation there. You said so yourself. And we might be able to help her.”
“Send Errol.”
“She wants you.”
“Why?”
“She says she liked the way you handled yourself.”
“Bullshit.”
“No.” Ray raised a hand. “God's honest. That's what she said.”
“Then that makes no goddamn sense at all. Did she tell you she pulled a gun on me? That I had to take it away from her?”
“She alluded to that, yes.”
Harry got up from the chair, went to the window, looked out.
“Explain this,” he said.
“What's there to explain? She wants to contract with us. She wants you to be the point man. Client's request. You won't be solo on this, but she insists you stay in the picture.”
Harry looked at him.
“What's going on behind the scenes here? What hasn't she told us? And what am I supposed to do for her anyway?”
Ray shrugged.
“As far as what she isn't telling us, I don't know.
Maybe nothing. But I've been giving quite a bit of thought to what we can do for her. And the first thing is to go down to that agency, talk to some people there. Let them know the situation.”
“She couldn't do that herself?”
“She could, but it'll bring more weight to bear if we're there with her. They'll be more inclined to listen, get a sense of the gravity of the situation.”
“Which I'm still not convinced of myself.”
“The woman's worried. That part's real, regardless of whatever else may be going on. Even if we just look into it a little, convince her there's no reason to be worried, then that's a service too. She buys herself a little peace of mind. And there's nothing wrong with that.”
“She's already on board, isn't she? You already signed her. Regardless of what I might say.”
“If she's not happy with our efforts, she can terminate the contract. But I wasn't going to jerk her around another week before giving her an answer.”
“You were that convinced I'd say yes?”
“Let's just say I was hopeful.”
“When does she want to go to the agency?”
Ray sat back.
“We were just talking about that on the phone before you got here,” he said. “And it occurred to me there's no time like the present. How's this afternoon sound?”
Â
They rode in the Mustang.
When he'd gotten to Ocean Grove, the Blazer was gone. He'd waited in the car, engine running, sounded the horn. After a few minutes she came out the front door and down the walk, wearing a green sweater, jeans, leather car coat. He leaned over, unlocked the passenger's-side door. She got in, shut the door, and he pulled away from the curb without speaking a word.
They drove the first few minutes without speaking. When they hit Route 33, heading west, she said, “You know where it is?”
“Yeah. Ray gave me the address. They know we're coming?”
“He made an appointment for me.”
“Ray did?”
“Yes, why?”
“Never mind. I should have guessed.”
They drifted into silence.
“I'm sorry,” she said finally. “About what happened the other day.”
He gave that a nod.
“Reggie shouldn't have done that,” she said.
He didn't answer.
“But you overreacted.”
He looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“You could have seriously hurt him.”
“He could have broken my neck. Without even meaning to or knowing he did it. I could have ended up in a nursing home with a feeding tube and an adult diaper. He didn't seem too concerned about that. You either.”
“He was protecting me.”
“So I was supposed to stand there, let him use me for a heavy bag?”
She looked out the window, didn't answer.
“And that stupid stunt you pulledâ”
“I wasn't aiming at you.”
“And if you'd clipped my femoral artery because your hand shook, and I'd bled to death right there on your nice hardwood floor, how would you have felt about that?”
“You were scaring me. I thought you were going to kill him. I wanted to stop it.”
“Never point a gunâ”
“Yes, yes. Never point a gun at someone you're not ready to shoot. You told me.”
“That's not what I was going to say.”
She looked at him.
“Then what?”
“I was going to say, Never point a gun at
me
.”
She looked out the window again.
“I'll try to remember that.”
The agency was in a building off Main Street in Freehold, across from the Hall of Records. He parked in a municipal lot a block away and they walked against the wind.
They rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and the doors opened onto a small foyer with a reception window. Behind the glass, a young black woman was talking on a headset. She didn't look up as they came in. On the shelf outside the window was a clipboard with a sign-in sheet, a Bic pen attached to it with string.
After a few minutes with no eye contact, he tapped a knuckle on the glass. The woman looked up at him, frowned. He raised his hand again and she reached up, slid the window open.
“Please don't do that.”
“We have an appointment,” he said.
“Who with?”
He looked at Nikki.
“My name's Nicole Ellis,” she said. “We had an appointment for four?”
“Did you sign in? You can't see anybody unless you sign in.”
A well-dressed black woman in her fifties came up behind the receptionist.
“Ms. Ellis?” She looked at him. “Mr. Rane?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Right on time. I'm Rosetta Harper. I'm the managing director here at Second Chance. Let's go back to my office.”
The receptionist buzzed them through into a long room divided into cubicles, each with a desk and filing cabinet. He could hear phones ringing, printers clacking.
They followed Harper down a narrow aisle into a cubicle that was slightly larger than the ones around it. Inside was a desk, two plastic chairs in front of it, a filing cabinet and coat rack behind them. There was a computer on the desk, the screen showing animated fish chasing one another silently back and forth in bright blue water.
“Have a seat,” she said. “I pulled your file earlier.”
They settled down into chairs. Harry unzipped his jacket, but didn't take it off. Nikki hung her coat on the back of her chair.
“Now, if I remember correctly,” Harper said, “this concerns a child you've given up for adoption?”
“Yes,” Nikki said.
“And Mr. Rane”âlooking at Harryâ“is your husband?”
“No,” she said. “I thought you read the file.”
“My mistake. So what can I do for you?” Sitting back in her chair, putting distance between them, Harry already feeling the whole thing going south.
“I've hired Mr. Rane and his company to help me out, becauseâ”
“What company?”
Harry took an RW card from his shirt pocket. He'd grabbed a handful before leaving Ray's office. He leaned forward, handed it to her. She took it, looked at it skeptically.
“I don't understand ⦠.”
“Ms. Ellis is a client,” he said. “I don't know how much you were told over the phoneâ”
“Not very much.” She put the card down, picked up the phone, dialed a three-digit extension.
“Who are you calling?” Nikki said.
Harper didn't answer. After a moment she said into the phone, “Mr. Simmons? Rosetta. Sorry to bother you. But we're going to need you in here when you get a chance.”
Â
“So you understand our dilemma,” Simmons said. “As executive director of Second Chance, I have to tell you that confidentiality comes first, always. It's the bedrock on which we work. Without it, the whole system would crumble, there'd be chaos.”
“I understand,” Harry said. Simmons was a tall, skinny black man in a dark suit and yellow bow tie. Harry had taken an almost instant dislike to him.
“We're not asking you to tell us where he is,” Nikki said.
“And we wouldn't,” Simmons said. He'd pulled in a
chair from another cubicle, positioned it alongside Harper, facing them, his elbows on the arms, his hands clasped in front of him.
Nikki looked out of the cubicle, then back to him.
“You don't seem to understand what's going on here,” she said.
“I'm trying to, but you have to see it from my perspective. And the fact remains, I really don't know who either of you people are, do I? On what grounds should I just accept what you're telling me?”
“She pulled my file,” Nikki said. “Read it.”
“I will,” he said. “Later.”
Harry leaned forward.
“Go ahead and call the number on that card,” he said. “I work for a licensed security agency. Personal and professional protective services. Call the number, they can give you references: lawyers, people they worked with.”
“Be that as it may,” Simmons said, “you're asking me for something I can't do.”
“No, we're not,” Nikki said.
“Now if you were with an actual law enforcement agency,” Simmons said, ignoring her, “that might be different.”
“I was with the New Jersey State Police for twelve years.” Simmons shrugged.
“But no longer, right? And that's why I'm afraid I don't know what to say to you.”
“Our feeling is there's a risk situation here,” Harry said. “You must have some procedure when there's a threat, when a family or child is in danger. When a birth mother or father decides to come looking for their child.”
“There is, of course, but I'm not at liberty to say what that is.”
“You don't need to. But whatever that procedure is, it might be a good time to get it up and running. Whether it's up to you or someone above you, look in your files, your database, find out where the boy is, the family, find the caseworker if there still is one. Warn them. You owe them that.”
Simmons sat back, looked at Harper, and Harry realized he had misplayed it.
Simmons turned back to him.
“I'm happy to hear you have such a clear picture of how I should do my job,” he said. “But even looking objectively at what you said, I have to askâand you should ask yourselfââOwe them what?' To frighten them, turn their lives upside down because of some rumor?”
“It's no rumor,” Nikki said. “If he's not back here already, he will be soon.”
Simmons looked at her.
“You've seen him? Talked to him?”
She shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“All we're asking,” Harry cut in, “is that someone get the word out through the system, let the family know.”
“I told you confidentiality was the bedrock of our work,” Simmons said. “And it always has been. There's no way the fatherâunless he had access to our records, which I can assure you he does notâwould be able to find out where the boy is.”
“I'm sure you're right,” Harry said. “But if he got pointed to the right person, a person who knew or could find out, someone who had access to those files, I doubt he'd be as polite about it as we have been.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Please,” Harry said. “Listen to what I'm saying.”
“I've been listening.”
“What possible reason would we have for coming here, feeding you this story, if it wasn't true? What purpose could possibly be served?”