Authors: Michael Koryta
"Hey,"
I said, and he turned back to me. "When we talk to Darius, I don't want to
give him any names, all right—"
"You
mean Cantrell and Bertoli—"
"No,
I mean Pritchard and Perry."
He
frowned.
"Like
I said before, this is a scouting trip, okay— I want to ask the guy about
Bertoli's car, drop Cantrell's name, see if we get any sort of response. Feel
him out. Then I'll call Graham. It's still his case, you know."
His
frown didn't fade. "What's that have to do with names—"
"Nothing."
"Then
why—"
"Look,
Graham got on my ass about this before, told me to stay out of his way. I don't
want to deal with that again."
He
looked at me for a long time, then nodded his head at the traffic light ahead.
"You've
got a green."
It
was closing in on six now, streetlights coming on, but Classic Auto Body was
still open. It was an ugly, sprawling place of cinder block, with a stack of
tires and a few stripped cars in the parking lot. From the outside it looked
like a picture of poverty, but the garage doors were up and two gleaming cars
were visible inside, one a new Cadillac and the other a pickup truck that had
been painted gold and black and mounted on massive, oversized tires. Two young
black men lounged on stools in the garage. A set of speakers stood behind them,
playing rap music with a bass line I could feel in my chest.
"Hey,"
Joe said as we got out of the truck, his voice soft, and when I looked at him
he nodded at the black-and-gold pickup truck inside. "Look at the
wheels."
There
were small diamonds cut out of the chrome rims.
One
of the men inside the garage, a thin guy with darker skin and a shaved head, had
moved his hand to rest beneath his oversized jacket when we drove in. Now that
he saw us, he took it away and exchanged a look with his partner, who got to
his feet and stepped over to a closed door. He opened it and said a few words,
then shut it and came out to meet us. The guy with the jacket never moved.
"We
closed," the one on his feet said, stopping at the edge of the garage. He
wore a close-fitting, sleeveless white shirt, ridges of muscle clear beneath
it. The music was even louder now, the sound of a ratcheting shotgun
incorporated into the beat.
"Doesn't
look that way," I said.
"Is,
though."
"That's
all right. Don't need any work done. Came to see Darius."
He
reached up and scratched above his eyebrow, head tilted, studying me.
"Darius a busy man."
"I'm
sure of it. That's why we don't intend to keep him long. Got a picture to show
him, a question to ask, then go on our way."
His
eyes flicked over to Joe, whose look and demeanor said
cop
about as
subtly as a billboard would.
"I'll
give him the picture for you."
Joe
shook his head. "We will. Thanks, though."
"Man,
Darius ain't available."
"You
work with him—"
"That's
right."
"Then
you know how to get in touch with him. Give the man a call."
While
Joe talked, I found myself staring at the man on the stool, that hand resting
near his waist. He wasn't looking back at me. He was looking at Joe.
"He
ain't gonna answer," the guy in the sleeveless shirt said.
"How
do you know that—"
"He
busy."
"How
about we call him just the same," Joe said.
"No,"
I said, and they both looked at me with surprise. I shook my head. "If
he's not around, he's not around. We'll come back."
He
nodded. "You do that, man."
"Thanks."
I turned
and walked to the truck. I had the door open and was sitting behind the wheel
before Joe even moved. He walked over slowly, got inside, and swung the door
shut without a word. The guy from the stool got to his feet and came over to
stand with the other man at the edge of the garage. They watched as I drove out
of the lot.
"Maybe
I misread the situation," Joe said after we were a few blocks away,
"but I kind of assumed Darius was inside that office. You know, where the
kid poked his head in before he came out to run us off."
"Could
be."
"Uh-huh.
You want to tell me what we're doing driving away, then—"
"I'm
thinking we should pass this off to Graham," I said. "His case, his
decisions to make. You saw those diamonds on the rims down here, that's enough,
right— Between that and the phone calls, we've got enough. It's time to pass it
to him now."
"That's
a pretty different stance from the one you had this afternoon."
"Had
a few hours to think about it."
"You've
done some thinking," he said, "but it's not hours of it that are
catching up with you now. It's months."
We
didn't say much on the way back to the office. When we got there all he said
was "Let me know if Alexandra calls" before he got into his own car
and drove away.
I
went home, too, called Amy and said I'd come over and I had some news, and then
took a shower. Before I got into the water I stood at the sink and stared into
the mirror for a long time, waiting for the man looking back to tell me what he
wanted to do. What he needed to do. Then the steam spread across the glass and
he was gone, no answers left behind.
I did
not call Quinn Graham, as I had told Joe I would. I did not call anyone. That
night I updated Amy, took her from my conversation with Alexandra Cantrell to
my decision at the garage.
"You're
really going to back off, pass it to Graham—" she said. "Then why
were you there to begin with— Why spend two weeks watching for Alexandra—"
"Just
to see if he was right. I had to know. That's all. Now I do."
"If
who was right— Ken—"
I
nodded.
"You
said you were angry with him at first," she said. "Hurt and betrayed,
because he lied to you."
"Sure.
You think that's abnormal—"
"No.
But you don't seem angry now."
"I
understand why he did it now."
She
nodded. "That makes it easier, doesn't it."
"Of
course."
"You
know you've been lying to me—"
"What—"
"For
three days you've been lying to me. Said you'd given up on the surveillance,
stopped going out there—and, unlike you with Ken, I don't understand why."
"I'm
sorry," I said. "I didn't think of it as lying, even though it was. I
just knew that you and Joe thought I should quit—"
"You
told us you already had. Back in the summer, it was
you
who said you
were done. Emphatically. Neither of us told you to give up your job, Lincoln,
but you did, and then you went back to it in secret. Lying about it. I don't
understand."
I
didn't know how to make her understand. I couldn't explain to her that she was
one of the reasons I'd had to quit, that Ken's murder had been one that hit too
close to home. It could be her next time. Or Joe. My decision at the garage
today had been made the moment the guy on the stool had reached under his
jacket with his eyes on Joe. I understood some things in that moment,
understood just how damn close we were to the one thing I could never allow to
happen again. I would not bring those I loved into harm's way again. I
couldn't.
So if
I understood that, then why couldn't I stop altogether— Why had I ever gone
back to that damned house in the woods with my camera and my binoculars—
I
didn't have an answer for that one. It chilled me, but I didn't. I'd ended up
back out there, that was all. The absence of resolution, of truth, had
tormented me for too many months. In the end, it won. I was weaker than I'd
thought.
"Let
me ask you one more thing, and this time, if you care about me at all, tell me
the truth," Amy said. She was speaking very carefully, slowly, as if she
needed me to feel the weight of the words. "If you don't tell me the
truth, we're done, Lincoln. We will have to be done. Because I can't live with
you otherwise."
"Ask
the question," I said.
"Are
you really going to pass this off to Graham, or are you telling one thing to me
and foe and planning another—"
I
looked away.
She
said, "Lincoln."
"I've
got something left to do," I said. "That's the truth. It's something
I'm going to do alone. Then I will give this to Graham and, yes, step away. I
promise you, that is the truth. I've got one thing left to do."
"What
is it—"
"I'm
going to get Graham the tape he wanted me to get from Harrison, only this time
I'll get it from the right source. I'm going to get him evidence, Amy, get him a
case he can prosecute, a case that will end the right way. I don't want to pass
this off to him until I know it's ready for that. I can't stand to let it fall
apart the way it did with Dunbar and Mike London and Graham and everyone else.
Do you understand that— I can't let it fall apart again."
She
fell asleep around midnight. I sat beside her in the dark, looking at a pale
shaft of light across the carpet that I liked to imagine was the moon but was
really from a parking lot light pole. She had not pressed me for more details
of what I had planned, and I hadn't offered them. It had been a quiet night. We
didn't make love or even talk when we turned out the lights and got into bed,
but she fell asleep with her hand wrapped tight around my arm.
After
twenty minutes, when her breathing had slowed to the rhythm of true and deep
sleep, I got to my feet and found my car keys. She was on her side, face turned
into the pillow, and before I left I leaned down and kissed the back of her
head, smelled her hair. Then I walked through the dark apartment and opened the
door and stepped out into the night. There was no way I could fasten the steel
security bar behind me. I regretted that.
I
stopped at a convenience store on Rocky River and bought a large black coffee,
then drove home, went upstairs, and found the wire I'd used in the early stages
with Parker Harrison. I'd never taken it back to the office. We'd had no use
for it anymore.
I
tested it and then put it on, clipping the microphone lower, near the fourth
button instead of the first, remembering the way Harrison had torn at my shirt,
how completely exposed it had been then. Once the wire was in place, I got my
gun case out of the closet and removed the stainless steel Beretta 9 mm. It had
been a while since I'd handled that gun, but I had a shoulder holster for it,
and I put that on now and slipped the Beretta inside. I put a jacket on over
that, leaving it unzipped, and then I put the Glock into its holster, this one
secured on my spine. The East Cleveland Ensemble.
With
that preparation complete, I turned off the lights and left the apartment and
went to the office. I fired up the computer and then took my PI license out of my
wallet and went to the scanner, made a copy of the image and loaded it onto the
computer, and made a few changes before printing out a copy. A little trimming
work with scissors, a quick pass through the card laminator I'd purchased years
ago for just this sort of thing, and then I was done. I tucked the new ID into
my wallet in place of the old one, left the office, and drove back to Eddy
Road.
One
version of the neighborhood came to life at dawn, and another went to sleep. It
hadn't been a quiet night of surveillance—I'd watched people stumble the sidewalks
wrecked out of their minds, seen a fistfight flare and then vanish when a
police cruiser drove by, heard the laughter and loud car stereos of those
returning from a night at the clubs. That world slid away just before daylight,
and then the traffic thickened and stores and businesses opened as the sun
rose.