The Throwbacks (20 page)

D
AVID got out of the cab at Dan’s door for the second time that evening. He tried to come up with a plausible excuse for visiting this late as he rang the bell, but realized he didn’t need an excuse. They were blood brothers, after all. The three of them.

Dan opened the door wide and stood with his hands on his hips, his shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up. He blew a puff of cigar smoke in David’s face. “What the hell are you doing back here?” He stepped aside in spite of the appearance of not welcoming the late-night visit, and David walked past him into his living room, which was thankfully unoccupied.

“I’ve decided I’m going to go into business as a private investigator and call my firm ‘Young and Assorted Well-Meaning Ladies and Gents, LLC.’” David took a seat. Dan sipped his drink without offering to get him one, but stood waiting for him to get to his point.

“Oscar is back in town,” David said.

“Great. Just great. But you’ll have to come up with something more politically correct for the brochure, don’t you think?” Dan strode to the bar and sloshed some bourbon into another glass. He came back and handed it to David. “I’m glad you waited until I had my first sip of this drink before you mentioned Oscar being back, but it doesn’t seem to have been enough.” He lifted his half a tumbler of bourbon and finished it. David decided to follow suit.

“Mabel was thrilled to see him. I’m still in shock.” Truth be told, he was mixed about seeing Oscar. He was having a hard time separating his old boyhood friend from the man with the murky identity he’d grown into—that and the fact that he and Grace had been intimates. He wasn’t going to bother Dan with that detail tonight, though.

“I’m sure she enjoyed interrupting your date to set you up for the shock, knowing Mabel.” Dan chuckled. David decided to take advantage of Dan’s momentary lightheartedness, although it was a shame to ruin it so soon.

“Frenchie already reported in, did she?” David shook his head. Nothing to be done about it. “I’m leaving for London tomorrow as planned, but it could get complicated. I’ll need to respond to some questions brought up in the course of the estate settlement by my in-laws.” He looked at his tumbler and swirled the amber fluid that half-filled it. “Hopefully I’ll only be gone for twenty-four hours. I’ll need you to make my excuses—but if you must, you can tell them the truth—that I was called away to Scotland Yard on urgent business.” David looked up and met Dan’s eyes. Dan was still, a sure sign he was digesting it all and it wasn’t going down smoothly.

“We read the papers here—including the London papers,” Dan said. “Plus it’ll be all over the Internet. No way we’ll get away with anything but a version of the truth. The mayor will need a few more details than
urgent business
.” He looked serious. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Is Esther talking to me?”

“You know how she is—you’d think she was ninety percent Swiss.” Dan went to the bar, brought back the bottle of Scotch and poured them both another drink. He sat and put the bottle on the coffee table between them, the house quiet around them. It was nearly midnight.

“You’ve had quite a night, old fella. Sure you want to push forward with this exchange program?”

“Yes. It’s a brilliant scheme, really. Gives us both a place to send people who need to get away for a while for one reason or another—and they get to exercise their detecting skills and learn some new ones in the bargain.” David shrugged. “Besides, I can’t hide under a rock forever. Oscar would have found me anyway.”

“Like a bad penny? The truth: are you really glad he’s back?”

David didn’t have to think. “I’m deeply gladdened by his return. He didn’t disappoint me by changing one iota. I was being witty when I said Oscar would find me under a rock.” He raised one brow for emphasis.

“Guess I had more to drink than I realized. To confess, I went through two or three drinks while Esther was on the phone with Frenchie. Uh, Maria,” Dan said.

“Just call her Frenchie. Simplify matters,” David said.

Dan snorted. “I have a bit of news of my own to share tonight. There was a question or two raised by I.C.E. about you. I’m pretty sure they’re checking into your background. The mayor may be the only one impressed with their opinion of you, but he’s the one we have to impress the most, unfortunately.”

“So not only is the mayor going to find out from I.C.E. that I’m under investigation in London, he’ll also know that’s why I’m going back tomorrow. And if I.C.E. doesn’t tell the Mayor about Oscar sooner, they will later.” The prognosis looked bleak. Exactly the conditions David thrived on. Or he had in the past. He was reinventing himself, as the popular phrase went, but that was one feature that needed to stay.

“Sums it up,” Dan said. He tossed his drink down. David looked at the glass in his hand as it sat on the table in front of him. He took his hand away, a small gesture with a big impact that he knew would not go unnoticed by his friend.

“I’m impressed.” Dan clunked his glass down on the table. He shook his head. David knew there would be no further comment.

“I spoke with Interpol,” he said. That got his friend’s attention. “Seems they’ve confirmed that Oscar may very well know something useful for us in the smuggling investigation.”

“See, I knew we’d need you for something.” Dan eyed the bottle. He was enjoying himself, but then so was David. He felt a buzz, but it wasn’t from the alcohol. It was the pull he got from unraveling the web of whatever investigation he was on. His mind buzzed with possible directions, testing them to find the right paths to follow. It was good to know he hadn’t lost it. It had been too long a time.

“I’ll follow up with Oscar tomorrow before I leave for London,” he said to Dan. He couldn’t wait to put London behind him and get on with the case.

“You’re excited, aren’t you?” Dan’s voice sounded incredulous.

David only smiled and rose from his chair.

“I envy you,” Dan said.

“Why?”

“For one, I wish I was as excited by this freaking nightmare of an investigation—you do realize we only have five days, and then the curtain goes up and we either have a show or we’re caught with our pants down—nothing in between.”

“And what’s the second reason?” David asked, because he knew there was a more important reason. He knew Dan loved his job—and his life.

“You get to see him again, to be there, to reminisce and have a drink. You get to apologize to him and beg his forgiveness,” Dan said.

David sat back down, then spoke.

“He says it’s not our fault—that we could never have saved him from himself. He’s right. Besides, he’s doing okay. As Oscar termed it, he’s as good as he ever was.” He got up again, and this time he walked to the hallway and the door. Dan didn’t follow him.

“I’ll let you know what the mayor says. Call me when you hit London,” Dan called out from his chair and poured another glassful of bourbon.

David smiled. Esther was not going to like all that bourbon drinking, but he’d dropped too many bombs on his friend tonight. He’d ditched Frenchie, taken back up with Grace, was taking off for London in the middle of a VIP attempted murder and smuggling case and, last but not least, he’d announced that Oscar, their childhood friend, leader and hero, an underworld phantom for years, had returned to once again rescue them. This time, with information rather than his knuckles.

Luckily, he hadn’t divulged that Oscar had once been engaged to Grace. He’d save that for another night, when he didn’t mind getting drunk on bourbon. David was very sure that such a night would be coming up soon.

After all, he’d pretty much taken up with Gracie again, hadn’t he?

As he walked out the door and down to the end of the street to hail a cab and head back to his empty townhouse, he thought maybe he ought to get himself a Noodles.

“Ingenious disguise,” David told Oscar the next morning.

Oscar lifted his dark glasses to wink at him. The man looked ordinary, which was an extraordinary feat for him. He was unshaven, sporting dark glasses with an accompanying baseball cap—Red Sox, of course, no doubt courtesy of Mabel—and jeans. He never wore jeans. As a youth he favored the skinny black Italian designer pants, but then that had been the era of Fab Four Beatles-inspired fashion. He also wore a black T-shirt with no logo or writing, left untucked under a worn-out saddle-brown leather jacket. The only concession to his real self was the gold chain hiding under the T-shirt, likely with a crucifix hanging from it. Oscar looked disreputable in a normal way.

Which made David look ridiculously formal in his usual James Bond-inspired fashion—dark suit, white shirt and subdued charcoal striped tie. No matter, he was used to being the only well-dressed man in the room, in his opinion, of course. They walked to a local coffee shop and took a booth in the back. David faced the door. Oscar kept his back to it and kept his baseball cap on, although he removed his sunglasses.

“We should have had our chat at Mabel’s,” David said.

“Nah, it’s been too long and I needed to come here. Although it’s not the same.”

“Right. Everything is smaller.” David understood his need to go back to some of his old haunts. He’d done the same thing when he first moved back to Boston. He didn’t have to tell Oscar he might find it depressing. He could read the same conclusion on his face.

“What do you have for me?”

“I know your exporter. Dangerous man,” Oscar said. David would love to know how Oscar knew the dangerous exporter, but he’d have to settle for his own educated guess.

“Dangerous?”

“As in psychotic, obsessed,” Oscar said. “Vulnerable because he’s not rational—not smart. But could kill again if he thought in his own warped mind the occasion was warranted.”

David didn’t bother to enlighten him that Nick wasn’t really dead. “Can you give me a lead?”

Oscar pushed a piece of paper across the table. “These are the local connections to check out. I’ll follow the man from the other end—in Peru—to keep suspicion down.”

“You’re not planning to leave the country?” David needed to confirm this and didn’t care that he’d shown he cared. This was his old friend. Oscar smiled. He never minded showing how he felt. It never made him vulnerable. They were opposites.

“Touching. Don’t worry about me. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time and I’m still here—against the odds.”

“You’re not alone,” David said. It was the most he could offer. It was everything.

“I know. More importantly, I feel it again after all this time. I won’t let the connection become so tenuous ever again.”

“What about your handlers? They give you enough rope to come this far astray? Or are you under their radar?”

“We have an understanding. I’ve proved to be useful and, believe it or not, honest.” Oscar gave David his signature lopsided grin.

“You were always honest.”

“Yeah, but no one ever believed me.”

David chuckled. “True. Except me and Dan.” David thought of the scores of others including his mother and siblings and Mabel—and apparently Grace—who’d believed in him in their own way. But he didn’t bother reminding his friend of all his believers. Sometimes Oscar had to buy into his own bad-guy image.

“Well intentioned too,” David said in his best tongue-in-cheek manner.

“Intentions? I have good ones and bad ones—depending.” Oscar the sinner was back. David sat back and laughed out loud. That was a cartoon-like threat if he’d ever heard one. Oscar grinned and shook his head. They both finished their coffee. David had a flight to catch. But before he left, Oscar had one more thing to say.