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Cash Burn
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Berrier. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph copyright © Charles Toepfer/SXC. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from "Pretty Boy Floyd", by Woody Guthrie
© 1958 (renewed) by WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATIONS, INC.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Cover and title page designed by Dean H. Renninger
Published in association with the literary agency of Janet Kobobel Grant, Books & Such, Inc., 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 70, Santa Rosa, CA 95409.
Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible,® copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4143-654-8 (ePub)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
"Yes, as through this world I've wandered, I've seen lots of funny men.
Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen."
---Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd"
Sweet, black night.
Clouds shrouded the glaring moon and stars. Nothing spoiled the darkness.
Flip stole between streetlights, moving from one patch of shadow to the next.
Here was the apartment building. From the bushes across the street, he watched. The glass of the front security doors glowed in the beam of an overhead lamp. Through them the lobby was lit like a showroom: a sofa, two chairs, a metal grid of mailboxes lining one wall.
She always put her full return address on the envelopes. She'd moved twice since they sent Flip to Lancaster for his second strike, but he knew this address by heart, down to the number of her apartment. In his cell, surrounded by the clatter and noise of the other convicts, he'd stared at that return address, thought about her. What she'd be doing. What she'd look like.
Six years. So long to be away from her.
He had no choice but to move into the light. Its touch exposed him; his body hunched. His bones threatened to plunge through his skin.
He tried the door. Locked. He squinted at the residents' directory on the wall. His eyes went to the Rs, but he didn't see her name.
Out of the corner of his eye Flip caught motion. Three kids---maybe twenty years old---moved through the lobby toward the door. One of them wore a plastic party hat striped red, white, and blue. Another carried a cellophane bag of what looked like party favors.
The Fourth of July. Flip had forgotten all about it.
He angled his face away and entered random numbers into the keypad.
The trio opened the door and cackled through. The door's hinge slowed its closing, and Flip caught it on its way back.
The still air in the lobby carried the stench of ammonia. Twin panels of elevator doors stood on his right. He found the stairs instead.
He climbed two flights and exited into the hallway. Number 304. He took a minute to breathe deep. Was his heart pounding because of the climb, or was it the excitement of seeing her again after so long?
Could be she'd have a guy in there with her.
She'd better not.
The peephole in the door was a round animal eye staring at his face. He put his palm over it. Rang the doorbell.
Blood hammered in his temples.
He rang again.
No answer.
He put his back to the door, insulted. Forget that she didn't even know he was out. Forget that he hadn't answered her letters for six months.
The hallway was empty.
He turned and palmed the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. Flip pulled a card out of his wallet and ran it between the door and the jamb above the knob, feeling for the dead bolt. She'd set that as well.
His foot shifted. He wanted to kick the door in, see the doorframe explode when the dead bolt crushed through it.
But he didn't do it. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and returned to the stairs.
Flip jammed a pebble into the latch in the front door so it wouldn't lock. Back on the sidewalk, he paced south, hating the streetlights that watched his steps. At the intersection, he turned around.
On his fifth pass, a man's voice reached his ears. He saw them coming from the end of the block. The voice joked about something, and the speaker gestured with his hands. He glided along, self-assured, shoulders swaying, big mouth running. It was a walk and a talk that said this street belonged to him.
Next to Big Mouth came Diane.
She had a way of moving, erect on her high heels, that commanded attention. With the streetlight at her back, he saw her fine silhouette, the curves of her hips hugged by the skirt she wore and the blouse neat against her ribs. She'd done something to her hair, trimmed it up so in the backlight her head looked like a blossom on top of the stem of her neck.
Flip stepped into the grass, outside the reach of the lights.
Big Mouth kept jawing, cocky and unconscious of what was coming. Flip tried to block out the words to keep his impatient feet from running at him.
Diane stopped. Her head shifted as she peered into the darkness where Flip waited poised with his hands at his sides, every muscle coiled.
Diane put a hand on Big Mouth's arm. He shut up.
She took one step. "Flip?"
"Yeah."
They were twenty feet apart. Big Mouth said to her, "You okay?"
She took another step toward Flip, stopped. "Just fine, darlin'."
That sealed it. Darlin'. That was what she called Flip. Blood pounced in his veins. His breath shortened. His head jerked on his neck, trying to pop his spine.
But he held his ground. Waiting. Waiting for the time to strike. He'd learned that kind of patience long before they sent him to Lancaster.
Big Mouth moved up next to her. "Who is it?"
She turned her profile to Flip, and he could make out the tilt of her nose and the shape of her lips. Seeing them made his vision blur. For just an instant, he believed he felt them against his, their fullness, their reaching warmth, her breath flowing into his.
Tension cinched his spine.
Still he waited.
She said something to Big Mouth, and he turned to Flip, straightening a little. Working his courage up.
Come on.
Diane gripped the man's arm, let him think she didn't want him going to where Flip waited in the darkness. But Flip knew better. He knew what she wanted.
She let Big Mouth go.
Flip sized the man up as he approached. Leather jacket unfastened in front, easy to grab. Hair long enough for a fistful.
And that mouth, still running. Saying something about Diane, using a different name for her, one Flip didn't know.
Six years. Six years of bowing down to corrections officers who thought they owned the world. Ten months altogether in ad seg for banging heads.
Seventy-two months without those lips on his.
Big Mouth was almost in Flip's reach. Wait. Almost time. Almost here.
Flip held out a hand as if he'd shake this guy's.
Big Mouth relaxed just enough.
Flip stepped in. A left to the head.
Pain flared through his knuckles. It fueled him.
Big Mouth staggered.
A right to the stomach. His fist seemed to go in forever, enveloped in a soft pillow. Big Mouth doubled onto Flip's arm. He tried to come up. A fist flailed and grazed Flip's cheek, no tougher than a kiss. A wink shrugged it off.
Six years of pent-up fury, anger bottled up all that time. The cork finally popped. Rage poured out. Gallons of it. Oceans of it. Gushing in wailing blows. Again. Again.
Big Mouth lay in a heap on the sidewalk, moaning. Flip stood over him, feet wide, right hand raised like a club, waiting for any movement. His knuckles flared with the sting of the blows he'd landed on skin and bone. His fist was slick with mixed blood.
He stepped back and looked at her.
Diane's fists were clenched too, pinned in front of her hips. They trembled. Her shoulders and neck rose and fell with quick breaths.
Flip raised his jaw.
Her heels clapped on the concrete. She grabbed him by the collar and kissed him so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
Then she drew away and pulled him toward her building. "Happy Independence Day."
She blinked at Jason. Her green eyes signaled, Go.
He forced his attention away. The flat black-and-white of Brenda's résumé was safer. Brenda Tierney, it read. Experience: Human Resources Associate at Business Trust Bank, April 1 to present. Only four months with BTB.
"Why would you want to leave all the excitement of HR so soon?"
"This is where the action is. HR's fine, but the bank doesn't make money because of the personnel department."
He leaned back and laced his fingers together. "You want more than processing pay stubs and benefit apps?"
"A lot more." Brenda sat perched on the edge of the seat before his desk, knees crossed, hands folded. Her eyes were emeralds cast in pearl, reflecting the fluorescent lights.
Jason realized he was twisting his wedding band. He reknit his fingers. "Well, you've come to the right place. We control two-thirds of the bank's assets and over half the deposits. And as the home office goes, so goes the bank."
She didn't respond. Her lips were slightly parted.
He pulled his eyes back to her résumé. Four months with BTB, a year with another bank before that. College at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. "I see you're from the East Coast," he said.
"Philly. You ever been?"
Jason shook his head. The neckline of her blouse lay open, revealing a thin gold chain against pale skin. A pendant hung from the chain, inscribed with an initial. He didn't dare look closely enough to make it out.
"The winters are a lot colder than LA, I can tell you that." She gave a fake shiver, a smile.
He allowed himself a smile back. "Is that what brought you out here? Better weather?"
"That and Hollywood. I figured I'd get discovered."
"Actress?" He pictured her onstage or mugging for a camera. It was easy.
"Not anymore. I was ready to grow up."
"Well, who knows? Those talents might come in handy around here."
Her eyes wouldn't leave his. Jason began to think she would return his stare as long as he could hold it. She had nerve. "You know why this position has opened up?"
Her shoulders dipped, and she smoothed her skirt. "I know. It's awful. The funeral's this weekend, huh?"
"Two o'clock. Are you going?"
She nodded. "Sure. Kathy's my friend. I feel terrible about what happened."
Kathy was Jason's longtime assistant, now out on an indefinite leave of absence. A vision of Kathy's son, Greg, came to Jason's mind. Whiskers barely poking out of cheeks that still held some of the softness of baby fat. Way too young to be as hard-hearted as he was the last time Jason tried to talk sense into him. And now, dead. Murdered. Piled next to a Dumpster like a sack of trash. Just a day shy of his seventeenth birthday.
"Kathy always says great things about you. She says Jason Dunn's the best boss she's ever had. And the most compassionate." She nodded to the wall filled with plaques awarding Jason for his work with charities. "I don't know how you find time to support all those causes."
Jason blinked, trying to force away the image of Greg. "Well, it's easy to be a good boss when you have people like I do." He brought his elbows onto the desk. "We have the best lending teams in LA. And the best admins. The best ops people. I need an assistant who's really on top of things. Our clients are demanding, and we cannot lose a single one of them. If somebody on this staff can't hold up their end, I have to let them go."
"I get it."
"You sure? Because there's nothing wrong with HR, Brenda. There's plenty of good people down there."
"I'm sure." The tone was level. She smiled, exposing the underside of her upper lip against her teeth. "I'm up to it, Jason. I promise."
Again she held his gaze. It gave him a sense that this girl was tough, ready for a challenge.
"Okay. I need to have a conversation with Margaret. She'll say good things, right?"
"She should. My reviews have gone well. But there's that policy against transferring before you've been at the bank six months. Will that be a problem?"
"August is close enough to October. We'll get around the HR rule."
He rose and looked down at her uplifted face, the heart shape of it.
She uncrossed her legs and rose, held out a hand. "Don't be late for your meeting at Capital Construction. You only have a few minutes."
He took her hand and shook it. She'd done some homework on his schedule. "I'll give you a call when I have the transition worked out with Margaret."
She brought her chin around and went for the door. He looked away. The picture of his wife leaned next to his telephone, and he kept his eyes trained on it.
A knock at the door made Jason look up.
Billy Reynolds was framed in the doorway. His hair was the color of dried weeds, tousled even this early from wresting analysis out of his head. "Wow, boss."
"What?" Jason put on his jacket and stepped outside the office.
"Nothing."
"No, what?"
Dan Martell strode up. His eyes followed Brenda toward the elevator. He drew back a flap of his jacket to tuck a hand in a pocket, striking one of his mannequin poses. "I heard it, but I don't believe it."
"Not you, too."
Billy snickered. Jason glared at him, and the kid ran a finger underneath his nose as if he were sniffing.
"We're going to be late." Jason turned his back to them.
Brenda was gone when they reached the elevator. Dan started in as soon as they were inside. "You're a better man than I am."
Jason shook his head. "Aw, get over it, will you?"
"I don't know, boss." Billy's smile was dying to break free. "How are you going to concentrate on work with her around?"
The elevator doors opened onto the parking garage. "I'm a happily married man." The words hitched in Jason's throat. He led the way to Dan's car, hoping they hadn't noticed.
At the end of another fourteen-hour day, the week careered to its conclusion. Jason's grip on the steering wheel was an effort. Even his fingers were tired. Each arm had the tensile strength of a single thread. He swung the car into his driveway.
The panels of the garage door yawned up, the automatic light revealing the emptiness of a clean, swept concrete floor. Serena's car was still gone.
He pulled in on the right out of habit, leaving room for her Mercedes. He clicked his remote to get the garage door closing before twisting the key to silence the engine. Its purr was replaced by the whirring of the garage-door closer, the chunk and rattle of the door hitting the concrete, and then silence.
The baked air in the garage was a stifling presence. He moved through it ponderously, each step an effort, and came to the door to the house.
No one greeted him.
He went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Maybe some stranger had wandered in to stock the place with food. The bare glass shelves reflected light from the single bulb, the glare warped by stains from spilled leftover containers long since removed. On the shelves in the door a bottle of mustard stood like a yellow sentry guarding a jar of olives. Soy sauce. A half-empty carton of organic milk. He swung the door, and it closed with a thud.
Jason couldn't remember why Serena had fired their last housekeeper. Something about the dusting, or the bathrooms. But at least the refrigerator used to be full.
In the cupboard, the only possibilities were a box of Corn Flakes, some powdered pancake mix, and an ancient carton of cookies.
He took down the Corn Flakes and shook what was left of them into a bowl and went back for the milk. The edges of the carton cracked open, and white crumbs drifted down into the liquid. It reeked.
He put the carton back in the refrigerator and stared at the dry bowl.
Fatigue knitted through his joints like a disease.
He took the bowl to the sink and eased the tap open. Drops of water splashed off the Corn Flakes onto his hand. He carried his cereal to the table and was seated before realizing he'd forgotten a spoon. It took a moment to gather his energy to rise again. By the time he got back to the table, the cereal was a mass of slop.
He ate it anyway.
The curtains were closed, a panel against the dead day. The darkness of the summer night outside was still new.
The taps of his spoon on the dish sounded lonely and harsh in the silence.
He stared into the bowl, as if by doing so he could refill it. Finally he shoved himself out of the chair. He looked down at the encrusted bowl with the spoon angled out and considered leaving it there. But he took it to the sink. As he rinsed it, the dissatisfaction in his stomach argued against his fatigue. He went to the cupboard and found two stale chocolate-chip cookies left in the carton, and he downed them on his way up the stairs, craving milk.
In the master bathroom, he put his mouth under the faucet to wash down the cookies, wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and got his tie nearly off on the way to the closet. His fingers worked each shirt button loose with deliberation. The shirt went into the hamper together with his socks, the suit into the bag for the dry cleaner. Still in his underwear, he threw back the bedspread and crashed onto the sheets.
The cotton, taut and firm, pressed cool against his body. He settled into it like fluid seeking a lowest point. Thoughts about work flitted in his mind but couldn't find purchase, and they surrendered to the vacancy of oncoming sleep.
Sometime later, he heard Serena's voice. Groggy, he mumbled, "What?"
"I said, hi, handsome."
That voice, like silky jazz. It brought a smile. Eyes closed, he heard her move through the room shedding jewelry, jacket, kicking her heels off into the closet, where he knew her shoes lay in heaps, their heel marks like scattered dark moons on the wall. When she emerged from the closet, she would be clothed in her short satin robe. The sink faucet going now. She would be leaned over the sink, legs bent at the knee, her back tipped forward.
When the water closed off, she would rise to press a towel to her face and dab the water off, coming away with a few strands of auburn-colored hair pasted to her cheek and forehead. A pinch by fingertips to remove the hair, and she would blink away the droplets clinging to her lashes.
Fear and sorrow tugged at his groggy mind. His eyes were still closed. He wanted to move to her.
She rubbed lotion into her hands, their backs, between the fingers, on the supple knuckles as she came to the edge of the bed. Her hands together, passing over one another, lotion soaking into her tight skin the color of creamed caramel.
He struggled against his own body, trying to move toward her but too tired. He sensed her unsmiling lips, but he knew her brown eyes held a glint of amusement.
Sorrow swelled deep inside him, burned. Longing for her was like a cord threaded through his chest. But he felt pinned to the bed.
Red fingernails pulled apart the edges of the robe. She slid out of it and draped it over the covers. She wore thin garments to bed this time of year. She leaned over the bed and peeled the covers back. One knee came onto the sheets first, and then she was in with him, moving toward him. And just before the warmth of her body reached him, he woke.
Alone.
The emptiness of the house was a vacuum, sucking the breath out of him.
She was not there.
She had not been there for weeks.
He rolled onto his back, his teeth grinding.
In the glow of a night light Serena had plugged in long ago, the shapes in the ceiling texture took on forms. He used to lie in the dimness with her, and they would point the shapes out to one another like kids on a hilltop imagining forms in passing clouds.
He pressed his eyelids closed. Now what he saw was the look on her face when he'd confronted her. After resisting his suspicions so long, trying to excuse her a thousand times, he had no choice when the final proof made its way to him.
Another man. Her lips on his. Her hands in his. Her arms, the ones he longed for now, encircling another.
She was gone.
Senior Probation Officer Tom Cole lowered himself out of his Explorer gingerly to avoid straining his knees. The pressure of the bones rubbing together felt like needles digging deep in the joints.
He slammed the door and hitched his pants, making sure the tail of his shirt hid the Glock 23 holstered at his kidney.
Traffic whizzed past him on Melrose, so he held tight to the side of the vehicle. The sun warmed his shaved scalp like a heat lamp. Stepping up to the sidewalk, he ran his palm over the smoothness from his shave an hour ago, back toward his clean crown, and then forward over the ridge above his forehead. The Fu Manchu mustache that framed his mouth was the only hair left on his head other than his eyebrows, and in this heat he thought of shaving that off too.
This unannounced visit to Flip's place was overdue. He had it on his schedule every week, but with all his high-control parolees, he always seemed to be playing catch-up.
Tom moved off the sidewalk into the alley behind Flip's apartment building. He scowled at the graffiti scrawled everywhere---black, red, blue. The name Trixter in yellow block letters was outlined in red to make it look three-dimensional. Above, way out of reach, someone must have leaned out from the roof to paint the huge initials RF. Lower on the wall, less artistic initials were drawn in white over others partially crossed out with black paint.
He walked past blue cubic trash bins reeking of baked garbage, a door meshed by iron grating, the entrance to an underground parking lot with a black-barred gate closed against intruders.
Here was the back door to Flip's building. A keyhole and a handle only, no knob. He gripped the handle and yanked it. Solid.
Above the doorway, burglar bars covered the second-floor windows. A smile crept across his face. Bars on the windows with Flip inside. It was like a zoo with predator and prey locked in together.
On the sidewalk at the end of the alley, Tom sidestepped a pair of Goths in long black coats despite the heat. Their faces were pale behind black hair. Transylvanians. Next came three women side by side, sunglass styles branding them as tourists, purses dangling from their fingers. Ready to shop. He passed a tattoo parlor and glanced inside. The artist---spiked hair, arms inked up---sat with his feet propped on the counter in front of images of tat options pasted on the wall. The man reached forward to flick his cigarette against the edge of an ashtray, and their eyes met before the wall passed between them.
Tom rounded another corner and found handbills pasted the length of a wall like wallpaper insanely repeating the same announcements over and over until you couldn't help but understand and remember that Kayse Evans was going to be playing at the Gig on August 28 and 29.
Five doors down, he came to the front of Flip's building. In contrast to all the security in back, the door here swung open like the place was a drugstore during business hours. He stepped inside.
No elevator. The climb was going to murder his knees. Calling Flip down would save the wear on his joints, but that would be cutting corners. Tom needed to take a look at this new apartment.
He leaned on the banister, trying to take as much weight off his knees as he could, but every step grated. Soon he'd have to have the surgeries done. He couldn't delay it much longer.
Down the hallway, he passed six doors and came to 312 and raised his knuckles and rapped. The door opened.
Flip held on to the edge of the door as if he wanted to slam it closed. Recognition of Tom Cole crept onto his face, and a sideways kind of grin replaced the glower.
Flip was wide enough that Tom couldn't see past him. The man was shaped like a nose tackle; if you wanted to move him, you'd have a big job. He stood with his feet spaced, letting his black eyes bore under black brows, buzz-cut black hair, the nose a prizefighter's, squashed onto his face like putty. A scar from an old cut creased his right eyebrow and continued diagonally upward to the corner of his forehead, lifting that brow just enough to give him the look of a perpetually interested observer.
"Officer Cole," Flip said, and his grin exuded so much menace that Tom shifted his back muscles to make sure the holster hadn't suddenly vanished from his belt. "I guess you want to come in." He wore a wife-beater T-shirt, the kind Marlon Brando wore seducing Blanche. Tom could see the rockiness of his muscled arms and shoulders, the chest like a wall.
Flip backed away and motioned inside. The gracious host.
"Step on outside, Flip. You're going to wait out here."
Flip hunched over for an instant, shrugged, and stepped past Tom into the hallway. The man's smell drifted up to him. Some kind of cologne tried to mask it and didn't quite succeed. It was a smell like you'd expect to find under a rock where bugs crawled around.
Tom locked him outside.
The room was typical of furnished apartments like these, bare except for a cheap coffee table and a brown plaid sofa that sagged in the middle. Beyond it was a kitchen, a refrigerator green as the wall at Fenway. The rank smell of unwashed dishes filtered through the room.
Tom wandered into the kitchen. No drug paraphernalia. He wouldn't expect any with this guy. The dishes in the sink hadn't piled up beyond counter level yet, but they were close. A coffee cup sat on the counter with a line inside that marked where the coffee had been when he'd set it there, a quarter-inch above the black liquid now pooled in the cup.
On the small bathroom counter, Flip's toiletries were scattered---a disposable razor, Barbasol shave cream, and a bar of soap worn down to a nub. A bottle of Old Spice was the one nod to vanity.
The bedroom was nothing to get excited about. A scarred bureau with drawers hanging on at odd angles. No sheets on the bed, just a couple of blankets on top of the bare mattress.
Tom returned to the door and joined Flip in the hallway. "Tell me about this job."
"Working in a soda warehouse. Moving cases around. It's not bad."
"Yeah?"
"I guess you want the guy's name and number."
"You guess right."
Flip went inside and came back with a business card. Tom pulled out his notepad and copied down the name and number of the warehouse manager.
"Does he know about your record?" He returned the card to Flip.
"He knows I got one. Knows I got released from Lancaster last month. That's enough, isn't it?"
"Yeah, that's enough."
Flip kept his hands behind his back.
"Who you been hanging around with, Flip?"
Those black eyes held steady, didn't move off Tom's face. "Everybody I know's in prison. Who'm I going to hang around with?" There was no flinching on Flip's face, no turning of the eyes. "I've been keeping to myself. Not going to bars, not hanging around with any known felons. I've been staying in town. What else is there?"
"Let me see those hands."
Flip's eyes betrayed him for an instant. It was like something flew across his brows to narrow his eyes and then was gone, and the face relaxed again. He brought his hands around, palms up.
"Turn them over."
Flip smiled, his lips not parting. It was an animal smile. He turned them over.
The skin on the knuckles was broken and bruised, the injuries a few days old. A laceration an inch long ran across the middle knuckle on his right hand. "I scraped them moving some cases of soda."
"Cases of soda."
"Sure." Flip dropped his hands.
Tom saw no marks on Flip's face. Nothing but the battered knuckles. "All right, we're going to take some pictures. Keep those hands out." Tom pulled his camera out of his pocket and snapped two shots of the hands. It was mostly for show, but there was no harm putting Flip on notice. He slipped the camera back into his pocket. "You know I'll check the hospitals. I'll find out what really happened."
Those eyes didn't flicker. "There's nothing to find out. I just told you. Moving cases of soda. Nothing else to it, Officer."
The eyes held too steady. This guy had been lying all his life. Just like the rest of them. They were all as good at it as they were at survival inside.
"Okay, Flip. I'll see what I can find out from our database over the past few days. When I find a guy you put in a hospital, or if this job turns out to be bogus, you're going right back inside." He turned away.
Having his back turned to Flip flared up every nerve ending. But no blow hammered into his back or neck. Flip only said, "I don't get many visitors, Officer. You come back real soon."
Tom turned. "You're pushing your luck."
That animal smile came back, nothing happy about it. "I ran out of luck a long time ago."
"What do you think of the news, boss?" Billy tapped a toe.
Committee was in five minutes. Jason didn't have time for guessing games. "What news?" He undocked his laptop and stood.
"About Vince. You didn't hear?"
Jason halted. "Spit it out, Billy."
"They put him on loan committee."
"You've got to be kidding me."
Billy just shook his head. He looked like he was afraid of getting skewered for being a messenger with bad news.
"Well, no worries. I'm sure he'll make the right calls for the bank." Jason stepped past Billy into the commotion of the open area outside his office, where his staff bustled about their morning routines. Jason's mind went to the technicalities of the deal he was about to pitch to committee. Nine million in fresh loan outstandings. With the company's line of credit and the other term loan, the bank would be on the hook for twenty-three million if they approved this one, making Northfield Industries one of the biggest exposures in the bank and just seven mil shy of BTB's legal lending limit. Jason's nerves sharpened. He visualized the financial covenants. Billy had stress-tested the company's projections a dozen ways to make sure the covenants protected the bank.
But Vince Kalinsky on loan committee? This was no good. Vince would love to torpedo the home office's biggest customer relationship. Jason was sure of it. They'd been at each other every day since Jason had lured Patricia Wise away from Vince's branch system to lead one of Jason's home-office lending teams.
He parted the doors to the suite. The chairman's prehistoric assistant sat at her desk across the room, her eyes obscured behind opaque glasses that reflected the light from her computer monitor. She didn't acknowledge him.
Jason approached the boardroom. Both doors were pinned open.
Across the room, Vince shuffled his piles of papers. Jason's jaw tightened at the thought of Vince maneuvering for voting rights. If anything, Jason should be voting on Vince's deals.
He stepped into the boardroom.
The walls were lined with analysts and lenders from outlying branches who knew better than to take the few remaining seats at the table.
Cornwall wasn't there yet. Jason looked at Cornwall's vacant seat, and his chest tightened.
Vince didn't look up.
\*
Vince shifted in his chair, his starched shirt ballooning to the right as his belly piled over like a sack of Jell-O. "They're paying too much---Mr. Dunn." He made Jason's last name sound like an epithet. "Why should we put out nine million to buy a revenue stream that walks out the door with their producers every night? It's too rich. This management team's lost its mind."
Jason held his voice level. "They've got employment contracts with every key producer. The management team knows what they're doing. They're the best customers we've got."
Across the table from Jason, Scotty Inverness's eyebrows perked up. He plucked the reading glasses from the tip of his nose and lowered them onto the stack of papers before him. The chief credit officer's diminutive size and the wide cut of his ears earned him the nickname of the Leprechaun, but no one called him that in this room.
The CCO's glare told Jason he'd overstepped by calling Northfield the best customer in the bank. "The comps seem to bear out the acquisition price," Scotty said, and he brought the reading glasses back to the point of his nose.
Billy spoke up from Jason's right. "The comps are on page fifteen, Vince. We've got three public company valuations, and we found two private company purchases in the past twelve months. This price isn't way out of range."
"It's not out of range at all." Jason threw a glance at Billy and leaned forward, facing the CCO. It was Scotty's vote he needed. As long as Cornwall showed up, Vince could vote against the loan all day long, and it wouldn't matter a bit. But if the chief credit officer didn't vote for it, Jason's deal was dead. "The purchase price could be twice this much. But that's not the point."
"Well, tell us what the point is, Mr. Dunn." Vince again.
"I'm about to." Back to Scotty. "The point is, these guys know what they're doing. We've watched them execute this roll-up strategy for five years. The CFO's heartless when it comes to cost-cutting, and the CEO knows how to pick a target and negotiate a good deal. Every company they've bought has generated enough cash to repay the debt we've advanced them to buy it. And this one will too."
The boardroom door opened. Jason knew who was entering without glancing up.
"Sorry I'm late." Cornwall's voice. He hustled around to the other side of the table, his tie caught in the stack of loan reports in his hands. He appeared to be tugging himself along by the neck.
"Morning," Vince said to their boss.
Jason thought Scotty would vote for the deal, but the chief credit officer was tough to read. Vince would vote against him, but who cared now that Cornwall was here? The three other committee members in the room had been silent for twenty minutes, waiting to see which way the tide would flow before they voiced their opinions. With the president's support, Jason would get committee approval---if Scotty went along.
Scotty waited for Cornwall to take his seat. "We're still on Northfield, Mark."
Cornwall plopped the stack of papers onto the table and slipped the end of his tie free from the reports. His gray hair was thinning on top, and his eyes were losing some of their sharpness, but the energy in his movements and the power in his voice hadn't changed much over the years. "How many deals we got this morning, Scotty?"
Scotty took his time. He always took his time. It drove Jason nuts, but Scotty's answers were usually right. "Eight."
"At this rate we'll be here all day. Anything come up that isn't covered in Jason's report?"
Jason answered before anyone else could. "No, Mark. Nothing."
Scotty kept his eyes on his reports. Vince was still and silent as a bowl cooling in a refrigerator.
"We okay to vote then, Scotty?"
Without revealing his own vote, Scotty polled the other committee members, who guessed the proper vote by Cornwall's mood. Scotty came to Vince. "You a no?"
"I'm a no."
Cornwall's head turned an inch to the right as he looked at Vince. "Anything Jason can do to get you there, Vince?"
"It's just too rich for me. The purchase price is too high, and they're not even done bringing their last acquisition in yet. They're bingeing, and we're taking all the risk."
"Jason," Cornwall said, "how long have you known Northfield's CFO?"
"Eight years." Here they came. The same questions Cornwall had asked him yesterday afternoon in private. It was beautiful how Mark did this.
"He always been straight with you?"
"Always."
"You been out to kick the tires at this company they're acquiring?"
"Week before last. It's for real."
"How solid are the numbers?"
"Audited by EY. The numbers are good, Mark."
Cornwall turned to Scotty. "I'm a yes. You okay with this?"
The chief credit officer's gray eyes held on Jason.
"I agree with Vince's concerns," Scotty said, "but Northfield's always performed." He lifted the loan report and flipped it facedown on the table. "I'm okay. Let's move on."
Jason stared across the table at Vince, but Vince didn't register any emotion at being outvoted. He merely went to the next report in his stack.
Jason folded down the screen of his laptop and stood. His teams had no other deals for committee's review today. "Thanks, everybody."
Billy gathered up his files and followed him out.
Across the tops of the cubicles, Jason saw three of his lenders lined up at the entrance to his office. He stopped Billy outside the door to the chairman's suite. "Give Randy a call and let him know we're approved. Are the docs ready for Ed to sign?"
"Just about. Glad it got approved. That legal bill would've been tough to swallow."
Jason flexed his neck to try to dispel his tension. The first thing he saw when he powered up his computer was an e-mail from Mark Cornwall, looking to meet with him as soon as loan committee was over. With Vince on the committee, there was no telling what would come next.
Ninety minutes later, through his open doorway and beyond Kathy's desk and a dozen others, Jason saw Mark hurry from the chairman's suite and out of view. His phone beeped, but before he could obey the impulse to reach for it, he rose and left his office and moved through the sea of desks to Mark's door.
BTB's president and CEO sat at his desk, phone pressed to his ear. He looked up and waved Jason in.
Jason went to the window rather than cooling his heels in one of the chairs in front of Mark's desk. The traffic on Wilshire pocketed between stoplights, the cars at the front of the line inching forward into crosswalks as if that would speed up the change to green. He noticed a new BMW 730i, a black one that looked like it had just been detailed. Jason thought of the series of door dings on his own Bimmer. It wouldn't hurt to swing by the dealer some afternoon and check out the new models.
Mark finished his call and swiveled to face him. "Sit down, Jason. You're going to give me a crick in my neck."
Jason picked the chair farthest from the open door and was ready with his opener. "We're going to win the Triton business. Two million in loan-outs and a good seven-fifty in deposits."
A smile yanked up the right edge of Mark's mouth. "Good job."
"It's Patricia's deal. The team's a good one."
Mark didn't acknowledge the comment. His fingers entwined in front of his chest. It was his defensive pose. "Tell me about the runoff."
"Deposits are up, so you're talking about loans."
Mark glanced at the sheet before him. Apparently Vince hadn't mentioned the rise in Jason's deposit numbers. "Right."
"It's just cyclical paydowns. Loans will be up again this month. P. Lowell and Howe got some big collections in and paid down their lines. Blackstone sold a building, so that term loan paid off, but we've got two others queued up for him. We've booked five loans this month, but they don't draw until after month-end."
"Good. My other concern is your WALG."
Jason wasn't surprised. The bank assigned a risk grade to every loan, and the weighted average loan grade was the average grade of the whole portfolio. Mark watched it like a hawk, because downgrading a large loan would move the needle in the wrong direction quickly.
"I sent you my action plan last week. Did you get a chance to look at it?"
"I've got it here somewhere. Vince gave me the basics"
Jason didn't have time to beat around this any longer. He stood and went to the open door. He slammed it and faced Mark. "Vince will not run this office."
"I didn't say he would."
"I won't report to him, and my teams won't report to him. Let him run his little branches and his business-development officers. He's good at keeping them scared enough to put up decent numbers. It won't work here. Not with this team. Not with me."
"What are you---?"
Jason leaned over Mark's desk, his fingertips touching the wood surface. "This office is pulling its weight and then some. Almost every lender is on pace to hit their numbers for the year. Don't mess with it, Mark. Nothing's broken. There's nothing to fix. I don't care what spin Vince puts on the WALG or the one month this year we had a little loan runoff."
"It's not the only month this year."
"We recovered from January in February, and we'll recover from July in August. The trends are solid. You have no worries here." Jason took a seat again and forced his face to relax. "Put me in charge of the branch network, and you'll have the same trends out there."
This brought a smile to Mark's face. "The branches are doing fine."
"Sure, if you like high expenses and low profit. We're even carrying part of Vince's salary in our numbers."
Mark's raised eyebrows said he didn't know this.
"It's in the financial detail. He's got part of his salary and expenses allocated to us because we have one BDO that reports to him. I never said anything because we're profitable enough to absorb it no problem. Personally, I think his whole salary's putting a crimp in the bank's return on investment. But it's not my place to say so."
A chuckle sizzled out of Mark's nostrils. "Okay, okay. You've made your point."
"I mean it, Mark. I could run the branch system in my sleep. It'd be like having a couple more teams reporting to me. You'd lose the worst performers overnight, and in six months every branch would be running as well as the home office. Why not give it a chance?"
Mark's eyes narrowed, and his smile reminded Jason of a wolf sizing up dinner on the hoof. The CEO leaned forward, and his balding pate caught the gleam from the windows. "All right, cowboy. Here's what I'm going to do. In three months, I'm going to look at the numbers. I'm going to look first at deposit growth, then loan growth, then WALG. Whoever moves the needle in the right direction in those categories in the next three months wins. You win, Vince is gone. Vince wins---" he held up his palm---"you're not gone, but he's earned the right to have the home office report to him. Fair enough?"
Saying no would mean Jason didn't have confidence in the argument he'd just used. "I think you have enough data right now to make this call, Mark."
Three fingers went into the air. "Three months. We sit together---you, Vince, and me---on November 2, and I let you know the decision. We'll announce it in December, and it'll go into effect at the first of the year."
Jason held out his hand. "You won't regret putting me in charge."
Mark clasped his hand. "Make it happen."
Gray handles gleamed dully at the sides of the silver casket, waiting for pallbearers' hands to lift and carry it out of the sanctuary. A jumble of flowers spilled like bony arms over the sides of the coffin.
Sifting chords from the church organ crept and echoed among the high rafters as if trying to shoulder out the silence. But that silence hovered behind the music, tangible, purposeful, an absence that Jason couldn't escape. It was a menace, this silence. He tried to combat it by focusing on the music, by trying to think of what he might say to Kathy after her son's funeral.
What does a man say to his secretary when her son is murdered?
He let his mind wander to his work, to the cavalcade of tasks and politics and schedules, but his thoughts managed only to taint the hollowness in the air when the organ finally silenced.
Kathy's pastor rose from his chair and stepped to the pulpit. Jason glanced at the program in his hands and saw that the man's name was Gates. His dark skin shone in the glare of the lights twenty feet overhead. Before his bulk the lectern looked spindly. No one else moved, as if the hush of the room were something fearful.
The minister placed a thick Bible on the lectern, closed. He lifted his eyes to those seated before him.
"Justice." His voice resonated in the emptiness, firm, shattering the quiet. The word sat among them vibrating, quivering.
He stared at the coffin below him. Gripping the edges of the lectern as if he might tear it away, he said it again. "Justice." His eyes searched the congregation. "It's what we want for this boy. For his mother and father."
Kathy sat with her sister in the first row, close enough to reach the coffin in two steps. Her head was directed away from it, the pastor holding her attention. On her other side was her ex-husband, Hal, the young man's father, back rigid as a board.
The pastor looked from the coffin to Kathy. "We are with you, sister. We will stand by your side. As Jesus promised you, I promise you: we will never leave you nor forsake you." He lifted his eyes to the congregation, and in a commanding voice, spoke. "Can I hear from the church?"
The people around Jason said, "Amen" and "Yes."
Jason nearly spoke in agreement. He clapped his mouth shut. He wasn't part of this church. Or any other.
"But there is a Savior. There is a God, who loved us enough to come himself, to put on flesh and walk this world." He brandished the Bible. "We have his words with us. We have his testimony." The Bible returned to its place on the lectern, and Pastor Gates scowled. "'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.' He had compassion. He wept with mourners. Our God knows this pain, this sorrow. Because he suffered it too. Among his sufferings was the sorrow of this loss.
"You are not alone, sister. We are with you. Our Lord Jesus Christ is with you. God the Father, who gave his one and only Son, is with you." He leaned back, chin tucked, mouth cupped downward, and inhaled deeply through flaring nostrils.
Jason gripped the edge of the pew on either side of his knees. Hard wood. Hard as stone. His legs itched to rise.
The pastor brought himself forward to loom over the lectern, and softly now, he spoke. "And there will be justice. Oh, our God is merciful. Yes, he is. But the murderers, the corrupt, those steeped in sin, those who have turned away from the true God and have replaced him in their lives with the sins they worship instead---for those, for those who have done things . . . like . . . like this!" He spread his hands to gesture toward the coffin, and it seemed that his emotions overcame him.
The muscles in Jason's back threatened to snap. He shrugged his shoulders, tried to loosen them.
Leaning back, Pastor Gates gathered himself. "There will be justice, beloved church. You may count on this. You may stake your life on it. Because our God is a God of love. But he is complex. You cannot box this God, cannot package him and put him in your pocket. You cannot say love alone is the sum of him. He has revealed his qualities through his Word. His great compassion for us, his great forgiveness, great mercy. But it is a fearful thing, an awful thing---it is a terrifying thing to fall into his hands if you have trampled on his children."
On the right of the platform, a cross was planted, rough-hewn, like someone had sliced at it with an axe to carve it out of a living tree. It arrested Jason's gaze briefly before he looked away. His eyes pulsed with each throbbing heartbeat.
The pastor patted the pulpit. His dark eyes squinted at the closed Bible. "You cannot have love without defense. Even the animals know this. A mother bear is never more fierce than when her cub is in danger. How much more will God---the omnipotent God who created the universe, who has perfect love for you and for me---how much more will he love? And when that love sees itself despised, how much more will that God give vent to his horrible vengeance when the times have reached their fulfillment?
"In his time, brothers and sisters, justice will be done. Rest assured." Pastor Gates turned and nodded to a woman who hadn't gotten the memo about wearing black. She moved in her bright print dress to the organ and began to sing.
Her voice echoed like a ringing bell. The words were lost on Jason in the clarity of the notes she sang---and in what the pastor's words had done to him.
Pastor Gates filled the chair to the side of the podium. He seemed not to hear the power in the singer's voice or to see anyone in the sanctuary. Yet his words lodged in Jason, resonated in him, words too deep to name or understand. Some hard thing inside him was flayed away by Pastor Gates's words, and he felt bare and raw.
He pulled his eyes from the pastor and rubbed his hands on his knees. Breath eluded him, and he gasped for it. He wondered if those seated nearby could see how his heart pounded at his rib cage and made his shirt quake.
He turned his head. At the other end of the pew, Brenda Tierney's eyes met his. Emerald eyes he hadn't seen since the interview. They glimmered with tears that shone as they caught the lights. She shook her head and looked down.
Jason couldn't seem to turn away. The hypnotizing cut of her nose and cheeks drew him from the rawness inside him created by the pastor. Her eyes closed, her lashes joined to squeeze out a single tear that reflected like a diamond slipping onto her rounded cheek, trailing down the smooth cup underneath to her jaw, where an extended finger plucked it away. The trail of the tear remained, an icy line downward from her closed eyelids.
Silence overshadowed the room again. Its force was like a living thing, sucking all senses into it. He finally turned away from Brenda.
In the front row, Kathy and her sister rose like Siamese twins. Her ex-husband came after them and turned to stand at the foot of the coffin. His haggard face had aged ten years in the three days since Jason had last seen him. With this coffin before him, his eyes seemed to sag in their sockets.
Pastor Gates moved down the steps to meet them.
The lid was closed. There was nothing for them to see but the flowers draping the silver box.
Kathy buckled. She slid down her sister's side toward the floor.
Pastor Gates rushed in. The silence of the church was broken by a murmuring rustle. People rose from their seats, stepped toward the aisle. The pastor wrapped his thick arm around Kathy and lifted her to her feet. But she moved in sections as if deflated, her head lolling forward.
Someone near the front said, "Let him through; he's a doctor," and a silver-haired man stepped into the aisle and toward the front.
Kathy's ex-husband stood apart, at the foot of the casket, staring at it, unblinking, as if the commotion of Kathy's collapse were a scene playing out in another dimension.
Every time Flip closed his eyes, he saw the boy's face.
He couldn't figure out why. He had beaten, maimed, even killed before. The others never haunted him the way the boy did. Their stakes were on the table, and they must have known what they were doing, what they were risking. They would have done it to him if he hadn't done it first. Even the man he had taken down outside Diane's apartment didn't give him a second's pause. He had no idea what had happened to him. He didn't care.
But the boy was different. And he was a boy, wasn't he? He wasn't a man. He'd looked tall enough to have been a man when he'd rounded the corner in that dark house. But he wasn't.
Flip tried closing his eyes. The image was there. The loose strands of the boy's hair stuck to the blood smeared on his forehead. The gray color of his face shadowed in the light from the single bulb behind the gas station, discolored by the effects of death, blood no longer pumping through his flesh. Eyes frozen open, vacant.
He could feel the boy's body, the lightness and jumbled limbs, joints thickening even in the time it took Flip to drive from the house out to Robertson, up to Pico, and to the rear of the closed gas station where he'd left him. Only a boy. Not fully grown. Sixteen or seventeen maybe. The same age Flip was when he had the door slammed behind him in the youth authority for the first time.
In the light of the gas station he'd leaned over the kid, to see the face that still held traces of childhood in its texture. Why had he looked?
Flip's eyes wanted to stay closed, but he couldn't let them. Not with this image haunting him.
He went for more coffee.
The smell of the dishes in the sink hung in the air like sewer vapor. He lifted the coffeepot out of the machine and saw only dregs swirling in the bottom of it. A little liquid, black as tar, moved in a mass of caked residue burned into the glass.
At the sink, he tried to wedge the coffeepot between the tip of the faucet and the plates and cups piled underneath it. It wouldn't fit. He shoved the plates to one side. They clattered against the porcelain like shattered teeth. Still not enough room for the pot.
His eyes held on the blackness of the burned sediment. It pooled at the edge of the bottom of the glass pot.
In desperation, he shoved the pot between the faucet and the plates. A crack appeared, thick, deep, running the length of the side.
With a shout, he wheeled and threw the pot against the wall.
It shattered into a hundred pieces. The circular top spun on the linoleum.
Black sludge smeared the wall in the shape of a spider.
He jammed his cap onto his head. He would get coffee somewhere else.
In the hallway, there was no sound. He moved past the closed doors with his ears attuned, wanting noise to distract him, needing some kind of exchange to draw him away from the image that plagued him whenever he blinked.
His legs were weak as he descended the stairs. They felt like needles joined together by frayed thread.
How long without sleep? Three days?
He'd slept the first night. When he came back to his place, he had laid his head on the pillow without the boy's face accosting him. After an hour or two, his juices had settled from their seething boil, and sleep had come. But the dream of the boy had awakened him before sunrise. In the dream, he was leaning over the body, looking at the bloody face in the light from the bulb behind the gas station, and the boy's dead eyes turned in their sockets to look back at him.
On Melrose now, people passed him. When they approached, they looked under the bill of his hat to his eyes and quickly looked away.
They always did that. Didn't they?
He came to a coffee place. His hand went to the cool metal handle and pulled.
Reggae music bounced behind the swoosh of a barista frothing someone's drink.
He went to the line. A woman had her back to him. Middle-aged, a scarf restraining ponytailed hair with strands of gray in it like worms in earth. She stepped away. Then it was Flip's turn.
The cashier was about the age of the boy. A girl, freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and nose, she could be a cheerleader or somebody's high school sweetheart. Her smile held, then drifted. She'd said something to him. She shifted her feet. Her eyes left him, returned.
He spoke. "Large coffee. Black." His voice sounded alien to his ears.
The smile returned, automatic. "Any room for cream?"
"No. No cream."
She turned from the counter and tilted the tall cup underneath the spigot to fill it and returned.
The black coffee trembled in the cup, smoking.
"Sir?"
He looked back to her face.
Her smile was frozen in place. "It's $2.10."
He dug into his pocket, and a wad of cash came into his hand. He sorted through it and found a ten. With a start, it occurred to him that it belonged to the boy. Flip couldn't seem to open the bill. As if something sinister might be on the face of the dead president pictured there.
Her hand reached out for it. He put it in her white palm.
With the coffee, he turned away. She called to him, wanting to give him the contaminated change, but he waved at her, ignoring her thanks for the tip.
He paused with his back to her. She could have known him---the boy. She might have been his date. Flip turned to look over his shoulder at her. Her eyes met his. Something about the way he looked at her cratered her smile. She stepped back from the counter, bumped into the machine behind her, but could not seem to look away from him.
He rushed for the door. His uncovered coffee sloshed, searing his knuckles and the back of his hand. A man on the other side of the glass door yanked it open. Flip passed him, head down, the bill of his hat shading his eyes.
On the sidewalk a half-block away, he stopped. Pain simmered in his hand.
He brought the cup to his mouth. The brim quivered against his lips, and he sipped. Hot, hot, it coursed down his throat, into his chest, the heat spreading there, finally slamming into his stomach.
He put his back to the wall, held his eyes wide to watch the pedestrians and the cars hurtling down Melrose.
Don't close your eyes.
Jason approached Kathy's front door, but when it opened, it was the pastor, Gates, who emerged from behind it. Head bowed, brow fixed as if his gaze held the ground in place, the pastor moved his bulk onto the stoop and lifted his eyes to Jason.
"Hello."
"Jason Dunn." The small porch was a step below the door, and Jason extended his hand upward. The pastor reached down to shake.
"Jason, how are you?" A paternal smile passed onto the pastor's face.
"How's she holding up?"
"We met at the funeral, didn't we? You're her boss?"
"Yes. How is she?"
Gates stepped down to Jason's side and drew his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "She is doing her best. As well as anyone could. She has great faith."
Faith? "I hope that's helping her."
"How could it not? Our God is all any of us has. Everything else will be taken from us in the end." He said it and waited, in no hurry, as if sons were murdered every day.
Jason looked into the big man's brown eyes and gentle, round face. The expression in the laugh lines around his eyes was piercing, and that raw feeling from the funeral nudged at Jason. "Do you know what her plans are?"
Pastor Gates's eyebrows lifted. "I expect she wouldn't mind my telling you that she's decided to go to her sister's ranch for a while. She feels she needs to leave the city. I think it's a good idea to be with her family."
"Right. That is a good idea."
The pastor was as still as a great boulder on a plain, as if centuries of erosion had revealed him where he stood.
Within Jason, the rawness pulled at him, a magnetism that seemed to open undiscovered pores in his mind. "This God you keep mentioning . . ."
"Yes?"
His BlackBerry chirped in his pocket. An e-mail. He pulled the device from his pocket and reset it to vibrate mode. "Nothing. I need to see Kathy."
"Of course." But neither man made a move.
Jason returned the BlackBerry to his pocket.
"Jason, why don't you come by my office for a cup of coffee sometime?"
"Sure. I might do that." Jason stepped around him and sensed the big man's eyes following him as he moved into the house, leaving the pastor outside.
"Kathy?"
"In here."
He found her in the kitchen. She came to him and hugged him but pulled back quickly.
"I was just making some lunch. Want a sandwich?"
"Thanks anyway. I'm on my way to the gym."
No comeback. None of her usual gibes about staving off advancing age. She returned to the kitchen and reached for a knife to swab mayonnaise onto wheat bread.
Lettuce lay with sliced tomatoes darkening a paper towel. Jason plucked one up and had it in his mouth when he spoke. "You having a lettuce sandwich there, Kath?"
"Cold cuts are in the fridge. Sure you don't want something?"
He sat at the counter on a bar stool. She wore jeans and an oversize T-shirt. It might have belonged to her son.
"Your pastor tells me you're going back to the ranch with Carol."
Kathy turned to the refrigerator. She pulled out what she needed and let the door close on its own, then removed a few slices of beef from a plastic container and layered them onto the bread. When the container was back in the refrigerator, she closed up the sandwich and cut it in half.
"I feel funny eating in front of you. Have half."
He took it. "I can hold your job open for you."
She didn't answer. Her chewing seemed to take all her concentration. Finally she said, "I'm going to have some milk." She drew a glass from the cupboard and returned to the refrigerator, pulled out a carton, and poured a glassful and held it out to him.
"No, thanks. I'll just get some water." He rose and crossed behind her, got down a glass, and filled it with tap water.
They were silent until the sandwich halves were gone. Kathy stared at the milk in her glass as if tea leaves floated there to resolve a mystery. "You know," she said, "the night it happened, I had a dream." She took a drink of milk. "I dreamed someone was in my room." She wouldn't take her eyes off the milk. As she brought the glass up to her lips again, her eyes followed it. She swallowed, her smooth throat pale, flexing.
"Anybody in particular?"
Her eyes rose from the glass to meet his. "No, it wasn't like that. It wasn't that kind of dream. I was lying in bed, and someone was in the room with me. A man was in my room. Standing there. I could feel him there, close by the bed." Blood vessels traced tiny red lines in the whites of her eyes. She didn't blink. "I could smell him." She let the glass rest on the counter.
"You don't think it was a dream, do you?"
She tilted the glass, and the milk residue gathered in a bend at the bottom. "In the morning, the sliding glass door downstairs was unlocked. And the electricity was off."
"That's strange."
"The circuit breaker was switched off."
"Probably just a surge or something."
"Sure. That's what I'm telling myself. But it's the first time it ever happened. The breaker box is outside, so someone could get to it easily enough. And that dream . . . the same night Greg---Greg's killed. Some coincidence, huh?"
Jason worked his tongue to clear his teeth of the remnants of the sandwich pasted there. "You tell the police about it?"
She nodded. "They took a look around, but their heart wasn't in it. After I told them about Greg, what was going on . . ." She brought her hands to the countertop, and her head dropped.
Jason came around. He put his arm across her shoulders. She didn't move.
He searched for words that might fit. Something about what you couldn't help, couldn't expect. You could only do so much. Teenagers.
Nothing came out.
His BlackBerry vibrated in his pocket.
Kathy reached for the empty glass and saucers and pulled away from him. At the sink, she rinsed the dishes and leaned over to slot them into the dishwasher. Then she rose and stood in front of the running faucet, looking out the window above the sink, into the backyard.
"He wasn't a gang member, you know. Nothing like that. And he wasn't a druggie. He just had some friends that used, and he tried it a few times. That's no reason to write him off. I never did. You never did." Sunlight from the window made the straight ridge of her nose glow. "Maybe I overreacted. If I had taken it in stride more, maybe it would've just passed. A phase."
"Maybe so. Maybe not. You did all the right things, Kath."
She turned off the water but left her palm resting on the handle. Her eyes returned to the window.
"You sleeping at all?"
She frowned. "I got a prescription. But every time I go to take it, I think about that dream." She swallowed. "No. Not sleeping."
"It'll be different at the ranch. Don't you think?"
"Sure. Sure. But I have this weird thought that Greg's out there, wandering around lost, wanting to come back, and if I leave here he won't be able to come home. He won't be able to get in." She turned to him. Her eyes were dry.
The BlackBerry vibrated again. Three buzzing tones floated out of his pocket and through the room like a fly against a pane of glass.
"Somebody's trying to reach you."
"They can wait."
Her hand appeared to force the faucet handle further. But the water was already off. "Well. Thanks for coming by. I appreciate it. I'll keep in touch." She stepped past him, and he followed her to the door.
"I'm thinking of bringing on Brenda Tierney while you're out. You know her?"
Kathy was in the dark foyer now, reaching for the knob, cranking it and pulling the door open, letting the light stream in. She leaned against the edge of the door. For the first time, Jason noticed that she stood stooped, her neck at an angle, as if the thoughts and sorrow in her head carried too much weight.
"Of course. She works in HR." Kathy reached out, put a hand on his shoulder, and brought her face up next to his. Her lips touched his jaw briefly, and she withdrew. "Good-bye, Jason."
No words occurred to him. Even after all she'd done for him, all the days she'd covered for him and planned for him, propped him up when he was dragging. After all the ribbing and laughing. After the tears when she confided in him through her divorce and Greg's rebellion. After strings of ten-plus-hour days. She had worked for him and stuck by him in every downturn and upswing for four years. All this, and no words of support entered his mind.
"Call me when you're back," was what he said. "There'll always be a spot for you."
As if that would help.
Tom Cole's pate tingled with the beat of the sun. Even this early the Hollywood air was stiff with smog.
He'd spent way too much time on Flip since seeing his bruised hands, but what could he do? Of all his parolees, this one disturbed him most.
Now Tom was back for another official visit. As soon as he mounted the stairs, the little men with pitchforks got busy in his knees. They jabbed with every step, and he cursed them silently, pulling himself up by the banister. His steps were slow, tired.
He'd been up since 3:41. The homicide dick had apologized for calling him at home so early, but Danton couldn't wait until a decent hour after finding the flag Tom had placed on Flip's information in the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System. Tom had stared at the clock, watching the digits turn as he talked to Danton, nagged by the image of Flip's damaged hands.
A teenager. Beaten to death and dumped behind a gas station. Last Tuesday.
They had gone over the evidence. The stolen car with the teenager's blood in it had been left three miles south of where the body had been found. No fingerprints other than the owner's. All the blood in the car belonged to the kid. The techs were still working on the fibers recovered from the kid's body, but the only conclusive findings matched what was in the car or the last places the kid had visited.
Nothing put Flip at the scene. Tom's gut told him with absolute assurance that Flip had done this, but with no evidence, Danton wouldn't haul him in just to listen to him lie. Danton knew interrogating a convict like Flip was pointless unless you had something on him, and even then he'd deny it. All Danton said they could do was watch him and hope he made a mistake.
Sure Flip was going to lie. Tom had been at this long enough to know that. But there were other potential victims out here, and maybe if Flip knew he was suspected, he'd lie low. Maybe it would keep some other teenager alive. It was worth a try. If Danton wasn't willing to do it, Tom would do it himself.
Tom's nostrils tingled with the dust floating in the air in the hallway. A radio played a tinny version of Tom Petty singing about refugees. Behind another door the senseless music and audience uproar of a game show blared. Finally he came to number 312. He waited for a moment, listening. No voices, no movement inside. The game show noise from down the hall reached a crescendo and was abruptly cut off by a commercial jingle.
He knocked.
The door opened and the man stood before him. Flip turned his back and marched away to collapse onto the sofa. Dust from the impact puffed into a column of light cast into the room from the window.
Flip squinted. "Close those blinds, will you?"
Tom hesitated. But Flip looked more like a hospital patient than a convict at the moment.
He entered the room and left the door open. The smell of Flip and soiled surfaces and dirty dishes rose up to meet him. The stench was sour, like something a caged animal might emit. He went to the window and tried to open it for fresh air, but it was painted shut.
"You need to talk to your landlord about these windows."
Flip's eyes were slits against the sunlight. "Just drop the blinds." He brought a hand up and turned his head and let his hand fall back to the sofa cushion next to him.
Tom didn't close the blinds. The sunlight warmed his back. The holster resting at his kidney grew warm too.
"You just going to stand there staring at me?"
"I guess you really are sick. Have you been to see a doctor?"
"No."
"So what's the matter with you?"
"Close those blinds!" Flip's hair was mashed flat into his head on the left, and the sofa had left an imprint on that side of his face, where it was meshed and red like something grilled. Under his eyes, shaded circles drooped, the color of old bruises.
Flip's mouth snarled upward. He rose from the sofa and came at Tom with an arm raised. Tom fought the reflex to reach for his weapon and stepped aside. Flip grabbed the string controlling the blinds and swung it to one side. The blinds cascaded down to angle the light away from the floor.
Flip returned to the sofa. "What do you want, anyway? I didn't miss a meeting."
"Just wanted to say get well soon."
Flip snorted. "Okay, now you believe I'm sick and I didn't skip town. You can go." He lay inclined on the sofa with one leg extended to his side, one foot on the floor. His jeans were once black but already showed gray patches on the thighs and knees. He hadn't been out that long; he must have been wearing them every day.
"Manny's not going to hold that job open for you forever. You better take some vitamins, Convict."
That brought a squinting eye open. He held the one eye wide, Popeye style, for a minute, then let it drift closed again. "I can find another job."
"You're out of work; that's a violation."
"What do you want me to do?" He started cursing and Tom let him.
"You need another copy of the conditions of your parole?"
"You think I want to be sick? I'll go back as soon as I can."
Tom moved away from the window and behind the sofa, toward the kitchen entrance. The dishes piled in the sink rose well above counter level now. A couple of flies pirouetted in the space above the putrid stack.
Broken glass littered the floor in the corner. A brown stain decorated the wall. It looked like a jellyfish, tentacles sagging downward.
"You need a new maid."
"Why don't you get out of here?" Flip's voice, pointed in the other direction, seemed disembodied. Tom turned and looked at the back of Flip's round, black-stubbled head propped to one side against his fist.
He wandered into the bedroom. The blinds in here were drawn to block out the sunlight. Sheets now covered the bed, or nearly covered it. On one corner the sheet was peeled back to reveal the gray stripes of the mattress. Imagining Flip making a bed brought a grin to Tom's face.
From the other room, Flip called out, "You almost done with your search, Officer?"
He returned to the living room. "I appreciate the hospitality."
"Like I got a choice." Flip still rested his head against the fist of his right hand. The bicep of his bent arm was the size of a cantaloupe. Tom felt the reassurance of the holster nestled in his back.
"What've you been doing when you aren't working or lying around here being sick?"
"I told you last week. Nothing. No bars. Not associating with any felons."
"A model citizen."
"Yeah, that's right." He scratched his eyelid. "A freakin' model citizen. Why don't you get out and leave me alone?"
"You're going to hurt my feelings, you don't cut that out."
Flip shook his head. He reached for the television remote.
"Leave the TV off, Convict."
His head rose, and a shadow passed over his eyes for an instant, then cleared. "Sure. No problem, Officer."
"What'd you do last Tuesday night? Just stay in, glued to the TV?"
"Tuesday night . . . ? Let's see . . ."
Come on, deny it.
"Oh yeah. Tuesday night I went out to Santa Monica. Went for a walk on the beach."
"You do a lot of walking on the beach at night?"
"It's kind of my new thing. You know, go out there and contemplate stuff."
"Meditate."
"Yeah, that's right. Meditate." Flip's eyes lightened. He was perking right up.
"How'd you get out there?"
"Took the bus, of course."
"Why didn't you take the Metro?"
"Don't like being underground."
"You'll be underground soon enough. What number bus you take?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What number?"
"I don't remember. Down by Fairfax I had to change lines."
"You stop anyplace? See anybody?"
"I saw about a thousand people. It's a big city, Officer Cole."
Enough of this. It was pointless to sweat him, but they had no evidence at all. "Why'd you kill the kid, Flip?"
It took under a second for Flip to paste confusion onto his face. The hesitation was just long enough. "What kid? What are you talking about?"
"Did he do something to deserve it? Or were you just trying to stay sharp?"
"I got no concept what you're talking about."
Tom eyed him.
A smile creased Flip's face. "I am a model citizen, Officer. I don't go to bars. Don't associate with known felons. I go to the beach some nights. Meditate."
Tom stepped to him. He brought his face down to his.
"You going to kiss me, Officer?"
"I know you did the kid. I know it." He held up three fingers. "That's strike three."
"Get out of my face. You got nothing." Breath like seeping garbage floated up to Tom's nostrils. Flip's eyes were empty holes. The emotion was flushed out of them. Shark eyes.
Tom stood away. "You're going back in, Flip."
"No."
"You're going back in. I'm going to see to it. Strike three and you're out."
"You got nothing. This is getting on toward harassment."
"The parole board'll be real interested in your side of things."
Flip rose to face him. He said nothing. The expression on his face told Tom everything he needed to know. He measured the time it would take him to get to the Glock if he needed it.
Flip said, "You done threatening me? You done harassing me? You done?"
Tom stepped closer. Before turning to leave, he wanted to look longer in the flat pans of those eyes. Dead eyes. Hellish eyes. "Don't get too comfortable outside, Convict."
Posture prim as a schoolmarm's, Brenda wore a chiffon blouse buttoned all the way to her neck. That creamy column rose to cradle her pristine jaw. Her cheekbones swelled underneath those green eyes, domed by delicate eyebrows. Her lashes were full and black, and her lids were penciled in black too. Jason had seen Serena pencil around her eyes, and for an instant he imagined Brenda standing before the mirror in the morning applying her makeup.
He patted her personnel file. "I talked to Margaret. She had nothing but good things to say. It took a little wrangling, but we got the transfer policy waived. You can start up here whenever you get her projects done. You're working on the benefits package, right?"
Brenda nodded, blonde hair bouncing against her smooth forehead. "It's for open enrollment this fall. I can have that done today. There's not much left."
"There'll be a probation period. This is an important position---"
Her brow furrowed for an instant, then smoothed again. "I won't disappoint you, Jason." The natural pout of her lips curved upward, and the perfect row of her teeth appeared, wet and shining in the light from the window behind him. A dimple flashed in the pale pink rose petal of her right cheek.
"Oh. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt." Billy's voice snapped Jason's eyes away. The kid held files grasped by the corners to keep their contents from falling to the carpet.
Brenda's green eyes didn't move off Jason.
Jason felt his face flush hot. "Give us two minutes. We're about done."
Billy stared at his face, must have seen that blushing. "Sure. I'll just wait outside."
Jason nodded, and the kid turned away, shifting the files. He went around the corner.
Brenda's green eyes held him fast, an expression of utter absorption. "I'll finish up that project right away. If Margaret cuts me loose, I'll be up here this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. You won't regret this, Jason."
"Okay." He stood, and she came up out of the chair, the smile dimpling her cheek again, teeth flashing. She reached a hand out, grasped his, held it. He shook it once and released, and she held his loose hand an instant before letting it go and turning her back, her calves buckling the underside of her skirt with each step as she left the room.
Billy entered. He took her seat and said he needed to go over three deals with him. One was a customer and two were prospects.
Focus was difficult. Jason stared at the numbers, but their meaning was lost. He rubbed his eyes and tried again. He ran a fingertip across the ratios and asset-turnover calculations. A trend. Look for a trend. "This loan'll be okay. Sales are down, but the collateral's worth more than the loan even in hard times." He flipped to the owner's personal financial statement. "These liquid assets look good. Just get current market values."
The two prospects were less certain. Jason turned one down, and for the other he tightened up Billy's suggestions for terms before sliding the pages across to him.
Billy looked at Jason's scribbling on the terms. "I don't know if I can win it with this structure."
Jason reconsidered. An eight-million-dollar deal, fully funded on day one. Big enough to move his division's numbers, and if a couple of the deals in Patricia and Don's pipelines closed in the next sixty days, he'd be a lock for kicking Vince off the top of the heap.
And if this loan went sideways, it wouldn't happen for at least six months.
He took the pages back, crossed out his notes, and increased the size of the loan by two million.
Billy leaned forward in his chair to peek at the changes. "Whoa. I didn't know I was that persuasive. You think Scotty will go for it?"
"You take the fun out of everything."
Billy sank back in his chair. "I thought I was pushing the envelope as it was. Another couple million will compress those ratios pretty tight. They'll have to grow a bit to pay it back."
Jason flipped to the spreadsheets and looked at the ratios. At ten million there wouldn't be much room for error. In fact, there would be no room for error at all. Especially in this economy.
Billy gathered the files. "Want to go talk with Scotty about it now? He's in his office."
Jason reached for his mouse and clicked into his calendar. He knew it was clear. "Let me take care of a couple of things." He toggled back to the e-mail he'd been composing, hiding the calendar. "I'll go over it with him in a little bit."
"You don't want me to pitch it to him?"
"No, you've got plenty of other things going on. I'll run this one past him. You'll get your chance to pitch it when it goes to committee." He put his fingertips to his keyboard and began typing.
Billy waited for a moment. "I promised we'd have something to them tomorrow."
"Shouldn't be a problem. I'll let you know."
Alone in his office, Jason stared into his computer monitor. The words of his e-mail glowed back at him beneath the reflected shine from his window.
Scotty would never go for it. It was too much money for this borrower. Too thin on cash-flow coverage and collateral. But it would move Jason's numbers. And it was a company with a respected name. He'd tried for their business himself half a dozen times before Billy got in. It would be a flagship account he could tout in the market---by itself it might slam the door on Vince.
He wouldn't take it to Scotty. This proposal could go without credit approval. It was against bank policy, but after the company accepted it---and at ten million on these terms, they would definitely accept it---he'd figure out how to get it through the bank's approval process. He'd work Mark around Scotty if he had to. He'd hammer on the bank's reputation for delivering on proposals without a bait and switch. He'd take on the loan committee himself. But he'd get it done. Even in a recession, you needed new business. That much in new loan outstandings would bump his totals to a level the home office had never known. The loan was aggressive enough that he could charge a higher premium for it, and its income would drive the entire division's profitability into uncharted territory.
Of course, it could all go wrong. Flushing a loan charge-off that big would not only tank his year, it would drive the whole bank into the red.
He took another look at the spreadsheets. He could liquidate the company's hard assets if it came to that---maybe get half the loan paid off that way.
Who am I kidding?
He might be able to get it down to five million, maybe four, but still that level of write-off would be brutal to swallow.
It wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let it happen. He'd watch this one, he'd stay over Billy's shoulder, and at the first sign of a problem, he'd make them find another bank.
Jason gritted his teeth. It was too much dough for this company. Any sane banker would know that. The "greater fool" theory would never get him out of this one.
He should take it to Scotty and talk it through, get some ideas, button it up.
And probably lose the business.
No, it was only a credit proposal. It wasn't a commitment. These proposals were nothing close to a commitment. They had outs all over the boilerplate of their proposal letters, and if Scotty didn't like the terms, Jason could always find an excuse in the due diligence process to change the terms of the final commitment.
There are good deals in bad markets and bad deals in good markets. Scotty's words.
It could work out. It would. He would make sure of it. Even in a recession, there were winners.
And losers.
Flip lay curled on his side, hands clasped between his knees, brow wrenched tight, eyes closed against the afternoon sun streaming into the room around the protest of drawn drapes.
The kid's face played against his eyelids as if its image were tattooed there.
The face was gray, swollen, and cut, with blood hardening on soft skin, the way it had looked behind the gas station. Headlights of a car passing on the street on the other side of the small building flashed across the kid's face and cast it in sharper light for an instant.
Flip rolled over on the bed, and the springs creaked like coffin hinges. The mattress stuck to his side in the hot, compacted air.
He opened his eyes.
It wasn't his first killing. At least two others. And many more he'd left bleeding and unconscious. He played them out in his mind with a vague hope that remembering them would steel him from this haunting.
The first was when he was seventeen. The second came after all that time in gladiator school turned him from a kid into a criminal.
But this one, this boy, was somehow different.
Flip sat up. He put his bare feet flat on the carpet. He looked fearfully around the room as if the walls might fold in on him any second. The drapes glowed against the sun. On the other side of the glass the LA air was packed dense, and the sidewalk was two stories down---no way for anyone to crawl up or in. But he sensed the fragility of the glass as a thin barricade against the outside.
He walked into the kitchen. Shards of glass from the broken coffeepot still sparkled on the linoleum. He passed an instant of wanting to grind the soles of his naked feet into the curved spikes of glass winking in the light like crystal claws.
He stepped into the living room, the carpet under his feet stiff with wear and accumulated dust. Here sunlight through another window was barricaded off by blinds, parallel lines of glare seeping between and illuminating him and the yellowed walls. Where two of them joined the ceiling, a cobweb dangled, a gray wisp like a tiny hangman's strand.
At the edge of the door, the metallic bar of the dead bolt was visible in the crack beside the jamb. Locking out. Locking in. He went to it, put his fingers on the switch. He twisted it to make sure it was locked.
His hand. He brought it up and stared at the back of it, brought up the other next to it to compare them. The right was still purple where he'd bruised the knuckles on the kid's face, but the cut was healing. He had needed no weapon other than these bones, this skin, these muscles and tendons all clenched together into a club. These were his weapons. He flexed them into fists, regarded the tools he'd used to steal a life.
A knock on the door startled him. He dropped his hands and took a step backward.
He should look through the peephole, but his feet stayed rooted to the carpet.
It could be Cole. The prospect of seeing the PO nagged at Flip's chest as inevitable as gravity. He couldn't handle Cole now. In this condition, he might as well give him a signed confession.
Another knock, softer. A woman's voice. "Flip? Flip, darlin', you in there?"
He rushed to the door, his purple-backed hand fumbling with the dead bolt. Sliding it clear, he twisted the knob, and there was Diane. She stood in that lifeless, stained hallway like a flower crowding through a crack in the city's asphalt. Her lips shifted into a smile, and they moved to form words, the soft pink flesh of her tongue grazing her front teeth.
Flip couldn't process her words. Her presence in his doorway shocked his mind until she reached out to press her fingertips into his arm. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"
He wanted to seize her, fold his arms around her and squeeze, feel her warmth against his chest as a denial that he could do the things he'd done.
But all he did was step aside.
She moved before him, some inches shorter even though she wore heels. Her hair passed him, its fragrance bringing to mind cleanness, freshness. He wanted to bury his face in it and drink in the scent.
He slammed the door. Locked it.
She was talking again, words with meanings that escaped him, her back to him, blouse snug against her waist where it slipped into the top of the skirt hugging her hips, covering her to where her calves emerged like twins flexing until she turned to bring that face back to him. Those lips, damp and red. Those eyes.
She dropped onto the sofa, folded her legs beside her. A hand went to the sofa cushion next to her, patted.
Mute as a crab, he scrabbled across the floor to her. He couldn't take his eyes off her face. When she smiled, his own face bloomed into a smile too, the oppression of his memories ascending from his mind. Cradled by the sofa cushions next to her now, he brought his eyes down to her hands where they were folded on her lap, nails painted pink, fingers tapered, bending, smooth and white.
One of the hands moved to his. The contrast of this delicate hand on his made him recoil upon himself. Underneath her hand, his was a bruised mallet, his fingers like knotted, blackened sausages cobbled into the lumpy meat of his backhand. This hand was who he was. It was what he'd done.
"Flip?"
Faint eyebrows lifted over those eyes, smile angling the tissue of her lips upward at their corners to reveal her teeth again.
"Yeah?"
"I asked how you're doing, darlin'."
"How I'm doing?"
She nodded, chin dipping into the softness underneath it.
"I'm . . . I'm all right."
Her hand rose from his and came to his face, cradled his jaw, and as it stroked, he heard the sandy grate of his stubble against her smooth palm.
"Tell you what, honey. Why don't you get a shower and a shave, and we'll see if we can make you better than just all right?"
She smacked his face with her fingertips. Her smile was back, and with no more words, he was on his feet and peeling his shirt over his head on the way to the shower.
\*
After she was gone, the taste of her still lingering on his lips, he was able to close his eyes again. His body melted into the mattress, imageless eyelids shut, and his mind drifted with thoughts of her.
She'd whispered to him the next things to be done. She'd mouthed the words with her breath puffing softly, secretly against his ear. Her voice was warmth that passed into the deepest parts of him. Her words entered his mind as if needless of eardrum or mental process to become part of him like light absorbed through skin.
His mind rested on her, his hands still bearing the sensations of her, the gravity of his pulsing blood settled now in his veins thanks to her, his whole being as if formed by her.
He turned his head against the pillow, and her fragrance came to him out of the pillowcase. What he'd done to the boy, and what Diane had asked him to do next---it was all pushed aside with the remembrance of her touch.
Tom Cole's eyes held on the blackened leaves of the wreath on the door, and he hesitated to knock.
He looked over his shoulder at the U-Haul trailer. It wasn't hitched to anything; it just rested against the cement in front, the back gaping open to reveal the flat sides of new cardboard boxes puzzled together to fit the space.
A click sounded behind the door, and he turned. The wreath pulled away with the door opening to reveal a woman. She saw him and pulled up, startled, the box bobbling.
Tom reached out as a reflex to keep the box from falling.
She regained control of it, pulled it away from him as if it were something he might steal. She stepped back. "Who are you?"
She wore a denim shirt untucked, sleeves rolled to reveal bare forearms and hands gripping a cardboard box. Her eyes were hazel with lashes so long they might brush the lenses of her glasses.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He dropped his hand, reached around for his badge wallet. "My name's Tom Cole." He flipped open the wallet, but she didn't look at it. She held the box as if it would protect her.
"I work for the state. I'm a parole officer."
The air between them didn't move. Tom became aware of the sound of birds in the olive tree behind him.
"This is about my son."
"I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Russell. Can I have a couple minutes?"
She seemed to see him for the first time, looked him up and down.
Tom felt out of place suddenly, more suited for convicts and jails than for this grieving mother. He straightened. "Look, let me give you a business card. This is a bad time. You can call my boss and make sure---"
"No, it's all right." She lowered the box to the floor and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door. To the right of the door was a small concrete bench like you'd find outside a museum. She sat there and crossed her legs, placed her palms flat on the concrete on either side of her. "What is it you want to talk to me about?"
He returned the wallet to his back pocket. "I talked with Detective Danton."
"He thinks my son was involved in drugs. That it was a gang thing. But it wasn't."
Tom expected it to be denial, but it didn't come across that way. He looked carefully at her face again, looked at her eyes. "Okay."
Her head tilted slightly. "You believe me?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do. You don't strike me as someone who makes things up."
She brought her hands away from the bench and they came together in her lap. She wove her fingers together and looked them over.
"I know this sounds kind of strange, Ms. Russell, but I have a hunch about what happened to your son, and I wanted to see if you could help me connect the dots."
"Hey, I'm just glad somebody believes me. What do you want to know?"
"Danton let me read his report, but there are some things I'm not clear on. Can you just tell me about that night? I'm sorry to put you through it again."
"What kind of hunch would a parole officer have about my son?"
"It's probably nothing. Let's just say I'm doing some moonlighting."
"All right. I guess if you think you might be able to help . . . Tell me if this is too much detail. I got home from work around five thirty. Greg wasn't home, but that wasn't unusual---"
"Sorry to cut you off, but in your statement to Danton you said you dreamed there was someone in the house."
Her eyes cut into a frown. "It wasn't a dream."
"But your statement in the report---"
"That's what I thought at first. And if nothing else had happened that night, I might have just kept thinking that. But the more I thought about it . . . it wasn't a dream. Someone was here. A man was in the house." She looked to the door as if the place had betrayed her.
"What did he look like?"
She held Tom with her eyes. That expression of betrayal didn't relax. "It wasn't like that."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean . . . look, I know how this sounds. You can think whatever you want about me. I didn't see him. It was just that sensation you have when you're not alone and it's not somebody you know there with you. Where you know it's somebody . . ." She looked behind him as if the words were hovering in the air, dodging her. Then her eyes returned to his face. "Somebody evil."
He began to think he'd been wrong about her. Without any answers, her mind was working to invent some. "So, you think this guy who was in your room had something to do with what happened to your son."
"Greg. His name is Greg."
He thought she might stare at him until he said it. "Okay. Greg."
"There's more. The sliding glass door downstairs was unlocked. Sometimes Greg did that when he snuck out at night. I guess so he wouldn't have to bring his keys. But the power was out too. When I woke up the next morning my alarm clock wasn't on. Nothing was on. The power was out."
"Power surge?"
"Maybe. Sure. That's what you'd think. If your son didn't happen to be murdered that night. Then you start wondering. You start thinking about every little detail of the day before. You go over every word you said, every touch. Every chance you could have done something different. What you'd say if you had just an hour again. A minute with him." Her words cracked. She dropped her head.
Tom didn't move. He suppressed the urge to step to her and put a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry."
She waved a hand at him, the other hand drying her eyes.
"Where do you work, Ms. Russell?"
She took a deep breath. It jerked in but came out smooth. "Up off Wilshire on the west side. It's about a twenty-minute drive."
"What do you do?"
"Executive assistant. Up until this happened, anyway."
"Where?"
"At Business Trust Bank for the last four years."
"I didn't see that in Danton's report."
"They never asked. Why?"
"Just fishing. What do you do there at the bank? Do you have access to the vault?"
"No." Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. She stared at him.
"What about keys? Do you have keys to the bank?"
"I have a key that lets me in the office. But that wouldn't do anyone any good."
"Why not?"
"We change the locks whenever a key's lost."
"But you do have a key."
"I did. I gave it back the other day. There's a log our operations officer keeps of every key, who has it, the serial number. When somebody leaves the bank, they have to take the key back. They keep them in a locked file drawer."
He took in her stare, returned it. "There's probably no connection. I was just curious. You said Business Trust Bank?"
"That's right."
"Okay. So you didn't see anyone that night, but you're sure someone was in the house with you. And it wasn't Greg."
"Yes. I'm sure of it. Greg probably left the sliding glass door unlocked. Whoever came in turned off the power outside and found the door unlocked."
"The junction box is outside?"
"Yes, in back."
He nodded slowly. Then he hesitated. This conversation was about to get even harder. "The coroner's report---did Detective Danton fill you in?"
She dropped her head and nodded.
"I'm sorry, but the murder didn't happen where they found Greg. His body was moved. So there could be something to what you're saying. You should talk with Danton again."
"I will. He's been very nice. I just think he believes . . ." Her head dipped again. "He found some drugs in Greg's room." She said it as if making a confession.
"Yeah, I saw that in the report."
"But that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't have anything to do with it."
"It might." He didn't remind her of the results of the tox screen on the body.
"But it doesn't." That stare again. Forcing him to agree. Daring him to contradict her.
"Okay. Let's say it doesn't. Let's say someone came into the house that night. They turned off the power and found the unlocked door. Maybe Greg surprised them and there was a struggle. How could you not hear that? How could you sleep through it?"
Her lips tightened. She dropped her eyes.
"Did you see anything that morning that looked like there was a fight in the house?"
"It could have happened outside."
"Yeah. It could have."
She rose from the bench and folded her arms. "Look, I know what it sounds like, okay? The grieving mom looking for a better explanation. Something that doesn't make her boy look so bad. But I'm telling you, there was someone here that night. It wasn't Greg. It wasn't anybody I know. But he was here."
Deny it, she was saying with every angle of every joint in her body.
Tom wouldn't deny it. His hunch was right.
It was him. It was Flip.
Jason looked up to see Brenda leaning into the doorway.
"Got a minute?" she asked.
He waved her in.
They'd been working together for a week now, and her confidence seemed to grow each day. She lowered herself into the chair. "I wanted to go over your sponsorships with you. There's a rumor going around that they might cut the budget, and I know you'd want to make sure we take care of your charities."
"Seems like I'm always the last one to hear the rumors. Thanks."
She leaned forward, her fragrance drifting to him. It reminded him of a garden sharpened with the scent of exotic flowers. She rose from the chair and opened the file before him, turned it so he could read its contents.
Her hand pointed to the spot where he needed to sign to renew the sponsorship, and she'd prepared an invoice so the bank's payables department would issue a check.
He brought his pen to the paper and signed.
She flipped the pages back and craned her neck. "I can't read upside down very well." She stepped around the desk, and he felt her approach.
Coming next to him, she leaned over the desk, and the smoothness where her jaw joined her neck passed before him.
A part of him recognized that she was too close to him. He knew he should tell her so. The words vaguely formed in his mind.
"Sign here," she said.
He looked to the paper. Her finger was next to the signature line. His signature would authorize a three-thousand-dollar contribution from BTB's foundation to a charity caring for indigent families.
But he let his eyes drift again to the skin of her neck where it descended to the collar of her blouse and linger there for a moment, drinking in its texture.
He put the tip of his pen to the paper and scratched his signature above the line.
Brenda flipped the next page and pointed out the dollar amount on the invoice.
"What is that perfume?"
She turned her eyes to him, and he felt the pull of their green, seeing now very closely for the first time their jeweled glistening, and she said a couple of words in French, her breath passing over his cheek a warm caress.
He held her eyes for a moment before nodding. He looked to the file, flipped the next page himself, and signed. "That it?"
She closed the file and stood away from him. He gulped a breath and tapped the pen on the desktop.
She kept her eyes on his. "You have a meeting at CCI with Billy at two, and I confirmed your reservations at Drago for your dinner with Northfield. Seven o'clock, six people."
"Good. Thanks."
"There was some filing that backed up. And some reporting was overdue from a couple of your customers, so I called them. Anything else I can take off your plate right now?"
"No. Thanks."
She turned, and he allowed his eyes to wander over her movement to the door. Finally she passed out of his view.
He brought his hands to his lips and clasped them with his elbows propped on the desk. For a moment he sat silently, the buzz of chatter in the suite outside his office suddenly alien to his ears. He ignored the draw of the credits he needed to review for his team, the e-mails piling up, the pressure of preparation for upcoming meetings and the competition with Vince---all of it now somehow remote.
He forced his eyes to the picture of Serena. On a sloop in the Caribbean five years ago, Serena sat on the deck next to him, her tanned legs stretched out toward the camera, one arm around his back, another hand on his chest. They were on their honeymoon, drunk with the freshness of their love, their smiles reflecting its intensity, its singularity. He remembered that day on the boat, the feel of her next to him in the Caribbean sun, the press of her against him as the boat lifted and swayed in the waves with the shove of the wind behind. At the resort that night over dinner, conversation lagging from fatigue after their day in the sun, he had looked into her and she into him, the dining room crowded but the two of them isolated and removed in their love, untouchable.
But only a few months later, their marriage began to feel like a corporate merger. They would pass in the hallway in the mornings, off for meetings or to their offices on opposite ends of the Santa Monica Freeway to slug through ten-to twelve-hour days. And in the few evenings when they were both home, they were so tired from putting out fires all day that they had nothing left for one another. After the first year, they stopped even talking about going away together; their trips never panned out. They took their meals with clients or separately. Even on weekends the intensity of their schedules pulled them apart.
They joked about it at first. When they resorted to punching appointments into their calendars to confirm their good intentions, Jason felt a sense of desperation over where they were headed. He had to break their dates nearly as often as Serena, but that didn't stop his rising resentment over her work's demands. He refused to allow himself to reveal that he was jealous of her job, but his jealousy turned uglier when he began to suspect that there was more to her trips than the business she claimed. The few calls she made from the road before the end were interrupted by background noise that sounded nothing like a business meeting. The last phone message, with the muffled voice of her boss in the background, had nearly driven him mad.
Staring at the empty doorway now, he twisted his wedding band. It was loose enough that sometimes it nearly fell off when he washed his hands. He slid it to the tip of his ring finger and let it dangle there, tapping at it with his pinky. A smooth ring of skin was noticeable on his ring finger if he looked very carefully, like a ghost of a commitment. Five years.
His eyes returned to the picture. The memory of that day and the night that had followed, so filled with tenderness and promise, were tainted now. She had shifted her affections to someone else. Had it all been a lie? In the picture, she embraced him with one arm, her other hand against him. Even the certainty of her touch now seemed false.
He reached for the frame. On his left hand, the wedding band dangled from his fingertip. In his right hand was the picture. He took a breath.
His phone rang, and he glanced at the readout. The loan-operations department was trying to reach him.
Serena's number was first on his speed dial. He could have her office on the phone in a few seconds.
She hadn't claimed she was innocent, hadn't defended herself at all. It was as good as an admission of guilt. Just a scornful frown and a shake of her head. Before she pivoted to walk out the door, all she said was, "You want me, you call me."
He held the picture flat and tapped his ring finger on the glass. His wedding band rattled onto it and he regarded the gold circle it made on the image. The ring was now nothing more than a symbol of an unfaithful wife, of broken vows.
The ring sliding on the glass, he shoved the picture in a desk drawer and slammed it shut.
Jason spotted Ed Monroe across the room. The CEO of Northfield Industries filled his chair. He looked broad and so deep-bellied he might have dined like this every night. He held court from the corner, facing the room, the white tablecloth before him stretched over the broad circle of the table, a menu waiting closed before him, cutlery paired, saucers poised, glass goblets empty. In the center of the circle, salt and pepper shakers sentineled next to a flickering candle shaded in a rose-colored cylinder.
As Jason approached, Ed's quick eyes caught him, and his lips stopped moving for an instant, then began again, and all the faces turned toward Jason. Ed's wife, Ona, sat to his left, and his CFO, Randy Sloan, sat to his right. Randy's wife, Jeanne, completed the foursome.
Jason went to Ed first. Their hands clasped.
"You remember my wife, Ona?"
"Of course." Jason took her hand in both of his before turning to Randy and Jeanne.
His chair was opposite Ed. The CEO's head seemed to be all face, pale in the flickering candlelight, long chin, granite nose. He could be a former boxer with that nose and the sleepy droop of his eyes. Jason sensed that Ed Monroe was willing to box anything in front of him. Maybe that was what made him such a success at negotiating the acquisitions of his competitors.
Jason apologized for Serena's absence. Sudden emergency, out of town---the words came out automatically; he'd said them so many times in the past three months. A busboy cleared the setting Serena would have used. The chair wasn't removed. It sat empty next to him as if she might surprise him and show. It gave him a sour sensation underneath his belt.
The waiter appeared---young, tall, black hair combed back and curling behind his neck. The looks of a leading man in a soap opera. He waited for a pause in the small-talk before offering the wine bottle for Ed's perusal of the label, and when Ed nodded, the waiter stood away and began the ritual. He placed the cork on the table before Ed, and without a pause in his diatribe, Ed took it in his clunky fingers and absently twisted it, regarding it as he spoke. The waiter poured a swallow in Ed's glass. A sip, a reverential delay, and a nod gave authority to pour the rest of the glasses.
The menus sat folded before them. Everyone waited for Ed to pick his up to start the process. The waiter withdrew.
Ed addressed Jason. "What kind of law does your wife practice again?"
"Executive comp. She helps companies structure their comp packages around SEC and tax rules. One of her clients is preparing for an offering. She had to fly to New York for some last-minute work on their programs."
Ed glanced at Randy and something passed between them without any words. Randy said, "What's her firm?"
"Strumb Rossi. She opened the LA office for them three years ago." And I've hardly seen her since.
Ed swirled the wine in his glass, took a sip. "How is it, being married to a lawyer?"
"I haven't won an argument in five years."
Randy laughed. Ed's smile said nothing; his pale eyes rested on Jason over the clear circle of his goblet.
The waiter hovered around the table as if he longed to occupy the empty chair. Ed finally looked up at him and asked about the appetizers. The heartthrob talked him through the appetizers, and Ed selected for the table the mussels, the gratin of Belgian endive with bacon, and the duck prosciutto. With an approving bow of his head, the waiter retreated.
The menus still collected dust before them. Entrees would be considered over the hors d'oeuvres, apparently. Ed swirled his cabernet, let his eye take it in before raising the glass to his lips again. He smacked his thin lips and glanced to Randy, then back to Jason. "You came through for us on that financing, Jason," he said. "Cut it a little close to our deadline, though."
"I'll see if I can get you more cushion next time."
Those pale eyes moved again to glance at his CFO. Clearly something was yet to be said here.
"You guys have been good customers for the bank. We're glad we can support you."
"No trouble getting it done?" Ed had a real fixation on the tone of red that swirled in his goblet in the candlelight.
"There's always something to talk about when credits get up beyond ten million. But performance means a lot to us. Our experience with you guys has been solid. That carries a lot of weight."
"You mean you wouldn't lend twenty-three million to just anybody off the street?"
"No. Not just anybody."
"Well, we appreciate it. Right, Randy?"
Randy nodded.
Jason lifted his glass over the tabletop. "To another successful acquisition. Congratulations, guys."
Their glasses chimed over the table, and all five of them sipped.
Ed returned to his swirling cabernet.
"How are things going with getting the Clarington team assimilated?" Jason asked.
Ed glanced to his wife, as if he wanted to protect her from such detailed business. But he didn't hold back. "There won't be much to assimilate when we're done. Not at the top, anyway." He grinned at Randy, and his CFO smiled back.
"The whole executive team?"
"Shot in the head." It was the term Ed always used when they discussed acquisitions in the conference rooms at Northfield, but Jason was a little surprised to hear it over dinner with the wives. Ed said it like a gangster, the smile gone, as if releasing an acquired management team was part of a gangland feud.
Maybe it was.
The appetizers arrived, and Ed managed their dispersal, the others deferring to him in everything now, making no show of independence. His conversation lingered on Northfield's business so long, Jason had to finally ask him how things were at their ranch in Montana for a change of pace.
With the appetizers obliterated, Ed lifted his menu, and the others were quick to seize the opportunity. One by one they replaced the folders on the table, and the waiter materialized and took their orders, gathering the menus under his elbow. To Ed's order of the house special, braised pork chops, the actor affirmed, "Very good, sir."
After their orders were placed, the CEO raised one substantial eyebrow and looked across the table. "So, Jason, there's a rumor that you've had some interesting experiences trying to get your loans repaid."
"You'd be surprised how many people think repaying a loan is optional."
"I suppose that's the case if you want to take the whole thing to court."
"My experience is that the only winners in bankruptcy are the lawyers. And they win big."
"I'll drink to that." Ed lifted the glass again and reached for the bottle.
Randy's glasses magnified his eyes so they looked like they filled the thin rims. Candlelight flickered off his lenses. "I think Ed would be interested to hear about the crowbar incident."
Jason looked over his shoulder. A show of drama, as if he needed to avoid the paparazzi. "You do stupid things when you're young."
Ona leaned forward. "A crowbar, Jason?" Her cheeks were plump. Like her husband, she had a sizable chin. The two of them could probably outbox any couple in town.
"It was one of my first loans. It goes bad, and the guy dodges my phone calls for weeks. So I go out to his house." Jason knit his fingers together and shrugged. "My career was just starting. I was putting my wife through law school. This guy gets belligerent with me, like it's my fault he applied for the loan, my fault he can't pay it back even when he swore he was good for it. I guess I got a little heated, and he bolted. I knew I wouldn't be able to chase him down, so I had to throw something at him. Might have been a crowbar. I'm not really sure. Anyway, it missed. But I can still see him planted against the wall, frozen like a deer in the headlights."
"How many collection laws did you break that day, Jason?" Ed tipped the bottle toward his wife's glass.
"I did it for my depositors. It's their money we lend, you know. I was working for the higher good."
"You always are."
After dessert and coffee, Ed said, "Well, Jason, you won't have to take a crowbar to Northfield to get paid back."
"I'm too old and too serious to do that kind of thing anymore."
Ed lowered his voice. "It looks like we're going out for the offering."
The coffee grew bitter in Jason's mouth. "What's the timing?"
"Probably the next ninety days. Something wrong?"
"No, no. It's the right thing for the company. You need to refresh your balance sheet. Don't want the market to think you're overleveraging."
"Our underwriters think the appetite for our stock is going to be good after we publish results with this acquisition. After the offering, we'll be flush with cash for a while, but we want to keep our line of credit available. And we'll take care of BTB on the deposit side."
"I appreciate that." A line of credit with nothing borrowed on it did nothing for him.
"If you guys had an underwriting desk, we'd give you the offering business too."
"I know you would, Ed." Jason felt the wine and the filet beginning to weigh him down. Or was it this news? "Anyway, it's the right thing for the company. We're not transaction guys---you know that. We're in for the long haul, and what's good for the company is good for all of us."
"That's right. That's right. Ona, you want some more coffee, dear?"
She didn't. The waiter set the check in the middle of the table, and Jason reached for it, but was glad to let Ed pluck it away. "Our treat," Ed said. "You did the job for us with that Clarington financing, Jason. Like you always do. Your support means a lot to us. That right, Randy?"
Randy nodded, his enlarged eyes wavering in the candlelight.
The moon like a wary cat's eye searched with its reflected glare, but it couldn't reach Flip under the eaves of the house. Nothing hampered the moon in the cloudless sky, and he hated it, its unremitting shine, its nightly waxing like a widening eyeball staring at him, and he hated the stars that attended it too. Their patterned glistening only reminded him of nights staring at them out of a cage. He wanted them all wiped away. He would strike them from the sky if he could.
The house was silent and in darkness. Windows like rectangular clefts gaped with a deeper blackness than the stucco face above him. He'd watched it from across the street and walked past it a dozen times. It was empty. So why did he delay?
He knew. He didn't want awareness of the reasons to surface in his mind, but he knew. It was the ghostly sensation in his knuckles that arose whenever he thought of the boy. As if he'd just hit him, his knuckles remembered the flat concussion and sink of the blow, the boy's face appearing as a specter in his mind now.
He wrenched his lips. Hatred of his weakness flared his nostrils, and he rose from the brush surrounding the house.
The moonlight was a hateful touch. He stepped quickly around the edge of the house, found the exterior circuit box and switched the main breaker off. His pocket bulged with tools, and he would need them, because the house was locked tight as a vault. Penlight in his mouth, he addressed a window, pried the screen away, and went to work angling the flattened implement toward the lock. In thirty seconds both locks were free, and he slid the window open.
He listened. No sound rose from the house. He moved the curtains aside and stretched his leg over the sill and inside.
His back to the wall, his chest hammered. Gone was the confidence he'd always felt at these moments, the sense of taking ownership and enjoying the shock his presence would inspire if discovered. It was replaced with dread.
He froze against the wall inside the banker's house, lips wringing, eyes darting, clammy hands pressed flat against wainscoting, waiting for the feeling to pass.
\*
The valet brought the Monroes' Range Rover around first, and Jason shook Ed's hand.
"Thanks for dinner, Ed."
"My pleasure. Tell Serena no excuses next time." He pumped Jason's hand and released it so Ona could take it with her dainty grip. It was like going from an ape to a puppy.
The Range Rover crept off, and the next valet drove up in the Sloans' Mercedes.
"Keep me posted on the timing of that offering, Randy."
"Will do. We'll try to keep most of it on your balance sheet. At least for a while." Randy stepped closer, holding on to Jason's hand like a lover. "We're looking at more acquisitions, Jason. Don't worry; we'll go through the cash soon enough, and we'll be right back at the well for more credit."
"I've always appreciated your appetite."
Randy winked and slid down into the Mercedes. Jeanne blew Jason a kiss and waved.
Jason sifted through his currency for a five for the valet. He heard the purr of his BMW rolling up and watched it, enjoying the shape and blue tint of the headlights and the spin of the glinting chrome wheels. The valet stepped out, and the engine droned just right.
Jason got in and nearly jammed his knee into the dashboard. Short valet. His fingers found the switch on the side of the seat and it inched backward so he could angle his leg under the steering wheel. He slammed the door and shifted.
Ten o'clock at night, and traffic still persisted on Santa Monica Boulevard. As he accelerated into the flow, a Hummer's wide eyeballs grew in his rearview mirror, high and dazzling, washing the whole cab of the BMW in brightness and seeping into the side mirror, pounding his eyes.
He changed lanes, and the Hummer moved next to him, high as a house. A glance at the driver revealed a woman perched up there, thirtysomething, ponytail and upturned nose. As she passed him, he saw the padded plastic of a kid's car seat in back, empty. His mind pieced together this information, slotted her and her hubby in the same category he and Serena planned to occupy one day.
Or used to.
He downshifted and felt the engine whine, then surged around a Honda crouched around its tires by the weight of four passengers.
The house would be silent. Not even a housecat's distant appreciation of his arrival.
A sign shaped like a blue shield with a red bar across the top announced that he could reach the 10 freeway by making a left down Fourth Street. He shifted and eased into the turn and probed his mind for something to take his thoughts away from the emptiness of the house.
An eighteen-million-dollar payoff. The idea of it knotted him up. He could feel the impact of it on his numbers, dropping his division's loan totals by---what?---five percent. It would set his growth back again. Runoff of his loans was like a seeping wound. You had to keep pressure on it or pretty soon you got weak and your earnings grew faint.
He made his left and took the on-ramp, pushing the Bimmer hard, shifting like it would speed him away from Vince's competition, and for a moment it worked as the power of the engine seemed to lift the tires off the pavement, the car jumping with each pop of the clutch, engine screaming to the top of second, then surging into third, and he was faster than the flow of traffic by the time he reached the end of the on-ramp. He sped into fourth, passing a semi and a lumbering SUV and gliding across the lanes like a gazelle among wildebeests.
\*
Flip forced himself away from the wall, bringing with his jacket the frame of a picture that rattled back to its place, dangling crookedly. With eyes accustomed to the darkness, he regarded it, an off-kilter rectangle offending the other dark angles of the room. He brought a gloved hand up to the corner of the frame and righted it.
Facing the blocky shapes of the kitchen, he looked over the shadowed room. The countertops hosted obscure contours of appliances he tried to associate. A blender, a coffeemaker. A toaster. A bowl with apples or oranges huddling inside. A knife rack angling the handles upward for unsheathing.
He turned.
The staircase ramped upward, beckoning him into greater blackness. He ran his glove along the banister, a touch light as a lover's caress, rising into the place where the bedrooms would be.
He caught himself rushing. He wanted out of here. He wanted to be back out in the expansive night. The walls seemed to crowd him and box him like a trapped rabbit.
Slow down. Slow. This will be easy.
But still his heart leaped in his chest, making the blood pound in his temples. Out, out---he wanted out.
Three bedrooms vied for his attention. With his penlight he eyed each one. The larger room with the king-size bed and walk-in closet, with its private bath and double sinks---this would be the one. This was the bedroom of a banker and a lawyer.
\*
Jason steered the BMW down the off-ramp, glided into the turn clutch in, and downshifted, engaging the engine to rev and drop his speed. Stopped alone at the light at the off-ramp's terminus, he felt the idle through his back and rump, smooth power constrained. He wiggled the gear shift absently, then plunged it into first and waited for the green.
Nearly ten o'clock now.
He got his light and drove onto Robertson, northbound, past Hamilton High. He'd hoped for green lights this time of night, but after being stopped twice, he made a left and began hopping street to street, climbing the hills toward Beverlywood. He managed the gears approaching each speed bump and stop sign like a hurdler would manage his strides, slowing for the bumps just enough to avoid bottoming out and tapping the brake in deference to the stop lines in the street before gliding past into each empty intersection.
He made his right onto Bagley, and after a quick left on David, steered onto Guthrie and entered his neighborhood. Slowing, he loosened himself from his seat belt and let it snap into place behind his shoulder, feeling the familiarity of his street settle his nerves like it always did.
He reached up to the visor to trigger the garage-door opener and pressed the button as he brought the wheels around to enter the driveway.
The garage door faced him, unmoving.
He pressed the button again.
Nothing.
What now?
The pulled the car right up to the garage, lights reflecting straight back from the panel of the door, and turned to the visor and crushed the button five times. The garage door stood stubbornly before him.
He cranked the key to switch off the engine and jerked the parking brake on. Teeth grinding, he stepped out and slammed the door, marching around to the front door while he sifted his keychain for the door key he rarely used.
No porch light. The street light nearby was enfolded by a tree, so he had to tilt the keys until he found the silver gleam of the one he wanted. Its nose blindly poked for the keyhole until it finally slipped in. He turned it and opened the door, one hand reaching inside for the switch that would turn on the light in the foyer.
His fingers found it, and he flicked it up.
Only darkness.
\*
Flip rose.
A light switch clicked downstairs again and again, as if electricity could be pumped in by the motion. A voice cursed.
Flip stole to the bedroom door. His hands flexed, fingers tense, fisting. Flaring nerves drove his fears aside, and the old power overtook him.
Footsteps paced on tile downstairs. Shuffled uncertainly.
More footsteps.
The front door slammed.
Silence.
For a moment, Flip stood, undecided. His eyes scanned the black room for places to hide.
Instead, he moved into the hallway, to the stairs. Hearing nothing, he descended. At the base of the staircase he paused. His ears searched for sound.
He ducked around toward the back of the house.
A whirring noise stopped him. He turned. It was the refrigerator cutting on. In the kitchen, a clock flashed 12:00 incessantly in the face of a microwave oven.
Outside, through the sheer curtains, he could see landscape lights glowing.
\*
Jason faced the circuit-breaker box.
His feet would not move.
Kathy's words came to his mind. The night her boy was killed. Dreaming someone was in her room. The power turned off the next morning.
He turned his head. His spine felt like it was outside his back and naked to the wind.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He could call 911.
And say what? Ask LAPD to swing by because his circuit breaker tripped? He tried to laugh. It came out of his nose in shaky puffs.
He straightened. Walked from the breaker box and went to his car.
Settling in, he reached up for the garage-door opener.
This time the door obeyed, rising like a huge window shade to reveal the empty concrete floor missing Serena's Mercedes.
He started the BMW and put it in gear, drove forward into the garage, and switched off the engine.
Not moving from the seat, he stared at the door leading to the house. The flat panel of it, doorknob at its edge, revealed nothing of what might lurk beyond it. White familiarity he'd passed through ten thousand times without a thought now reflected his dread.
This is stupid.
He clawed at the handle and sprang the car door open. It slammed closed with the same solid thud he'd loved the first time he drove the sedan.
The door beckoned, and he approached. His hand began to rise to the button that would close the big garage door behind him, but he restrained it. He brought it instead to the knob of the smaller door before him. Felt the friendly ball of it in his hand cool. He turned it.
The gears inside meshed, the latch cleared the jamb. He eased it forward.
A creak like a raven's crowded the silence as the hinges protested against his entry. He moved ahead, into the space behind the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, the night behind him outside the garage like the promise of escape, and he leaned inside to bring his face around the edge of the door.
No one.
He reached for the light switch.
Fluorescence washed the room. The washer and dryer were in their usual places, surrounded by laundry products and piles of dirty clothes awaiting his attention.
Blood still surged in his veins.
He stepped inside. No sound reached him.
He went to the coat closet and reached inside. An aluminum baseball bat was propped against the doorframe just where he'd left it. He took it up, and confidence came from it.
A smell hovered in the air. Foreign, like spiced rum or cheap cologne, it hung in his nostrils.
The handle of the bat grew slick. He rubbed his palm on his slacks and moved ahead.
He found the kitchen empty, counters shining in the overhead lights. Beyond it, on the family room sofa, the burgundy afghan spread naturally across a corner.
Through sheer curtains and the sliding glass door he saw familiar shapes in the backyard, lit by the softness of the landscape lights.
He went to each lamp. With every turn of a switch, every added glow of a bulb, he hoped for reassurance. But found none.
Bat firmly in his grip, he went to the back window. Shoving against it, he found it solid, unmoving, latched firm.
Next to it was the sliding glass door. He pulled the drape aside with his left hand and stared.
Unlocked.
He seized the handle and pushed the latch down, locking it.
The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. He turned his back to the door and faced the room, every light glaring, no space for shadow.
The weight of his cell phone rested against his thigh.
Well, Officer, my circuit breaker was switched off, and the back door was unlocked, and there was this smell. . . .
He walked to the stairs and stared up toward the hallway. The downstairs lights reached a line of brightness in an angle against the wall up there.
He flipped the switch on the wall and lit the staircase from above.
When his foot touched the fifth step, the lights went out.
He dropped to the steps. Curses rose to his lips, but he sealed them shut. The bat was in both hands now, gripped like a lifeline.
Blind, his eyes groped for purchase in the sudden darkness.
Coward!
He got his feet underneath him and rose, back gliding against the wall, face toward the banister, still blind.
He moved down the stairs and into the living room. Slowly, shapes began to emerge, lit by the streetlight's weak glow seeping through the front window. A sofa. The neck and odd-shaped head of a lamp and lampshade.
The blood pounded in his ears, a torrent. His eyes held fast on the light outside the window, in the world where the normal scene of his street was painted, still.
Something moved behind him.
He spun around.
"Hello, Jason."
"Who's there?"
Flip could hear Jason breathing like a locomotive. "Did I scare you?"
"Who is . . . ? Phil?"
"Yeah." Flip settled onto the arm of the sofa. He twirled his penlight in his fingers. He wanted to switch it on to see the expression on Jason's face, but he left it off. The darkness was better. It was always better.
"You break into my house? What's the matter with you?"
"You don't return my calls. Not very polite."
Jason snorted. "You don't know anything about polite. When did you get out?"
"A while ago." Something Jason was holding gleamed momentarily in the faint light from outside. "What's that you got there?"
Jason hefted it. He went to a lamp and felt around underneath the shade.
"It's a bat, isn't it? You got a baseball bat." Flip wanted to laugh at him or take it from him.
Jason clicked the lamp switch, trying to get the bulb to light without electricity. "Did you mess around with my circuit breaker?" Then he froze. "Oh no. It was you."
"What was?"
"Tell me you didn't do it. Tell me you didn't kill Greg."
"Who's Greg?"
"Tell me you didn't break into Kathy's house and kill her son."
"All right."
Behind Flip's back, the battery-operated clock in the kitchen ticked. Jason's heavy breathing was the only other sound in the house.
"I didn't think even you could sink that low." Jason's voice sounded strained.
"Where's Serena? You two getting along?"
"We're not done with Greg yet."
"Yes, we are."
Jason stepped to him. Against the streetlights filtering through the curtains, he was a black silhouette. His shape reminded Flip of how it used to be between them, and all the old emotions began stirring heavier inside him, anger ahead of them all.
"I'll turn you in."
Flip laughed. It felt good, like an antidote to the fury. "No. You won't do that."
"I will. I swear it."
"Sure. Think how much it will mean to your career."
Jason was silent. Flip let his words take root.
"I was hoping Serena would be home. It's been a long time."
The grinding of Jason's teeth sounded wooden in the darkness. "What do you want, Philip?"
Flip angled the penlight at him and turned it on.
Jason put a hand up to shield his eyes. "Turn that thing off."
He did. "Just wanted to see your face. We don't look like each other much anymore. Remember when we were little, how people used to say we could be twins?"
"We were never alike."
"We were always alike. The only difference between us was I knew it and you didn't."
"No."
Snickering sizzled out of Flip's nostrils. "Still denying it. I figured maybe you'd understand things a little better after all these years."
"I'm going to ask you again. What do you want?"
"How's Dad? I haven't been to see him yet."
"Stay away from him."
"How can I do that? Our dear papa. He must be worried sick about me."
"He gave up on you a long time ago. Just like the rest of us did. Why did you come back? Why don't you just go away forever and put us out of our misery?"
"No, you're not getting rid of me that easy. You owe me, Jason."
"I don't owe you anything."
Flip jumped off the sofa. Jason couldn't back away fast enough. Flip grabbed fistfuls of Jason's collar. "You owe me everything."
The aluminum bat gonged against the carpet. Jason dug his nails into Flip's wrists. "Let go of me, Phil."
"Everything." Flip smelled wine on Jason's breath. He shoved him, releasing his collar.
Jason stumbled into a table.
Flip lifted the bat from the floor and ran his palm along the barrel. "If it wasn't for you, I never would've done any of the things I've done."
"You can't blame me for that. I never wanted you to do any of it."
"I do blame you for it. All of it."
Jason came toward him. "Fine. Go ahead and blame me. I don't care. Blame me for all the stupid things you did. It doesn't make any difference. But stay away from me. Stay away from Serena. Stay away from Dad. Stay away from the people I work with, and stay away from their families."
"Your family. It's my family too."
"Not anymore. And it's too late to go back after what you've done. I can't believe you could do that to Kathy. Now it's too late, Phil." The toes of his shoes tapped against Flip's. His winy breath puffed against Flip's cheeks. "I ever see you again, I ever hear you've gotten anyplace near my family or my friends, I'm going to blow the whistle. No matter what it does to my career."
Jason's eyes, even this close, were invisible in the darkness of his face with the lighted window behind him. It would be so easy to close those eyes for him, forever.
He clenched his fist and plunged it into Jason's belly.
Jason doubled onto Flip's arm. His knees gave out. Flip had him by the armpit and lowered him to the floor.
He bent over him, put his mouth to Jason's ear. "I'm not going away, Jason. I'll be right here, close." He put the end of the bat against Jason's cheek. "I might need something now and then. And you'll give it to me."
Without breath, Jason tried to speak. It sounded like he was trying to threaten Flip again.
"No, you won't turn me in. It would destroy your precious career. You know it, and I know it. Big banker with a convict brother? Not to mention what I could tell them about you. You'd lose it all. The job, the wife, the house. You'd have nothing. Then you really would be like me."
He shoved Jason's face into the carpet and walked out.
In his Explorer, Tom Cole adjusted the seat. The churn of the motor vibrated like a massage, reclining, reclining. He relaxed his neck so his head was against the headrest. He had to adjust his position every hour or so anyway, or surveillance would turn into torture.
With his head back, he caught in the window's reflection a blurred image of his mustache, like a ghostly hedge. He reached up and ran his palm down the whiskers, pulling down on the skin around his mouth. His eyes were so tired, they felt like he was stretching them.
A couple walked quickly past the building. They found their car, and the man hustled his date into the passenger side and stepped around the front end as if he'd stolen something. But they were probably just nervous about the neighborhood. They should be, with Flip living here.
Without taking his eyes from the entrance, Tom worked his radio to find a better station. He found an oldie. Chicago's horns and Terry Kath's vocals beat out "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" and Tom sang along softly.
The readout on his radio told him another twenty minutes had passed. He opened his cell phone and redialed Flip's number. Six rings, seven, eight. He let it go on.
Eleven twenty-two and still not home.
A Jethro Tull song came on. This station was deep into the '70's. What was the name of this one? Tom knew the words before Ian Anderson toned them out. Here was the title. "Living in the Past."
He tried Flip's phone number again.
A solitary pedestrian, hunched and with his hands buried in the pockets of his steel-colored jeans, skulked up the sidewalk past Tom's Explorer. The cigarette poking out of the corner of his mouth dripped a gray worm of ashes down the front of his T-shirt.
Tom disconnected from the incessant ringing of the phone.
Eleven twenty-five.
In the side mirror, he watched the domed back of the man receding down the sidewalk.
Commercials drove him away from the radio station. He scanned through the channels but found only classical, rap, and a religious station.
He clicked off the noise.
Eleven forty.
Redial.
Three rings, four.
A click and rustle. "Yeah." The voice came through the lines with the texture of a shovel in rocks.
"Where've you been?"
Flip must have been holding the handset against a gaping mouth. His breath was a tornado through the receiver. "What are you calling me for?"
"I'm coming up." Tom shut the cell phone before Flip could answer. He slipped the keys from the ignition and was out of the car and across the street. He buzzed Flip's room.
He buzzed five times before the door clicked open. He struggled up the stairs.
Flip leaned in the open doorway to his apartment. He wore a sweatshirt that bore a paisley-shaped brown stain. Wrinkles were pressed into the shirt and pants in vertical and diagonal crossing patterns without connection to the angles of his joints.
He'd just changed clothes.
"You're working late, Officer." Flip's forehead gleamed dully with dried sweat.
"Where've you been, Flip?"
"I've been home. Why?"
"No, you haven't been home. I've been calling every twenty minutes for two hours."
"Oh, was that you? If I knew it was you, I would've answered. For sure. I figured it was a telemarketer."
The smirk made Tom want to plant the nose of his Glock against Flip's temple. "I don't buy that for a second. Where have you been?"
"I'm starting to get the feeling you don't trust me."
Tom snorted. "You're getting that feeling. All right. Let me ask you something. What were you doing in that house?"
Flip straightened away from the jamb, and his arms uncrossed.
We've got something here.
"House?" The word belonged to a sentence Flip seemed unable to mouth.
"Yeah. House. It's a building people live in."
Flip twisted his neck. A faint pop passed through the still air. This convict might bolt. Or fight. Adrenalin pumped through Tom's veins, flushing away the fatigue.
Flip didn't answer.
"I know you were in there, Convict. I know it. I can see it on your face." Tom stepped forward. "That's your third strike. You know what that means. Prison till you die."
Flip bent his head forward, looked past Tom to one side of the hallway, then the other. He faced Tom and sneered. It might have been meant as a grin.
Tom's palm itched for the handle of his Glock. He angled his body to hide his right arm and unsnapped the strap locking the weapon in place and stepped toward Flip. "You cut the power and found the unlocked door. You were in her room and she knew it. The kid surprised you, didn't he?"
Flip's face relaxed, and laughter burst out. Tom was close enough to smell the rank sourness of his breath.
Somewhere down the hall behind a closed door, a voice called out telling them to shut up. Flip looked past Tom to see where the voice had come from.
"What's so funny, Convict?"
"Nothing. Nothing's funny, Officer. I just can't figure why you keep showing up here."
"She knew you were in there."
He leaned against the jamb again, and his arms filled the sleeves of his sweatshirt when he crossed them. "Then where's the LAPD? How come I'm not in a holding cell someplace?" He brought a finger out, and poked Tom's chest. Tom slapped it away. Flip laughed again. "I'll tell you why. Because you got nothing. You spend your night spying on me. Show up here at midnight asking your stupid questions. What do you think you're going to get done here, Officer Cole?"
"Where were you tonight, Convict?"
Flip stood and put a hand on the edge of the door. "I was right here in my home, Officer. I was meditating, contemplating my new law-abiding life. And now I'm going to go to sleep because I have to go work at my law-abiding job in the morning. Unless you've got any more questions."
"I'm going to search your cell."
"Knock yourself out." Flip stepped into the hallway and Tom locked him out.
The kitchen was no cleaner than it was the last time Tom was here. The bed was still unmade.
Tom kept seeing the mother's face---Kathy Russell's. Minding her own business, trying to raise a son with a few problems, and this convict busts into her house and kills him. The certainty that it was Flip made Tom want to take him in and let him sweat in jail until he got around to scheduling a parole hearing. But he had nothing on him, and Flip would be out again in a few weeks.
It was maddening. All his training, all his experience told him to stay professional, not to take this personally, but Tom felt his own inability to do anything about the kid's murder like an accusation.
He went to the chest of drawers and drew out the top drawer. He dumped its contents on the bed. Clots of socks and underwear rolled out. He dropped the drawer on the floor. The next one held a couple of Tshirts. Those went on the bed too, and the second drawer clattered on the floor.
Finding nothing only made him angrier.
The last two drawers were empty, but he pulled them out anyway and ran his hand along the inside of the cabinet. Nothing. He leaned it away from the wall and let it fall to the floor.
Someone in the apartment downstairs pounded on the ceiling, and a muffled shout came through the floorboards.
Tom went to the bed. He lifted the mattress away from the box springs. Nothing hidden; he tossed it up against the wall anyway. Clothes and blankets jumbled away from the edges. Nothing was under the box spring either.
He went to the bathroom, reached behind the toilet, felt the cool, vacant porcelain of the tank and lifted the lid to peek inside. The medicine chest was nearly empty.
In the kitchen, he rifled through the dishes piled in the sink, ran his hands over all the cabinet surfaces inside and out, and scooted the refrigerator away from the wall to search the space behind.
Nothing.
Back in the living room, Tom unzipped the sofa cushions and felt inside, threw each of them to the floor, and overturned the sofa. He ignored the thumping from the unit downstairs.
The television was the only thing left. Letterman was interviewing some actor. Tom pulled it screen-down onto the floor. The plug yanked out of the wall.
Nothing back there. Tom turned to the door. He opened it.
Flip leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. Tom told him, "Get in here."
Flip walked inside and stared at the way Tom had thrown the television facedown. "The TV? I might have to bill you for that."
"Sit down."
"I like standing."
Tom pulled the ankle monitor out of his back pocket. "I'm putting you on a tether."
Flip's face leveled. "That's going to mess up my social life."
"Tough. I'm sick of you lying to me. Sit down, Convict."
He didn't move. Those doll eyes held fast on Tom's.
"I don't have all night. Here's how this is going to work. You sit down and put this on, or I violate you right now and take you downtown." He drew his weapon.
Flip's jaw flexed. "Violate me for what? Not answering my phone?"
"You think I need probable cause or something? This isn't the first time you've been on parole. You know how it works. Now I'm going to give you three seconds to sit down and ankle up, or we can take a drive and get you processed."
He grinned. "You don't need to get excited, Officer. I'm law-abiding. I got nothing to hide." Flip went to the sofa.
Tom stood over him. "Put it on." He tossed the monitor in Flip's lap and stepped back.
Unfastened, the curved black band gaped on top of Flip's sweats like a plastic trap, the rectangular transmitter on one side the size of a box of cartridges. It was expensive, and it had taken Tom half an hour of wrangling to get departmental permission, but he couldn't surveil Flip all the time. This way he could do it from the computer in his office.
Flip's grin was long gone. He lifted up the device and examined it.
"Just put it on."
"I don't know how."
"You've got ten seconds to figure it out, Einstein."
Flip bent over and peeled up the leg of his sweats to reveal his left ankle. He slipped the band around and found the slot to insert the tip of the band. It clicked through but left a gap between his ankle and the strap.
The weight of the Glock felt like the handshake of an old friend in Tom's fist. "Tighter."
Flip looked up at him. Black eyes fixed, he snapped it one more notch.
"Now put your hands behind your back."
Flip sat back and tucked his hands between the sofa and the small of his back.
Tom came to him and, not taking his eyes off him, kept the nose of the Glock pointed at Flip's chest. He reached down with his left hand to the floor so his aching knees didn't have to take the strain of kneeling. "You want to sit very still right now, Convict."
Flip only stared at him.
Tom tugged at the monitor. Firm.
Now, to rise. Tom used his left hand for leverage. But his knees betrayed him. A sharp pain, the deepest in months, pierced his kneecap. Both hands instinctively went to the ground. The Glock pointed away from Flip for an instant.
Tom knew what was about to happen.
The convict snapped away from the sofa. His hands cleared out from behind him.
Flip's close-cropped head flew at him.
The Glock clattered to the carpet. Flip was on top of him.
Flip's fist eclipsed the ceiling lamp. The impact was a thunderbolt exploding inside Tom's brain.
Another.
Blackness.
Exposed by the blaring light outside Diane's building, Flip waited for someone to exit or enter so he could tailgate his way in. No one moved on the silent street. He felt naked out here.
Finally someone came into the lobby, walking like he was wearing new feet. Drunk, almost certainly. He pushed through the door before noticing Flip.
Flip grabbed the handle of the door. The drunk eyed him out of his haze and mumbled, "Howyadoin?" before teetering on.
Flip couldn't wait in the bright lobby for the elevator.
His knuckles ached every time he gripped the handrail as he went upstairs.
It took too long to get her to the door. The hallway walls seemed to shout his name every time he knocked. When she finally opened the door, she stared at him for a moment as if she'd never seen him before.
"Come in. Quick." She backed away to let him in, and he looked her over. An oversize T-shirt reached down to the tops of her thighs.
She folded her arms. "You shouldn't have come here."
"I got no place else to go." He closed the door and turned to her.
"What's the matter with your apartment?"
Flip couldn't bring himself to look in her eyes.
"What did you do, Flip?"
"My PO---he was going to put a tether on me."
"A what?"
"One of those ankle things where they know where you are all the time."
Her eyes shifted to his ankles. He wanted to duck behind the sofa.
"So?"
"So I couldn't let him do it, could I?"
Her eyes leveled. "What. Did. You. Do?"
He went to the sofa and sat. She stood before him, waiting.
"I had to hit him."
Diane rolled her eyes and turned, her arms flapping at her sides.
"I couldn't let him do it, Di. It would've ruined our whole plan."
She faced him and pointed to her chest. "Why didn't you just cut it off after he left? Why'd you have to hit him?" She stopped. "You didn't kill him, did you?"
He looked at his hands. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he'd lost his cool, that he'd just wanted to hit the guy. "No."
Diane folded an arm across her chest and brought up a hand to her lips. Flip couldn't look up at her. As she stood thinking, her toes flexed against the carpet. Her toenails were painted pink.
"Well, you can't stay here. Did anybody see you come in?"
"No. Look, just one night. Tomorrow night I'll find someplace else."
She went to the window and edged the drape aside an inch to peek out. "Nobody can see you here."
"Nobody will. You know me. I'm the invisible man."
Diane turned, and Flip's eyes finally traveled up to her face.
"It's not that I don't want you here, darlin'." Her posture settled, arms loosening, and she came to him. A hand came to his arm, stroked. "But until we get this thing done, we have to be really careful. Come here."
She pulled him to the sofa and sat next to him. "Let me think a minute." She tapped a pink fingernail against her front teeth. "I know." She rose away from him, and went into the bedroom. He heard a drawer slide, and in a moment she was back. "Here's a hundred. There's a place down off Sepulveda, past Venice Boulevard. Go there for tonight, and we'll figure something out tomorrow." She handed the money to him. "This'll be plenty."
He fingered the cash, looking up at her. "You're putting me out."
Coming to him, sliding onto the sofa next to him, a hand to his face, she pleaded. "Flip---darlin'---don't you know this is hard for me, too? Being apart from you all this time? After you just got out? It's agony. But it'll be just a few more months. Soon we'll be together. Really together."
She brought her lips to his. They searched him out, made him melt inside, and he saw that this was what he had needed, what he had really come here for---not a roof to sleep under, not safety, but this.
She ended it. Her tongue crept over her lips, and she smiled. "Just a few more months."
He wanted to taste them again. He bent toward her. She gave them to him for an instant and was gone.
"Come on, now." She rose, and he followed her. She opened the door a crack, then eased it wide enough to look up and down the hall. She turned to him. "Be quick. Don't be seen."
One more kiss. He wrapped an arm around her, considered slamming the door and carrying her into the back room.
She pulled back. "Just a few months."
His breath was quick, his heart slamming against his ribs for want of her. But this job was more important. It would get them where they wanted to be. "All right." He stepped past her and peeked outside before turning to her one final time. "How much you think we'll take?"
She came close again and pressed her body against him. "Flip, darlin', we'll be papering our walls with Benjamins."
\*
Pain knifed through Tom Cole's skull. "Ohhh."
His head rolled. Something was in his mouth, hard and heavy, its edge cutting at his tongue. He spit it out, and it fell onto his neck and off to the side.
He put a hand to his face, felt slickness with the consistency of oil.
But it wasn't oil.
His eyelids split like cracking eggshells, and the reality of place and time nudged into his mind.
Flip Dunn's apartment. A dirty carpet mushed underneath Tom's wounded head where it lay in a puddle of his own blood. The reek of the unwashed residue of Flip's life drifted in the air underneath the crushing pain in Tom's skull.
Next to his shoulder, he saw what had been in his mouth. The ankle monitor. Flip had cut it off and stuffed the end of one of the straps in Tom's mouth.
Nice touch.
He lay unmoving, taking inventory of his body, listening but hearing no sound beyond the cymbals in his ears. One by one he tested his limbs and found them functioning, felt for injuries in places other than his head but discovered none.
He tried to lift his head. It rang, throbbed in pain. The apartment swirled around him, tilting, walls flying. He lowered his head back to the carpet. The ceiling gradually slowed its spin, easing into a stained blur.
His eyes wouldn't focus.
He went for his cell phone and felt for the number one key, pressed and held it for a 911 emergency call.
The operator came on and he struggled through the conversation, digging the address out of his scrambled mind. He set the phone down, and the operator stayed on, her voice drifting through his ringing ears, distant.
He wondered how he could have been so stupid. Old and lazy, that's how. Show up at the home of a high-control parolee just a few weeks after he gated out, put yourself at his feet. . . . Gun or no gun, he should have had backup, should have called Flip into his office. Something.
But why didn't he kill me?
Jason stopped.
"I tried to keep him out, Jason." Brenda leaned over her keyboard to see around the corner. Her necklace dangled forward. "He said he had some calls to make and, since you weren't in, he'd use your office. I couldn't stop him."
His ankles crossed to perch his Florsheims on Jason's desk, Vince's fat rear end filled Jason's chair. He had his neck bent to wedge the phone among the folds of his neck so his hands were free to flip through a report.
"I hope he doesn't break my chair." Jason stepped away from Brenda's desk and into his office. He sat in a corner chair and slid his laptop out of his briefcase, powered it up. A pot of coffee at his breakfast meeting hadn't done much to clear out the muck in his mind. He hadn't slept after Philip's visit last night.
Vince chatted into the receiver. "That'll be okay. I'll talk to Scotty and get it waived. I want that loan funded today. Six million in new outs will look good in our numbers at quarter-end. How's that Cal Distributors deal coming?"
The screen on Jason's laptop lit up, and he accessed the bank's wireless network and typed in his password to get to the bank's intranet. While it cycled, he glanced up. Vince looked away.
Online now, Jason checked his profit center's results from yesterday. Loans were down. Deposits too. He toggled to the large transactions report and saw that Howe Brothers had paid off and the company's deposits were down to fumes. It looked like they were leaving the bank. He logged out and set his laptop on the chair and stood. There'd better be a good explanation for this.
Vince hung up. With a grunt, he brought his feet down from the desktop. It must have been an exhausting maneuver with all that weight padded onto his midsection. Jason wondered if he'd have to call in a forklift to get him out of that chair.
Vince swiveled Jason's chair to face him. "You weren't in yet, and I needed to make some calls before committee."
A stack of loan reports littered Jason's desk. Vince's reading for committee. "Anytime. We're real hospitable around here."
Vince didn't budge. His white, coiffed hair was styled into a sharp wedge over his forehead.
Jason went to the door. Brenda looked up. "Have Dan come over," he said.
Back to Vince. With careful concentration, Vince was putting his committee reports in order, checking the agenda before putting each one in the stack. Such an important responsibility, this committee vote.
"I see your numbers took a dive." Vince didn't take his eyes off the reports. He had half of them stacked before him.
"Temporary. Our pipeline's pretty packed."
The last of the reports made their way to the stack. Vince let his eyes wander up to meet Jason's. "I just hope our little branches can keep up." A grin. Still he didn't move out of that chair.
"You about done, Vince? Because I'd really like to get to work."
Vince looked at his watch. A Rolex. He must have found it in a pawn shop or repossessed it. "I still have a couple minutes before committee." He leaned back and managed to get his hands up behind his head. It stretched the limits of his shirt over his walrus belly. "It'll be good to have Patricia back on my team again. Tell me about the rest of the group."
Jason took a step toward his own desk. "You really think she'll report to you again? Or anybody else here? Forget it, Vince. You'll have to be happy out in the country."
That grin warped Vince's face again. He leveraged off the desk to get out of the chair, then brought his tent of a jacket from where it had been draped over the back and slipped his arms through the sleeves. "Famous last words." He brought his meaty fingers down to Jason's desk to dig underneath the stack of loan presentations. "You can always tell quarter-end's coming. Volume on committee picks up." The bundle in his hands straightened his arms. He came around the desk, his cologne drifting toward Jason like a plague. "I haven't seen your team in committee this week. I sure hope you can pick up the pace."
The Howe payoff simmering in the back of his mind, Jason took a breath before answering. "Don't be late. Your vote's important."
Vince snorted. He leaned in. Coffee breath and the reek of his cologne made Jason want to turn away. But he didn't back down.
"Nice little piece you got out there." Vince kept his voice low and gestured with his eyes to the doorway. The percussion of Brenda's keystrokes outside the door didn't pause.
"Get out."
The grin returned, and Jason's palm itched to slap it off Vince's face.
"Touchy." He turned and went to the door. Jason followed and toyed with the idea of tripping him or maybe planting his foot in that wide backside.
Vince paused at Brenda's desk. "Thanks, Brenda." He used his syrupy voice. "I appreciate it. You have a good day."
"You too." Her keyboard clacked uninterrupted.
Vince winked at Jason and turned. He maneuvered like an ocean liner toward the chairman's suite.
Brenda stopped typing. Her hands slid from the keyboard and onto her lap. "That guy is so creepy."
Looking from Vince back into the jewels of Brenda's eyes, Jason's anger drifted. "You're talking about one of the bank's senior executives, Ms. Tierney."
"I don't care if he's the grand pooh-bah of the Federal Reserve. I wouldn't want to be stuck in an elevator with him, I can tell you that."
Laughter ballooned in Jason's chest, but he held it back. "You find Dan?"
"He's out on an appointment. I told Angie you wanted to see him." She kept her eyes on him.
Her phone rang. She checked the readout. "It's Francine Jugger for you. You want her?"
"Always." He turned and peeled off his jacket on the way to his chair. Francine was nearly seventy years old and had been running BTB's wire room when Jason was bumbling through his first date. With the housecoats she wore and makeup as thick as waffle batter, she was the last person you'd want to stand in front of a client, but for efficiency you couldn't find anyone better.
"Here she is," Brenda called.
His phone rang. "Francine, how you doing?"
"I'm good, doll. How's by you?"
"Not as good as you, but nobody is."
"You sweet boy. You got a PIN for me?"
"You know my rules."
"Come on, honey." She always tried this. But Jason knew she was just testing him to see how careful he was with his authority.
"No details, no PIN."
"Oh, if you insist." She recited the particulars. Nearly five million, leaving Northfield's main operating account with insufficient funds. As usual, Randy Sloan wanted the money to automatically sweep from their interest-bearing account so he could earn interest on it until the last second. The wire room couldn't process it without authorization from a senior executive, even though they could see the money in the other account.
Brenda stepped into the room. Her eyes seemed to drill into him.
"Hold on a second, Francine." He put his hand over the receiver and asked Brenda for his laptop. She found it on the chair and handed it to him. He docked it and got into the system and found Northfield's balances. Plenty in their concentration account.
"Is this a fax request, or did he send it over online?"
"Fax this time. The signature looks good. You want to see it?"
"No. If I can't trust Francine Jugger, I can't trust anybody. You ready for me to enter my PIN?"
"Whenever you are."
He pulled out his lower left drawer and fingered through the file tabs until he found the one with his PIN. They changed it so often, he never bothered committing it to memory. He punched in the six digits on the phone's keypad.
Silence for a moment while the system worked through the code. A moment later, she said, "Got it. Money's flying, honey. Talk to you tomorrow."
"Be good."
"I always am." She clicked off.
He shoved his drawer closed.
Brenda stood with her hands behind her back. She shifted her weight onto one leg, cocking her hip. "Mark wants to see you."
Mark's face flushed violet. "Do you think we sit around and dream up policies for fun? They're there for a reason, Jason. And this one . . . we can't have lenders winging commitments out in the market without any oversight from the credit side of the bank!"
Jason stared at the wording of the letter and searched for the right thing to say. How could he have missed this? "These commitment letters look just like our proposal letters. We've got to change the format."
"Oh, come on." Mark shot out of his chair. "You're running the biggest profit center in the bank, and I have to explain this to you?" He wrenched his tie loose and unbuttoned his collar. "What don't you understand about the word commitment? And ten million---on these terms?" He turned his back.
Scotty, sitting in the other chair before Mark's desk, didn't say a word. He just sat there, eyeing Jason, tapping together the tips of the arms of his reading glasses like pincers. No emotion registered on his face.
Mark snatched the commitment letter off his desk and reread it. He snorted, shook his head, and flipped it back onto his desk.
"Listen, I'll explain to them---"
Mark drilled his finger at him. "No. No. You're not even talking to them again. I'll handle this. This conversation has to happen CEO to CEO. I just hope I can control the damage in the market." He plopped into his chair.
"Jason," Scotty said, "how did this happen?"
Jason couldn't look at him. Outside the window, the fall air had taken on a gloomy cast. The bright days of summer felt long gone. Jason had authorized a proposal on these terms, but how could Billy have used the commitment-letter format instead? Proposal letters had outs; they were subject to extensive due diligence. BTB wouldn't be blamed for shifting the terms issued in a proposal letter. Not much, anyway. But a commitment was different. It was legally binding. The only negotiating point was the form of the loan documents.
Scotty waited for an answer, but Jason couldn't throw Billy under the bus. A mistake like this could ruin a young career. Jason would have to take this whipping like a man.
Mark fidgeted in his seat as if it was on fire. "And to think Scotty wanted to put you on loan committee."
Scotty glanced at Mark and back to Jason. The eyeglasses went into his shirt pocket and he leaned over in his seat and crossed his legs.
Jason had a vision of sitting at the boardroom table, a pile of loan reports before him, with Vince waiting across the table to be voted down.
Scotty shrugged. "It was supposed to be a rotating membership. Ninety days on, then off. You were going to be next in line after Vince. Maybe I should have told you."
"Well, Jason's not going on loan committee. Not with stuff like this flying around." Mark shook the commitment letter in the air and flipped it down again.
"All right, guys. I get it. It won't happen again. Give me a chance to make it right. Don't cut me out of the process with the company, Mark. It'll look awful."
"You get it? That's good. You get it." Mark came out of his chair again. "This is not something you should have to get. Not in the position you're in. You should be the one enforcing this stuff, not violating it." Mark stood over him. "I don't think you do get it. This is about more than this loan commitment, Jason. I might be able to fix that. This is about who you are in this organization."
"No, it's not." Jason rose to face him. "It's one mistake, Mark. One. In the five years I've been in this position, we haven't had one conversation like this. You can't---"
"It's not a 'mistake.' This was a willful violation. I will not have the head of our home office intentionally ignoring bank policy. If you're doing this kind of thing yourself, I can imagine what your team's doing under your leadership."
"What are you saying?"
"What am I saying? I guess I have to spell this out for you too. I'm saying I'm going to make some changes. Clearly you need more oversight."
"Now hold on just a minute."
"No. No, I'm not holding on. I will not have this. You've got a new boss. Effective immediately. You need supervision, and I don't have time to babysit you."
Vince.
"And this isn't going to be some passive thing, either. I'm going to make sure he's on you like a cheap suit. Every solicitation. Your pipeline of new deals. All your major clients."
"You can't do this."
Mark's face reddened even deeper. It looked as if it might erupt. "What? What? This is grounds for termination, boy. You put this bank's reputation at risk. I always knew you were a loose cannon, but I never thought you were dumb enough to do something like this." He turned away.
Jason watched him round the desk and sit. "You wanted to put Vince in charge all along, didn't you?"
Mark's eyes narrowed. "I gave you every chance. Every opportunity to make something happen for yourself." He pointed at Jason. "This is your doing, Jason. You can't deflect this onto me."
Jason looked to Scotty. "Scotty . . ."
"Don't, Jason." The CCO shook his head. "You know what's going on around here. Our default rates are through the roof. I'm staring down the barrel of $75 million in substandard credits. We're in a dogfight every second of every day to get out of bad deals. I can't support you on this."
Jason stood alone in the center of the room. Mark's desk was a wall between them. Scotty wouldn't even return his stare.
Mark clicked on his keyboard. "Did you put the CEO's phone number in our system?"
"It's in there."
He entered a few more letters and turned from his monitor. "Congratulations. You did something right. Now if you don't mind, why don't you go back to your office so the bankers in the room can try to figure out how to talk our way out of this?"
"I do mind. You're blowing this way out of proportion, Mark. We've done deals more aggressive than this."
"Not in this market we haven't."
"I'm not going to sit still for this. I told you before, I won't report to Vince. It's not going to happen."
"It is."
"No. You think I won't walk across the street to Wells Fargo and take half my team with me? We'll pull our best customers out and leave you with nothing but nonperforming loans. Is that what you want? You'll have your man Vince running things around here all right. There just won't be anything left to run except workouts."
Mark's color began to drain, as if his blood flow were being siphoned out by the snarling grin that spread across his face. "Listen to you. Big shot. You're not keeping up with the times, Jason. Pick up a newspaper sometime. The big boys won't give you the time of day. Maybe eighteen months ago you could have played that card, but in this market you should be glad to have a paycheck coming in."
"Guys, guys." Scotty leaned forward. "This has gone far enough. We've got a lot of work to do around here. The last thing we need is to be shooting at one another. We need to concentrate on getting this ship back on an even keel. Let's calm down."
Mark frowned at him. "Don't tell me to calm down. While we're at it, we should talk about the credit culture of this institution. Your credit culture. Your boy here's the poster child for everything that's going wrong at BTB." He thumbed at Jason. "His portfolio's shrinking; delinquencies are skyrocketing. Twenty percent of his borrowers are out of compliance. We've never had worse numbers. What do you have to say about that, Scotty?"
"We have an action plan in place. We're working it."
"Action plan? I want results!" Mark slammed his desk. "All the trends are going in the wrong direction. I want to see these numbers turning around, Scotty. Unless you can show me something before quarter-end, I'm going to have an action plan of my own and it's going to include a new chief credit officer."
He glared at Scotty, then back at Jason. "Am I getting through to anybody?"
"Sure," Scotty said. "I know the buck stops at my desk for credit quality. You don't have to remind me."
"Then show me the results."
Scotty was silent. Mark stood and faced Jason. They stared at one another over the loan commitment Jason had issued without approval. Desperation hung in the air like smog.
Jason folded his arms. "You'll see results, all right. You can count on it."
Mark squinted. For a moment, it appeared that the CEO would scream at Jason for making another threat. He waved his arm. "Get out. Both of you."
Jason moved toward his office like a condemned man. Voices stilled as he approached. Phones rang unanswered. The eyes of every staff member were trained on him. He could feel them.
There was no privacy around here. Office doors didn't keep out any sound, and with Mark's booming voice, each word might as well have been spoken over an intercom.
"Get back to work. All of you," Jason said without looking at them.
Familiar noises resumed. Typing on keyboards. Telephone ringing interrupted by the standard phone salutation: "Business Trust Bank, may I help you?"
Even the way they answered the phones was mandated by policy.
The rules used to inspire him. He loved the structure, the clarity they provided. Now they sickened him.
Brenda held a phone to her ear. She shifted her eyes away from him the instant he caught her staring.
He slammed his office door. His phone rang incessantly, the voicemail light flashing as if it were a bomb about to explode.
He went to his window. The drivers on the street below obeyed the traffic laws. They stopped at the red lights. They drove ahead when the lights switched to green. They kept their speedometers near the limits and used their turn signals. Nice little robot drivers obedient to the rules of the road.
It was how society functioned. Don't speed. Don't slap each other around. Spend your life grinding away for your boss so he can make more money than you. Give your very soul for the company. Pay your taxes to feed the government machine so they can make more rules to crush you underneath. Scrimp together your nickels so you don't outlast your money. Retire. Enjoy a few paltry weakened years without bowing to the corporation every day.
Then you die.
Traffic noise filtered through the pane of glass. Cars hustled from light to light. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Pushed by the drivers behind them. Stomp on your accelerator the second the light changes or you're berated by horns. Can't hold up progress.
He put his hands on the glass. It was cool, smooth. He'd never touched it before. A gentle push, but it didn't move. If he pushed harder . . .
Behind him, someone knocked.
His hands came to his sides and he turned.
Brenda leaned around the door, her fingertips on the edge sliding downward as if the touch meant something to her. "I have Francine on the line for you."
The green of her eyes was a jeweled magnet across the room. They tugged at him, and he felt the opportunity to swap out the anger bristling in his chest. Her eyebrows lifted into the smooth dome of her forehead, and an uncertain smile played at the corners of her lips. She wore lip gloss that made the pinkness of the flesh there shine.
He waved her in.
She went to the guest chair, lowered into it. "She's on line two."
Jason picked up, still on his feet. "Francine."
"Hi, doll. I need your PIN for a wire for Southland Tools."
Brenda's eyes held his. They were shaped like sideways teardrops, glistening in the overhead lights beneath long black lashes. She never looked away first.
"You know the rules." The word stuck sour in his mouth. Rules. His tongue was dry. He didn't go for the drawer where his PIN was filed.
Brenda still didn't look away from him.
Francine recited the details of the wire in a tired voice. No wire agreement on file, so his approval was needed. Four million going to their Taiwanese supplier. "You want to know the conversion rate the FX department gave them?"
Jason descended into the chair behind his desk. It put him on eye level with Brenda. They stared at one another over the papers littering his desktop.
Without taking his eyes off her, his hand found the handle of the drawer.
"Hello? Jason?" The chatter from the wire room came over the line behind Francine's voice.
"Just getting the number." If he was going to find the right file, he would have to pull his eyes off Brenda's. The fragrance of her perfume took him into a garden, far from banks and wires and traffic, away from brothers and wives. His fingers rested on the tops of the cardboard files, waiting. "Hold on a second."
He put Francine on hold.
Brenda tilted her head. The color of her skin reminded him of sand baking on a beach in summer sunshine. The tint of pink in her cheeks deepened with his stare.
"Do you have lunch plans today?" He put it out with a tongue that was bone dry.
She shifted in her chair, and for the first time, her eyes turned away---for only an instant---then they were back on him. "I was going to work through."
The phone chirped, reminding him that he had someone on hold. It startled him.
"That portfolio project? You wanted it today."
"It can wait."
Her hand went to the arm of the chair, returned to her lap. "I guess we could go across the street and get a quick sandwich."
Jason nodded. He went for the file, glanced at the number and punched the button to connect back with Francine. "You ready for the number?"
"I've been ready."
He keyed it into the pad.
"Got it. Talk to you later."
Jason hung up. The voicemail light flashed a warning at him. He should check the messages. There were five of them. The readout on the phone told him so.
He turned to Brenda and leaned back in his chair.
She held her lips pressed together and smiled briefly, almost shyly. "So, I've been wondering why the wire room calls you so much."
He cleared his throat. "Well, if a customer wants to send a wire and it's different from the agreement we have on file, the wire room has to get my approval."
She nodded. "But how do you know it's real? I mean, couldn't somebody---I don't know---call something in and wire money somewhere the customer didn't want?"
"I just know. That one was a regular payment to Southland's supplier. And we've been waiting for a new wire agreement since their controller went on maternity leave. You just have to know your customers."
"It's amazing you can keep track of it all." Another smile flitted across her lips and was gone. Her cheeks flushed pinker. "Well, I should get back."
He looked at his watch. Eleven thirty-five. "Let's go get that sandwich."
The place hummed with rushed lunchtime conversations, this break for a quick sandwich like a thing stolen. Jason spied a couple rising from their table, and he led Brenda through the maze of chairs and tabletops before anyone else could grab the seats.
Rosie moved sideways between tables. Her hand looked bare without the coffeepot she usually held. The waitress moved with intense impatience and unexpected quickness for someone in her sixties. She took orders and brought plates with urgency, as if the fate of the world rested upon the delivery of food while it was still warm. Jason caught her eye, and she got to them after being stopped twice.
From underneath her arm, Rosie drew a pair of menus and slapped them on the table, and with her hands free, she stacked the dirty plates on one arm and drew a rag around to wipe the tabletop. "Hi, Jason. Hi, sweetie. What can I get you two to drink?"
They ordered---Diet Coke for her and iced tea for him---and Rosie handed the plates off to a bin-carrying busboy. She jotted the orders down and slipped the pencil back over her ear, where it hid in the brown hair of what Jason suspected was a wig. "Nice to see you again, honey," she said to Brenda and then winked at Jason and in two steps was clearing dishes from the next table, asking if the two white-collared guys wanted any coffee.
A group of BTB tellers sat at a table across the room, brandishing sandwich halves. Jason caught their eyes, and they quickly turned away.
Brenda's eyes riveted on Jason. Walking across the street, he'd noticed how the sunshine made their emerald color glow.
She parted her lips. "So. Rough morning, huh?"
"I made a mistake. You don't get to make many in this business."
The busboy brought their drinks and slid straws next to them. Brenda peeled the paper back from one end and put the plastic tip between her teeth, drawing the paper sleeve off it. She stabbed the straw between ice cubes and into the black liquid. She lifted the glass and pinched the tip of the straw with her lips. It darkened as she sipped.
She brought her eyes back up. "We can talk about something else."
"Good idea." He pulled his eyes away from hers and looked over the room. At the lunch counter, one of his lenders made conversation with a businessman to her left. Trying to figure out if she could bring him on as a banking customer, probably. Every encounter was about the business, about dollars in or dollars out. It used to invigorate him, the way it absorbed his mind and interactions.
Brenda waited silently.
He uncrossed his legs and reached for his iced tea. He squeezed the lemon wedge, dropped it into the tea. "You still glad you moved up to my department?"
"Best decision I ever made. How am I doing? Everything okay?"
"Yeah. You've been terrific. I should've given you feedback before now. I apologize."
"No, no. Don't apologize. You've got so much going on, managing the teams, the whole office, your own customers. I don't know how you keep everything straight." She took another sip of Diet Coke, her lips pinching, cheeks tightening and then loosening into their curves.
"Anyway, the feedback is, you're doing great. You've picked things up really fast, and when I give you something, I don't have to think about it anymore. Good initiative. I don't have to spend time worrying about backup. It's been great."
"Thanks, Jason. That helps a lot. Sometimes it's like I'm swimming upstream. I'm still learning this business."
"You ready to order?" Rosie's voice.
Jason's head jerked around. "How long have you been standing there?"
Rosie smiled. Her dentures were perfect. "I just got here. Don't worry, honey; I didn't hear a thing." She tapped the nub of her pencil's eraser against her order tablet.
"We don't have any secrets." Jason was about to ask Brenda if she knew what she wanted.
"Too bad," Rosie said.
Jason looked at her. The finger that used to hold his wedding ring felt weightless. "Roast beef. On wheat. Cheddar cheese." He looked at Brenda. "You?"
"I'll have the Reuben."
Rosie's pencil went back to its perch over her ear. She took Jason's menu and winked at him. "I'll be back. You two behave."
Jason watched her weave between the tables on her way behind the lunch counter. "What were we talking about?"
Brenda didn't answer.
He looked at her. Her face blushed. She hadn't blushed when Rosie had made that remark about a secret between them, but now, as Jason's eyes held hers, the pale rose-petal color of her cheeks flushed a darker shade.
She looked at her drink. Her hand went to it but didn't move the glass.
"Hey."
She brought her eyes back to his.
"That bother you, what she said? I can go smack her around if you want."
Brenda looked back to her drink, and a smile perked her lips. She shook her head. "No."
"Come on---you know Rosie. She's just having some fun."
She looked up and her color began to fade. "It's just . . . never mind."
"What?"
"Nothing. I . . ." Her lips tightened.
"It's something personal. None of my business. You want to talk about banking? We can talk about debits and credits and general ledgers if that makes you more comfortable."
"Oh, Jason, cut it out." But she relaxed, shifting in her chair, and her face softened again.
"All right. You were asking about the wires earlier. You clear on why they call for my approval?"
"Yeah. You explained it really well. It seems like a lot of authority for one person, though. No offense."
"None taken. They give different approval authorities for people at different levels. You won't see Billy approving twenty-million-dollar wires. But the head of the home office needs to be able to keep things moving if the bank is going to serve its customers. You can't have a bunch of committees signing off on every transaction. Nothing would ever get done."
"So on your word, they'll send a twenty-million-dollar wire? Even if the agreement with the customer is different from what's happening?"
"Yeah, technically that's right. But you don't make mistakes on things like that and keep your job. I have to make judgment calls every ten minutes. I have to know the customers, judge the risks of what's being asked. If there's a question, I call time-out and get the answer, even if it means missing a deadline. Otherwise, I make the call and move on."
Rosie balanced two plates on one arm and held fresh drinks in the other hand. Jason took the drinks, and Rosie set the sandwiches in front of them. "Anything else right now?"
They shook their heads, and she moved off.
"That was pretty tame. She must have somebody else to pick on."
Brenda picked up a sandwich half. "It must be tough, having to handle all that responsibility with those wires."
He took a bite of his roast beef on wheat. The yellow mustard pinched the glands at the back of his mouth. He swallowed. "There's really no other way. The wire room doesn't have staff with the seniority to make judgment calls like that, even if they could stay on top of what's happening with every customer. Only the bankers on the accounts can do that. With the loans we have out to them, we're in touch with our biggest clients all the time, so if we don't know what's going on, nobody at the bank does."
"But what if somebody wasn't as honest as you? Couldn't they . . . never mind, it's ridiculous."
"No---it happens. But there's a little club out there called the FBI, and they tend to get excited when banks are ripped off. You're not in this business very long before you realize that the feds show a lot of interest in anybody who steals money from a bank."
"It would probably be impossible to get away with it."
Across the room, Mark Cornwall's assistant approached the lunch counter. Rosie handed a bag over. Cornwall didn't leave the building unless it was on business. If he ate at all, he sent out for it.
Thinking about Mark made the roast beef taste sour. Jason set the sandwich down on his plate and went for his iced tea. He looked back to Brenda. Her eyes didn't blink.
"It could be done. But I don't worry about that. I trust our people, and we have limits that keep things within reason. What I worry about in this economy is getting our loans repaid. We've got some challenges right now."
She'd only eaten half of her Reuben. The other half cooled on the plate before her. "If there's anything that can be done, you'll do it, I'm sure." Her hands were folded in her lap.
"Something wrong with the sandwiches, kids?" Rosie looked much more natural with the coffeepot clutched in her right hand.
"Could I take this with me?" Brenda gestured to the rest of her sandwich.
"Sure, sweetie. What about you, Jason? You need a doggie bag?"
"No, thanks."
Rosie reached for Jason's plate.
"I'll take that too, if you don't mind," Brenda said.
Rosie paused. She looked at Jason. "Okay with you, hon?"
He shrugged.
Rosie took both plates. "I'll bag these up. Be right back. Any coffee for you two?"
Brenda wanted some, so Rosie filled her cup and moved off. Brenda emptied a plastic tub of cream into her cup and stirred it.
"Tell me if it's none of my business, Brenda, but is everything okay? On the personal side?"
She glanced to the floor. "It'll get better." She blew over the surface of her coffee, took a sip, swallowed. She watched the cup carefully as she returned it to the tabletop. "I was seeing this guy. I thought it was going somewhere. He thought it was going somewhere different. I had to end it."
"That's tough."
"It was the right thing to do. I need more than what he was ready to give. It'll be okay."
"I'm sure it's not hard for you to attract attention. I guess just the right kind."
Darker pink surged into her cheeks again. "From the right guy." Her eyes wouldn't budge from his.
The clamor in the room around them seemed to vanish as he stared into her eyes. They were caverns, green and cool. He could look into them for the rest of the afternoon if she would let him.
Rosie returned. "Here you go, sweetie." She put the bag before Brenda and topped off the coffee cup. "Anything else? A little cupcake or something you two could share?"
"No, Rosie. That's it." Jason looked to Brenda, and her eyes darted from him. The blush in her cheeks hadn't faded. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his slacks.
Rosie ripped the bill off her tablet and held it out to Jason. "The gentleman will pay."
Jason took it from her and reached into his pocket.
"You kids have a swell afternoon. See you soon." She turned her attention to the next table.
Jason held his wallet. He looked at Brenda. His mouth had gone dry. He wanted to drain his iced-tea glass but couldn't seem to pull away from Brenda's eyes. Where had he seen eyes that color before?
With an effort, he looked down at his wallet and pulled out a five for Rosie and counted out the bills he would need for the cashier. He sat back and felt those eyes reach into his chest. "Let's go," he said at last.
Night, and the perfect blackness overhead was interrupted only by a few stars and the moon, a glowing claw.
No clouds, no wind, no noise.
Empty street, sidewalks blank and pale, inhabitants chased inside to huddle in their boxes like rabbits as the darkness descended.
Flip stepped along the concrete carefully. The sidewalk needed work. It was buckled and cratered. Many of the houses had security bars gating their windows and iron mesh screening front doors. Not like this neighborhood used to be.
Twenty-five years ago, a kid might have appeared on this street---a kid who didn't belong. A kid with a head shaped like a melting ice cube and arms too short for his torso, with clumsy feet and hands that couldn't catch. A round, bouncing body. He might be running along and trip on a crack and fall and scrape his chin. Or he might be sneaking out of the house to wander at night when all the other kids were tucked in and couldn't make fun of him.
This kid Flip used to be rose up inside him unwelcome, at once alien and familiar. These same sidewalks used to be slapped by his sneakers when he was chased by jeering neighborhood kids. Fear and self-loathing brought his neck into his shoulders as he remembered how he had fled, how he had hidden behind gates or bushes and hoped they wouldn't stop. Sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn't.
He turned the corner now, and up ahead squatted the motherless house of his childhood. He remembered it filled with heartbeats and tears, words unspoken or shouted, all pent up between those stucco walls. Its front lawn, nestled behind eucalyptus trees, was bordered by the low jasmine shrubs that were his father's favorites. The leafy evergreen speckled by tiny white flowers spewed a fragrance the man loved. His father would bury his face in the jasmine and inhale and close his eyes. And turn to Flip, and that look of pleasure would harden.
One time his father had locked him out. When he found out the neighborhood boys bullied his son, disappointment had wrung his upper lip, and he had shoved Flip out the door. The clack of the bolt locking could have been the gavel of a death sentence.
Not long after that, Donny Briscoe and Paul Glenn had found him. Their names still caused Flip's jaw to clench. They had chased him. But that time, he'd stopped. He could still remember the moment when he'd faced them, standing right over there beneath that willow tree---the tree was bigger now. They had circled around him, jeering, laughing, spitting the usual insults. But this time, he had grown very still inside, quiet encasing his pounding heart, joints tight. Ready.
They had run, bleeding from their noses and mouths, and had never chased him again.
But Flip hadn't gone home. He couldn't face the bolted door. Instead, he had gone to the park and found a place in the trees off the paths and spent the night there shivering, peering into the darkness to see what bogey men or wolves scuffled in the leaves. At some point, he had fallen asleep and only woke when the sun reached through the tree limbs to warm his face.
Now Flip stared at his father's house. He could almost imagine it breathing.
His father still lived here. The return address on his letters was this one. Flip had read them before tearing them to shreds and flushing them down the toilet in his cell.
The front door would be bolted.
Would he unlock it for him? What would he think if he saw him---tattooed, hardened by the hours pumping weights in the yard?
Flip turned his back. He let the memories of this place go brittle inside him and hoped they would crumble and not harass him anymore.
As a teenager, he had parked his truck at this curb. He had eased to a stop right here every day after school. He might be the only one home, or Jason might be inside and it would be the two of them until Dad got home from work and they'd figure out which cans to open for dinner. They'd argue over whose turn it was to wash the dishes or clean up after the dog. It seemed Jason and their father always sided together against Flip. But it wasn't so bad, mostly.
A latch clicked, and a door creaked, and light spilled out.
Flip turned. The front door to the house where he had grown up stood open. The shape of an old man emerged against the light, and as he leaned back inside to draw the door closed, a dog circled past him with eager steps. Flip recognized the thin head and tall ears of a Doberman pinscher, brown and black. The colors of both man and dog faded into shadow as the door closed. The dog glided at the old man's side, steady. The master's authority appeared to be the only leash joining them. It had always been that way with his dogs. He had wanted it that way with his boys, too, but couldn't have it.
The years apart drained away. Manhood vanished. Suddenly Flip was a boy again, uncertain, resentful of the older man's power over him.
He suppressed an urge to run.
The dog noticed him. Its head rose and seemed to narrow as the snout pointed at him. Still, it remained at its owner's side, its steps a steady, restrained gait.
The old man's neck was hunched, his face pointed straight down the walkway dividing the lawn. He moved toward the sidewalk, the dog heeling relentlessly. Flip's father had gotten so thin that his jacket could have been dangling from a wire hanger instead of bony shoulders.
Flip held his ground.
At the sidewalk, the old man turned to walk in the opposite direction. Flip's mouth opened. He snapped it shut.
The dog halted, snout still pointed in Flip's direction. This disobedience caused the old man to stop, and he turned his head and his hand came around as if he was about to utter a command. Then he followed the dog's eyes.
Flip stared through the darkness at his father. The forty feet between them could have been miles. But a connection like a distant radio signal bristled, charged with the static of anger and resentment.
His father peered at him. No lights shone. A growl rose to Flip's ears. From the dog, probably.
The old man snapped his fingers once, and the quiet of the street returned. Seconds dragged out, and still neither man spoke or moved.
Finally Flip's father straightened. "You lost?" His voice had the confident volume of a man protected. The Doberman held steady at his side.
Flip considered his answer. He could turn and walk into the dark night and evade all this. Instead he spoke. "No, Dad."
No movement. No acknowledgement from the old man. It was as if the bolt had been turned between them again.
Flip's father sniffed. It was what he had always done when he was going to say something but was still forming the words. A hand went to the Doberman's head, and he said something to the dog too low for Flip's ears to catch. The dog's head turned, and suddenly its posture relaxed, its snout poked at the old man's leg, and he patted its head twice before he stepped toward his son. "I wrote you."
"Yeah."
As if they were stitched together, the old man and the dog moved closer to Flip. The shape of his father's head detailed into a face, dim eyes reflecting distant light, a semaphore blinking at him. A nose like a longer version of Jason's, pocked and drooped by time and drink. Thin-lipped mouth like an unintended crack. A word of encouragement was so rare from that mouth.
He smelled of bourbon and rags. "I kept hoping you'd write back."
"Well, I'm here now. You need to walk that dog?"
The old man looked down as if he'd forgotten this appendage. "He'll be all right. Let's get you inside."
He turned, and the dog held its eyes on Flip for a moment as it orbited around. Flip felt the animal's distrust like a threat.
He followed his father.
"You took a risk coming here."
Flip nodded.
"They was here looking for you."
"I figured." Flip tasted the bourbon. He resisted the urge to toss the whole thing back against his throat in an effort to deaden what he felt sitting at this kitchen table with his father. Or to impress him, maybe.
"Said you skipped parole."
"Yeah."
What there was of the old man's lips disappeared into the slit of his mouth. The harsh light over the table beat down through the sparse hair poking up from his scalp, over the furrows in his forehead, illuminating the cracks that surrounded his eyes and descended over his cheeks in a pattern mocking emotional expression. Flip looked away.
"They're going to catch you, Philip. Why don't you turn yourself in? They'll go easier---"
"They never go easy on anybody."
The old man nodded. "I guess that's true."
The bourbon tasted of oak. Flip felt its heat slipping down through his chest and into his empty belly.
He used to sit at this table with Jason. On Saturday mornings before Dad was up, they'd slurp spoonfuls of Lucky Charms while sitting in these same chairs on cushions that had not yet been pressed flat. Swinging legs clad in flannel pajama bottoms.
Flip wouldn't be the one to bring up Jason's name.
His father reached for the bottle. Its spout rattled against the rim of his glass. With both hands he held it steady enough that only a few fresh drops spilled onto the tabletop to join the others speckling the fake wood surface.
Against the wall, Max the Doberman dropped his head down onto his crossed paws.
"How come you always give them the same name?"
The old man faced the dog. "Easier to remember." He took another swallow from the glass. "You seen Jason since you been out?"
Flip nodded. Nearly ten minutes of sitting in this house before that name came into the room. "He come by to see you much?"
"When he can. He's pretty busy."
"Sure."
The old man's drinking was mechanical, his arm robotic. The wrinkles on his throat bunched and fell as he swallowed. Flip tried to imagine the way his father had looked as a young man and couldn't. It was as if Hank Dunn had always been this way, boxed up in a crumbling house, an outsider in his own neighborhood. Sipping from a bottle all day out of boredom and a desire to forget.
The old man shifted on the worn vinyl chair. "You know, he never meant---"
"I don't want to talk about him."
"Okay. Okay." Another sip. Another clenching of the throat around a swallow of bourbon. His eyes were cloudy, the color of thinned milk, gray irises grown dim. He lifted them to Flip. "It's just . . . you two . . ."
"Look, Dad. I just wanted to see how you were doing. That's all."
"Well, you seen now." He leaned against the back of the chair and crossed his arms. He still wore the jacket. The sleeves were rubbed nearly black at the elbows.
It never went the way Flip planned it with his father. He'd started dozens of letters, but they always either reeked of sentiment his father would never understand or were shallower than the sheet of paper. So he always tore them up.
For twenty years the wall between them had stood. A wall Jason had built in one night. No words could penetrate it. Nothing would demolish it. Flip used to think time would break it down. But he was cured of that now.
This visit had to be different. This would be the last time he would ever see his father. He'd come to say good-bye. He stared into the old man's faded eyes. The eyes of a hard old man, heart broken so many times that if it beat at all, it had to beat in pieces.
Another sip. Words Flip would never speak hovered in his mind and drifted away. He scanned the room for something they could talk about.
"Mr. Slott still live next door?"
"No. He went in for one of them retirement places. Tried to talk me into it."
"You'd never move."
The old man uncrossed his arms, leaned into the table. "Nah. People just go there to die."
"But isn't there anyplace else you'd want to live? You always liked the ocean."
"Sure. I'll get me a place on the beach. Mansion. Soon as pigs start flying." He reached for the bottle again.
Flip wondered if the old man always drank this much, or if it was just seeing his convict son that did it to him. "If you had the money, though."
"I don't. What's the sense talking about it?"
"But say you came into some. Say it was a lot. If one of your sons---"
"Ha!" The word came through another slug of bourbon. A drop spilled onto the crease running between his lips and his chin, and he wiped the back of his hand across it. He was about to say something but stopped, and the expression on his face drew tight. He propped his elbow on the table and a crooked finger pointed at Flip. "Don't you send me nothing. I don't need no stolen money."
"No, you never needed anything. Anybody."
"What do you know about what I needed? Anything I needed I put down for Jason and you. I raised you boys by myself. I didn't have no help."
"You don't have to tell me. I was there."
His father's lips pursed as if a string running between them had been pulled. He took a deep breath and sagged inside his stained coat. And then in an instant, Flip saw his father clearly, all the history between them gone, their roles removed. He saw a lonely old man who'd spent his life repairing air conditioners and piecing university classrooms back together to stave off decay. All his life fixing, fixing, year in and year out, his pension hanging out there at the end of a stick. And two ungrateful boys, grown and gone and leaving him alone to rattle around in this house with his memories of what he'd done wrong, only a silent dog as company in a neighborhood as rundown as his own body.
Flip looked at the animal. Its eyes perked up to regard him, forehead bunching together. This was all Flip's father had left.
"Philip?" His father's hands were clenched together on the tabletop.
"Hm?"
"They'll be coming by again looking for you."
"Yeah."
"I know things ain't . . ." He looked down at his clenched hands, straightened his fingers, and tightened them again. The fists were jumbled masses, knuckles wrinkled and knotty.
"It wasn't really your fault, Dad. I never blamed you. Forget what I said that one time."
The old man nodded, the few hairs on his head shifting in the light. "Okay. I appreciate it."
They stared across the table at one another. Flip wondered if his father knew he'd never see him again.
"Well. I'm glad you come by. I won't tell them you was here."
"You can tell them. I don't want you to get in trouble."
"Aww." He passed a hand like a claw through the air. "What're they going to do to me? I'll sic Max on them."
The dog lifted its head from the floor at the mention of his name.
"I'd like to see that."
"Maybe you ought to stick around after all." For the first time, a grin stretched out the wrinkles around the old man's mouth.
Flip smiled back. For an instant, they held together.
"Well," Flip said.
"Yeah." His father used the tabletop for leverage and struggled to his feet. Max rose and came to the old man's side. Flip followed them down the hall. His father's pants sagged at the seat as if hanging from a laundry line. The old man turned. "You wait at the window. I go right at the sidewalk, it's clear. I go left, you better use the back door."
"All right."
His father's face rotated away, and Flip was staring at the back of an old head, two cords of muscle surrounded by lined skin propping up a skull.
"Dad?"
A hand on the doorknob, he faced his son again.
Flip wanted to say something, but he couldn't imagine what it might be.
It was as if Jason stood watching them.
"Good-bye."
The old man's clouded eyes blinked. "Come on, Max."
The dog at his side, Flip's father moved through the doorway, and the hinges creaked against the silence. The chipped panel of the front door closed between them.
Brad Hathaway snapped his gum twice. Tom Cole heard him before he saw him. Hathaway wore his usual Hawaiian shirt, his blond hair stiff and his face so beaten up by the sun it might have been a turtle-skin mask. He stood away from the foot of the hospital bed as if Tom's injuries might be contagious.
A surfer parole officer. Only in LA.
Hathaway's jaw ground at the gum, popping it twice again in quick succession. "Dude," he said.
"I know. It was stupid."
"I would've come with you, man. All you had to do was call."
"All right, all right."
Hathaway shook his head, popped the gum, grinned.
"Would you wipe that smile off your face?"
He didn't. That snapping gum was beginning to get on Tom's numbed nerves.
"Did you get a warrant on him?" Tom asked.
"Parolee at large---my PAL Flip. I went out to his apartment. With LAPD. I ain't a lone ranger."
"You just showed up here to bust my chops, didn't you?"
Hathaway's head tilted, and the smile drifted. "Sensitive. Sorry, man. I'll go easy."
"No, forget it. I'm just . . ."
The pop-pop returned, Hathaway's cheek pinching, the jaw working. He waited for Tom to say more, but whatever floated in Tom's head wasn't finding purchase. The painkillers.
"He wasn't there, of course. We went to his dad's. Not there, either," Hathaway said. "I'm going to head over to his brother's office when I leave here. He doesn't return my calls."
"That's not good."
Hathaway dug his hands into his jeans pockets. The quizzical expression on his face began to make Tom wonder what he was thinking.
"Is there something else?"
"I'm just wondering why you're lying here instead of down at the morgue. Everything we know about Flip Dunn, you'd think he would've put you out of your misery."
Tom tried to get his body shifted. His limbs weighed about a thousand pounds each. He managed to get his hand flat against the sheet but lost interest in doing anything further. "I've been wondering that myself. Maybe Flip has a soft spot for POs."
"That must be it." Hathaway tapped his fingers on the rail at the foot of the bed. "Well, anyway, guess I'll get over to the bank. Unless you need anything."
"Going to go check on all your wealth, huh?" Tom's voice sounded distant to his own ears. His eyes drifted closed.
"Not my bank. I told you, I'm going to go see the brother, Jason Dunn. He works over at . . . let's see . . ."
Tom's eyes popped open. His pulse monitor picked up its pace. Hathaway dug a piece of paper out of his pocket and started to unroll it.
Through the fog of the painkillers, Tom's mind made a connection. He already knew what Hathaway had written down. "Business Trust Bank."
Hathaway was still trying to unfurl the wad of paper. "Yeah. That's right. So you've already been over there?"
"Oh . . ."
"What?"
"That's where she worked."
"Who?"
"The mom. The mother of the kid Flip killed. Or I'm pretty sure he did it."
Hathaway's frown bunched up his leathery forehead. The jaw stopped working for the first time since he'd walked into the room. "What are you talking about?"
Tom laid out the story for him. Flip's bruised knuckles. His nagging suspicions. The LEADS entry. Then Detective Danton's call, the possible link, the interview with Kathy Russell.
Gradually, Hathaway began working the gum again. "You think he killed his brother's secretary's kid? Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. But we've got a brother, a bank, and a dead kid's mom that works there. It's no coincidence. Somewhere in there's a motive."
Hathaway nodded his head slowly. "'Kay. Let me see if I can get to the brother. You heal up. We're going to work this one together."
"Like you have time for that."
"Who do you think's covering your cases while you're on vacation in here? Besides, we'll wrap it up quick." Hathaway turned and went for the door.
Tom called to him. "Hey."
Hathaway's head came around, jaw flexing, gum popping. The window cast a pale hospital glare over his Hawaiian shirt. Red surfboards, green palm trees and flowers, island girls smiling.
"You spot him, don't let him get close to you."
Hathaway grinned. "Aw, Cole, I didn't know you cared."
"I'm not messing around."
The surfer shook his head, that grin lingering. He could have been paddling out to an oncoming wave. "Just get healthy, huh? Once you're out of here, you can keep an eye on me. Make sure I stay out of trouble."
Tom managed to lift a hand and wave it. The next time his eyes opened, he was alone.
\*
Jason keyed the number six on his phone to toggle to his next voicemail message. As soon as the caller identified himself, he pressed six again. Five messages, and no one he wanted to talk to. The pieced-together words of the automated voicemail attendant told him he was back at the main menu and gave him the option of listening to saved messages. He hung up, removed his earpiece, and slotted it into his shirt pocket.
Billy's hands twisted at the steering wheel. "I think that meeting went pretty well, don't you?"
The light turned green, and Billy hit the gas. They sped through the intersection. The kid drove like he couldn't wait to get back to the office and out of the car, away from Jason.
"It went fine."
"I'll do the call report for Vince."
One of Vince's new rules. Every meeting with a customer or potential customer had to be documented, and the report had to be on his desk the following day.
The light ahead turned red, and Billy leaned into the brake pedal. His Acura plowed to a stop with the front end in the crosswalk. The only pedestrian wore rags. He slumped toward the fender, mouthing to himself from within a gray bush of a beard, open shirt the color of dust revealing a shriveled torso. His pants were held up with a rope he'd lined through the belt loops and knotted underneath his puckered belly button. He stopped at the edge of Billy's car and stared down at it.
Jason pressed the button in the door panel, and his window sliced down. "Hey."
The old man turned his eyes, taking in Jason with a look between frenzy and disgust. "What do you want?" His hands hung at his sides, limp.
"You hungry? You need something to eat?"
"Hm." He turned from Jason and looked down at the hood in front of him as if calculating the distance Billy had encroached into the crosswalk. Apparently it was impossible for the old man to move outside the lines to cross the street.
Jason turned to Billy. "You need to back up."
Billy looked at him as if Jason was the one operating on a brain off kilter. But he didn't ask any questions, just shifted to reverse. A horn blasted behind them. One hand on the back of Jason's seat, Billy inched the Acura back.
"That's far enough."
The old man moved with ginger steps to avoid the lines of the crosswalk like someone moving through a minefield. He made it to the other side of the street before the light changed.
Billy shifted back to drive, and the horn behind them silenced. "Since when are you a homeless advocate, boss?"
"You haven't called me that for a while."
Billy's head turned, but Jason didn't meet the kid's eyes. Two weeks since the confrontation with Mark, two weeks with Vince setting up shop in Jason's department, and the allegiances of the teams had shifted already. He stared out the side window. Another homeless man sat on the sidewalk, his back resting against a concrete wall. This one's afro was the shape of a charcoal briquette, his skin so dark he could have been burned into that spot long ago. Billy's Acura passed by, and the man became only a shadow in Jason's mind.
The city was full of them. Black, white, Hispanic. Couples, teenagers, children. They pushed shopping carts or slogged along the concrete, toted paper bags the shape of the bottle inside, languished in alleys. At night, on his way home, a couple routinely pitched an old blue nylon tent at the gated front of a Lube & Tune, setting up housekeeping for the night with the gravity of slaves.
After the meeting with Mark and Scotty, Jason had made some phone calls to other bankers he was acquainted with, just to test the job market. But before he could even drop a hint, the other guys let him know that they were looking too. They danced around the subject, positioning themselves and their banks, each of them not wanting the other to know exactly how dire a situation they were hoping to escape. But desperation nibbled at the edges of every word.
And then the homeless seemed to appear. Jason had exhausted every contact, every headhunter who had called him over the years, names Jason had kept out of amusement mostly. On the way home that night, the invisible street people seemed to materialize before his eyes. Why had he never noticed them before? They swarmed the streets.
The Acura passed into Beverly Hills, and Jason had the sense that the streets were paved with strange yellow bricks, swept clean overnight by munchkins no one ever saw. No homeless here---at least not today.
Billy steered into the underground lot and cruised to a vacant space. Before he could switch off the ignition, Jason was out of the car.
He waited for Billy at the elevator. When they entered and the doors sealed them inside, the silence of a tomb filled the space between them. Then the doors parted, and all the sounds of the office assaulted Jason's ears---voices, keyboards clacking, phones chiming. They reminded him that he was alive.
Billy left without a word.
Across the lobby, no one waited outside Jason's office. He knew without looking that Vince's office door would be crowded.
Brenda sat at her desk, her neck at a swan's angle. She was focused on her computer screen while her fingers tapped a flurry on the keyboard. Her blouse was trim against her ribs, and before she noticed him approaching he took in the shape of her.
She turned, and a moment later her fingers stilled. "Here you are."
A smile. A magnet for his eyes. She scooped up a couple of slips of paper and followed him into his office, crossed to his desk while he hung his jacket on the hanger behind his door. She waited for him at attention, feet together and hands at waist level with the small slips of paper in her manicured fingertips.
"I didn't write down every time she called." She held out the message slips.
Serena.
"How many?"
"Three. She doesn't like voicemail, does she?"
He didn't say anything about the messages Serena had left on his cell. He looked at the way Brenda had scrawled Serena's name on the slips of paper. The handwriting was precise, every angle measured. It could have been a computer script. But she'd dug the pen into the paper hard enough to nearly cut it. The first one had the date and time of the call noted, but the second one was blank except for the name. The S was darkened, stenciled over a couple of times, like she'd doodled it.
When he looked up again, Brenda was half-seated against the corner of his desktop, feet together and knees bent, palms on the desk with her arms straight to tilt her shoulders up.
Serena had cheated on him. She had stomped their marriage vows into the dirt. Why call her back? He owed her nothing.
Brenda's eyes glinted green with mystery. The space inside the room drew close.
He went to the door. Still no one waited outside to see him. He closed the door, and his jacket swung on the hook like an empty skin of him.
The latch on the doorknob drew his fingertips to it, and he twisted it to lock it.
He wadded up the slips of paper and threw them into the corner.
Brenda rested against his desk. She didn't look away. He approached her.
She stood to face him. Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths. Those eyes held his, determined.
Jason's knees prickled. Weakness plucked at them and threatened to take him to the floor.
His left hand rose from his side.
She took it.
"I've wanted you since I first saw you." Her voice was soft, earnest. "I knew I couldn't have you. I tried telling myself to let it go and move on. But nobody else would do. I kept comparing them to you. I couldn't help myself. It was like you were always there in the back of my mind, like something everybody else had to measure up to, and they couldn't get there." Brenda looked away from him for the first time. She had returned to her usual chair and sat with her usual posture, the desk separating her from him. But everything was different now. Jason had the taste of her lips on his, the feel of her arms around him leaving an impression of warmth deeper and more lasting than the sunlight angling in against his back.
She went on. "I remember the first time I saw you. It was right out there. I'd only been with the bank a week or so. I was up here with Margaret. She had a presentation to do with Mark and wanted me along. I saw you across the room, walking with a whole entourage around you. There was something about you. I just kept staring. It was embarrassing." She smiled, and the dimple in her right cheek was lovely.
The smile faded. "Jason, can we really do this? Please don't play with me. I couldn't bear that. But there's so much against us. The rules of the office, Serena---"
"Serena left me."
"But she keeps calling for you. I can tell by her voice she still feels for you."
"Forget Serena. Whatever she feels, she destroyed it with what she did. I don't want to talk about her."
Brenda nodded. "Okay. Okay. I'll never mention her again. I won't even give you her messages anymore."
"Good." Jason pushed Serena out of his mind. It was easy with Brenda so near.
"But it would be bad if they found out around here, wouldn't it? I know the HR rules, and you do too. They could fire us."
"We'll be careful."
"I could ask for a transfer."
"No. Don't do that. I need you here."
Her head tilted, and a blush rose through her face. The green of her eyes seemed to bore into him, compelling. Want for her erupted inside him.
He came out of his chair. Around the desk. It took forever. She rose to him and rushed into his arms again, the garden fragrance of her filling his senses, the warmth of her body against him. Her arms surrounded him, and her hands trembled against his back. Her face rose to him, close, the green in her eyes deep and mysterious as twin oceans, teeming with life and honesty and frailty.
They kissed. Delirious with her, Jason abandoned himself to the sensation of her against him and the texture of her mouth against his.
It was too much. Too much for this place.
He pulled away.
"What's wrong?" Brenda searched his face, her eyebrows rising to ask him what she'd done.
It occurred to Jason how fragile she was in this moment, and how careful he must be with her.
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong." He glanced at the door. From the position of the switch in the knob he could tell it was locked. But that wasn't enough. "Look," he said, touching her cheek with his fingertips, the softness of it as tender as the pale pink rose petal in its color. "I want you too. I want this. But more. And to have more, we have to be careful around here."
He pulled away. He plucked a tissue out of the box on his desk and handed it to her, pointed to her mouth.
Her lashes beat with embarrassment, and she dabbed at it. "What about you?" she said. "You don't usually wear lip gloss."
Jason laughed. He wiped off the gloss and realized that he hadn't laughed in weeks. "Tonight. What are you doing tonight?"
Brenda pressed herself into him and ran her hand down his arm to wrap his palm with hers. "Whatever you want." She didn't smile, just gazed into his eyes in a way that rattled his guts. Then she released him and went to the door, unlocked it, and returned to her desk.
\*
Jason looked at his watch again. It was almost four thirty.
He could sense Brenda's presence outside the door.
Eighteen unanswered e-mails spelled out their sender's names, subjects, and dates in boldface. Half of them had attachments. One was from Mark, two from Vince. It would take some time to get through them.
He glided his mouse to get the cursor over the Start icon and turned off the computer.
A hand to his lips, he considered the layout of the desks outside his office. Brenda sat ten feet from Angie Barrett's desk, and lenders were always hovering around. Anything he said to her out there would be overheard.
He slotted the laptop into his briefcase, then closed up a couple of files and dropped them in too. As if he would be working tonight.
Hands resting on the briefcase on his lap, he watched the doorway. Just a few feet outside it, she sat. He didn't hear her typing or her voice. If she'd gone somewhere, he would have heard the sound of her chair rolling against the floor and the scrape of her heels when she slid her feet around to stand. He would have heard one heel on the plastic sheet between the carpet and her chair before she stepped off it, and he might have heard her speak a word or two to Angie as she passed.
He took up the briefcase and went to the doorway. The briefcase had to go to the floor for him to retrieve his jacket from the hanger on the back of the door. He draped the jacket over one arm and leaned over to pick up the briefcase. He cleared his throat.
Rounding the corner, he saw her. She lifted her eyes to him.
Angie glanced up, then back to the paperwork before her.
"I'm taking off," he said to Brenda. "I have that appointment, then a dinner tonight." He shuffled his feet, glanced toward Angie. Angie's head stayed down. "You can go ahead and clear out if you don't have anything too pressing."
"Okay. Good night." She gave him nothing. No wink, no smile.
"Okay, then. See you."
Jason moved away from her desk. His feet acted like they didn't belong in his shoes. His movements felt as clumsy as a toddler's. At the elevator, he held his briefcase in both hands, then shifted it to his left and pulled his jacket over onto his other arm. Finally he draped the jacket over his shoulder.
The elevator let out a chime. The door was about to open.
"Jason."
No. Not now.
"Hey, Jason." Vince stood in his doorway. The Pillsbury Doughboy in a Brooks Brothers suit.
The elevator doors opened. Jason put out the hand with his jacket to hold the door open. "Yeah?"
Vince waved him toward his office and turned his back to him, his round bulk moving out of sight.
Jason sighed and shook his head. He let his hand drop, and the elevator doors slid closed. The whir of the car descended away.
He went to Vince's office. "What's up? I have a five o'clock appointment."
"Who with?"
Vince hadn't met the Northfield guys yet. It would be as safe as any other lie. "Ed Monroe."
"We need to go over a few things. I'll be here for a while. You can see me when you get back."
"I'll be late. We're going to dinner after. It'll have to be in the morning." Jason turned to go.
"You know, I still need to meet Ed. Why don't I clear my calendar---"
"Not this meeting. Next time." He walked out.
"Jason!"
He cursed under his breath and went back.
Vince met him at his office door. "Why not this meeting?"
"We're just going to go over third-quarter performance and grab a quick dinner. I'd rather do it later. You know, make a special appointment to introduce you."
"No, let's do it today. I'll clear my calendar. Be with you in a couple minutes." Vince went to his computer.
"All right. I'll call him and let him know you're coming." Jason marched across the lobby.
Brenda was away.
He picked up his phone and held it to his ear. Listening for anything that would signal Brenda's return to her desk, he tried to think through his options.
He dialed Ed Monroe's office. Ed's assistant picked up. The CEO was in New York meeting with investors.
Brenda still hadn't returned. He would have heard her, sensed her, even while talking with Ed's assistant.
Vince was waiting. With no Northfield appointment, any other excuse would be transparent. Jason's frustration mounted.
He could simply leave. Find Brenda. She'd said, "Anything you want." The words and the expression in her eyes took his frustration with Vince and wadded it into a ball of fury.
His fist pounded into his desktop. Outside, the sounds of the office paused momentarily, and then returned to their ordinary pattern. Jason stalked out of the office and across the lobby to Vince's lair.
"A meeting with investors is going long. He had to cancel."
Vince looked up, his usual expression of irritation in Jason's presence taking on the sneer of a man smelling rotten fruit.
Jason went on. "I'll reschedule for sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'll let you know."
Vince held his gaze for a minute, his mouth drawn tight, before turning to his computer and clicking his mouse a couple of times. "I'm pretty booked, but I'll see if I can move some things around. Sit." His fingers were like little sausages, pounding on the keyboard with a precision they had no business possessing. Another mouse click, and he leaned back in his chair. "Go ahead. Sit down."
The spot opposite Vince's desk felt too much like a visit to the principal's office. Jason took the seat at the table across the room. Vince had to rotate his chair to face him.
"Let's go through your September numbers. I didn't see much growth."
Not this conversation again. It was bad enough with Mark, but Jason heard every word out of Vince's mouth as if it were a bullet being loaded.
Jason stared at him. Vince's white hair was shorn like a sheep's. The scalp glistened through it. He'd started wearing it short after he moved his office here. Jason couldn't imagine why.
Vince spread his hands. "Well?"
"What do you want me to say that you don't hear in your pipeline meetings every Monday morning?"
"I want you to say you're working on a strategy to turn things around."
"Yeah, me and the president are working on turning around the economy."
"I don't want smart---"
"We're in the worst economy in seventy years, Vince. What kind of miracles do you expect?"
"The branches are still growing."
"Yeah. I've seen some of their deals. They look really solid."
Vince snorted. "They're new business. Approved by committee and booked. Nobody but you is making excuses."
It was about to come out. All of it. Jason's fury over everything Vince had done over the past six months was perched at the base of his throat.
Jason swallowed hard. "You're running every deal process. Every pipeline meeting. How am I supposed to get anything done? You tighten up everything we try to do until we lose it."
"Now who's not paying attention to the economy?"
"Your branches get deals done that are so loose you could drive a bus through the holes in the structure. Why is that, Vince? Why do you fight so hard for branch deals, but the ones this office pitches, you're down on? Let's hear it."
"Always somebody else's fault, isn't it, Jason? Never yours."
Jason beat a rhythm on the tabletop. "Are we about done here?"
"No." Vince slid a piece of paper across his desk. "Read that and sign it."
Jason would have to get up and walk to Vince's desk. He stayed put. "What is it?"
"A memo. For your file."
"My file."
Vince slapped a pen down on top of the piece of paper. "That's right. You need to sign it, evidence that we talked about it."
So this was what it was coming to. Vince was papering Jason's personnel file so he could fire him for cause.
Jason stood. He turned and walked out without saying another word.
From his space in the underground garage, Jason could see Vince's silver Jaguar XJ glistening in the fluorescent lights. He imagined what it would feel like to take a hammer to the hood.
That wasn't enough revenge. The man was trying to destroy his career. Trashing a car in return wouldn't cut it.
Jason reached for the ignition and switched on his engine. The tachometer rose and settled as the motor reached idle speed. Jason let the smooth rumble massage him while he stared at the rounded contours of Vince's Jag.
Papering his personnel file so they had a case to fire him. Vince could never get away with that without Mark going along with it. Scotty too, maybe. Well, they'd have trouble getting that through a wrongful termination lawsuit. Every performance review had been outstanding, and his promotions backed them up. It would take more than a couple of letters in his file to overcome that track record.
Jason tapped the steering wheel, the engine's groove rumbling through his bones.
No, the strategy wouldn't be to terminate him. They had to know about his legal connections and how risky and costly it would be to try to fire him. Vince was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. He wouldn't try a frontal assault. The letter was just another tool in his box, another way to make Jason miserable along with undermining his authority, stripping him of his team's loyalty, and weakening his customer relationships by injecting Vince into them.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to talk with an attorney.
His mind automatically went to Serena. Six months ago, he would have had her on the phone, and in an instant she would have been maneuvering for him, calling in chits with colleagues who were experts in wrongful termination. She would have had them firing off threatening letters to every executive at BTB from HR to the board of directors.
He shook his head. Serena was out of his life now. She'd found another lawyer to love. He would have to find another legal expert.
But somewhere in the city, Brenda waited for him. A smile surfaced. He revved the engine of his BMW and found his cell phone. Six messages. He tabbed through them and saw Brenda's number. She'd called twice while Vince was grilling him.
Her recorded voice in the first message brought the image of her face to his mind. "Hi, it's me. Brenda. Where are you? I saw you at the elevator leaving, and I know you didn't have an appointment. It was all I could do to sit still and not run after you." Her voice paused. In the background, he heard the clopping of her heels on concrete and pictured her walking along the sidewalk, phone pressing her ear tight and angling over the smooth contour of her jaw. "Call me. I want to know where we can meet. I'm waiting for you. Okay?"
She left the next message thirty minutes later. "Jason, please call. I'm starting to think . . . I don't want to say it. Just call me, please."
He deleted the messages and went back to the call log to find her number. He was about to press the button to connect.
A knock on his window.
His head shot to the left.
It wasn't Vince, chasing after him with the letter. A tall guy in a Hawaiian shirt leaned over and pressed an open wallet against the window, clicking a badge to the glass. A parole officer. The guy said something, but Jason couldn't hear him over the rumble of the engine. After a second, the guy lifted his hand next to the window and pointed downward. The badge went into his back pocket.
Jason set down the phone and lowered his window. "What do you want?"
"Turn off the engine and step out." The guy worked gum with the patience of a cow chewing cud. Jason didn't move. The guy grinned. "You're going to be like that, huh?"
"Yeah. I'm going to be like that. I'll give you thirty seconds to convince me I need to talk to you, then I'm out of here."
"Okay, Kahuna. Just tell me where to find your brother and I'll be out of your hair." A couple of pops of his gum punctuated his point.
"I have no idea."
"You haven't seen him."
"We're not exactly tight."
"But you knew he was out."
Jason paused. The surfer's grin was an insult. "In. Out. As long as he stays away from me, I don't care where he is."
"I'm going to ask you again. Have you seen him?"
"No."
"You're lying." The grin was gone. "Step out here so we can talk."
Jason shifted gears and released the parking brake. "We're done." He began to raise the window.
"Okay. I'll come back in the morning and hang around your office."
Jason turned to him.
"Talk to your boss, maybe. Some of your banker buddies. See if they've seen you hanging around with your felon brother." He patted the roof of Jason's car. "See you tomorrow."
The guy turned, and Jason was faced with the back panel of his shirt---surfboards, palm trees, hibiscus, dark-skinned girls in bikinis. The officer began to saunter away.
Jason clutched the steering wheel. "Hold on."
He turned. His grin was subtle as a slap. The gum popped like some native language. "Change your mind?" Back at the car, he put a hand on the roof. "There's a coffee shop across the street. You can buy me a Coke."
\*
Rosie wasn't working this late. Customers occupied only two of the twenty or so tables in the room.
The guy slid into a booth. "I'm Hathaway."
Jason sat opposite. "Let's get this over with."
Hathaway looked toward the counter. The waiter chatted with the fry cook through the opening to the kitchen. Hathaway cupped his tongue and whistled loud enough to startle every ear in the room.
The waiter said something to the fry cook and came over. He was skinny as a table leg. He brought a pad out from his back pocket. "All right. You got my attention."
Hathaway nodded at Jason. "He's buying me a Coke. You got any fries?"
"Sure, we got fries. This is America, isn't it?"
"You having anything?" Hathaway asked Jason.
"Just bring me some water."
The waiter raised an eyebrow. "Water."
Jason stared at Hathaway until the waiter tucked his pad away and angled himself back across the room. "So your Coke's on the way. Let's get to it."
Hathaway leaned back and drew an arm across the top of the booth. It caused the pictures on his Hawaiian shirt to accordion together in front. A native girl's head was now perched atop a red surfboard. "I'm not his PO. You want to know where his PO is?"
"If you're going to tell me, tell me."
"He's over in Brotman. Concussion. The docs are holding him for observation. Your little brother did that." Hathaway's laid-back attitude vanished. He brought his arm down and planted his elbows on the table. For the first time, Jason noticed that Hathaway's arms had some bulk to them. "I'm going to find him. Put him back inside. And you're going to help me."
The waiter brought two plastic glasses to the table, one filled with Hathaway's Coke and another filled with water. He put them both in the middle of the table and retreated.
"How am I going to help you if I don't know where he is or how to contact him? Even if I wanted to."
The PO stripped off the tip of the straw wrapper and took a sip of his Coke. "You know, I have a knack. You want to know what my knack is?"
Jason waited.
"My knack is, I can tell when people are lying to me. All the time. That'd probably be a good knack to have in your line of business, huh? You have that?"
"Sometimes."
"No, if it's sometimes you don't have it. I'm talking about all the time. Guy says to me he's been keeping the conditions of his parole when he's been hanging out with people he shouldn't, doing crack or something, I pick up on it right away. And these guys are good, too. They make lying an art form. But maybe his eyes shift a little too much. Maybe his color changes a little. Or maybe the words he uses, they're strung together weird. Could be anything. Even something I can't put my finger on. But I can tell."
Jason shoved the straw aside and lifted the glass to his lips. The tap water tasted of iron, but it was cool.
"You tell me you haven't seen your brother. You don't know if he's out or in. I can tell you're lying. Don't ask me how exactly, but I know."
The waiter was back with a plastic basket filled with steaming fries glistening with oil. He put them in front of Hathaway and set a ketchup squeezer in the center of the table.
Hathaway never took his eyes off Jason. "So then I have to ask myself, why would this guy lie? Maybe he's trying to protect his little brother. Or maybe he's just in a hurry. Or maybe he doesn't want to get dragged into anything. He's got a reputation to protect. Or it could be he's got something going with his little brother."
Jason snorted. "You've got quite an imagination."
"No. No imagination." Hathaway sprinkled salt over the fries and stuffed a trio of them into his mouth. He breathed in open-mouthed. "Hot." It didn't stop him from following up with another bunch of them. "Help yourself." He pushed the basket toward Jason.
"I told you---I haven't seen him. Your knack must be on the fritz."
"No, no. That's the thing, see? That's what makes it a knack. If it ever went on the fritz, it wouldn't be a knack. It'd just be luck. It's never been luck. It's always right. I can tell. Just now, when you said you haven't seen him, I had all kinds of buzzers and poppers going off in my head like an alarm system or something. You're lying. Have some fries."
Jason folded his arms. "I don't know what to tell you."
"Try the truth. Here, we'll work up to it. I'll help. You and Flip, you grew up in Inglewood. That right?"
"You know it's right."
"Good. Good. That's a start. Tell me about that. Give me some truth, just to prime the pump, get you used to talking straight."
"I don't want to talk about my childhood."
"Mom split when you and Flip were just kids, huh?"
Jason fought an urge to stand and walk out of the coffee shop. But he couldn't have this guy snooping around the office. Not with everything else going on.
"Why'd she leave, Jason? Flip too much to handle?"
"Get off her."
"Oh, so it wasn't her fault. What were you, nine? Ten? That'd make Flip seven or eight. Tough to have two boys around causing trouble all the time."
"We weren't causing trouble."
"Got it. Not your fault either. That leaves the old man. I know how that is. I'm divorced myself. You still married, Jason?"
There was a piece of skin on Jason's lip that he bit off.
"I see you got no wedding band, but your finger's slick there. You just take the ring off for special occasions, or are things a little rocky on the home front?"
Jason shook his head. "You're a real treat."
"Anyhow . . ." Hathaway brushed his hands together. Grains of salt bounced onto the tabletop. "Back to Mom and Dad. So Mom heads for the hills, leaves Dad to raise you and Flip. How'd that go?"
Jason looked at his watch. Five thirty. "I'm going to give you another five minutes. I'm already late for an appointment."
"An appointment? At this hour? Wow, you bankers sure keep different hours than the old days. Oh, it's a personal appointment." Hathaway sucked down some Coke. "Seems like I've been doing all the talking. You want to open up, go right ahead. I listen good too."
Jason watched Hathaway smack his lips. They stared at each other until the waiter returned with the check. Jason reached for it, found a ten dollar bill, set it on the table. "Well, it's been a pleasure, but I have to get going."
"No. Not yet. One more thing. Your secretary. Kathy something."
"Russell. Kathy Russell."
"Right. Her kid got murdered."
"I'm aware of that."
"Right after your little brother got out on parole."
Jason didn't speak.
Hathaway smiled. He pointed at Jason. "You see there? It's a knack, I'm telling you. And the best part? I can tell somebody's lying even when they don't talk." He snickered to himself. "No. You know what? I just decided. It's not a knack. It's a gift. That's what it is. From now on, it's a gift."
"How can I be lying if I'm not talking?"
"I want to know what you're hiding, Dunn. Why you're protecting him." Hathaway squinted, tilted his head back, eyes still on Jason. "You're afraid of him, aren't you?"
"I have to get going."
"Just a minute. Let's get this covered. I don't want to have to bother you during business hours. You're afraid of Flip. I can understand that, the stuff he's done. He's a bad dude, man. I looked at his C file."
Hathaway paused. Jason didn't even want to ask what a C file was.
With an open mouth, a hand to his chin, thumb stroking underneath, Hathaway said, "That rap sheet. Started when he was seventeen. Makes you nineteen when Flip got sent up the first time."
"That's right."
"Must've been pretty embarrassing, having a brother get sent up."
"We managed."
"Sure. You and Dad. You and Dad." Hathaway seemed to be thinking over the words. "Always you and Dad against Flip, huh?"
"No. It wasn't like that."
"I think it was. I think Flip was the outsider. You and dad were connected. Flip, not so much. It happens in families." Hathaway held up his glass and rattled it around and got the waiter's attention so he didn't have to resort to the whistle.
Jason slid to the edge of the booth. He had to get out. "Enough. I'm late."
Hathaway set the glass back on the table. "What I don't get is, what was Flip doing in that bar down there at the age of seventeen?" A grin crept across his face. "It had something to do with you."
The new moon like a hammer ding in black iron was wedged in the corner of the sky. Only the lights along Venice Boulevard cast Flip's shadow, multi-parted, circling around him as he moved over the concrete.
Cars streamed endlessly past him on the boulevard. From underneath the bill of his cap, Flip watched them pass, his eyes the only part of him shielded from the offense of the streetlights. A constant rushing droned behind the noise on Venice---traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway two blocks away, the volume of engines and tires, cargo, exhaust, Harleys, and semis, never ceasing.
He needed one of these cars. The city was choked with them, every asphalt artery clotted with them. It crawled with their movement. They darted across intersections and crowded one another through veins of pavement without a heart.
With a car, Flip wouldn't be so conspicuous. Anonymous behind the glass and metal, he could be like the rest of the Angelenos, hurtling from light to light, shouldering and bumping in and out of lanes. Driving was the means of escape.
That's what he needed. Lurking the streets, ducking in and out of bars and motels, he felt the shape of his body and the contours of his face as betrayals. Somewhere, Tom Cole looked for him. LAPD would be after him. Every cop in the county would have him on some kind of list. He needed to get out.
And money was becoming a problem. The few bucks Diane shoved in his pocket were gone the next day, and he refused to ask her for any more.
Diane. How could he leave without her? His mind orbited around her constantly. Visions of her drifted in and out of his awareness through parting clouds of the reality that surrounded him, taunting him with a desire that seethed in his every cell. Nothing could snuff it out. He woke with it in the morning. It was in every morsel of food he tasted. Every step across a floor or sidewalk brought a thought of distance lengthened or shortened from her. A glimpse of a blonde on the street or in a car---any appearance marginally close to hers---would stir him to follow until he exhausted the possibility it was Diane. Then his excitement would turn plain mean.
He marched in this state down Venice Boulevard. A sole pedestrian in a city of drivers. The faces behind the wheels of passing cars would look in his direction, superior glances at the man on foot.
He hated them.
A door stood open on his right. Next to it, a man taller than Flip guarded it, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He watched Flip, his lip curled, eyes squeezed by brows intended to look fearsome. Or maybe his eyesight was bad. Music and laughter bounced through the doorway. Someone shouted inside.
Flip looked at the passing cars. Ahead, a light flashed from green to yellow. He could walk up to the intersection and see if any of the drivers had left their doors unlocked.
But this guy standing there like he could stop somebody from entering, this was tempting.
Flip stood across the sidewalk from him.
The bouncer let his hands drift out of his pockets and crossed his arms. Flip looked more closely at the man's face. On the left, under the eye, where the bone should cut a neat angle, swelling puffed the skin. And a scar pocked his jaw under his left ear.
"This your full-time job? Standing out here?"
The bouncer let one eye narrow. Another menacing look. It made Flip want to grin.
Flip pointed toward the scar. "Guy wore a ring---guy who caught you on the jaw."
"You should see how he looks."
Now Flip did grin. "Why'd you let him hit you twice?"
A couple of girls stepped out of the bar: twenties, dressed for clubbing, showing leg. They glanced at Flip and the bouncer, dug into their purses, found cigarette packs, and stepped along the wall just a few paces from the door.
The bouncer looked back to Flip. "I can't let you in."
At the intersection, the light turned from green to yellow again. Flip held his eyes on it until it switched to bathe the street in a red hue. Back to the bouncer. He took a step toward him and sensed the eyes of the girls on him. Closer now, he could see the stubble poking out of the bouncer's cheeks and chin. He ran his gaze over the guy's chest and arms, back up to the eyes, and spoke low. "If I wanted in, I'd be in already."
One of the girls whispered something, and they giggled. Flip looked at them and they looked away.
Time to move on.
He was nearly past the girls when the bouncer spoke up. "Hey. Come here a minute."
A Buick whispered along the street. The driver's gray hair shone in the lights from the dash, and Flip saw the lock button extended high on the passenger side. The car slowed for the red light ahead. He couldn't jack it with the bouncer and the girls so close.
He circled back. "Yeah?"
"You got any better clothes than that? Something make you look a little more presentable?"
"Why?"
The bouncer didn't look sure about this, but he went on. "Mr. B, he maybe could use you. But you got to dress different if I'm going to introduce you."
"You think I want a job taking punches?"
"Looks like you've taken a few. Why not get paid for it?"
"Not interested."
"Mr. B's got other stuff happening. But if you're not interested, keep on walking. I can see you're pretty busy."
Flip watched a Honda pass, then an Expedition. That Expedition would be some wheels for him. Take him far away.
Diane's face surfaced in his mind. Her eyes, her lips. He turned to the bouncer. "What's your name?"
"Ronny."
"I come back here later, you going to be around, Ronny?"
"Sure thing. Mr. B'll be here by midnight. But dress good."
\*
"Jason, please call. Just let me know you're okay. That's all I need now. I'll stop bothering you if you'll just let me know you're okay." Brenda's recorded voice paused. His eyes trained on the road ahead, Jason listened for background noises but heard nothing. Then the message ended. The automated voice of the attendant came on, and Jason's thumb went to the number seven to delete the message.
He glanced up to the cars ahead of him and back down to scroll through his contacts list to retrieve Brenda's number from the call log. When it was highlighted, he pressed the phone icon.
He looked up. Brake lights. Streaming toward him at fifty miles an hour.
He stomped on the brake pedal and clutch at once, cinched the steering wheel to the right. A horn blasted from the rear. He braced himself for impact, but it didn't come.
His BMW came to a stop ten feet ahead of the car he'd been following, in the lane to its right. High-beam headlights flooded his car from behind. The horn kept blaring, and pretty soon a shouting voice joined it.
His headset had fallen to the floor. In the flickering light from the headlights strobing his car, he found the headset and plugged it back into his ear.
"Brenda? Are you there?" He thought he heard something, but the horn behind him drowned out everything. He fingered the headset harder into his ear.
The car in the next lane moved past him, and he realized the light ahead was green. He shifted, and halfway through the intersection the guy behind him finally eased off the horn.
"Brenda?"
Her voice caressed his ear. "Now can you hear me?"
"Yeah. Look, Vince cornered me when I was trying to leave. Then this . . . this other . . . I couldn't get away. I'm sorry." The words gushed out. His voice sounded miserable. He took a breath. "Where are you?"
"I'm glad you're okay. I thought you had second thoughts. About us. Then I thought maybe something had happened to you, and I got scared."
Jason slowed for another light. The guy in the next lane wouldn't let him off the hook. He kept screaming and honking. Jason held up a finger to him but didn't bother looking. The thought of Brenda worrying over him brought a smile to his face. "I'm fine. No second thoughts at all. Anything but. I'm heading east on Wilshire. Where are you?"
"I'm home. Do you know the way?"
"I've got your address here, I think. Hold on." Trying to look back to the road every few seconds, he brought up the phone's contacts list again. Here it was. He read the address to her.
"That's it. You probably need to turn around."
She was right. He looked over his shoulder, checked the distance of oncoming traffic, and downshifted. Cranking the wheel to the left, he swung the Bimmer across Wilshire and left the screaming driver leaning on his horn again.
"I'll be there as soon as I can. Do you want me to bring anything? Dinner?"
"I couldn't eat. How far away are you?"
"Just coming up on La Cienega."
"Jason---hurry."
"You're going to make me start running red lights."
"Run them."
He slowed for the red light at the intersection. A freight truck was ahead of him, the flat rectangle of the panel shouting at him with an advertisement for shellfish. The left turn lane was empty. Cross-traffic was thick. He moved into the left turn lane, saw his opening, and downshifted to blow through the intersection.
Horns blared, but he was through.
"One down."
"Be careful. I hear horns."
He was ten feet tall in the car, chest big as a house. A grin spread uncontrollably across his face. "The lights are stacking up ahead of me. I'm getting off this street." On the other side of the road, a metro bus lumbered in his direction, behind it a wave of cars and SUV's. Jason floored the gas and crossed the lanes to speed ahead of the oncoming bus. The horn was an animal growl behind him, receding.
"Jason!"
"Just a bus, honey. No worries."
"Honey?"
"You don't like that?"
"I like it lots."
Jason sped through the residential neighborhood south of Wilshire like he was being chased. There was barely room for his BMW between the parked cars on either side of the street. "I'm coming down Swall. How much farther?"
"I don't know where Swall is."
He blew through a stop sign. Another. "Coming south. Olympic's coming up."
"All the way up past Olympic still?"
He gunned the engine. Olympic came at him, six lanes of it, traffic scissoring in both directions. He slowed, downshifted, saw an opening in the westbound lanes the size of a go-cart and gunned the Bimmer to wedge in. More horns.
"Jason, get here safely. But hurry."
Another red light mocked him ahead. He slid between the slow drivers on the way to the intersection and knifed into a break southbound.
"I never knew there were so many different horns out there."
"Where are you?"
"Coming down Doheny."
"You're getting close. Hurry."
Another five minutes, and he was there, cursing the lack of parking. He found a spot a block from her apartment and started running, his cell phone still live.
"I see your building."
"I'm buzzing you in."
He hit the front of the building, yanked the door open, found the stairs.
A door opened in the stairwell above. "Jason!"
He took the stairs two at a time. "Yeah!" Her footfalls beat toward him. Then he saw her. First her feet, bare, padding on the concrete stairs down to him from above, slender feet, pale, nails clear and shining. And then he could see the rest of her, her skirt flapping around her knees. One hand slid down the banister. That face. Those eyes.
"Brenda," was all he could say before they collapsed into one another. He couldn't breathe. Her heartbeat fluttered against his chest. Her hands moved over his neck and caressed his head, and he held her there in the silent concrete stairwell.
At ten till midnight, Ronny the bouncer watched the guy come up Venice Boulevard from the same direction as before. His walk hadn't changed. It still looked like he was angry with the sidewalk the way he lurched along, hands swinging at his sides, busy, flexing, as if they wanted something to do other than hang there. It was what Ronny had first noticed about him. It had set him on edge, expecting trouble.
But now that he was coming back, Ronny was anything but edgy.
He came close enough for Ronny to make out what he was wearing. No jacket, replaced with a sweater that didn't look like too many moths had feasted on it. The faded black jeans had become a pair of tan cotton pants with folds in them showing that they'd just come off a rack someplace. Apparently the work boots were the only shoes he had.
It would have to do.
He approached Ronny, gave a look around, swiped his cap off, bunched it, and stuffed it in his back pocket. He stared up at Ronny's face. "I see you haven't stopped any more punches the last couple hours."
It would be hard to tell if this guy had. His nose looked like a mushroom. With the cap off, Ronny could see the scar that ran above his right eye up to where it disappeared into his hairline. His black hair was a mat, short enough to stay uncombed.
"You better tell me your name."
The guy took a second. When it came, it would be a lie. Finally, he said, "Frank. Frank Duncan."
"Uh huh. All right. Come on." Ronny led him into the club. As they moved inside, the beat of the Velvet Underground pulsed louder against his eardrums and flesh, Lou Reed's vocals swooning through the room.
At the far end of the club, Kyle leaned against a booth. Ronny waved to him to cover the door like they'd talked about. Kyle pushed off from the booth and wound his way past them, his eyes taking in Frank---or whatever his real name was.
Mr. B's booth still sat empty, his coaster from Mandalay Bay the only evidence that he'd ever been anywhere near it. He hadn't shown his face on the club floor for nearly a week now. Ronny checked to make sure Frank followed. Silent as a bug, the thug in his Sunday best shadowed him.
Mr. B would be in his office. Ronny threaded his way through the crowd toward the back, past the booths, past the bar, past the private rooms with Mr. B's Andy Warhol prints flashing their colors. The restrooms marked with male and female symbols were the last public parts of the club. He pushed through the unmarked door and into the hallway leading to the kitchen in one direction and an alleyway exit in the other. Before him was Mr. B's office door with a sign that read PRIVATE in gold block letters.
He stopped outside the door. In the old days, he would walk on in. But now it would be locked. He turned to the guy who called himself Frank.
"Listen. I don't care what your real name is. But what I told Mr. B---this is what you need to go along with---I know you from before. We used to run together in the city. San Francisco. Can you remember that?"
Frank's expression didn't change. It was as if the scar that angled up his forehead made him unable to register anything. "Why'd you tell him that?"
"Give him confidence in you. You want a job, right?"
"Depends. I'll meet the guy."
One of the waiters came out of the kitchen and made for the door to the restrooms. Once the waiter got a look at Frank, he moved a little more quickly past them.
Ronny waited until the door swung behind the waiter. "Look," Ronny said, "this will be quick work. Good pay."
"I'll listen to him." Frank leaned past Ronny and knocked on the door to Mr. B's office.
"Who is it?" Not Mr. B's voice. Garrett's.
"It's Ronny. I brought the guy I told him about."
Ronny waited. Back in the club, Patti Smith's voice moaned out "About a Boy." A Nirvana song would be next. Finally the door unlocked and opened. Garrett stood there trying to block them out while he used the eye that wasn't puffed closed to look over the new guy.
"Who's been beating everybody up?" Frank asked. He pushed inside. Garrett winced as Frank brushed against him.
Mr. B sat at his desk, wearing the same tired-eyed expression Ronny had seen on his face for the past week. His eyes might as well have been punched out for the darkness of the circles underneath them. Raccoon man---that's what he was.
He looked at the new guy. "Yeah, I see what you meant, Ronny. Come on over." Mr. B stood, a cigarette trailing smoke from his fingertips like a lit fuse. He held out the other hand.
Frank didn't shake it. "See what?"
Raccoon man grinned, eyes slitting. "Nothing. Here, you want a drink?" He pointed at the vodka bottle sitting on his desk. "Get him a glass, will you?"
Garrett turned for the cupboard.
"I don't want a drink. Just tell me about the job."
"Sure, sure. All business. I like that." Mr. B lifted his own glass off the desk and took a shot, refilled it, and went to the sofa across the room while he inserted the cigarette between his lips.
The new guy pivoted, effortless as an electric fan. Ronny had the impression that this one could crouch into a boxing stance anytime.
Mr. B dropped onto the sofa. He looked like he was about to ask the guy to sit, but thought better of it. "You need a job, huh?"
"What I need is cash."
"Right. Sure. That's the point, isn't it?" Mr. B liked this guy. Ronny saw it in the attitude of Mr. B's shoulders, the way his shadowed, red-rimmed eyes held on the new guy. "See, I got this problem, and my guys can't seem to deal with it."
"That why they're walking around with their faces tattooed?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Tattooed faces. That's a good one." He tried to get Garrett or Ronny to go along. Ronny didn't think it was such a good one.
"So what's the problem?"
Mr. B sat back. His knees bounced. A few drops of vodka splashed onto his pants. "Five nights ago, this guy comes in looking for me. I never seen him before. I don't know who he is. But he's got some kind of problem with me. Garrett here comes in, tells me the guy wants to see me. I don't know him, so naturally I tell G to get rid of him. You see what happened."
"Tattoos."
"Right. Ronny jumps in, but they still can't handle him between the two of them. Plus I got a bartender with a broken arm; he can't pour drinks. Anyway, the guy finally leaves, but he's back the next night."
"Bad for business. What time does he usually come in?"
Mr. B leaned forward again. He pointed at the new guy with two fingers scissoring the cigarette. "No nonsense. Just get to the point. See that, fellas?"
"Yeah, we see," Ronny said. It was fine. Let him like the new guy.
"No set time. Usually after midnight." Mr. B switched his glass to the cigarette hand so he could look at his watch without dumping vodka onto his lap.
"What do I get paid?"
Mr. B looked to Garrett, then to Ronny, then back to the new guy. "We haven't even talked about what you're going to do yet."
The guy who called himself Frank took a step forward. For some reason, seeing the work boots on the Persian carpet reminded Ronny of some of the punkers he'd known---guys who wore the heavy boots and spiked their hair and had pierced noses and ears and tongues. But Frank had no decorations other than the old scar on his face.
"You don't want this guy coming around anymore. It's not hard to figure out."
"Yeah, but---"
"What do I get paid?"
"People have seen him in here. Anything happens to him, it looks bad on me. That's the tricky part."
"Nothing ties you and me. You pay me, you don't have anything to worry about. He's gone. I'm gone." He glanced at Ronny. "You don't even know my name. I'm just a guy who happens to be in your bar and pops off on this troublemaker that comes in." For the first time, he raised his hands. They were big hands, unnatural. They could have come out of a blacksmith's tool chest. He brushed the palms together twice and lifted them outward as if it was already a finished transaction.
Mr. B's fingertips came up to his chin. Cigarette smoke snaked into his eyes, narrowing them.
"All I want to know is how much you pay me."
Mr. B glanced at Ronny. Took a drag. "I'll give you two now, another two in a month when he doesn't come around anymore."
"Two what?"
"Two thousand."
The new guy stared at him. "That all this is worth to you? Holed up in here like a scared rabbit? You got a family?"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"He comes around here, what keeps him from showing up where you live?"
"Yeah, I thought of that. They're out of town for a while."
"You got to get your life back to normal. That's worth more than four thousand for a guy like you."
Mr. B sucked the cigarette down to the filter, winced, and stuffed it into an ashtray. He stood and found the pack on his desk, shook out a fresh one, and got it lit with a lighter that he had to use two hands to hold steady. "I'll make it six."
"I'll do it for eight. Four now. Four when Ronny here tells you your life's back to normal. It won't take a month."
Mr. B drew on the cigarette like it gave him life instead of the opposite. Smoke came out of his mouth in staccato puffs. This Frank guy really had him twisted up. Or was it what he was agreeing to?
"All right. Okay." He sat in his desk chair and leaned over to get to the floor safe. In a few seconds, Ronny heard the lid clunk back onto the floor, the shuffle of paper bills, and then the slap of the lid closing again. Mr. B straightened up, a wad of hundreds in his hand. "I don't know you. You don't know me. You come into my place a couple of times, then you get into a fight with this guy. That's all I know. You'll get your second four from Ronny."
Mr. B put the bills on the desk and reached for the vodka bottle. The stuff gushed into the glass, and when he set the bottle on the desktop, it rattled on the wood. He took the glass and his cigarette back to the sofa without looking at the new guy again. As if by not looking at him, he could forget he knew him.
The new guy who called himself Frank took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. He left the office without bothering to close the door behind him. Through the open doorway Kurt Cobain's voice shouted, "Stay away. Stay away. Stay away."
"What's this scary monster look like?" Flip could barely hear his own voice with the music so loud. All these people shouted at each other or leaned close to try to hear and be heard.
Across from him in the booth, Ronny didn't touch the glass of club soda sweating onto the tabletop in front of him. After a second he leaned forward. "You'll know him when he comes in. Big. Shaved head. My height. Got about thirty, forty pounds on me. Looks like a guy you'd see in a nuthouse. Got tattoos on his face, a tattoo around his right arm, up here." He pointed to his bicep. "And some other tattoo on the left arm I never got a good look at."
"All you got a good look at was his fist, huh?"
"I can't wait to see how your mouth runs when he comes in."
Flip sipped his coffee. It had cooled, but the taste wasn't too rotten.
Nobody in the place looked anything like the guy Ronny described. They were all dressed for the party, dangling beer bottles or clutching glasses, circling one another like packs of hyenas around a kill. Flip tried to keep his eyes pinned to the front door, but they kept drifting to the clubbers, the way they faked interest in one another, their real motives so obvious.
The front doorway filled. A man's frame blocked the blackness of the night. He stood hunched, the top of his head too high for the door, surveying the room. Moving in now, the tattoos on his face masked him. Flip couldn't make out the words stenciled there, but the uneven bursts of olive around the brow and eyes told him the tats were homemade---prison-made.
Like something from an enlarged world, Tats moved through the crowd. He was too big to slide between the groups of littler people crowded around, but he didn't seem to have any interest in moving between them anyway. He knocked three people aside before a guy spoke up. The big man wrapped his hand around the guy's face and shoved him to the floor.
People started for the door.
Flip knotted his hands together under the table and popped his back. His hands felt shrunken. He said to Ronny, "On your toes, bouncer boy," and slid out of the booth.
Without another glance at Tats, Flip headed for the back. Ronny called after him, but he didn't answer.
The office door was locked again. He pounded on it.
"It's me. Let me in."
A couple of clicks echoed in the hallway, and the door opened. Garrett looked out over Flip's shoulder. "What?"
Flip pushed past him. Mr. B leaned forward in his office chair. Flip had the four thousand in his hand. He slapped it onto the desk. "Deal's off." He turned to leave.
"Hey. Wait a minute. What do you mean, deal's off?" Mr. B's voice reached a pitch Flip hadn't heard before.
Flip faced him. "Job's too big. Eight's not enough. There's your four back." He turned to Garrett. "You better get busy. He's out there."
Shouts came from the front. Glass shattered.
Garrett shifted his feet, looked to Mr. B.
"I'll make it ten. Ten thousand."
Flip grinned at him. "You'll make it twenty, or he's going to be standing where I am in about three minutes."
Mr. B's lips clenched. His eyes shifted to the doorway. "All right. All right. Twenty."
A crash from outside. That would be Ronny getting taken out.
"I'll take ten now," Flip said. "You better hurry. About a hundred yuppies are calling 911."
"He's always gone before the cops get here." Mr. B scrambled for the safe under his feet and came up with six to add to the four on the desk. "Hurry up." Flip scooped up the cash and left the room.
The slam of the office door almost caught his heel. He heard it lock behind him as he made for the rear exit.
In the alley, he leaned against the wall. Tats would probably be on his way toward the back by now.
Ten thousand for watching a big guy shove into a bar. Not a bad night's work.
Or, he could face him for another ten.
The alley ended at a side street. It would run back up to Venice Boulevard. That would be the smart thing. Just take the ten thousand and call it a night.
But Flip's blood pumped hard. All the old feelings swept through him, feelings from other streets, from the yard at Lancaster. From the room behind a bar a long, long time ago. It charged him, fed him.
He shoved away from the wall. At the end of the alley he circled up to Venice. The guy who'd taken Ronny's place at the front of the club was long gone. Nobody was around. Flip leaned inside.
Ten minutes ago the place had been packed. Now it was empty. Except for Ronny, sprawled unconscious across broken lumber that used to be a table. The music that had been so loud before was silenced. With the place deserted and the music gone, Flip had the sense he was walking into a bar in a ghost town.
In back, he heard a muffled crash. That would be the door to Mr. B's office splintering apart.
He moved faster.
At the door past the restrooms, he listened. He opened it slowly and looked around the edge.
Garrett flew out and bounced off the hallway wall. He left a head-shaped dent in the plaster and slumped into a heap like laundry.
Flip moved in. He swirled his tongue around in his mouth. Dry.
Mr. B was trying to keep the desk between him and Tats. It wasn't going to work. The big guy, his back to Flip, shoved the desk toward Mr. B.
The owner's eyes shot around, caught Flip's. "Do something!"
So much for surprise.
Tats looked over his shoulder. He was leaning over to grip the edges of the desk with both hands, his wide back strained at his black T-shirt. Another shove and he had Mr. B pinned to the wall.
Tats's eyes held on Flip. "You going to try me?" The voice was absurdly high. It belonged to a dwarf.
Flip smiled. "How'd you get by inside with a voice like that? All those tats help, or are you just get used to getting turned out?"
The bald head tilted. Flip could now make out the face tattoo. The markings around his eyes looked like a child's drawing of the sun. The words under the skin would put him in the segregation unit anyplace.
Mr. B struggled like a bug pinned to a kid's piece of cardboard. He pushed against the desk, but Tats held it solid.
That high voice spoke again. Tats's eyes were on Flip, but he was talking to Mr. B. "Why you bring me this lop?" He glanced to Mr. B, back to Flip. "Hang on, boy. I be with you in a second."
Flip laughed at him. "I'm sorry, man. You sound like a little girl."
"Keep it up, punk."
Flip's face leveled. He stepped in.
Tats turned his back to Mr. B and straightened up. He had a long neck. Flip liked the look of it.
Mr. B pushed the desk away. It hit the back of the big guy's legs and for an instant threw him off balance.
Flip tensed his left fist. Tats grinned. Flip spun everything into a right aimed for the Adam's apple.
He hit it flush.
Flip pulled back. He ducked to his right.
Tats tried to swallow. His eyes popped wide. He staggered. His neck muscles tightened.
Flip swung for the nose.
Tats slapped it away and came at Flip like a brick wall falling.
Close now, Flip could use the point of his elbow.
He went for the neck again.
Caught it.
Tats's face contorted. The tattoo around his eyes scrunched.
But he kept coming, choking.
Flip twisted, trying to get out of the way. Tats was too wide. A hand caught Flip's shoulder and held him. The big guy tumbled toward him. Flip pushed back, but he was under a tidal wave. He swung, no target, no aim---hit something.
The floor rose. It slammed into him.
Crushed, on his side, Flip squirmed. His right shoulder was in a vise. Tats was sputtering, choking on his own windpipe. Flip shoved against the floor.
The big guy lifted a hand. Flip couldn't get space to wriggle free. He threw an elbow, caught the big guy's cheek. That hand was coming.
Flip tried to duck.
The fist landed like a sledgehammer on Flip's forehead. Stars exploded behind his eyes. He slipped his arms up, covered his head.
But the second punch didn't come.
The noises from Tats's throat sounded like a kid coughing far away. That little girl's voice wasn't forming any words.
Flip rolled out from under him and scrambled to his feet. He needed the wall. One hand pressed against it. The wall kept wanting to drift away. Pinpoints of light floated around the room. Flip passed a hand across his eyes to wipe away the wetness forming there.
Stretched out on the floor, Tats's feet scraped like he wanted to climb sideways. He took up the whole floor.
Mr. B came around the desk. He stared at Flip, chest heaving. "You . . . you . . ." He stood out of the big guy's reach, feet dancing, and looked down at him. The big guy wrestled with his own throat. "Did you kill him?"
Flip leaned against the wall. No amount of blinking would clear his vision. "Give me the other ten."
Mr. B ignored him. He leaned over, still out of the big guy's reach. "She wanted it!"
Tats couldn't respond. His gagging made Flip think he wanted to, but no other noise would come.
"Give me my money." His own voice was a floating croak. The throb in his forehead gained power with the settling of his adrenaline.
"She wanted it---you hear me? You hear me?"
The big guy slowed.
Flip came away from the wall.
Mr. B straightened. "You did good. Real good."
Flip stood over him. "The money."
"Sure. Sure. He's dying." Giddy laughter quaked his words. "This is the last thing he's going to hear." He bent over him again. "She wanted it!"
Flip balled his fist. "Who wanted it?"
Mr. B grinned. "Never mind. Help me move this desk."
Flip watched him cross back to it, put two hands on one edge.
Tats struggled against the floor, but he was losing.
Mr. B said, "Help me with this." He nodded to the desk. "Hey, you want your money or not?"
"You deserved it. What he was going to do. Didn't you?"
Mr. B gave up waiting for Flip to help and bent to the desk, shoved it until the safe was exposed. "What's 'deserved'?"
"Who's this she you keep yelling about?"
Mr. B worked at the combination on the floor safe. "Don't worry about it." Louder, he yelled, "Just his strung-out, dead, junkie daughter!"
Flip looked to the big guy in his death throes on the wooden floorboards. Nothing could be done. By the time an ambulance got here, he would be gone.
Those sirens he heard would be cops.
He moved closer to Mr. B.
The safe door flapped open. Mr. B reached inside. He kept his eyes on Flip. His hand came out. But it didn't hold a pile of bills.
Flip dove at him.
A gunshot exploded. Wide. Flip went for the hand that held the gun. He twisted Mr. B's arm like a dishtowel. Mr. B grunted. The gun clattered onto the hardwood.
An elbow to Mr. B's face sent him to the floor. Flip picked up the gun. "Get in the corner."
Mr. B's eyes teared up. Blood spread over his mouth out of both crushed nostrils.
Flip pointed the gun at him. "Now."
Mr. B crawled to the corner on his knees and one hand, the other held to his nose as if he could straighten it out. Flip knelt at the safe, kept the pistol pointed at Mr. B. Inside he found papers but not cash. He took the papers out and set them on the floor.
Mr. B sat in the corner, cursing him.
"Where's the rest of my money?"
Mr. B's answer didn't have anything to do with money.
Flip rose and went to the corner. He shoved the muzzle into Mr. B's temple. "They're going to find your brains all over that wall."
"Wait. Wait." Both hands came up, smeared with the blood from his nose. "It's there. You have to slide the shelf over. It's there."
Flip returned to the safe and found the lip of a shelf on one side of the compartment and drew it in. It was there all right. And a lot more. He wadded all of it into his pockets and stood. The pockets were large, but they barely held the bundles of cash.
The papers looked interesting. He folded them in half and tried to stuff them in his back pocket. He'd forgotten his cap was back there. Putting it on made his swollen forehead smart even more. He jammed the papers in his pocket and went to the door.
The voices of cops echoed in the empty bar.
Behind him, Mr. B said, "You better watch your back. I'll be looking for you."
Flip pointed the pistol at him. Mr. B ducked. Flip didn't fire.
He took one last look at Tats. Stretched out wall-to-wall, he wasn't struggling anymore. It was too late to make it right. Killing Mr. B wouldn't help.
Flip ducked out. He made it through the exit door and into the alley without seeing anyone.
Jason awoke in Brenda's bed and felt Serena standing in the room with them, behind him.
No. It was absurd. She couldn't be here. Not here in Brenda's apartment with the front door bolted. Not now.
"Jason, what's wrong?" Brenda's hands moved to his shoulders. Her fingertips flamed on his skin.
Serena's eyes, the force of her character, her intellect always a step ahead of him---she was there.
Jason took his eyes off Brenda and looked over his shoulder.
"What is it, Jason?"
He rolled away from her.
Brenda came up on one elbow and stroked his head with her other hand. "Did I do something wrong?"
He turned to her. She'd wanted the lights off. Her modesty made her even lovelier to him. He'd insisted on leaving the lights on so he could see what he took in now in the softer light coming through the window. The green of her eyes, lashes long and flickering. Her skin luminescent. Just below her collarbone a single mole like a pinpoint of chocolate in cream.
"There's nothing wrong with you," he said. "You're perfect."
She lifted the sheet, and her face flushed delicately. "Then what's wrong?"
"I just . . ."
Her hair was tousled, pressed and combed by his own fingers. He let his hand rise to it, allowed his fingertips the pleasure of touching it.
She took that hand, kissed the palm, held it to her cheek. "It's okay, Jason. Whatever it is. We'll make it okay."
Brenda shifted toward him and brought his arm around her.
But Serena's presence still loomed. In spite of Brenda's skin on his, her citrus fragrance in his nostrils, the taste of her on his lips, he sensed Serena here, haunting him. He told himself that what had happened to their marriage was not his fault. It was hers. Serena had done this herself. The proof wasn't debatable. Forget her denials. She had cheated on him.
Brenda lifted her face to him. "I wish it could always be like this."
He stroked her shoulder, smooth like a china cup. "Me too."
"Really? I'm not just . . . you know."
"Of course not." He kissed her forehead.
"There's a lot of complications."
"Yeah."
"But we can make it okay, Jason. Can't we?"
"Sure we can."
Serena argued against it. Silently, invisibly, her presence debated him as forcefully as she would if her legal mind could voice its argument here and now. Her first exhibit would be their marriage license. She would call every witness who had sat through their ceremony. Before a judge, she would repeat the vows they'd taken. Till death do us part. Till death.
But when she took a lover, she'd put to death the marriage itself. That was the death that parted them. She'd surrendered her rights as a wife when her arms went around Pete Rossi. Jason had evidence. After what she'd done, she had no right to interrupt this moment of happiness.
He turned to Brenda. "We can make it work. We just have to be careful."
Close now, her hot breath mingled with his. "We'll be careful. No one will know."
"They can't know. I'd be fired. I'm already on shaky ground."
She backed away an inch. "What do you mean?"
"Never mind. It's not important."
"Of course it's important. It's your career."
Across the room, the clothes he'd worn all day at the office were draped over a chair. From the floor next to the chair, his shoes gleamed dimly.
Brenda's hand on his chest brought him back. "What do you mean about the shaky ground?"
He sighed. "Let's not get into it. Okay?"
Thumping steps elsewhere in the building drew closer and faded away. At any hour of day or night in LA, someone was always moving around and disturbing the peace. He looked at his watch. The display read 2:30.
"Don't go. I won't ask any more questions about work. I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay. It's just this city. Something's always grinding away out there. It never stops. I was just thinking it would be great to get away."
"You were?" Brenda reached for a T-shirt. "I've been thinking about that a lot." She sat up in bed and slipped into the shirt. "Ever since that kiss in your office, I've been thinking if only we could get away together. Really away, not hiding around like this. Not just for a few days, either." She reached out and nudged his shoulder. "Where would you go? If we could go anywhere in the world?"
Jason put his hands behind his head. "Anywhere?"
"If you had the whole world. Where?"
Traffic noise filtered through the window. Two cars shooting past on the street outside Brenda's apartment, a third. Where could people be going at two thirty in the morning? "What's the opposite of LA?"
Brenda sat up straighter. She tapped at her knees. "Opposite of LA. Let's see. Norway?"
"Maybe not that opposite. I don't mind warm weather." The Caribbean meant Serena. Not there. "Ever been to the South Pacific?"
"Like Tahiti? Mmm. Sounds great. I'd go there with you. How about the Far East? Would you like to go to Japan and see pagodas? Or China?"
"Sure. After the South Pacific. We could rent a sailboat down there, just go from island to island. There's thousands of them. Fiji. Tahiti. Tonga. Bora Bora. I'll bet there's islands where there's nobody at all. It could be just you and me on the beach."
"And then, when we want some company, we could jump on a plane and go someplace until we got tired of other people again. Then where would we go?"
"Africa. We'd go on a safari."
"I don't want to shoot anything."
"A photo safari. Just take pictures. They have guys that'll drive you around and show you the lions and rhinos. But not like in a zoo, where they're cooped up. Out where you can see them hunt and see the herds of wildebeest. Stuff like that."
Brenda hugged her knees close. "You know I've never even been outside the US?"
"Not even Mexico or Canada?"
"Not even Hawaii or Alaska."
Jason stroked her ankle. "We'll have to change that. By the time we're done, the US will be just another place in a big world."
She stared at him, eyes gone distant. For a moment, the playfulness disappeared. Those lips drew straight and her brow hardened.
Jason sat up. "What is it?"
"What? Nothing. Nothing."
And she was back, the Brenda he knew, the forehead smooth and lips curled up at their edges.
"For a second there you were a million miles away."
Her eyes held on him. It was as if she was thinking of how to answer him. "It's all too good to be true. You here, with me. This talk about traveling together. I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"That this won't last. That it won't come true." She eased down beside him and brought her arm across him, her face pressed to his shoulder.
"Don't be afraid. I'll make it work. We'll make it work. Other people have done it."
She spoke into his shoulder, her hair tickling his chin. "It's not just the work thing. I can get another job."
"What is it, then?"
"You've got your wife to deal with. . . ."
He buried his face in her hair, inhaled, fought the presence in the room. "I know. You deserve better."
She shook her head to clear her hair away and brought her face up to him. Her eyes met his. "I told you, you're all I've wanted since I first saw you. No one else measured up."
The silence in the room weighed on Jason. He stroked the skin of her arm, put his hand to her face. She kissed it. He said, "I'm going to end it with her. She ended it. I'll make it legal." Applying the word to Serena gave him a strange satisfaction.
"You'll do that?" She squeezed even closer to him.
"Honey, I'll do a lot more than that for you. Just wait and see."
Jason shoved through the door to Brenda's apartment building. The morning light pressured his eyeballs. He brought a hand up and wished for the sunglasses that rested safely in his BMW a block away.
His watch read 7 a.m. He thought of Brenda standing at her door, leaning against the frame after they kissed good-bye, her hair a mess, her green eyes lidded by tiredness. A smile tugged at his lips, and he let it come.
He rounded the corner; the sun was at his back, and his eyes could focus now. He spotted the rounded edges of his car. His mind played over what had happened since he'd parked it. He thought he must look like a crazy man to anyone who saw him on the street, the way his smile wouldn't stop.
At the car, he found his sunglasses and got the Bimmer started, and in ten minutes he pulled into his driveway and pressed the garage-door opener. As he watched the panels fold up, his mind was on a quick shower and change of clothes.
Serena's car sat on the left. Where she used to park it before she left him.
His foot rested on the brake pedal. He stared at the black trunk lid, the three-pronged symbol in back a mockery of the peace sign. The vehicle announced her presence, and in response Jason found claustrophobia pressing in on his body from all angles.
She'd left a space for his car where she used to, but Jason yanked on the parking brake lever and turned off the ignition where he sat in the middle of the driveway. He stood outside his car, the neighborhood quiet in the still morning air, calmness all around him while his heartbeat charged and his vision clouded with irritation.
He fingered the key to his BMW as if it were some sort of magic charm that would ward her away. He could jump back in his car and return to Brenda's apartment. Take a day off, the both of them.
But no, that would be the coward's way out. And Serena would know he'd come home. She would have heard the churn of the garage-door opener unless she was in the very back of the house.
Jason clicked the lock button on his car key and moved into the garage. The door to the house was unlocked. He stepped inside.
There she sat. A portrait of female counsel seated at table. She wore a new gray suit, shoulders sharp enough to cut paper, skirt revealing the curve of her crossed knees beside the tabletop. The neckline of the jacket circled the base of her throat and left a gap exposing the dip at the center of her collarbone. The black fabric of a belt circled a waistline he'd rested his hands on a thousand times.
She lifted a china cup to her lips. Her lipstick had pinked the brim. She pursed her lips and swallowed, and as she returned the cup to its spot on the saucer, her left hand rose to draw a strand of her auburn hair behind an ear. She turned her eyes to him, brown, brushed upward at their edges by blackened lashes. Those eyes revealed nothing. She could have been considering a contract. Or ready to pull a trigger.
But her hair was different, trimmed at the ends since he'd seen her last, so that the curl where it rested on her shoulder wasn't as long as it had been when she'd walked out on him. Like everything else about her appearance, it was just right.
Jason wondered if she had trimmed her hair and bought the new suit to torture him. He didn't speak. He closed the door.
Serena's middle fingertip circled the lip of the china coffee cup, the steam rising from inside swirling around her fingers. She'd painted her nails with a new shade of red---was that purple in it? They could have been candy.
"Long night, Jase?" Her voice had the texture of silk.
He put his keys on the counter. "Too short." He went for the cupboard and brought out a mug. Serena's coffee was always weaker than he liked it, but it would do. He brought it up for a sip. His hand trembled, the mug flittering against his lips until he pressed it to them. He waited for a remark from her about it. None came.
Jason took his mug to the table and sat. She watched him, her cool expression unchanging. You'd have to strap a polygraph to her to see what was going on in her head---if you could even coax a straight answer out of her. Her finger kept working around that china. Jason tried to decide if it was the maddening deliberation of the movement or her silence that was making him so angry. Or maybe it was just her presence here, sitting in her favorite perch as if nothing had ever happened and she was just having coffee with her husband on an ordinary day.
She tapped the lip of her cup twice with that fingertip. "Who is she?"
"You've got a lot of nerve asking me that."
She uncrossed her legs and turned to face him. Her hands circled the cup. "So you still believe it."
"Of course I do."
"We've been over this, but I'm going to say it again and keep saying it until you believe me. I never had any kind of relationship with Pete Rossi other than a professional one. I never cheated on you. I never lied to you. Ever." A practiced glare. A dramatic flash of the eyes and pinch of the brow betrayed the emotion behind her level tone.
It made him angrier than ever. "Sure. I believed that for a long time. All the business trips with him, the late nights coming home. I believed all of it. Until I found that letter."
"Yes. The letter." She leaned back. "Do you still have it?"
"I burned it."
"Too bad. I was hoping to go over it with you. Did you really read it? The words, the sentences? I wouldn't compose anything like that, no matter what kind of delirium of love I was supposed to be in." She slid the coffee cup an inch to the left. "Did you look beyond the penmanship? I don't think you did. This is what truly disturbs me about all this, Jason. That you would believe this drivel no matter how similar the penmanship looked, instead of believing words out of my own mouth."
"You said all that before you walked out on me."
Her jaw jutted toward him. She drew a breath in. "I can't believe you're thinking about it that way." She blinked.
Jason couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her shed tears. He thought hard. It came to him.
His resolve fled.
He looked down to the table. Steam still rose from his mug, but none lifted from Serena's china cup. The teaspoons of coffee remaining in her cup pooled tepid there.
It was on their wedding night that he'd last seen her cry. He'd asked her what she was crying about, and she'd told him she was so happy it overwhelmed her. She'd laughed through her tears and thrown herself into his arms again. They were tears of joy that night.
Now she wouldn't look at him. Blinking back the tears didn't quite work. She had to flick one aside.
Jason's hands itched to go to her face, to touch the smooth skin of her cheek and wipe any tears away. But his hands probably smelled of Brenda's perfume. He clenched his fingers together so they would stay in place.
"Serena . . ."
She held up a hand. "Don't." It was all she could get out. She went for the cup and swallowed what was left. A deep breath heaved the chest of her tailored suit, and she leveled her eyes at him. They shone, but no longer with tears. "Someone is trying to destroy our marriage. But that's not what's killing me. It's that you're willing to let them do it. Well, I'm not. I've had two months to think it through---two months of being apart from you and having to live with you believing lies about me---and I've decided. Whoever it is is going to have to do a lot more than forge a letter to get rid of me." She took the cup and saucer and went to the sink.
After covering her hands with plastic gloves, she soaped a sponge and ran the water. Jason watched the slope of her neck, the way her hair folded forward until she finished with the cup and saucer and reached for a dishtowel. Busy hands always kept her from giving in to her emotions. She forced herself into her intellect with activity. Any moment she would have a plan.
The dishes dried and in their proper places, she folded the dishtowel and hung it from the oven handle. When she turned to Jason, he saw resolution in the pinched angle of her brows.
"I'm not running away again," she said, and she folded her arms over the trim tailoring of her suit. "I'll be back after work. You think about what I said, and I'll think about who would attack our marriage. This conversation is not over."
Her purse stood in its usual place next to her chair. She leaned over, snapped it up by the straps, and came to him. Her hand on his jaw, she kissed his cheek with no emotion other than deliberation. As she pulled back, her expression told him that Brenda's fragrance still clung to him. She held his gaze for a moment, and he volunteered nothing.
"I'll see you tonight." She went for the door.
The snap of Hathaway's gum was enough to make Tom Cole want to take another three aspirin. "You're giving me a headache with all that popping."
Hathaway looked at him and grinned, snapped the gum in his back teeth twice, then pressed the button to roll down his window. The bite of morning air flushed through the car, carrying the scent of asphalt cured in oil and gas and the funk of millions of sweating, breathing, spitting humans. When the window reached its low point, he spat the gum into the rushing air, and the window rose again.
The air didn't help. Neither did the absence of that maddening popping. He would need more aspirin.
"So that's what he said, but what didn't he say?" Tom tried to imagine the look of the banker but had a hard time picturing a cleaned-up clone of Flip wearing a tie and a suit.
Hathaway reached for his pack of gum. "Like I said, he was lying like any convict. Clear as day. Covering for his brother." He drew another stick out of the pack and sucked it into his mouth.
"I thought you were done with gum for a while."
"No, that hunk just lost its flavor. You got to keep it fresh, brudda." The second stick went in, and Hathaway worked his jaw around. It wouldn't take long before the popping started.
"Grab me some aspirin out of the glove compartment, will you?"
Hathaway handed him the bottle. "So anyways, bald-faced liar, this guy. Tells me he hasn't seen Flip when it's written all over his face he has. Then he has the nerve to say don't come to my office."
Tom brought the Explorer to a stop at the light at Wilshire and Maple and rattled a couple of aspirin out of the bottle. He managed to choke them down dry. He passed the bottle back to Hathaway. "I still don't see what good it's going to do. We both got cases stacked up to our eyeballs. Guys with a chance to stay out of prison. It's not like we've got time for this."
"I thought you wanted to catch this guy."
The snapping started up again. Tom's headache drove deeper into the front of his brain and took root behind the lump that still pressed against a bandage on his forehead. He propped his elbow against the door and rubbed his forehead, silently cursing Flip Dunn for the pain. "I do. In the worst way. I keep telling myself not to make this personal."
Hathaway snorted. "He's the one made it personal when he hammered your noggin. I don't leave that to LAPD."
"I just don't see what leaning on the brother gets us."
"He says stay away, I show up. And not alone. I figure it's worth a try."
The popping could have been mortar shells going off. Tom rubbed the bandage.
"Here's your turn. At the light."
Tom wheeled the Explorer around. The sign over the entrance had the bank's name on it next to a logo the shape of a warped pie with a piece missing. Tom wondered why banks all seemed to have some artsy logo.
He found a parking spot at the curb and killed the engine. Rubbing his head did nothing to relieve the pain, but he did it anyway. Hathaway was already getting out, and Tom hustled to step out into the street before Hathaway could slam the door. They met on the sidewalk.
Inside the building lobby, a security guard in a snappy uniform sat behind a wide desk eyeing them. They ignored him and crossed to the bank entrance. Here two more security guards waited, but these guys didn't get a uniform. They only got ugly blue blazers and K-Mart ties. The nearest one stepped in their way.
"Can I help you?" He had nervous feet and a shoulder that twitched, and his head was shaped like an apple with his neck for a stem. He'd missed some spots shaving, giving his face a patchwork look. The other guard stood to the side, keeping his eyes on the suits and skirts milling around the bank lobby. Keyboards clacked, telephones rang, and a hundred voices blended together into a hum. Across the room, behind the row of tellers, the vault door stood open.
Hathaway answered him. "I doubt it." He showed his badge to the guard and pushed past him. Tom followed.
"Wait a minute." The security guard skipped to keep up with them. "What do you need?"
Hathaway glanced at Tom but didn't stop moving to the escalator. "We're here to see Jason Dunn."
"Hold on, let me call up and see if he's in."
"We've got eyes." Hathaway stepped onto the escalator, and the three of them started riding. Hathaway climbed as the stairs ascended, and Tom and the guard followed more slowly. At the top, Hathaway said, "In the corner there."
Tom followed his nod. In the corner an office door stood open, and outside it, behind a desk sat a blonde with a face from a magazine cover. "That his secretary?"
"Hey, now. See, it was worth coming already." Hathaway's jaw picked up speed as they approached her.
The guard skipped around them and reached the blonde before they did. He spoke up. "Brenda, these gentlemen are here to see Mr. Dunn." He got himself between them and the blonde.
She stood. She was about halfway between five feet and six feet, and she wore a gray skirt and a white blouse; a gold chain surrounded the smooth white shape of her neck. She smiled a welcoming smile, and her cheek dimpled. The whole package worked on Tom to freeze his speech.
Hathaway's tongue was never frozen. He put a forearm on the security guard. "At ease, Marshal Dillon." He stepped past him.
She held a hand out straight-armed and said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Brenda Tierney, Jason's assistant."
Hathaway took her hand and held it, turned it in his to look at the back of it, and released it. "Brad. This is Tom." After a few chomps at the gum and giving Brenda the once-over, he looked into the brother's office. "Where's Jason?"
Tom shook her hand. Her skin was cool. When he gave her hand back to her, she passed it along her hip as if it might have picked up a virus. "Did you have an appointment?" She looked at the monitor of her computer.
Hathaway was going for his badge. Tom stopped him. "Hold up." He turned to the security guard. "What's your name, soldier?"
The guard gathered his confidence and put it on like a hat. "Foley."
"Foley, we need you downstairs. Keep an eye out for a guy about six-five, two-forty. Might be wearing a leather jacket. Motorcycle boots. If you see him, don't approach him. Just call this number." Tom took out his pad and pencil, and wrote down seven digits. "You can handle that, right?"
Foley looked at the piece of paper. "Bad news, huh?"
Tom nodded. "Bad is right. Don't try to be a hero."
Foley kept the piece of paper in his hand. "I'm on it."
Hathaway watched Foley head for the escalator. "The motorcycle boots were a nice touch." He turned to Brenda. "When's Jason back?"
"He's at a meeting. Who are you guys? You're not customers, are you?"
"Don't worry about it, sweetheart," Hathaway said. He glanced at another girl who sat ten feet away, and she looked away. "Let's borrow Jason's office and talk. Come on." He walked into Jason's office.
Brenda looked like she was about to protest. Tom spoke up. "It's okay, Brenda. We won't take much of your time." He held out a hand as if he were going to escort her someplace.
Her eyes went to his forehead, where the bandage was a white pad over the lump. Tom wished he could tear it off. When her eyes shifted to meet his, he noticed how bright her green irises shone. "All right," she said and turned to the secretary at the next desk.
"I'll watch the phones," the other girl said.
Brenda thanked her and moved around to step in front of Tom.
Hathaway was gliding around the office, checking out the memorabilia. "A real humanitarian, huh?" He pointed to one of the plaques honoring Jason Dunn for his charitable service.
"Mr. Dunn sponsors a number of charities. On behalf of the bank." Brenda sat on the sofa as if she were doing it a favor. She crossed her legs, folded her hands in her lap. Her posture kept her back away from the sofa cushions. "Things that benefit kids, mostly."
"Hm."
"Where is he now?" Tom asked.
She stared at him and didn't blink.
"Your ears go bad? Where is he?"
"You guys have badges you want to show me?"
Tom looked over at Hathaway. Brad's eyes perked up. They went for their wallets. She looked them over.
"Parole officers? What's this about?"
"Where is he?"
"Customer meeting, over in El Segundo. Do you want the address?"
"When will he be back?"
She looked at her watch, a gold one circling her slender wrist loosely. She had to slide it around to get a good look at the face of it. "About twenty or thirty minutes."
Hathaway sat down next to her at the edge of the sofa facing her profile and parked his head against his fist, elbow against the back of the sofa. He worked at the gum silently with his lips drawn shut.
"How long have you worked for him?" Tom asked.
"Just moved to this department recently. He couldn't be in trouble. I don't understand what you guys would want with him."
"Where are you from?" Hathaway said.
She kept her eyes on Tom. "I'd like to know what this is about before I answer any more questions."
"We're just passing the time with a lovely lady," Hathaway said. "Where you from?"
Tom stared back at her. The noise filtering through the office door was the only sound in the room.
Hathaway sat forward. "I asked you a question."
She folded her arms. "Last I heard, people had the right to keep quiet."
Hathaway grinned. "That's right. Yeah, that's right." He worked the gum hard and went back to leaning against his fist. "I'm from Manhattan Beach. Grew up surfing. Got into the lifeguard program and that led to law enforcement. Been doing this gig for eight years now. That's my story. What's yours?"
She sat still as a statue. Her eyes held on Tom, but there was no plea in them, no weakness.
"Humor us," Tom said. "What did you do before working with Jason?"
She glanced at Hathaway and back to Tom. "I was down in HR."
"And?" Hathaway said.
"And I wanted more to do, so I applied for a job up here."
"No, I mean before that?"
"I worked over at Wells."
"Come on, Brenda. Tierney, right? What's Brenda Tierney all about? What's her story?" Hathaway smiled, but she didn't see it. She seemed to think Tom could do something to stop Hathaway or that he might be interested in stopping him. But Tom had seen Hathaway do this a few times. He was good at it. He saw things Tom didn't see, so he let him go.
Brenda softened and turned to Hathaway. "I grew up here in the south bay---"
"Brothers? Sisters?"
She hesitated for an instant. "One sister."
"Older or younger?"
"Older. Five years."
"You two still close?"
"No. She's dead." Brenda said it with all the emotion of telling someone the door was closed.
"Sorry. What happened?" Hathaway didn't seem very sorry.
"None of your business."
Hathaway's gaze could have melted wax. "Okay. Go on. You grew up in the south bay."
"Went to college in Philly."
"Philly. I love Philly. You ever try Jim's cheesesteak?"
"I preferred Geno's."
"Mm hm. Then what?"
"Then nothing. I came home and got a job at Wells."
"Why banking?"
She looked up at Tom and heaved a sigh. "I really have a lot of work to do."
"Why banking?" Hathaway leveled his face at her. His tone wasn't friendly anymore. This was sounding more like an interrogation with every question.
She kept her eyes on Tom. "I was just starting out. You know. I needed a job. That's all."
Hathaway smiled. He worked the gum but didn't pop it. The sounds from outside took over the room again.
Brenda looked to the floor, and her eyes took on a sheen. Hathaway watched closely. She reached up and brushed away a tear.
Hathaway thumbed toward her. "You seeing this?"
Tom didn't respond.
Hathaway lunged forward and grabbed her face. She slapped his hand away and bolted off the sofa. She faced Hathaway hunched, in a stance that reminded Tom of a cat with its claws bared. For an instant that cover-girl face could have belonged to any parolee in a fight.
She regained herself. Her posture relaxed. The eyes brimmed over again. "Why are you doing this to me?"
Hathaway eased back into the sofa. "Oh, baby."
She glared at him.
"You are so good." Hathaway smiled at her and extracted the gum from his mouth. He stood, rolling the wet lump between his thumb and fingers, looking around. He went to the desk. "Tommy, you ever seen anybody this good?"
"Maybe."
Tom stared at her. She kept the tears coming. Her lower lip quivered.
"What are you talking about?" She even had her voice trembling.
Hathaway must have found a trash can under the desk. Or he just flung his gum on the carpet down there. He sat in the desk chair and pulled the pack out of the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. His feet went to the top of the desk, and he crossed his bare ankles. "Jason's brother ever come by?"
Brenda looked at Tom. "Can't you make him stop?"
Making him stop was the last thing Tom wanted to do. "Jason's brother," he prompted.
She looked to Hathaway. "I didn't even know he had a brother."
Hathaway glanced at Tom. "You see what makes her so good? It's not just the tears. That's good---really good. How she can just turn it on like that. But the way she doesn't lie directly. She gets these angles on it, makes you think her mind's working sideways at the question like it was the truth."
"She's good, all right. You didn't learn this in college. You've been around, haven't you?"
In the stillness of her face, Tom saw that she was figuring her next move. She dipped her head. "Okay. I'm going to level with you guys. But it can't leave this room."
Tom and Hathaway waited.
"Jason and me . . . there's more than a professional relationship." She looked to the open door. "If anyone found out, we'd be fired."
Before either one of them could answer, the banker stepped into the room.
Jason froze. The parole officer in his Hawaiian shirt with his feet propped up on Jason's desk would have been enough. And here was another guy clearly in league with the PO. This other henchman turned his frame to show Jason a face with a white patch taped to his forehead. But what boiled Jason's blood was seeing tears rolling down Brenda's cheeks.
He slammed the door. A box of tissues was on the table next to the sofa, and he handed the box to Brenda. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Dry those tears and get back to your desk."
Hathaway hadn't stirred since Jason walked in, except for the movement of his mouth. "We're not done with her yet."
Brenda offered Jason a weak smile as she dabbed at her face. "Some people need to learn manners," she said.
Jason led her to the door. "We'll catch up after I get rid of these . . ." He held back the words he wanted to use.
She closed the door behind her.
Jason turned. "I told you not to come here."
"Yeah, I was never very good at following direction. My teachers used to put that on my report cards."
Jason wanted to tear the grin off Hathaway's face.
The patched-up henchman spoke. "Give us your brother, and we'll be happy to get out of your hair."
Jason looked at him. Underneath that patch, the forehead was knotted. Otherwise, the PO looked like he could have been USC's defensive line coach. "Who are you?"'
"Where's Flip?" the PO said.
Jason turned to Hathaway. "You want to talk to me, get your feet off my desk and your rear end out of my chair."
Hathaway's grin didn't waver except with the warp from his chewing. He brought his hands up behind his head, getting comfortable.
Coach moved in. His breath smelled like coffee spilled in dirt. "I want Flip Dunn. You're going to give us something or you'll never get rid of us."
"Get out of my face."
Coach didn't move. Jason turned and shed his jacket. He took his time draping it on the hanger and placing it over the hook on the back of his door. When he turned again, Coach was inches away from him again.
"What happened to your head, Coach?" Jason lifted a finger and had it a quarter-inch away from the lump before it was slapped away.
"Your convict brother assaulting a peace officer is what happened. He needs to turn himself in."
Jason didn't try to step away. "Sure. He'll do that. The system's always been fair to him."
From across the office, Hathaway chimed in. "Yeah. Poor little felon. Never catches a break."
Coach let Jason by. Jason sat on the arm of the sofa. "Like I told you last time, I haven't seen him."
Hathaway brought a hand around from behind his head and with the thumb and fingers made a talking puppet. "Yeah, yeah."
"Is this normal procedure for you guys? I mean, don't you have anything better to do than strong-arm secretaries? That make you feel like you're accomplishing something?"
"You want to talk about her instead of Flip?" Coach said. "'Cause we can talk about her if you'd prefer."
"I don't want to talk to you about anything. I want you out of here."
"And I want to surf Cloudbreak, but you can't have everything." The PO had both hands behind his head again.
"Cloud---? You're wasting my time."
Coach waded in again. He couldn't keep himself out of Jason's face. "Which one do you want to cover first? The convict brother or the lying secretary?"
Jason looked from Coach to the surfer. "Isn't one of you supposed to be the good cop? You've got some work to do on your shtick."
"We visited your daddy the other night." Coach, trying to get a rise out of him.
Jason stared at him. "I guess you didn't find Flip there, either. You're doing great work, guys. I'm glad my tax dollars are going to such good use."
"I think we forgot to thank him, Tom. Paying our salaries and all."
Coach glared like Jason had just missed a block.
"Well . . ." The surfer dropped his feet onto the floor and stood. "This isn't going anywhere. We'll just have to come back later. Give it another try."
"You do that."
Coach moved in. "I'm going to find him."
"I hope you do. Be better than seeing your ugly face around here."
The surfer stepped between them. "Cloudbreak. It's in Fiji. Two miles off Tavarua. Look it up." He went to the door. "Come on, Tom."
Tom didn't seem to want to do anything but try to crumble Jason with a harsh stare. Jason lifted a hand. "Bye-bye, Officer. Try to keep your head away from convicts."
The PO's jaw clenched. Jason thought he might have gone too far. But Coach did nothing but graze against him on his way to the door.
Jason watched them swagger to the escalator and descend. He was turning to check on Brenda when his eye caught Vince across the lobby standing in his doorway, waving him over.
Jason raised his index finger to hold him off a second and went to Brenda's desk. "You okay?"
She gave him a brave smile, nodded. "Vince was calling for you."
"Yeah, I see him. How'd I get so lucky?"
For only a moment, her eyes lingered on him. "You just are." She turned to her computer before anything more could pass between them.
Her fragrance drifted up to him, and he let himself take in the texture and the sunshine color of her hair. The feel of it was in his fingertips, from last night. He wanted to glide his hands through it here, no matter what everyone would think. He couldn't pull himself away.
She looked up. The slightest sideways tilt of her head alerted him to others nearby. Angie Barrett sat ten feet away, and her presence was like surveillance. Brenda turned back to her computer.
Her ear, the curve of it, its softness, drew his eyes. Two piercings in the lobe were decorated with studs. He'd whispered in that ear last night, held his lips close to it. The memory of the sensation of burying his face in her hair threatened to drive him mad.
She lifted her phone from its cradle, and her ear disappeared behind the earpiece. It left him taking in the flesh underneath, where her jaw line swept from her neck behind the veil of her blonde hair. He wanted to hide himself in it.
Brenda turned her eyes to him. A secret smile crowned by a brief frown warned him away.
"I don't care," he said.
She held her hand over the mouthpiece. "Go," she whispered.
But he wanted the touch of that hand again. Wanted again for every pore of his body to be stirred by her, wanted to tear the desk away from between them.
She hung up the phone and stood. Without another glance at him, she turned her back and strode to the restroom. When the door closed her off, Jason shifted his feet and found Angie's scrutiny. She lifted her brows a fraction, then went back to her e-mail.
Across the lobby, Vince no longer stood in his doorway. Between that vacant space and Jason, the lobby hummed with voices spoken into mouthpieces. Keyboards clicked in a thousand dissonant rhythms. Electronic ringing of phones, shifting chairs, drawers opening and closing---the activity used to invigorate Jason's senses. It amazed him that everything about this job had once stirred him. He marveled at how he used to find meaning in the looming daily deadlines, pressure from customer demands and from growth goals refreshed at every cycle of the calendar, from beating the competition that was as persistent as drooling wolves.
Over Angie's head, he stared at the staff that used to be his. Their allegiances had shifted away from him as easily as drifting leaves turned in a current. With Brenda out of sight, everyone in view belonged to Vince now. The battles Jason had fought for them and with them had all turned into irrelevant memories, their victories together relegated into histories in their disloyal minds, distant as their schoolyards.
Vince's open door across the lobby was a vacuum sucking the life out of him. Jason felt it pulling away his hopes, the aspirations that used to drive him out of bed every morning with energy surging through him. He took a step toward the open doorway. Soon he was past Angie's probing eyes, and he entered into the sea of desks and the frenzy of efficiency and urgency that used to fuel him. No one glanced up. Not one of them took the opportunity of his passing to seek guidance or endorsement of a decision. He moved among them with the anonymity of a ghost passing through real life.
Vince bulged behind his desk. The flesh of his neck folded over his shirt collar, a contrast of flab and starched cotton, and where the collar strained at the button holding it together, a bright tie with insanely twisted paisleys was noosed. Vince focused on the paperwork before him, his mouth open, the wet weenies of his lips moving almost imperceptibly.
Jason decided to interrupt the machinations of Vince's mind. "You wanted to see me?"
Vince lifted his eyes, and the close-cropped head came up. He waved his hand to beckon Jason into the sacred chamber of authority.
Jason sank into the sofa. At least it was on the far end of the room.
Vince tented his fingers before his chest and began talking. With every word, the left part of his upper lip twisted into a snarl. Jason had never noticed it before. The ugly maw began to remind Jason of something. What was it? An animal of some kind. A species in a jungle stealing among shadowy leaves in reeking air that boiled with heat. A sloth? Was that it? No. Maybe not a jungle. Maybe an arid plain in Africa. A pack animal of some kind, a hyena or a wild dog, bounding over grassland, yammering on and on as it searched for something to devour.
Vince dropped his hands to the desktop. "Am I getting through to you?"
Jason had no idea what Vince had been talking about. He stared at the hyena behind the desk, the hyena too fat to hunt, fit only for a meal scavenged from the rest of the pack. Did hyenas cannibalize?
"Yeah. Sure," he said.
Vince's worm of a tongue darted over his lips, and words started pouring through those twisting lips again. Words upon words tumbled into the room, spilling innuendo, invective, threats of layoffs, the danger of complete collapse of the bank, the ruin of them all. It was the end of the world. Armageddon.
A question hovered in the room. Jason recognized that Vince's voice had inflected in a way that begged a response. Beyond that, meaning was lost to him.
Vince spread his hands on his desk. His eyebrows were black caterpillars kissing over his nose, rising, rising. "Well?"
"What?"
"I said 20 percent. In case you can't do the math, that's four people. Get the door."
Jason felt the sofa drawing him into it like soil sucking at roots. He wasn't interested in rising to play doorman. "You want me to fire four people?"
Vince's lips drew tight. "Yes. Do I have to repeat myself? A 20 percent reduction in force." He stood and crossed to the door like a balloon on stilts, his bloated frame wafting a trace of cologne that turned Jason's stomach. He slammed the door. "Your name's not on the list. This time. I'm willing to let you make the final call on who we RIF, but here's my list." He completed the trip to the front of his desk and lifted a sheet of paper, glanced at it, and let it flutter into Jason's lap. He returned to his chair. The cushions sighed with the strain.
The room's walls closed in. Jason felt them compressing the air. He fixed his eyes on them to make sure they weren't shifting toward him. He detected no movement, but the pressure of the air kept growing. Soon it would be too thick to breathe.
He lifted his eyes to look over Vince's head. Outside the window, the LA air was stacked with seething smog. It diffused the sunlight into an unnatural, hazy glow. Nothing to breathe out there either.
Vince shifted in his chair. "Aren't you going to look at the list?"
Jason returned his eyes to his boss. The frowning face and gritted teeth could have belonged to an undertaker straining at a cut into a cadaver.
Jason managed to draw in a breath and took up the sheet of paper. Five names. One of them was Brenda's.
Vince droned concerning the performance of these five, how they hadn't met their growth goals, how their loan portfolios were poorly rated. About Brenda, he only mentioned her lack of seniority.
"You said four. This is five."
The twist of Vince's face made Jason think he suppressed a smile. But it could have been something Vince ate. "I thought you might want to do more than the minimum. Show you can be a team player for once."
"A team player."
Vince's bulbous hand searched out a pink eraser he kept on the desktop, and he busied his fingers with tapping it, turning it, squeezing it. "Tomorrow's the day. We're going to do all 20 percent at once. One cut, get it over with. Make the announcement so people won't think they're next." He looked at the eraser as if he could rub out the employees with it. "I wanted to stage it, keep people on their toes, but Mark thought it would be better to just rip off the Band-Aid. So to speak."
"I don't think you need to worry about keeping people on their toes. The rewrite of the bonus plan and severance package did the trick."
Vince rubbed the eraser against the wood grain of his desktop and swept the pink shavings onto the floor. "Yeah, we're going to take another look at those. They're still too generous."
"Now that you're in the executive plan."
It brought Vince's eyes forward. "I can rework that RIF list. The way your portfolio's shrinking, you won't cover your own salary in a few months."
"Yeah, but fire me for cause and you don't have to pay my severance, right? Good plan."
Now the animal surfaced fully on Vince's face. This was no sloth, no hyena. A cat's callousness emerged, a grin widening, insensate. He didn't reply.
Jason looked away from the face. On the list were only names, first and last. Labels on personnel files or in org charts. People, yes, but to those who controlled the ledgers, they represented annual salaries and benefits to be cut from a budget with the offsets of the severance packages' temporary inflections, one-time nuisances for the greater and longer-term good of reduced overhead. When your top line shrinks, you have to make the cuts to keep the bottom line black. Don't go into the red. He'd lectured his customers on this very thing a hundred times.
But it was different when the employees were yours.
He returned to Vince's face. Pitiless eyes stared back, the color of deadwood knots and mud. The mouth opened, and it was a bottomless, insatiable cavern. "Get with Margaret and have an HR rep along when you meet with them." He flipped the eraser onto the desk, and it bounced on its edges until it came to a rest flat.
Vince brushed at the air with the backs of his fingers. "That's all."
Thirty-two thousand dollars in crumpled bills cast shadows against the lavender-and-purple flower print of the motel bedspread. Flip drew his hands away from them. Thirty-two thousand and change. He rocked on his feet, the crusty carpet crumpling against his heels through holes in his socks.
The smell of the bills drifted up to him, a green fragrance that always reminded him of his brother. How long ago was it? Twenty years? No, twenty-five probably since they'd shared a paper route as kids, alternating days flinging the folded and banded newspapers, going door to door collecting, splitting the profits down the middle. Flip and Jason were friends then. They shared everything---a room, a dad, a house, food, drink, the paper route. The smell of the money reminded him of that time, of things they shared, the easy and hard things that bound them together.
For Flip, counting the collections from their paper route was a rote necessity. But Jason reveled in it, his freckled face as concentrated as a fastballer on the mound. He would pinch each bill between his fingers and thumb to make sure he didn't miss one stuck to another. He would stroke them, dealing them out on the card table in their room in the summertime with their one fan pointed away from the tabletop to make sure the piles weren't disturbed. Flip would sit in front of the fan, its breeze the only thing cool in Inglewood that summer, but Jason would rather sweat than have his money ruffled. Flip would watch as Jason counted and recounted until his fingers took on a slick coating as gray as lead. After ten minutes, Flip would be ready to go outside and toss a baseball around, but not Jason. Once he was in the money, Jason couldn't be pulled out.
"Hey, Daffy," Flip would say to him in the heat of those afternoons in their room with the door closed and the fan pressing air against his face. The cartoon character's name seemed the perfect fit for his brother when he was in his money.
Over the years that followed, they took their own odd jobs, and their interests divided, Flip into sports and Jason deeper and deeper into money-making schemes he called business. Jason's love of money overtook all the other loves but one. One girl.
In the end it wasn't money that separated Jason from his brother and his father and from everything else they used to share. Not Jason's obsession with getting all the power and toys and trappings as he grew into as a man. It was the girl.
Flip didn't need a yearbook to picture Danah as she was in high school. He remembered her walking through the quad in her cheerleader uniform on game days, the boys stealing glances at her shape and the bounce of her walk. They must have wondered why a girl like that was with Jason instead of the homecoming king or quarterback. Flip wouldn't have understood either if he hadn't seen them together at the house, their fingers entwined on the sofa, their voices low and excited. Talking about their future.
He couldn't think about Jason without remembering Danah. Their senior year. Their absorption in one another. As a sophomore, Flip's classes ended later than theirs. He would come home fresh from the showers after football or baseball practice or from the weight room. The house would be suspended in midafternoon stillness, the presence of a girl as distinct as a flower in a locker room. It might have been her fragrance or the distant murmuring of a keener voice or just a sense that the ordinary male doldrums had been breached by something subtler. At some point Jason and Danah would emerge, maneuvering conjoined down the hallway, enthralled with one another.
Flip, the little brother, an interference, an annoyance. He felt this new distance from his older brother and resented Danah, but he said nothing.
Until the night he came home and Jason was gone. Dad that night shouted into the phone, cursing Jason but looking at Flip as if the whole thing were his fault. Dad slamming the phone down and shouting orders at Flip before phoning the police. Flip driving south alone in his truck, driving by himself at seventeen into neighborhoods where Jason and Danah should never have gone.
Now, in the motel room, he tried to will himself not to let his thoughts go further. But they leaped ahead. A dark, crowded barroom, men older than him by decades sitting huddled over beers and shot glasses at the bar and at dimly lit tables. They looked at him, and one of them threw a joke his way, but Flip wasn't in the mood. He asked about Danah. None of them joked after Flip popped the bartender to the floor and he was afraid to get up to face him. From the floor, the guy nodded toward the back room.
Now, twenty years and two jail stints later, Flip clamped his eyes shut, pushed his palms against the lids as if he could shut down his mind by closing off his sight. A girl like that, in a place like that.
The picture of her as he first glimpsed her in that back room was still enough to make him want to drive his fist through one of these sheer motel room walls. She'd been beaten unconscious. Her clothes were shredded. It sent him into a fury. Afterward, the cops cuffed him while two of the men lay leaking blood into the sawdust-littered floor. One of them dead.
Flip growled through gritted teeth and shook his head. Thoughts of Jason always took him there. Why had Jason left her? And why would she have entered a place like that to begin with?
Eastlake Youth Authority. No bail for juveniles, just line up for your hearing and cool your heels in YA while they figure out the plea bargain. The investigators only got out of Danah what happened with Jason. She couldn't coax any memory of the attack back into her head. All she could recall was walking into the bar. After that, nothing. But with her injuries and the evidence of the rape, the prosecutor didn't want to try Flip for murder and might have passed on the charges completely if the dead guy hadn't been averaging twenty-seven points a game as a starting point guard for CSU. There were plenty of witnesses willing to put Flip at the scene, they had his fingerprints all over the baseball bat, and to cap it off, they had the confession he'd offered up.
The plea bargain for manslaughter was no bargain for Flip. Eleven years. He started off at the Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino and at twenty-five graduated from gladiator school to the mainstream population in Lancaster, where he had no choice but to arm himself. When he got into a fight and used a shiv he'd fashioned out of a bar from an oven rack, he nearly took his second strike, but the DA decided it wasn't worth prosecuting. His second strike didn't come until he was released from Lancaster the first time. A little job for Diane, but he got caught.
By then he had someone waiting for him.
He reached down and gathered up the bills. He wrapped them in a shirt and stuffed the bundle in a duffel bag. The zip of the bag ripped through the room. He sat on the bed. He'd set the papers from Mr. B's desk to one side to concentrate on counting the bills. Now he reached for them.
As he read, daylight faded beyond the thick drapes sealing off his motel room. The hanging lamp provided him with all the light he needed. One page after another, he laid the sheets to one side, their contents drawing him into what Mr. B had kept in his safe.
It turned out that this information might be worth a lot more than thirty-two thousand and change.
Jason held his finger over the key on his cell phone that would delete the message. He stroked the key, the nub of it, just one more bump on a keypad, this one with the power to erase the man's low voice. He let his finger drift two keys up, to the number one. Back to the seven.
The voice of a mechanized woman asked him again if he wanted to delete the message or replay it. His finger drifted between the one and the seven.
He pressed the one. The man's message repeated. In a tone that reminded Jason of glowing embers in a fire pit, Pastor Miles Gates's voice told Jason that he wanted to buy him a cup of coffee. Jason was welcome at Miles's office, or they could meet someplace. Miles rumbled out an area code and then a series of numbers.
Jason repeated the numbers silently and ended the call without deleting the message. Miles Gates's voice would be stored in his voicemail. He sat at his desk looking at the rectangular face of his smartphone, wondering why he would return this call of all the ones awaiting response.
But he entered the numbers on the keypad and pressed the phone icon and listened to the distant rattle that told him the line in Pastor Gates's office was ringing.
The third ring was cut short. "Pastor Gates's office." A woman's voice.
"This is Jason Dunn. I'm returning his call."
"Hi, Jason. He's in a meeting, but let me tell him you're calling. Can you hold on a second?"
"Okay."
A click, and angel music sifted through the phone line, a chorus meant to make him feel like he was lying down in a grassy field. He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, held the phone just away from his ear so he didn't have to succumb to the ethereal pace and tones.
The music stopped, and he heard his name spoken in a deep voice.
He hesitated. "Yeah, hi. I'm returning your call."
"Yes. Thanks for getting back to me. Sounds like you're busy too. I'll get right to it. When we met at Kathy's house, we talked about getting together. I'm calling to set that up. How's tomorrow at seven thirty? Coffee."
How could this guy remember a ten-second conversation on a doorstep weeks ago? Jason heard Brenda's fingertips hammering at her keyboard outside his door. His mind went to the feel of her beside him, the touch of her. "Well, no offense, but things are pretty hectic right now. I don't think I can get away."
"Let me level with you, Jason. Kathy is concerned about you. She's been trying to reach you. Can I tell her you're okay?"
Kathy? Wasn't she still in Montana? Jason shifted in his chair. "You don't have to tell her anything. I'll call her."
The pastor said nothing.
"Look, I appreciate you checking in."
"Jason, we need to get together."
"Why?"
"Because Kathy called you four times and said you never returned her calls, but I called you once, and you got back to me within the hour."
He was about to say that meant nothing, but for some reason, he didn't want to lie to this guy. He went to his calendar. "All right. But tomorrow morning doesn't work."
Three hours later, Jason left his jacket hanging on the back of his office door and walked through the cool fall air along Wilshire Boulevard to the corner of Santa Monica. He had no desire for coffee, but as he entered Starbucks, he couldn't help but enjoy the shift from the air outside into the same spiced, scented warmth of these stores everywhere. His banker's mind went to the company's business model, the refusal to franchise, the replication of every process in every store.
Miles Gates sat in the corner. His size made the table before him look like it belonged in a doll house. He watched Jason through round, gold-rimmed spectacles.
Jason went to him and held out a hand. The pastor gave him a slight smile and reached up to shake.
Jason sat. "So here I am."
Pastor Gates lifted the paper cup to his lips and blew across the top of the cup and sipped. He returned the cup to the tabletop and kept his fingers on it. He'd removed the lid, and it sat face-up on the table, a residue of coffee pooled against the white plastic.
"Here you are." All the time in the world, this guy. No rush. He sat like a statue in a museum. The plaque next to the ebony carving would read, Large Man with Coffee.
The only life in his expression was in the way his eyes bored into Jason.
"What are we going to talk about here, big guy?"
"It's your party." He lifted his cup again. Another blow across the surface of the drink, another sip.
"I really don't know why I'm sitting here. I don't know you. I don't have time for a staring contest."
"I think you know why you're here."
Looking into the pastor's eyes, something inside Jason began to crack. Ice fractured, tentacles extending across thinning sheets, threatening to crumble and break down. Walls of ice, floors and ceilings he'd forced up to barricade himself from Serena, from Vince and the pressures of failure, from his family---he could feel all his weaknesses beginning to creep through the crumbling and breaking ice within him.
The room itself seemed to shift. He started to speak, but his first words were uncertain. "I don't know what to call you."
"Everyone calls me Miles. Except my kids."
"Right. So it's my party, Miles?"
"Your party."
Jason leaned forward. The scent of Miles's coffee drifted up to him. Jason could have named the blend without looking at the chalkboard, even with the sugar and cream diluting it.
"Everything's coming apart, Miles."
Miles scratched the side of his nose. His hand stayed at his face, cupping his chin.
"My marriage, my job. The whole thing."
Miles swirled his cup in small circles on the tabletop. The contents lapped up to the lip but didn't spill. "What do you usually do when things start to fall apart, Jason?"
"What anybody does. I try to fix it."
"But that's not working this time. Is that right?"
"Turns out some things can't be fixed."
"There's an old saying: 'That which is crooked cannot be made straight.'"
Jason thought of his brother stepping out of the shadows in the darkness of Jason's home. "I guess that depends on how crooked something is."
"There's another old saying: 'With God all things are possible.'"
"Yeah, well. I'm not really with God."
Miles drained his cup. The empty cardboard clapped onto the table. "That's your choice."
"I don't need one more thing right now."
"Is that what you think God is? One more thing?" The pastor's hands withdrew to clasp together before the orb of his abdomen.
Jason took the pastor's smile for smugness. He felt the walls of ice reforming, the cracks receding, filling in. The atmosphere of the room returned to its normal state. "If you're going to give me a hard sell on this God thing, we can end the conversation right now."
"No hard sell, Jason. But don't expect me to hold back the truth." Miles tilted his head down like a ram ready to smash heads with a rival. But his mouth held that smile for a moment longer. Then something altered it before he spoke again. "I guess I should tell you that your wife called me."
Jason straightened.
"Relax. Kathy couldn't reach you, so she called your wife to make sure you were okay."
"Then you called her."
"No. She called me. We met---day before yesterday. At her request."
The scene in his kitchen this morning flashed in Jason's mind. Serena's resolve as she reinserted herself into his life in spite of what she knew she'd done. Serena, Kathy, Gates . . . it was the same way things worked at the bank. Build your case, get consensus around what you want, pressure the outliers until they have no choice but to fall into line or until everyone thinks they're not only wrong but obstinate.
"Now I get it."
"Get what?"
"It makes sense. Kathy and Serena stick together, get you to talk sense into me." Jason leaned over the table, wanted to shove it into the big man's belly. "She cheated on me first. I gave her the benefit of the doubt as long as I could, believe me. Until I couldn't ignore it anymore."
"First?"
"What?"
"You just said, 'She cheated on me first.'"
"No, I didn't." Jason's feet itched to shift underneath him, to gather his weight on his soles and stomp out of there.
"I'm not judging you, Jason." Miles's hands parted, and he brought them to the bottom of the spindly wooden chair that somehow supported him. He scooted in until his face was a foot away from Jason's. "It happens. I see it all the time. The grass is always greener. But no matter where you go, there you are."
"I'm not trying to run away from myself. Like I said, she cheated on me. Period."
"She says she didn't."
Jason snorted. "Right. Somebody forged a letter in her handwriting. It's a vast conspiracy to destroy our marriage. Well, I've got news for you, Miles. Our marriage wasn't exactly a bed of roses even before I found her letter."
Miles was so close that Jason could see the pores on those wide nostrils. "I understand. Audrey and I have been married twenty-three years. You got to weed that garden. Got to pull out the weeds, turn the soil. It lies fallow, and it doesn't produce anything."
"So it's my fault."
"Fault's got nothing to do with it. Not right now. You are where you are. You can accept it and sacrifice your marriage to some new thing you like better right now, or you can go back to your wife and get things right."
"It's all on me, huh?"
"Your life? Yes, Jason. Your life is all on you."
Tom spotted the club's unlit neon sign sticking out over the sidewalk and eased off the gas. A block ahead, he saw an Acura edging away from the curb, and he slapped on the turn signal. The cars in his rearview mirror slowed obediently, and heads behind windshields turned to see if they could maneuver around him. The Acura up ahead shot into his lane, and Tom came to a stop next to the car just beyond the empty space and turned around to find that the idiot in the Toyota behind him had ignored the turn signal and followed him to a stop so he couldn't back into the space. Tom waved to direct the idiot around him, but the cars in the second lane filled it, boxing them in.
He cursed. Hathaway glanced over his shoulder, snapped his gum, and snickered. "There ought to be an IQ test for people to drive."
Tom waved his arm again, but the Toyota behind him had nowhere to go. "Aww . . ." He cursed and shifted back to drive and punched the gas. At the corner he turned right. One more block farther away from the Ragtop Club, he found a place to park.
"This is probably another huge waste of time," he told Hathaway.
"Yeah, you said that already." Hathaway levered his door open. Tom couldn't get out before Hathaway slammed it shut. The thud resounded behind the lump on his forehead and spiked the pain deeper. He stepped out into the street and elbowed his own door closed and thumbed the remote, and the horn sounded a sharp toot against the muffled traffic noise draped behind every sound in the city.
They rounded the corner onto Venice and approached the front door of the place without saying anything else about the Ragtop Club or its owner, Shawn Barnes, or the self-defense he had claimed in the beating death of Elwood Peavy two nights ago in the back room of the club. It was a long shot, and Tom wouldn't let Hathaway forget it, but the homicide dick assigned to Peavy's case suspected a connection, and it was worth checking out anything that looked remotely like something Flip might do. Or that was what Hathaway thought, anyway.
The door was locked. A sign on it told them the club's hours of operation.
Hathaway pounded on it. He stood back, and a breeze rolled down Venice Boulevard to balloon Hathaway's print of palm trees and hibiscus away from his chest. This shirt was mostly blood-red. It was supposed to be the color of sunsets.
Hathaway stepped forward and hammered on the door again. Tom was just about to tell him to give it up when the latch clicked on the door and it swung out.
A tall guy with a bruised face held on to the edge of the door. The arm away from the door was in a sling. He looked from Hathaway to Tom. "What do you want?"
Hathaway had his badge out. "Are you Shawn Barnes?" He pocketed the badge.
"No."
The tall guy hesitated a moment, his hand still on the edge of the door, and Tom thought he was about to slam the door. He pulled out Flip's mug shot and flashed it in the tall guy's face. "We're looking for Flip Dunn."
The guy leaned down to get a better look at it. He said, "So that's his name. Come on in."
Hathaway smiled and gave Tom a smug wink before he ducked inside.
"I hate it when you're right," Tom said to his back.
A couple of brooms were being pushed around the room by guys who seemed to need them for support. Stools scraped the concrete floor as they made room for tidying. Somebody was behind the bar counting bottles. The tall guy led them among the tables toward the back.
Hathaway said, "When's the last time you saw him?"
They were in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. "Two nights ago."
The night Elwood Peavy was killed. Hathaway looked over his shoulder. Another wink. Tom said, "Shut up."
Through the door at the back of the hall marked Employees Only, they moved into another hallway. The fragrance of fried food, sugar, and oil made Tom's stomach turn. He realized he hadn't eaten since breakfast.
The tall guy knocked twice on a door and listened. Pretty soon someone answered, and he opened the door. "Two more cops to see you." He nodded them in. He was about to head off, but Tom stopped him.
"Hang around."
Behind the desk, the man who must be Shawn Barnes got to his feet, standing a shade over six feet tall. Above a carefully trimmed beard, his nose was bandaged and his eyes were bruised. His skin was creased and tanned, like a worn-out brown leather jacket Tom had owned once. He wore a short-sleeved black shirt that revealed spindly arms. The shirttail hung over black jeans, and a thick gold chain peeked out from underneath his open collar.
Hathaway stuck his hand out. "So. The giant killer."
Barnes took Hathaway's hand. "My lawyer told me not to talk to you guys anymore without him here."
Hathaway plopped down in the chair in front of the desk. "Fine with me. We can wait."
Barnes measured Hathaway for a moment before turning his eyes to Tom. Hathaway popped his gum and drew Barnes's attention back.
Tom turned to the beat-up tall guy. "Why don't you close that door?"
He looked at his boss, and Barnes must have given him the okay, because he closed it and put his back to it. He probably would have folded his arms if not for the sling.
Barnes was in his chair when Tom turned around. "Aw, who needs lawyers anyway?" Barnes said. "I got nothing to hide. Where do you want me to start? I said it so many times I could repeat it in my sleep."
"We read the report," Hathaway told him. "I really just wanted to meet you. See the guy who did Peavy."
Barnes rolled his tongue around in his mouth like he was trying to get at something stuck in his teeth. He switched his eyes from Hathaway to Tom and kept his mouth shut.
"I mean, come on. Guy with a rap sheet like that? Big, too. I mean, hey, Tom, did you see the mug shots of that guy?" Hathaway craned around in the chair to make his point to Tom, then swiveled around again to Barnes.
Tom let Hathaway go on.
"You wouldn't know this, Mr. Barnes, but they only got him on like a quarter of the stuff they brought him up on. And they probably only brought him up on this much of what he really did." Tom held his thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart. "He was one bad dude, man. But you took him out, didn't you?"
Barnes shrugged. "I've been in a few scrapes myself."
"Oh, I'll bet. You must have been. I mean, look at you. You could've spent Thursday night out there dancing instead of mixing it up with a guy like Elwood Peavy."
"You want to go ahead and make your point?"
"What do you go, one-seventy? One-eighty?"
Barnes's eyes narrowed; the creases around the eyes in his leathery face deepened.
"Couldn't be one-eighty-five. I'd guess six-foot, maybe one-seventy-five. Tom, you remember Peavy's stats?"
Tom folded his arms.
Hathaway didn't wait for an answer. "Peavy was six-six, two-sixty when they took him into P-Bay three years ago." He snapped his gum, shook his head. "Shoot, man, you must be some kind of black belt or something. That it?" He held his hand palm up over his head and signaled Tom by crimping his fingers.
Tom put the picture of Flip in Hathaway's hand. Hathaway held the picture and looked at it. "Now Flip Dunn here---" he ticked it with his middle finger---"this guy I could see pulling it off. Maybe." He tossed the picture onto Barnes's desk.
Barnes didn't look at it.
Hathaway leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. "Look, Barnes, this is just us boys talking. We're off the record, okay? You can keep the cred for this. We don't care, do we, Tom?"
"We don't care."
"See? It'll be our little secret. We're not LAPD. We're state POs. We got no problem letting you work this. Nobody'll mess with you for a long, long time after this. Am I right? I mean, once this gets around---what you did to Peavy."
Barnes worked his tongue around some more. He said nothing. But he glanced at Flip's picture.
Tom stepped forward. When he bent over to put his hands on Barnes's desk, the pressure behind his forehead felt like the front of his brain was an anvil. "Hey. Barnes."
Barnes looked up.
"Level with us. 'Kay? None of this gets to LAPD. I just want this guy." He pounded his finger on the picture.
Barnes picked up the picture and grinned. "I never saw him before." He flipped it at Tom. It bounced off his chest.
Hathaway said, "That's not what your boy here says."
The bruised guy came away from the door. "I never said that."
Tom was eight inches away from Barnes's head. He wanted to swipe his fist at that carefully combed head, but he didn't. "Or we could leave here and go see LAPD right now. Blow up your story. Is that what you want?"
Hathaway stood. "I guess so. He's not talking." He went to the tall guy at the door.
Barnes picked up the picture. "So his name's Flip Dunn?"
Sea of desks. Blackened computer monitors angled toward empty chairs pushed in as employees departed for their homes, families, husbands, wives, and children their paychecks supported.
Jason wandered among the furniture. Here was Janine's desk, cluttered with hockey souvenirs. Jason had never asked her how a banker in LA could become a Carolina Hurricanes fan. He picked up a puck, examined the swirling red and black pattern of the logo. This puck was all he really knew about her. He replaced it in the ring of pale dust the cleaning crew had missed.
He crossed to Dan's office. He stared into the darkness, the shapes of chairs and desk reminders of how vacant this office would be after he fired Dan tomorrow.
Margaret from HR or one of her flunkies would serve as Jason's wingman on this search-and-destroy mission. He would do it as he'd been taught. Stick to the facts. Don't let it get personal. It's not about you, it's a reduction in force. RIFs happen in the best of businesses, to the best of people. Talk about the severance package as soon as you can. Cover the benefits, active another thirty days and what it will cost after that to keep them going. Stave off any emotions. Have the HR rep accompany Dan back to his office so he can clear out his personal belongings---but leave that rolodex. And no computer access. Then have security escort him to the door with a cardboard box loaded with all that would remain of his life with the bank.
It happens.
But Dan was nearing sixty. Going back into the dating game of the job market wouldn't be easy for him. If you put Dan and his gray hair next to some young, ambitious guy you could pay less and get more years from, the young guy would get the job every time unless Dan could convince you that his clients would cut their ties to BTB and follow him.
Jason turned his back on Dan's office and stared over the desks, file cabinets, chairs. He had to fight a sensation that the floor was sloped toward him. That he stood on an incline without traction. That soon this furniture would begin to drift toward him, gathering momentum and speed into a stampede of wood and metal he could never stop. Everything would slide down, drive him backward even farther than he'd already slid, into the darkness behind him. Into a pit of dark ruin.
He'd tried to fix this. He'd fought Vince as long as he could. The mistakes he'd made were clear to him now, but at the time they had seemed like risks worth taking. If he'd made different choices---involved Mark and Scotty more in his decisions, stopped trying to protect his staff from the politics by taking so much responsibility himself---maybe he could have kept enough juice around here to stop this.
His feet shuffled along the carpet away from Dan's office. Tomorrow he would fire five of them. No, four. He wouldn't fire five. Four more people in the unemployment lines was enough, four more to watch their savings dwindle as what few interviews they could schedule led to no hope, no hope at all. Four more families swallowing their pride, four more marriages cast into struggle and doubt. Tomorrow Jason would sit behind his desk and recite the salary and benefits packages the four of them would be shuttled away with like things bagged up at the end of a stick.
Hopefully the meetings would be over before their shock wore off.
Word would spread quickly. Soon everyone would be on edge, waiting for the next name to be called.
Jason found himself outside Vince's office. How convenient for Vince to deflect this dirty work to Jason. The staff that used to claim loyalty to Jason would see him, not Vince, as the hatchet man. Vince could sit in this office like a manager in a slaughterhouse, hands unsullied by the carnage played out around him.
Vince had been gone for an hour or more, but the rank cologne he slathered himself with still drifted out of the room. Jason's upper lip curled with the smell of it. He moved away, trying to distance himself from the abyss everything seemed to be sliding toward.
He should leave. He should have left hours ago, when his coworkers were shutting things down, filing down the escalator, calling good-byes to one another. The escalator was shut off now.
When Brenda had leaned through the doorway to let him know she was leaving, her glance had lingered on him long enough to let him know she would be waiting for him at her apartment.
Serena waited for him too, he knew. At home. Home. The word lodged in his mind like a splinter. What kind of home was it when there was no trust, no honor in the marriage there? It was no home at all. Just a set of walls and floors hammered together, plaster and paint slapped over sticks and nails.
The pastor would have him go to his wife. "You got to weed that garden," he'd said.
Jason stared over the unpopulated desks. The silence of the room pressured his ears with want for the ordinary clamor of any day here. He wanted the phones ringing, wanted movement in those chairs, voices calling out, deadlines impending---the pressures and the sense that the thirty-five people on his team were pulling on the oars together, with him at the helm, a pilot and navigator.
But the place was empty. And tomorrow he would cast four of his crew overboard, and good luck with that swim, guys. Hope you make it to land. Hope your families survive intact. Here's your severance. Here's your last office supply from BTB: a cardboard box you can unfold and tape together and pile your few personal effects into under the distrustful eye of an HR rep standing over you to make sure you don't take any pencils that don't belong to you, that you don't download something you shouldn't onto a disk, that you don't get into any mischief on the bank's system as your final sally before you're cast over the rails.
He should go to Serena. He felt her drawing him. He pictured the expression on her face when she'd pulled away from him this morning, knowing what he'd done, that he'd been with someone else. Maybe she had smelled Brenda's fragrance on his cheek. Maybe guilt simmered in the whites of his eyes. She knew him well enough to see it if it was there.
The darkness outside had turned his office window into a mirror. He meant to see if guilt revealed itself in his eyes. But he turned away from his image too fast to see anything but the face he used to trust.
The whir of the air-conditioner cut off. At eight o'clock every night, the building's system shut down. The silence took on an even greater depth.
He grabbed his jacket and made for the elevator. At the push of the button, the engine that drove the car surged somewhere below, behind the closed panels he faced, and he had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder to see if the whole place was sliding toward him in an avalanche.
The doors opened. He stepped inside and pushed the button to take him down to the garage.
Wherever Serena was, that was where he belonged. The pastor was right. He should go to her, try to get past this suspicion. But how could she claim someone had forged that letter? It was absurd.
And Brenda drew him as well. With her eyes, with her skin, her hair, her electric touch. Want clawed at him in his deepest places, want for her and want for something only she could give him. No one else---not Serena and not anyone since he was a very young man---could make him feel this way.
She reminded him of Danah, he realized. It must be the reason he'd been so fascinated by her the instant she'd stepped into his office. Thinking of it made the want inside him grow into something so primal he couldn't imagine having the strength to resist.
The elevator doors opened, and his cell phone chirped. The readout said Brenda Tierney.
He stepped into the garage and clicked on the phone icon to make the connection.
"I'm on my way."
At Diane's apartment building, Flip pressed a handful of buttons on the intercom and waited for a voice. His response, "It's me," eventually worked for somebody, and the latch smacked to unlock the front door. He moved into the lobby.
His hands returned to his jacket pockets. The box containing the gift was a rectangle the size of an ammunition clip. His fingers held it in place. After hours of enduring the suspicious stares of jewelry-store clerks at stores all over the west side, he had settled on this bracelet. The girl who sold it to him said the lucky lady would love him for it. Five carats of diamonds stretched out across platinum into what the girl called a tennis bracelet. He'd thought of asking her why they called it that but had kept his mouth shut. He'd wanted it over with. When she took it to the back of the store to wrap the box in foil gift paper and tie a ribbon around it, he half suspected she was switching it for a cheaper piece.
He set out up the stairs to the third floor and brought his hand away from the box to the railing. The sweat on his palm slicked the metal rail. Diane would like the bracelet. The girl at the store had said Diane would love him for it, and that girl should know. She'd better know.
The door at the top of the stairs took effort to move. He shoved it hard enough to make it bounce against the stop, and he was in the hallway. All these doors, duplicates of one another, grouped in pairs. Diane's was the fifth one down on the right. He moved toward it, his feet heavy.
She would like it. She had to like it. Eight thousand dollars it had cost him, and the girl in the store had called Diane a lucky lady. And when Di asked how he'd gotten it, he would tell her he had a little job of his own going on the side. He'd tell her about Mr. B and the papers. He'd bring her into it so they could go over it together. She would like that too, and she would have some ideas how to make it even more worthwhile. He passed his hand over his hip pocket to make sure the papers were still there.
Flip reached her apartment door. He removed the box from his jacket pocket, tried to fluff the ribbon back into the curly mass the salesgirl had made. It had gotten pressed in his pocket, and he couldn't get it to resume the right shape. He told himself it didn't matter and twisted his neck to try to relax.
He knocked. From behind the door, he heard her voice call him inside. He would have to talk with her about screening her visitors better. If she'd seen some of the guys he'd seen, she wouldn't let people in that easy. He ran his palm along his leg and reached for the doorknob. It turned, and he pushed the door open.
Candlelight flickered inside. Diane sat at the table, and the softness of the light cast a glow on her cheeks and nose, made the dimple in her right cheek a pinpoint of shadow. Two tall red candles stood in the center of the table. She'd set out plates for two, a bottle of wine, three steaming serving bowls and meat leafed out on a platter. The aroma of the food mixed with a fruity warmth that must have come from the candles posted on the coffee table and end tables.
How had she known he was coming? All the jitters he'd felt shifted into excitement. The fragrance, the care she'd taken with the table and candles, a woman's vocals as soothing as a caress floating from the stereo speakers. He hadn't talked to her for a week. He'd wanted to surprise her with the gift. How had she known?
But she rose from the table and her smile was gone. Something was wrong. He took a step into the room. The gift box was in both his hands. The settling of the expression on her face made him tighten his grip. He wanted to crush the box as she came around the table.
"Flip, darlin' . . ."
Darkness settled in his eyes. The box went back into his jacket pocket.
She wore a long, silky robe the color of new pennies. The form of her body moved underneath the silk. Seeing it created a turmoil inside him that he clamped on so hard he thought he could feel his bones grinding.
She was before him, her hands on his arm. "It's for the job, Flip." Her voice was level. Her eyes were hemmed with black makeup. Her lips glistened in the candlelight. She wore heels, bringing the green of her eyes level with his. Through the fragrance of the food she'd prepared for another man, through the aroma from the candles, the scent of Diane came to him. So close.
Her fingers tightened on his arm. "You knew this would be part of it, Flip. You had to know." Her eyes flicked past him, to the open doorway. "He'll be here any second. You have to go."
He tried to blink away the darkness. His eyelids were like sandpaper. He wanted to seize that pretty little neck in his fists. Or, no. He wanted to wait for the man coming, wanted his knuckles to feel that man's face crushed beneath them.
She pushed him toward the door.
Before he could think, his arm flew up. It caught her hands and glanced against a shoulder. She stumbled backward.
He wanted to take it back, but it was too late. She went to the floor.
The robe slipped up as she fell, revealing her bare legs. By the time his eyes returned to her face, all the pretty had gone out of it, replaced with a fury that twisted her lips and brow, skin reddened.
"You have to go." Her voice was cold as ice. She rolled onto her knees, and the robe cascaded to cover the bareness, pooling on the floor around her. "If he sees you, everything will be ruined."
She was on her feet. The redness in her face remained, but she managed to put the pretty back into her expression, letting her forehead smooth and her lips turn into something like a smile.
Her intercom buzzed. She stepped toward it but stopped. She came to him. "That's him. It's for the job, darlin'. That's all. When it's over, we'll be together." Her breath was mints and steel, puffing on his cheek, the warmth of it transporting him to other times with her.
He turned to face her. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to bite. "Just tell me one thing."
"Okay, darlin'. Then you have to go." Her eyes the color of spring leaves flitted to the doorway and back to him.
"What's the name you're using? Just so I know which button to push downstairs?" He let her steer him to the door.
She leaned outside, looked up and down the hall, returned those green eyes to his. "Tierney. Brenda Tierney. Now go. Use the back stairs. I'll call you later."
Jason stood next to the intercom, waiting for Brenda's voice to break the silence. She must not have heard his first ring, or maybe the system was broken. He reached toward the button again, but her voice came across to interrupt his movement. He spoke his name into the panel, and the door clicked open.
Serena's face floated in his mind. She was a presence behind him. He stepped faster. He couldn't bring himself to stop to call the elevator. As if he could outpace Serena's presence, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. At the third floor, he shoved through and saw Diane's door closed ahead. He had to get in there fast, or Serena would tear him away.
He didn't bother knocking. The door was unlocked for him. He burst into the room. It was lit by candles. Their flames dimmed with the force of the air from the door. Brenda stood beside the table. Silk the color of peaches draped from her shoulders. She smiled, her hand slipping an inch toward him over the back of a chair.
Serena fled.
He slammed the door and crossed the room in three steps, and she was in his arms, pulling him to her, the softness and hardness of her flesh and bones formed to his. Her lips were sweet; her arms gripped his sides. Her hands moved over his back, and heat rose up within him threatening to explode.
She pulled away a quarter-inch, regaining her breath. "I made this dinner." Her hands went to the sides of his head, and she pulled him to her. Another kiss. Urgent. "But all I want is you."
\*
Later, Brenda fed him cold meat from the platter that had been steaming when he arrived. She slipped pieces of beef between his lips, and the taste of her fingertips mingled with what she'd cooked for him.
"Don't you want to sit at the table?" Jason's back rested against the front of the sofa, his legs stretched out on the carpet.
"I'm fine here," she said. She had her legs stretched out alongside his. The plate she'd made for him lay on his other side, and she had to reach across him and press against him to serve him.
She took up beet slices and held them to his mouth. A drop of bloody juice dripped from the beets onto his bare chest, a cool tap and trickle. She bent to it and licked it from his chest.
The vinegary tang of the beets washed through his mouth. He swallowed. She plucked another sliver of beef with her fingertips and brought it to his lips. Jawing it, he watched the movements of her shoulders and arms, her skin's swell and stretch with her motions. She had a small mole on her right shoulder. He passed his finger over it---no imperfection in the smoothness of her skin.
He looked into her eyes over the slice of potato she held up to him. "That's enough."
She took the potato into her own mouth, swallowed, and brought her lips to his. Another kiss on his cheek, and she rested against him, fit her head into the hollow underneath his shoulder. His left arm surrounded her back.
Unease in his chest wrestled against the sensations of her skin against his. Serena had returned. A vision of her floated in his mind. Serena at the altar, veiled and facing him, expectant when he lifted the veil for their first kiss as husband and wife. He shook his head.
"What is it?" Brenda brought her face up to his. The candles were dying, the lights flickering to cast thousands of conflicted shadow lines from her eyelashes.
"Thinking about tomorrow." A lie. In his mind swam the question of whether he'd told more lies in his life than truths. He spoke again so the question couldn't surface. "I have to do some dirty work for Vince."
A frown drew a black line up between her eyebrows. "I hate him."
"He's my favorite guy."
"Sometimes I wish . . . Never mind." She pushed her cheek into his shoulder. Stray blonde hairs tickled his chin.
"What? What do you wish?"
She lifted her face to his again; her eyes gleamed in the candlelight. "Sometimes I wish we could do something to get back at him. Get back at all of them. For the way they're treating you. It's so unfair." In this light, her eyes were deep jade, tiny flashes from the candles glistening at the whites. Her eyelashes webbed crisscrossing shadows around them.
The banker in him said they shouldn't talk about it. Some things were better unexplored, were too dangerous to let your mind carry fleeting fantasies into uttered words.
But she smiled and let her hand move over his chest, and the motion seemed to draw the fantasies out. "It's silly; I know. But just for fun." She brought her eyes back to his, the hand roving his skin. "You have so much authority, Jason. There's got to be something you could do."
"Just for fun."
"We're just talking. There's nobody here but you and me." She shifted against him, bringing her face even closer, the fragrance of the food they'd shared blending with the fruity scent of the candles flickering to their smoky deaths. "What if we just went down to the vault one day and cleared it out?"
He laughed. "Sure. Nobody would stop us from doing that."
"Just tell them you have to check on a customer's cash. They'd buy that, right?"
"Oh, that's a great plan. I can see you've given this a lot of thought." He smiled at her. "Anyway, if I really wanted to do something the vault's not where I'd go. That's not where the real money is."
"What do you mean? I was down there once. There are stacks of it."
"Hundreds of thousands. Maybe a few million on a big day. It's not enough for the risk of doing something like that. You always have to balance out the risk-reward. One of the cardinal rules in business."
"Well, where then?"
Jason swept his hand through the air. "In the ether. In the wires. Debits and credits. Settlements every night in the tens of millions. The hundreds of millions. Billions. Banks wiring money back and forth through the fed. Loan advances and paydowns. Companies getting bought and sold."
Brenda's lips were parted as she followed his words. He could still feel those lips on his, their tenderness and need, could still taste them.
He touched her chin. "It amazes me when people commit a federal crime for a few thousand dollars. Get the FBI after them, not just the local police. They'd be better off holding up a liquor store."
"Well, I know you could do something. With all the authority you have."
"There's a lot of things I could do. That wouldn't be the hard part."
"Mm. Right." She brought her lips to his ear and spoke with her lips brushing against it. "It's getting away with it."
The tires of his BMW met the streets.
Everything was different now. The waking city pulsed around him to a beat out of sync with him, its tempo tired as an aged rocker compared to the melody of the sonata he and Brenda had composed during the night. The ugliness of the streets, the hazy air, trash flitting along the gutters and crushed in tire tracks---all of it was different now.
For a moment he dared to imagine it might be temporary.
If he pursued this path, if it wasn't just talk, if the seeds of a plan he and Brenda had planted last night took root and they fled together with millions in their pockets, he wouldn't have to drive these streets much longer. These buildings wouldn't hem him in; he would no longer be enclosed by these cold edifices rising around him, aloof as the stars up there somewhere you couldn't see because of the smog from millions of Angelenos. He and Brenda could leave all this ugliness, these buildings, these filthy streets, these striving, frenzied people all a paycheck away from ruin. The two of them would be gone, their only worry the feds on their tails.
Not that the feds were a small worry. But you could cure a lot of problems with enough money.
Part of him still hung back from the details, not wanting to give place to it. This life of his would end. He would be flushing away everything he'd worked for in the past sixteen years.
But where had it gotten him? Soon Vince would either fire him or relegate him to a role so menial he wouldn't even have the authority to approve an expense report. He'd spend the rest of his career bouncing from bank to bank around town, maybe adding 5 or 10 percent to his salary with every new business card, until his hair was too gray to find anyone willing to put him on the payroll. This chance with Brenda would be gone forever.
As he turned the corner onto his street, the numbers he'd discussed with Brenda flitted through his mind. Twenty million. Maybe thirty. A couple of loan advances would be harder to catch than just one. He could set up offshore accounts over the next couple of weeks to receive the loan proceeds. He thought of the bankers he'd met from London and Japan at bank syndicate meetings. Those contacts could help a lot. And the Israeli lawyer who'd negotiated for a client, and the business manager for an actor who was a client. Guys on the edge of legal. He could sense it when they talked about certain loans and fund movements. But you didn't ask too many questions. Even though you knew that somewhere past the part you played, something wasn't quite right.
They could be useful.
He reached up to press the garage-door remote, and the sections rose. Serena had stationed her Mercedes on the left. His lips tightened. He would not engage. Just shower, change clothes, and get out, get to the office, away from her.
He slotted the BMW in and switched off the engine. Stepping out into the garage, he was about to turn to enter the house, but the sound of nearby footsteps caught his attention. Two men were hustling from the sidewalk up the driveway. Big men. One white and tall, bruises shadowing his face and one arm in a cast, the other guy Hispanic, black hair combed back from his forehead, round face set like concrete.
Jason had an urge to run. But they would be on him before he could make it to the door or get back into the car. When they moved into the garage, the space seemed to close down on him.
The tall one had to bend his neck to fit under the door opening. The Hispanic stepped ahead.
A carjacking. It happened all the time in the city. They followed a car until it parked and got to the driver while the key was still in his hand. Home invasions started like this sometimes too.
He realized he was still standing between the open door of his car and the chassis. The key was in his hand. Nowhere to go. "What do you want?"
They stared at him. The tall guy in back looked at him as if measuring him for a coffin. It was a crowd between the Mercedes and the BMW, this gap never as small as it was now. He was hemmed in.
He could hit the panic button on his key. It would sound the car alarm. But car alarms in the city had no impact. All it would do was bring Serena out. And that was the last thing he wanted.
The Hispanic guy in front spoke up. "You got a brother Flip?"
Not carjackers. Not home invaders. Jason shifted his feet and he put a hand on the top of the open door. Finally a breath would come.
"What about it?"
The guy who had spoken moved closer. Jason could count the pockmarks on his face. "He's got something belongs to our boss."
Jason took a step forward so the door would clear his back. He reached back and slammed it. "Well, I don't know where he is. My advice is to check the jails around town. That's where I usually hear from him."
"Maybe we should look around inside." He had so many pockmarks he looked like somebody had taken a hat pin to his face. "Could be you got him visiting and you don't know it. You been out all night."
"Visiting? He doesn't visit. Tell you what. Why don't you give me your number? He shows up, you'll be the first guys I call."
"I think he's getting smart with us."
Jason looked past Pock-Face to the tall guy. He hadn't said a word. The bruises on his face weren't fresh, but the cast on his arm was bright white. "Did Flip do all that to you?"
He kept quiet. Maybe his jaw was wired shut.
Pock-Face said, "What he's got, we need to get back. You understand? You get it for us, it would be better for him. You let us know. We come and get it from you, and he doesn't get hurt."
Jason smiled. They didn't know Flip. "Sure. I'll let you know. Just give me your number."
The tall one had something in his hand. Jason craned his neck around to see. It was a blade. He held it against the BMW's fender. He began to scrape it.
"Hey!"
Pock-Face shoved a hand against Jason's chest.
The garage rang with the screech of metal scraping metal.
"Stop. Stop!"
The tall guy brought the knife away from the fender and spoke for the first time. "Just giving you my number. You want me to write it somewhere else?"
Pock-Face shoved Jason farther into the garage. "Maybe we write it someplace handier." He took his own knife out and folded the blade out from the handle. The blade was shiny as a mirror. "Maybe I carve it in your face."
Jason held his hands out. "I'll remember."
"I think you'll forget." Pock-Face kept coming.
"No, I'll remember. I have a good memory. Good with numbers. Really good."
The grin on that pocked face mocked his fear. "You sure? 'Cause I could help you remember." He kept shining the light from the garage door opener off the blade and into Jason's eyes.
The tall guy was carving into the fender again, a straight line now as he approached the hood, coming in Pock-Face's and Jason's direction.
"Come on, man," Jason said.
The tall guy brought his eyes up. "You shouldn't worry so much about your car. Hey, maybe we could get your lady to help you remember. She's been home all night while you been out."
Pock-Face kept grinning, reflecting the light into Jason's eyes. "Yeah, let's go see the pretty lady. She'll help you remember. Otherwise you'll forget."
"I won't forget."
The tall guy gashed the paint so deep he made a spark. "Five-five-five," he said. "You listening?"
"Yeah. Five-five-five." It was all Jason could get out. His breath was failing him.
"Five-two-zero-seven. Say it."
Jason squinted against the flash of the light off Pock-Face's blade. He repeated the digits.
"I don't know," Pock-Face said. "I still think he's going to forget the numbers. Forget to call. Let's go see the pretty lady."
"No. I'll remember. Five-five-five, five-two-oh-seven. I got it."
"You got it?"
Jason nodded. "Believe me. I'd like to get rid of him myself. You'd be doing me a favor." He repeated the number again.
"You're not going to try to protect your brother? I still think we should see the pretty lady."
"No. I got it. I won't try to protect him."
"'Cause we got to get what belongs to our boss. Understand?"
Jason was beginning to feel like a bobble-head, he was nodding so much. "I understand. I do. You don't have to talk to her."
"It ain't talking to her I want." Pock-Face let his words hang in the garage. To Jason it seemed that they stared at each other for five minutes before the blade folded away against Pock-Face's leg. He dropped the knife into his hip pocket, held his thumb by his ear and his pinky by his lips, and mouthed the words, "Call me." He winked and turned away.
Jason stood with his back to the door leading into his house. The garage he and Serena had cluttered up over the years felt empty without the menace of the thugs looking for Phil.
A hand went to his face. They had talked about carving numbers in his skin. And Serena. It occurred to him that they'd been here all night, with Serena home alone. Pock-Face had called her the pretty lady. They'd gotten a look at her.
He tried the door to the house. Locked. They never locked it. This was the only door they kept unlocked. They had the big garage door to keep people out.
The key was still under the mat. It rattled to the slot but missed the grooves, jamming. He yanked it out, tried again and got it lined up, unlocked it, and burst inside.
"Serena!"
No answer. She wasn't in the kitchen. The dining room was empty. Jason ran from room to room, calling her name. Heard no response.
He charged up the stairs. First to their bedroom. Their bed was made.
The bathroom. He heard the pulse and splash of the shower and burst in.
Serena yelped. Behind the shower glass her arm went to her breasts. She called his name reproachfully.
One hand on the knob, he stood in the doorway, unable to catch his breath, his heart hammering. He sank to the floor.
Serena turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. She came to him, long hair pressed to her scalp and dripping. Drops of water clung to her bare shoulders as she knelt.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
Jason shook his head. His hands went to his face. Serena's hands took his, lowered them.
"Jason." She angled her head, trying to get into his line of sight.
He met her eyes. Around the brown pupils, the whites were lined with red, and the skin around her eyes was swollen. He recognized the look from other times she'd been crying. "They didn't . . . ? Those guys didn't . . . ?"
"What guys?"
"Two guys. In the garage. They didn't come inside?"
"No." She looked toward the door as if he might have led them in. "What did they want?"
He wanted to wrap his arms around her. Wanted to feel her warmth against him. Put all the cheating behind them.
But it was too late.
He pushed up off the floor.
Serena rose with him. Water pooled on the slate at her feet. "Jason? What did they want?"
"They wanted to scare me. I guess it worked." He turned away and dropped onto the bed. "They had knives. One of them keyed up the Bimmer pretty good."
She brought a trail of wet footprints onto the carpet. "I'm calling the police."
"Wait."
The receiver was in her hand, halfway to her damp ear. "Wait? Knives, Jason? And you want me to wait?"
"Just give me a minute." He was seated on his bed in his home. He knew that. He was in his bedroom with his wife. She stood within reach. He could touch her if he extended his hand, could feel the terry cloth that clung to her skin or the dampness on her shins. But the reality of where he stood and the things around him wouldn't help him escape the feeling that he stood on a precipice. One step, two, and a chain of events as incontrovertible as gravity would take him.
Here stood Serena, surrounded by the house they'd built together. They'd intended to live out their lives here. The shade of paint on the walls, the color of the carpet, the patterns on the furniture, the sinks and shower heads in the bathrooms---it was all assembled at their expense and direction. But her cheating was like a demolition ball. The place mocked him every time he entered. And her denials were an insult.
He brought his eyes to her face. Why had she come back? What did she hope to gain by insisting on her innocence despite proof? She'd grown tired of her lover. That must be it. He'd made her a bad cup of coffee or left dirty dishes in the sink or said something that revealed he wasn't worthy of her. So she'd come back to Jason. Old, reliable Jason, who would always stand by waiting for her like a groom at an altar expecting the bride's entrance.
"Give me the phone." He held his hand out.
Her drying brow made an inquisitive turn, and then he saw expectation on her face, expectation that he would do the right thing. Like he always did the right thing. Follow the rules. The police and the law, the chain of authority, the consequences the punks from the garage should face. It was what she wanted him to do. She slipped the cordless phone into his palm.
He tossed it onto the bed next to him.
Her head jutted forward. "Really? You're going to let them get away with this?"
He stood away from the bed and went to the closet. Serena kept talking about what he was supposed to do. He unbuttoned his cuffs and collar and drew the shirt over his head without unbuttoning the rest of the buttons. It went on the floor. He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants, ignoring Serena's goading him to debate. Her voice was a cattle prod. She wanted him in her pen or led to slaughter. It didn't matter to her as long as he was under her control.
He walked to the shower, staying ahead of her voice. She wouldn't stop, not until he gave in.
The shower valve was in his hand before he'd had enough. He turned. "I'm not calling the police, Serena. I'm going to take a shower and go to work."
Her lips clenched. She folded her arms over the towel. "Then I'll call them myself."
"No. They're after Phil."
A shake of the head, those brown eyes squinting. "So?"
"So I'm going to hand him over."
In a dark room, curtains shutting out sunlight to almost make it night inside, Flip lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, wanting more blackness. Even the thickest motel curtains couldn't keep the light away entirely.
It was all darkness now inside, and he wanted it outside him too. Eternal night. The sun was a hated thing, like a spotlight circling a prison to pin him to a wall and freeze his escape. It was a tool for the cops. Other people could have the warmth of it on their faces, burning its cancers into their skin. He wanted none of it. He never wanted to see the sun again.
Flip rolled onto his side, directing his face away from the window and the sunlight that tried to squeeze through the gaps like an airborne plague. Sleep away the day. That's what he would do. Never again take the risk of exposure to that flame in the sky.
Candles. She'd lit candles for someone else. They'd filled the air with the smell of fruit and candy. The image of the table came to him, silverware aligned on carefully folded napkins, plates shining in the candlelight, goblets waiting for the wine to be poured. And she'd dressed with another man in mind, put on that long, silky robe that begged hands to touch it.
He pulled the pillows around his head. He couldn't shake the images of her and what she'd prepared in expectation of someone else.
He'd knocked her to the floor. He pressed the pillows tighter around his head, wished he could squeeze the image out forever. But there it was, Diane sprawled on the floor, that robe riding up over her bare thigh, anger flashing across her face for an instant before she was back on her feet. And not a word of protest. As if she got knocked down every day.
Was that how it was for her? Did her old man treat her that way? Did her big sister? Or did she get used to being knocked around after she left home, when her scams took her across country, waitressing in Philly, desire for revenge and a big score driving every move she made, every human contact. Was it her childhood she was so driven to avenge? He had never asked. Flip had never met anyone so absorbed with retribution---even when he was in the joint, where guys nursed their grudges like there was no other reason to live.
"Mister?" A woman's voice.
Flip bolted up. The pillows fell from his head.
"I make up your room?" The silhouette of a square woman was framed in the brilliant sunlight beaming in through the open doorway.
"No. Go away." He shielded his eyes and waved with his other hand.
"You want fresh towels?"
The sunlight battered his eyes. "No. Get out." He was on his feet, moving toward the door.
She shied away. "I come back later?"
"No. Do not disturb. See?" He took the sign hanging from the doorknob and hung it on the outside. "Do not disturb."
She stepped out into the day, and Flip slammed the door and brought the little bar around over the knob on the door that worked better than the chains they used to have in these places.
What had he been thinking about? Diane. Of course. Diane. What else would he be thinking about? He'd been thinking about her ever since he first saw her when she visited him toward the end of his time in the Stark Youth Correctional Facility. The way she moved and the look in her eyes brought him along, trailing him after her like a puppy on a leash.
Well, he wouldn't be her puppy anymore. He had a little something going for himself now. Sure, maybe he'd be there when she was ready to come crawling back to him. But he had these papers of Mr. B's now. And Mr. B would pay to get them back. He'd pay big, or he would really pay if he didn't.
Flip crossed to the closet and slipped the papers out of his bag. The light from the closet was too bright, so he angled the door closed against it. He read them again, the names and phone numbers and the notes beside them that described enough that even the dumbest cop would get the drift of what Mr. B was up to.
He looked over the list. The penmanship was precise, tiny, every letter a capital. Blue ink and black, even some in red. Flip wondered if the colors had any meaning or if Mr. B would just pick up whatever pen was closest when he had to jot something down. He could picture Mr. B at his desk, reaching for a pen, maybe yelling at Garrett or Ronny if he couldn't find one. None of the names on the list meant anything to him. Somewhere here was the name of the girl, the daughter of the big guy who'd come for Mr. B's head. He'd called her a strung-out, dead junkie.
This list had to be worth a lot to Mr. B. Even if he had a copy somewhere.
Flip reached for the phone. The base was bolted to the bedside table. As if somebody went around stealing old desktop telephones. He called information and got the number of the Ragtop Club, and after seven rings, a man answered.
"I want to talk to Mr. B."
"Who's this?"
"Tell him Frank."
While the guy yelled for Ronny to see if Mr. B wanted to talk to Frank, Flip looked over the list some more. It was five pages long. The sheets were unlined, the names and numbers and notes running in uneven rows across the pages.
The other phone rustled. "Hi, Flip."
He tried not to let surprise slip into his voice. "Smart boy. How'd you figure that one out?"
"Flip Dunn. Or Philip. Brother named Jason. I got it all right here. Old man lives in Inglewood, name of Henry. You want me to read his address for you?"
"I know his address."
"I want that list, Flipper."
"It's Flip. I ain't a dolphin."
"You bring me that list. I want it right now, understand, Flipper? Now."
This was no good. He didn't want Mr. B going to his dad's house, Doberman or not. "It's Flip."
"Okay, Flipper, here's how it's going to work. We already been to see your brother and his wife. But if that list isn't in my hands today, a couple of my guys go have a talk with your dad tonight. Then they go back to your brother's house after. Get it?"
Diane would know what to say. Flip had nothing to tell him.
"You thinking it over, Flipper?"
"Yeah, I'm thinking."
"Okay, here's an idea. You keep sitting there at Dino's Motel. My guys'll be right over, pick up that list. And my money. You can give me my money back too."
Flip had seen phones that read out the caller's ID. He should have bought a throw-away cell phone. Gone to a payphone. Something. He closed his eyes.
He was going to have to go out into the sunlight.
Max never barked. But the sniffing noise on the other side of the door told Jason his father was gone. That dog stayed glued to the old man's side whenever he was home.
Jason pounded on the door again. He still had a key to this lock somewhere, tucked in the back of a drawer at his house. He should have looked for it before he left. He knew there was a possibility the old man wouldn't be home when the phone had gone unanswered, but sometimes he ignored the ringing. There was no answering machine in the house, so all Jason could do was let it ring and ring.
It occurred to Jason that his dad could be lying on the floor in there, victim of a heart attack or stroke or something else. Or maybe Max had let the two guys with the knives get to the old man. Could be Dad had said something stupid to them. He never kept his mouth shut, and he always thought he was tougher than the other guy.
Jason gave up on the door and went to the window. He put his face to it between his hands, but the drapes blocked out everything. He went to the driveway at the side of the house, the leather soles of his shoes grinding the gravel, and opened the gate that led to the detached garage in back and the rest of the property. At the side of the house he tried the kitchen door. Max sniffed behind it, shadowing him to every entrance.
"Hey, Max, unlock the door, will you?"
More sniffs in response.
The drapes on the kitchen window were open. Jason went to it. Inside, Max stood on the faded linoleum, staring back at him through the glass.
Jason went to the plastic patio furniture propped up in the back yard. The chairs and table had started off white, but they'd been baked into a mottled gray by years in the sun and smog. Pooled dew and dust had dried into stains on the seat of each of the chairs. Jason left them empty. He took out his smartphone and thumbed through his e-mails. He was responding to one of Vince's morning taunts when he heard a car crunch up the gravel driveway and cut off. Pocketing the phone, he crossed to the gate and opened it a crack.
His father pulled himself out of the open car door with both arms. He took a moment to steady his balance before stepping past the door and slamming it.
Jason opened the gate. "Morning."
The old man turned. His neck had lost most of its flex, so his shoulders and head moved as if he wore a brace. With recognition of Jason, he lifted an eyebrow. "Why aren't you at work?" He went to the trunk and got the key jammed in and the lid popped open.
"When are you going to trade this thing in?"
"You people always think newer is better. Grab some of these groceries, will you?" He lifted two bags out. No plastic bags for the old man. He had too many uses for the paper ones.
"What is it, a '78?"
"You know it's a '79."
"Is GM even still making Buicks?"
"I thought bankers were supposed to keep up on things like that."
Jason thought it might be a smile tugging at the corner of the old man's mouth, but it was so faint he couldn't be sure.
They lugged the bags to the kitchen door, and Jason's father hinged over to set the bags on the stoop and get to his key. As soon as the door opened, Max stepped out. The old man's hand went to the dog's head before he gathered the bags and went inside. Jason followed, the Doberman circling them like a herder.
"Get the rest, will you?" The old man put the bags on the table and pulled out cellophane-wrapped spaghetti noodles and a loaf of bread.
Jason went back to the car. The neighborhood was silent. No thugs with knives loitering around. He gathered up the last three bags and propped one on a knee so he could slap the trunk lid shut. The gravel crunched under his feet like knocked-out teeth.
He kicked the kitchen door closed. "Did you have any visitors today?"
The old man was at a cupboard sliding cans in one at a time. Peas. Soup. Pork and beans. "Just you. Why?"
"Did you see my car?"
"Looked like it could use a wash." He folded an empty brown bag and slid it into the space between the refrigerator and the cabinet with the others that gathered dust and spider webs in there.
"A couple of guys came by looking for your boy."
The old man froze, one hand in a bag, the other among the cans in the cupboard. He didn't look up. He went back into motion. "Cops?"
"Not hardly."
Now his dad turned his shoulders and head toward him. "What's that mean?"
"It means Phil's in trouble. That's what."
The old man sniffed. "Tell me something new." Another bag folded and jammed into the slot. Jason thought there were probably bags in back that had been there since he was a teenager.
"You seen him? Phil?"
The Jim Beam was in its own bag inside a bigger one. Jason's dad slid it out and set it on the counter. No point putting that away. "Couple weeks ago."
Saltines. White bread. Both into the broom closet where the old man had installed shelves because the cabinets had run out of room to keep food for a man and his two hungry grade-school boys. He kept the brooms in the garage now with all the other junk.
"I want to talk to him. Do you know where he is?"
"Maybe he don't want to talk to you." The old man plopped into a cracked vinyl chair next to the table. "Take a load off." He had the Jim Beam in his bunched fist. It was only ten in the morning.
Jason sat. "You have any breakfast, Dad?"
Every time Jason saw him, that old nose seemed rawer. It could be a rotten, chewed-up vegetable. Blood vessels trailed across it like a graph of contrary indicators.
The old man sniffed. "Get me a glass, will you?"
"I'll get you some orange juice. Or something to eat. Got any eggs around?"
One of those eyes folded down into deeper wrinkles. "Yeah, I got eggs. I already got a conscience, too." He shoved out of the chair and opened the cupboard over the sink, where three glasses stood at different levels of dirty. Back in the chair, he twisted the cap and the seal snapped. His eyes avoided Jason as he spun the cap and set it on the tabletop and poured.
This explained why he'd gone grocery shopping so early. He was out of JB. He swallowed a sip, and something changed behind his face.
He brought his eyes back to Jason. "You plan to give Philip a warning? You going to protect him?" The grin was peppered with meanness.
"Sure."
Another sip. This one brought the level in the tumbler way down. He poured more.
"Take it easy, Dad."
A sniff. Jason's father leaned back in his chair, and the vinyl sighed underneath him. He drew the glass toward him and left his fingers on the smudged glass as if he got comfort from it.
Max came off his belly and onto his paws, his nails scratching at the linoleum. He came to the old man's side and sat. The wrinkled hand left the glass for the Doberman's head.
"That why you come by all dressed up? Tell me to take it easy?"
Jason sighed. As always, blame charged every word. It colored everything red with anger.
"All right." He stood. "You don't want to tell me, don't tell me. But if these two guys come here, don't answer the door, okay? And you might want to keep your car in back, unless you want it keyed."
He frowned, and shadows fell over his eyes. "They keyed your car?"
"I'm just glad they didn't do the same to me." He paused just one second. "Or Serena."
At the mention of her name, the old man's elbows drew in. "Don't you let her get hurt. You hear me?"
"That's why I'm here."
"They threaten her? Huh?" He was coming out of his chair. One hand fumbled through the air behind him and found the back of the chair to steady himself. "Did they threaten her?" His lower lip trembled, glowed with spittle.
"I told you---take it easy."
Breath rattled out of the old man's mouth. A smell like spiced oak and unbrushed teeth settled in the air. "Anything happens to her . . ." His head quaked.
Jason wanted to put a hand on his dad's shoulder and ease him back into the chair. But he couldn't bring himself to try to touch him. "I have to go. Are you sure you don't know where I can find Phil?"
The old man's shoulders stooped. His hands went to the table for support and his head dipped, pointing his sparse scalp at Jason. Then it rose to reveal the clouded eyes and ruined nose. "If I hear from him, I'll call. You take care of Serena. Hear? You take care of her."
"Sure. Sure, Dad."
Dan Martell's department-store pose had cratered ten minutes ago. Jason thought he looked very old now. The suit could be replaced by a ratty sweater, the tie by a scarf to keep the chill away from his throat.
"Where, Jason? Who's going to hire me in this market?" It was an accusation.
Jason shouldn't have tried to reassure him.
Across the room, Margaret from HR scowled at him over black-framed reading glasses, gold chain links falling from either side so she could wear the spectacles over her chest like a weird necklace. She'd warned him to stick to the facts. After he'd tried to console Chris, she told him it only made things worse.
Tell them it's not personal. Explain the separation package, how the bank calculates severance and where they fit into the policy. Let them know they'd receive paperwork about their 401(k) and insurance coverage at their home address. Get them to sign the severance agreement, or at least take it with them. There were important provisions in the agreement about confidentiality and bank property. Explain to them that if they were going to receive their severance checks, they needed to sign the agreement. Sure, take some time to review it. But bottom line, if you want to get a few more paychecks, you'd better sign this document.
Jason put his hands on Dan's agreement. One more after this one. He'd already fired Chris Walters. He'd fired Geoff Pierce. Dan made three. Then he'd call in the last one.
"This is the severance agreement, Dan. We need you to sign it. You've been with the bank for six years, so you get the maximum." He turned to the page that showed the number of months and the calculation.
Dan didn't look at it. "Who's going to hire a sixty-year-old banker, Jason? Would you?"
"There's also outplacement counseling."
Dan shook his head and sneered. "Counseling. I'd rather have the money you'll pay them."
Jason looked to the agreement as if that option might have appeared sometime after his fifth reading of the document.
Across the room, Margaret finally chimed in. "We encourage you to take advantage of it, Dan. It's a good firm. It's not just talking about how you're doing. They'll give you resources for your search too."
Dan kept staring at Jason.
This was going nowhere. Jason stood. "I'm sorry, Dan." He held out his right hand.
"I'll take less pay."
Jason let his hand drop. "Dan . . ."
"You can cut it by a third. I'll work for a third less."
Margaret said, "We can't do that, Dan."
"Jason, please." His eyes blinked five times, trying to keep tears from leaking out. "Half. I'll work for half."
Jason returned to his seat. "Dan, take the severance. Take a couple weeks off with Barbara. Use the counseling. Maybe you'll find something before the severance period's over, and you'll pocket some extra pay." He slid the agreement forward.
Dan looked down at it. His hand rested on it. The first page had the name of the bank and the words Separation Agreement at the top. It was a seven-page document. The goal, as described by BTB's lawyers, was to get a signature on it before the separated employee left the meeting.
"Jason," Dan said in a whisper, his eyes down, "don't make me beg you."
He could tell him it wasn't personal. He could talk about the cuts and the numbers and where Dan's salary and benefits ranked in the office's overhead. But none of it would matter. "There's nothing I can do, Dan. The decision's made."
"You can change it."
"No. This is the way it's got to be. I'm sorry."
Dan lifted his eyes. His chin trembled.
"You'll get through this, Dan."
He shook his head. "You don't know."
"Know what, Dan? Look. Take the agreement with you. Go over it with Barbara. If you have any questions, call Margaret. Or call me. It's a generous agreement. Things will work out."
"No, they won't." He crumpled the agreement into his hand. With a deep breath, he lifted his face and stood as if drawn up by his chin. He looked around the room. Margaret was on her feet too. She'd pulled the glasses down so they hung by the chain around her neck.
Jason held out his hand again. "Call me in a few days, Dan. Okay?"
"Yeah." Dan took his hand, the grip firm. He winked---a reflex Jason had never noticed before.
Dan turned. The mannequin posture had wilted in the space of this fifteen-minute meeting. He moved like a man who needed something to lean on.
At the door, he stopped, his hand on the knob. He turned his head slightly but wouldn't look up. "Barbara won't understand."
Jason crossed the room. "Don't sell her short. She might surprise you."
Dan raised his eyes. He turned them to the door and with his fist on the knob tried to stand up straighter. He couldn't seem to turn the knob.
Jason put a hand on his shoulder. "Try to think of it as beginning something new, Dan. Give yourself some time. I know you'll come through this okay."
Without looking back at him, Dan opened the door. Next to Brenda's desk, Foley waited to make sure Dan didn't take anything that was bank property when he cleared out his office.
Faces lifted from their desks to see this victim. At the sight of them, Dan hesitated. His head dipped, and he moved out along the wall toward his office, his posture reminding Jason of a whipped dog. Foley trailed him.
They stared at Jason. All of them. But when he met their eyes, they turned away quickly. Hoping they weren't next.
Brenda didn't look away. She had no idea she was next on Vince's list. Her hands were folded in her lap, her face up to him with a sympathetic press of her lips and turn of her eyebrows. "Anything I can do?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I just have to get this over with." She was lowest in seniority among the executive assistants. Jason placed his fingertips on her desk. Turned from her. "Angie, would you come in for a few minutes?"
Angie's head jutted forward in disbelief. "Me?"
"Yes." Jason turned and entered his office. He went to Margaret. "Give me the last severance agreement."
She drew it out of an envelope, glanced at the name, and handed it to him.
"There's been a change." He went to his desk and lined through Brenda's name and wrote Angie Barrett's in above it.
By the time he turned, Angie stood in the doorway. He handed the agreement back to Margaret.
She looked at what he'd written. "We need to talk about this."
"Come on in, Angie." Jason stepped behind her and closed the door on the faces that stared at him from the lobby. "Have a seat."
Margaret leaned forward. "Jason---"
He silenced her with a glare and came around his desk to sit before Angie. "The economy is forcing us to do a reduction in force." It was a tape by now, a repeating loop running through his mind. "Every office has to select 20 percent of their employees. Unfortunately, your name's on the list. It was a very difficult decision. It has nothing to do with performance. You've been a pleasure to work with. The bank has approved a severance package, and based on your years of service, you'll be compensated with a number of weeks of pay. Margaret's going to prepare the agreement and she'll have it messengered out to your home."
He glanced at Margaret. She stared at him, shaking her head.
Angie showed no emotion.
He let the tape roll. "Margaret will also deliver information on your benefits. Your health coverage will continue through the severance period and for the month following. If you want to continue it, the bank will work with you to get that taken care of. Margaret can explain the details."
He was done. It was all he had to say, and he'd said it three times earlier. Angie was the last one.
"I get it," she said.
"Good. Do you have any questions?"
"Yeah, I have a question." She folded her arms. "What makes you think I'll let you get away with this?"
"It's a reduction in force, Angie. It's not personal."
"Oh, it's personal. You think I'm blind? You think everybody in this office is blind?"
"Look, the decision's been made. I know it's hard to accept---"
"You better believe it's hard to accept. I've got seniority. My reviews have all been good. You've got no basis to pick me except what you got going with your little blonde. She's the new kid. She ought to be the one fired. Not me."
Margaret looked like she'd swallowed a bug.
"I think you'll find the severance agreement is pretty generous. Once you sign the agreement, you'll receive several weeks' pay."
"We're talking about your thing with Brenda, not the severance agreement."
"Angie, the whole bank is going through this. You're not singled out."
She turned to Margaret. "Do you know about this? Isn't it against the rules for a manager to be messing around with one of his subordinates?"
Margaret gave her nothing. HR training kept her face blank.
Angie spun back around. "Not to mention a married manager. How do you sleep at night, Jason?"
It was time to let his voice rise. "Look, whatever rumors you've started around here just confirm I've made the right call."
"They're not just rumors. It's common knowledge."
"You want to stop these accusations right now, Angie. Understand?"
"You're firing me so you can keep your mistress around. Everybody knows what happens when your door's closed. We even have a pool going. What time of day. How long the door stays locked."
"That's enough. Keep it up and the severance is off the table. I'll axe you for cause. Is that what you want?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Fine. Send me your severance agreement. We'll see if it's enough to keep me quiet." She stood and turned to Margaret. "Does HR back this up? Is this the official bank decision?"
Margaret said nothing. She slipped Brenda's severance agreement into the envelope and avoided looking at Angie.
Jason went for his phone. "Stay right there, Angie." He dialed Brenda's extension. She picked up before the first ring ended. "Have Foley come in."
"He's still in Dan's office. It's kind of a scene."
"You help Dan get out. I need Foley in here." He hung up.
Angie's arms were folded. "Taking food out of my kid's mouth. That's what you're doing. So you can keep your little fling going. You're sick." She went for the door.
"Don't open that door."
She swung it open. The door bounced against the stop and began to close behind her as she marched past Brenda's desk to her own.
Jason turned to Margaret. "You'd better see to her until Foley---"
"We need to talk."
"Just get out there and make sure she doesn't set fire to the place, will you?"
She gathered up her briefcase. Her reading glasses bounced against her chest when she rose to face him again. "We're not done with this, Jason."
He waved her away.
She left his office. He watched her approach Angie. The drama wasn't over between them, but when Jason saw Vince headed his way he lost interest in Angie's tantrum.
Vince stood like a bull ready to spring out of a gate. "This is the worst execution of an RIF I've ever seen."
"What did you expect? People to kiss your feet for firing them?"
"I expected you to handle this professionally. You've got people crying and shouting all over this office. Haven't you ever done this before?"
"As a matter of fact, I haven't."
Brenda leaned in behind Vince. She began to draw the door closed.
Vince heard the door squeak and turned. "Wait a minute."
She froze.
He faced Jason. "Why is Angie packing up?"
"Because her name was on my list."
Outside, Foley returned to the scene of the crime. Apparently he'd gotten Dan down to his car with his box of mementos, and he was back for the next casualty. He relieved Margaret. She wasted no time coming to Vince's side, looking every bit as bovine as he did. Put them in a cow pasture, and their business suits wouldn't keep them from fitting right in with the herd.
Vince's jaw knotted at its edges. "She was not on the list."
"You said I made the final call. That's what I did."
"So it's true."
Brenda still stood in the doorway. Vince turned to her. "Get in here."
Hands folded before her, she obeyed him, striding in like a penitent approaching an altar. She didn't look in anyone's eyes. Not even Jason's. She stood next to him.
Outside, Angie dropped an F-bomb on Foley. Jason looked up in time to see her slap Foley's arm away from the box. She held a plaque. Jason recognized it, even from a distance. He'd presented Angie the award in March. MVE---Most Valuable Employee. In the back of Jason's mind, he wondered if circling an MVE for a reduction in force would weaken the bank's case if she decided to sue them instead of taking the severance package.
She caught him looking at her, flashed the plaque in his direction and stuffed it into the box with a smirk.
Jason shook his head and waited for Vince to set him up. Somewhere underneath the needles of sparse hair on Vince's scalp, a brilliant jibe was forming but wasn't quite fermented enough yet.
Margaret's suit made her look as square as a jack-in-the-box. Crank her arm and see what springs out of the top of her head. Jason told her, "You'd better get Angie's severance agreement drafted. If you don't get her signature before she leaves---"
"I'm not changing any agreements." She folded her arms. The chained-up reading glasses looked down on her forearms. "We need to talk about what she said."
Here was Vince's launchpad. "What did she say?"
"Rumors," Jason said. "It's all some people have in their pathetic lives."
Margaret wouldn't have it. "What she said was that these two have an inappropriate personal relationship." She closed the door and produced a pen out of her jacket by the time she sat behind Jason's desk. "Sit down, you two."
Jason opened the door. "Brenda, go back to your desk."
Vince lifted a fat hand into the air. It hovered in front of her, five digits on a pink blimp. "Stay where you are."
Brenda let her eyes rest on Jason, and the faintest smile drifted to the corners of her lips. "Excuse me," she said to Vince and stepped to Jason. Her eyes held onto him. "I'll be outside if you need me."
She drew the door toward her, and when the door blocked her from the view of all but Jason, she let her smile come. With a wink.
He wanted to crash through the door and take her in his arms. Instead, he faced the HR manager and the chief banking officer. Margaret held her pen like a hypodermic needle, ready to skewer any lies that might flow in her direction.
She thumbed the button on the end of the pen. "Okay, Jason, let's have it."
"You have all you're going to get. A rumor from a separated employee. What do you expect when you do a RIF?"
Vince lowered himself onto the sofa, his palms cushioning the blow from his weight collapsing onto it. "Come on, Jason. They even let me in on it. And the boss is always the last to know."
From behind his own desk, Margaret began a recitation. "'A manager found to be engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a direct report faces disciplinary action, including possible termination.'"
"Does everybody in HR have the employee handbook memorized, or are you the only one?"
"This isn't the time to get nasty," Vince said. "I would think you'd want us on your side. The bank could be sued. And I don't think your wife's legal contacts will help you this time."
"Leave my wife out of this."
Vince snorted out a laugh. "You certainly are."
Jason drew a breath. His vision shook with fury. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He hadn't fought anyone in years, but Vince was making himself a great target for a kick in the teeth. In front of the head of HR. Wouldn't that make a nice addition to his personnel file?
He turned to Margaret. "I've got work to do. If you plan to put something in my file about this false rumor, you'll get a formal complaint from my attorney."
She clicked the pen, and the tiny brass tip disappeared from the business end.
"And you, Vince. I don't think your budget can stand the kind of legal fees you'd incur from a wrongful-termination suit. Not from me."
Vince leveraged himself off the sofa. It took some doing. "By the time I terminate you, there won't be anything wrongful about it."
"Vince . . ." Margaret looked like a woman bracing to be hit by a wave.
Vince stepped to Jason. Brushing past, his shoulder clipped Jason's chest. It knocked him back a step.
"Hey, Kalinsky."
Vince turned.
"You just bumped into me. Was that intentional?"
His plump, stubbled cheeks ballooned when he smiled. "Sorry."
Jason pulled so close, the smell of Vince's aftershave nauseated him. Quietly, he said, "Right now, fat man? Out back?"
The smile disappeared, and Vince's upper lip thinned. "Maybe some other time."
Jason wasn't sure if it was fear he saw on Vince's face or anticipation. Vince threw the door back and began his wobble across the common area. Margaret chased after him as fast as her prudent shoes would carry her.
Angie's prying eyes were gone, her desk drawers open and emptied of everything but bank property. Jason stood next to Brenda's desk, feeling her watch him. The place was as silent as he'd ever heard it. Those who knew Angie best were missing, probably in the parking lot consoling her, or commiserating.
Margaret closed Vince's office door from inside.
Jason turned to Brenda. "He's trying to get rid of me."
"Tell me something I don't know."
He ran his tongue along his molars. "Come inside for a minute."
"Are you sure?"
He went in. She followed. Three faces in the lobby sustained a pretense of not watching him as he closed the door.
Brenda collapsed into his arms. "That was scary."
"He's a big blowhard. We just have to be more careful." He reached down and locked the door and kissed her. Her lips melted into his, fever swirling through him like every other time he'd been with her this way. The touch of her hands clutching at his head, pulling him toward her, spiked his heartbeat.
She finished the kiss, and withdrew an inch from him. "Jason?"
"Hm?"
"Let's crush them."
Sunlight burned into Flip's back. The black sunglasses helped protect his eyes but did nothing to stop the sun from cooking him. He couldn't hide from Mr. B's two guys and from the sun at the same time. It was a living thing behind him, radiating into the backs of his legs and his rump, crushing into his exposed neck, baking the black cap on his head into some kind of medieval torture device.
From across the street, Flip's angle showed him only one side of Ronny's face; the bruises and swelling gave the bouncer the look of an elephant man. He stood next to the Chevy with his good arm propped on the roof while his partner did the work inside.
Ronny would be easy. The other guy was new. Flip had watched as the guy moved toward the office. Hair slicked back, face darkened by beard or acne, he moved like a spider.
Flip hated spiders.
Mr. B hadn't sent his office punk Garrett for this job. The spider was no Garrett. Flip wondered why Mr. B hadn't used the spider when Tats was breaking up the club. He looked like he might have been able to handle the big convict one way or another.
The spider tiptoed out of the glass door. He had a key in his hand, and he was making his way along the sun-facing doors toward Flip's room. Somehow the spider had convinced the kid in the office that he was scarier than Flip. Maybe he was.
Ronny joined him, leaving the car unprotected. The spider held the key to the doorknob and reached into his back pocket. Out of his fist something flashed. A blade. He held it against the back of his thigh.
This spider had a stinger.
They rushed into the room.
Flip came around the corner. He waited for a break in the traffic and ran across the street, scuffling to a stop beside the Chevy. He could hotwire it. But he slipped his own knife out and folded out the blade. He plunged it into the hard rubber of the rear tire. The hiss reminded him of snakes. One hand on the fender, he felt it drift downward as air rushed out of the tire. He crouched around the back and slashed the second rear tire. The shocks groaned as the car settled.
He peeked around the rear bumper. The door to his room was open. No light inside. Furniture crashed to the floor. Flip hadn't left much behind. They must be destroying the place.
A horn blew out on the street. He risked turning his head away from the room. In the middle lane, a white Explorer jerked forward an inch at a time. The driver was trying to muscle his way across the lanes to make a left turn into the motel parking lot. The passenger door opened. A beach boy came out with a cell phone pressed to the side of his head, eyes on Flip, his other hand lifted in a futile attempt to slow oncoming traffic. He put the cell phone away and searched at belt level under the back of his Hawaiian shirt.
Behind the wheel of the Explorer sat Officer Cole. He pounded on the steering wheel, his face contorted as he let out screams muted by closed windows. Cars continued to pass without pausing. He was hopelessly blocked by me-first drivers northbound on Sepulveda.
Flip bolted. If he could make it to the alley in back of the motel, he had a chance.
\*
Tom watched Hathaway try to stop oncoming traffic by waving a badge at them. It was useless.
Tom was through waiting. He laid into the horn and took his foot off the brake. The Explorer moved in front of an old Camaro. It was a classic, blue finish glossy in the smoggy sunshine. The driver honked back but stopped. The van behind him didn't.
The impact behind the Camaro shoved it ahead. Rubber squealed, and Tom's Explorer rocked.
Hathaway disappeared behind the Explorer, and Tom caught a glimpse of him hopping between cars in the unblocked northbound lane. Shawn Barnes's boys were ahead of Hathaway, rounding the motel's corner after Flip.
Tom's view was blocked by the driver of the Camaro. The guy's face was purple with rage. He yanked on Tom's door handle. Tom plastered his badge against the window and backed up to try to get clear of the folded Camaro.
Now it was the southbound traffic that wouldn't stop for him.
He backed into the flow anyway and missed causing another collision by millimeters.
The Camaro driver didn't care about badges. He pounded on the Explorer's door. Tom shifted back to Drive and forced the Explorer's nose ahead. The other lane had slowed enough for rubbernecking that Tom edged through without any more damage. He bounced into the driveway and followed Hathaway around the corner. Hathaway clambered over a wooden fence.
Tom would never be able to keep up with the surfer. And with his knees, the fence would be impossible to climb.
He hoped Hathaway was clear of it.
He stomped on the gas. The engine surged. He steered for the fence. The boards rose up in front of the windshield.
The fence shattered.
Tom braked and cranked the wheel around. Mud and weeds flew. He stopped in somebody's backyard. A pit bull in a frenzy strained against a collar, fangs and slobber flying. It was chained to a stake in the middle of the yard. Blood stained its jaw.
Barnes's boy with the cast hopped toward the Explorer, his free hand clutching at his leg, blood dripping from his fingers.
Tom jumped out. "Which way'd they go?"
The only response he got was a series of curses.
Tom grabbed a fistful of the guy's hair. "That dog'll get another bite if you don't tell me which way they went."
"That way, man." He pointed next door.
Tom shoved away from him and sat back into the car. He couldn't plow through a whole block of fences. He backed out, shredded fencing snapping under his tires.
\*
Flip longed for the night, but it was an hour away.
His chest heaved. He shifted out of his crouch and looked around the paint-chipped corner of the house.
Nobody yet.
Mr. B's pistol felt foreign to his palm. He'd never fired it, and that was the last thing he wanted to do now. It would be as good as announcing his location over a bullhorn.
He heard dogs barking, doors slamming, sirens howling, horns honking. He tried to listen past it all for footfalls. Whoever was back there was doing sweeps of every yard and house before moving on. It would give him a minute or two.
He pocketed the pistol. Above him was an unbarred window. He peeled the screen back. The window wouldn't budge. No time to be gentle. He found a rock and wrapped it in his cap. He held the cap against the glass and drove it through. Glass fractured and fell. He took out the pistol and counted to five.
No response.
He put the pistol back in his pocket and the cap on his head. The rock worked against the glass to clear the frame. He tossed the rock aside. A look inside through the curtains to make sure it was clear, and he reached for the lock. He slid the empty window frame up.
He rolled in, and a shard of glass made it through his jeans. He fell to the floor. No noise inside. Just smells. He extracted the glass from his rump and got to his feet. He was in a kitchen, and the glass he'd punched out had dropped into the sink and sprinkled the counter.
Outside, the fence creaked in its footings. He had the screen back in place before the spider came around the corner and into view.
He was close enough for Flip to see the shadowy acne scars on his face. Flip didn't move for fear of grinding the glass under his feet. He drew the gun out of his pocket.
The spider went to the back door. Screen-door hinges screeched. Sirens outside echoed closer. The doorknob rattled. Flip knew it was locked. He'd tried it himself. But for some reason he thought the spider might be able to open it. He shoved the pistol's safety forward. The trigger was a smooth hook under his index finger. He didn't move. Any glass that had fallen off the counter and onto the floor would reveal every step. And the floorboards in these old houses always gave off noises. His eyes were riveted on the back door.
The spider pounded on it.
"Who is it?" A weak voice floated from upstairs. Flip looked over his shoulder. Somewhere back there in the darkness was a woman, her voice cracked with age or illness or both.
Sirens outside alternated up and down. Some cut off, too close. The spider wouldn't be able to hear the voice through the door. Flip had barely heard it himself.
"Hello?" The weak voice again.
Flip peered out the window. The spider came back around, looked down the side yard, clambered up onto the top of the fence, and dropped out of view.
"Liz? Is that you?" The voice barely had breath behind it.
Flip set the safety and put the pistol back into his pocket. He ventured a step away from the shards of glass. The floor gave, and the old planks squealed like stuck hinges.
Outside the kitchen, a staircase rose into darkness. The drapes were all drawn down here. He moved past the stairs, watching for any movement, listening for any evidence of the woman coming down or making a phone call.
At the front of the house was a picture window. He went to the edge and drew the drapes out a half-inch. No one to the north. From the other side of the window, he looked south.
Hawaiian shirt. Blond guy leaning into Cole's white Explorer in the middle of the street. Officer Cole was going to have some work to do on that Explorer. The front end was hammered in, and the white was smudged with blue.
A black-and-white pulled up next to them, and the Hawaiian turned and flashed his wallet at the cop.
All of them were cops.
The Hawaiian made a sweeping movement with his arm in the direction of the row of houses. From inside the black-and-white, the uniformed cop nodded. He looked over his shoulder, and the car sped backward and out of Flip's sight.
He had to get out of this neighborhood.
\*
The Explorer let out a sickening clunk with every turn of the wheels. Tom coasted to the curb. He turned off the ignition and joined Hathaway on the sidewalk.
A block down the street, uniformed LAPD officers swept the houses for Flip. It would take them half an hour to work their way back.
Hathaway inspected the damage to the Explorer's front end. "What'd you do?"
Tom ignored the question. Another patrol car rolled south towards them. No more sirens, just plenty of coverage.
A Hyundai pulled into a driveway two houses up. A woman stood out of the car and went to the trunk. She wore thick-soled white shoes and hospital scrubs---a print top and baggy blue pants. She added a duffel and a plastic bag to the purse she carried, and with all three bags dangling from her arms, she slammed the lid.
Tom slapped Hathaway's arm. "Come on."
She sped up when she noticed the strangers approaching. Tom called out to her and convinced her they were cops. She introduced herself as Liz Kite and wanted to shake their hands.
"We've got a parolee at large in the neighborhood," Tom said. "Do you mind if we take a look inside?"
She shifted the duffel onto her shoulder and looked up the street as if she'd see something all the cops trolling the streets had missed. "Sure. It's not my house, but I'm sure Mrs. Capiccio won't mind. She likes company."
She led the way to the door and unlocked it. Before the door was closed, she called out the woman's name. A faint voice floated from upstairs. Liz dropped her keys in the middle of a set of dusty, framed pictures on the table next to the door. She started hauling her bags up the staircase.
Hathaway followed her up. Tom began a sweep of the downstairs, living room first. He heard the old house give with the steps Liz and Hathaway took upstairs. He went into the kitchen.
Everything in here was wrong. He felt it before he saw exactly what it was.
Broken glass covered the counter. He went to the curtains above the shards of glass and drew them aside. No pane.
He pulled out the Glock. "Hathaway!" No cabinets in here big enough to hide in. He bolted from the room. "He's here!"
A coat closet next to the front door stood ajar. Hathaway was at the top of the stairs. He started to say something. Tom held up a hand. Hathaway's smile disappeared. He brought out his gun.
Tom crept to the closet and flung the door back.
Just coats.
He put his back to the closet and looked over the room. Something here was different. Liz's bags were still piled next to the front door. The pictures on the table were undisturbed.
But her keys were gone.
He went for the front door.
The driveway was empty.
Jason's tie was draped over the back of a chair, still knotted. He folded his collar up and slipped the tie over his head, tightened it, and flipped his collar back down.
Brenda watched him as if she'd never seen him dress before, her hands folded on a bare leg crossed before her. "I should get ready too."
"Yeah, this is turning into a long lunch hour." He sat next to her to put on his shoes, but her fragrance and closeness distracted him. Desire rose in him all over again.
They kissed, and her hands moved over his shoulders, his neck, through his hair.
But her lips moved less.
He drew back. "Something wrong?"
A smile, a dip of her eyes. They returned to him. "I guess I'm not as brave as you. This is scaring me a little."
"Sure. That's good." He stroked her arms. "We should be scared. This is once and for all. We'll only get one chance. It's got to be perfect. We have to think through every angle. Every possible roadblock. The transfers have to look completely routine."
"I've been practicing the signatures. Want to see?" She went to her nightstand and scratched out a signature on a pad of paper, held it out to him.
He studied it. He'd seen Randy Sloan's signature a thousand times, on Northfield's account signature cards, loan documents, letters. He knew the spike of the letters, the flair of his S and the slender loop of the L next to it, the way the rest of the letters died out into lumps. She was getting close.
"It's good. Getting much better. Keep practicing." He handed the pad back to her and wedged his feet into his shoes. "What about the ID guy?"
"Oh. I'm still trying to reach my girlfriend. I hope he can do it."
"I thought you said . . ." He grabbed her elbow. "We've got to have good IDs."
"I know. But like I said, I've never even met him. All I know is he does fake drivers licenses. Passports are a whole different thing."
"You said you knew somebody. If we don't get good IDs, it all falls apart. We need them for the accounts, and we'll need them to travel. They have to be good. They have to be perfect."
She put her hand on his, tried to loosen his grip. "Jason---"
"If you can't do it, say so. We'll call the whole thing off."
"No. I'll call her again. Right now."
He let her go, and she went for the phone.
"I'm heading back." He straightened his tie in the mirror.
"Maria!" Brenda spoke into the phone.
Jason watched her in the mirror. The conversation with her girlfriend from college took off. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She stroked his jaw as she asked Maria about other friends---catching up, making small talk. She would get to the ID question soon enough.
He waved and walked out.
A thousand details flitted through his mind. They needed a network of overseas accounts. He'd reestablished old contacts and gotten referrals to lawyers in six countries. As soon as they got the IDs, he would open the accounts with his own money, grease them with transactions back and forth to make it look like real business was being conducted. His personal account and his retirement accounts would be gutted, but $30 million of BTB's loan proceeds were all the funds he could ever need for retirement. And a very pleasant life with Brenda. Islands. Europe. Africa. Travel wherever and whenever they wanted.
No rules.
His BMW was lodged between a pickup and a Honda. He unlocked it and slid onto the leather. When he had the motor purring, he slid his hands over the steering wheel. Soon he would leave this car behind.
Never mind the car. It was Serena he was leaving. The sweat glands pricked in his back. She had cheated on him. She had gone to another man. He would not allow himself to feel anything for her, especially this regret, this nostalgia for what they had together before she destroyed it. She had ruined their marriage, not him.
Her only defense was this absurd conspiracy theory. It was the Kennedy assassination all over again. The man on the grassy knoll---he wrote a love letter and left it where Jason could find it.
Sure.
He uttered a short laugh and shifted gears to begin the back-and-forth of extracting the car out of the space.
He forced his mind back to the details. Brenda was getting good with Randy's signature, but every curve had to be just right. And she had to jot down the title CFO in his printing on the line underneath.
A call to BTB's mail room had redirected all of Northfield's outgoing mail to Jason's office. As for the incoming stuff, nobody had ever been able to train Randy to go direct to anyone but Jason, so all his advance and paydown requests came straight to Jason's office anyway. But for the false request to get past the wire room, the signature had to match perfectly.
The foreign accounts had perplexed him at first, but then he'd hit on the idea of dropping Northfield's name to open them. Doors of foreign banks would fly open when Northfield's banker called to assist the company with creating new accounts offshore. The company already had a half-dozen foreign subsidiaries operating in countries all over Europe and Asia. One more subsidiary wouldn't be suspicious at all, and any bank would be glad to get a toehold in the Northfield relationship. Jason had access to the company's organizational documents, and if Brenda could get Randy's signature right, with an unsuspecting attorney's help and IDs of fake corporate officers to sign alongside Randy, they could set up a subsidiary and then open an account to receive the loan proceeds. BTB's wire room wouldn't be suspicious if the thirty million was going to another Northfield account. Jason would have authority under the false name to wire money out of that Northfield subsidiary account to fund a phony acquisition, the money sliding away as easily as moving figures in an Excel spreadsheet from one cell to another. It would go to an account of the phony company being acquired, in another country, followed by distributions to other accounts in other countries with treaties unfriendly to US law enforcement. By the time the thirty million finally settled in Switzerland, the trail would be cold enough for Jason and Brenda to stroll into the bank and make a sizable withdrawal. Not the whole thing. Just pull out a few million Swiss francs, convert a few million to bearer instruments they could deposit at other banks, and leave the rest for another day when the dust had settled.
It could work. It had to work. Because if it didn't, if they were caught, there would be handcuffs, jail cells, disgrace. The end of their lives.
He pulled into the garage underneath BTB. They still held his spot for him, despite Vince's threats and schemes. Another few weeks and all that would be over. Forever.
They would make the transfers the day before Thanksgiving. The bank would be open the following Friday, but nobody worked long or hard that day. No one would raise any issues. No one would be surprised that Jason and Brenda were both off on that Friday. It would give them four days at least---four of the busiest travel days in the US---to lose themselves.
The elevator took him to the second floor and he stepped out.
He stopped.
Hawaiian shirt. Coach. The two parole officers loitered around outside his office. He almost retreated into the elevator.
No. Let's get this over with.
Tom let Hathaway start in. "Where's your girlfriend?"
The brother didn't answer. Tom watched him. The tie was a little off-center, the slacks not crisply creased. Things had changed since their last meeting. Jason stopped inside his office, holding the door. He nodded them in.
Tom led the way. "Your boss doesn't like us hanging around. Must be bad for business."
Jason Dunn slammed the door. "I told you to stay away from here."
"You see?" Hathaway slapped Tom's chest with the back of his hand. "I told you." He turned to Jason with a smirk on his face. "He thought you said keep coming by. I told him you said stay away, but he didn't believe me."
Hathaway sat on the sofa and kicked his feet onto the cushions. He looked like he should be holding a TV remote. Tom stood with his back to the door.
Jason faced Hathaway. "You want to look under my desk? Phil isn't here. I haven't seen him. Same thing I told you last time. If I see him, I'll call you. There's nothing else I can do."
"Where's your girlfriend?" Hathaway asked again. He tossed a wad of gum across the room and missed the trash can.
The brother turned to Hathaway. "If you're asking about Brenda, she's not my girlfriend. She's my administrative assistant. And I don't know where she is. Lunch, I guess. Can we get this over with? What do you want?"
"We want to talk to your girlfriend." A stick of gum went into Hathaway's mouth. He stripped the foil back from another, his eyes on Jason.
"I told you---she's not my girlfriend. What do you want with her? I thought this was about Phil."
"You ever peel an onion?" Hathaway asked.
"Oh, come on." Jason took off his jacket and wanted past Tom to hang it up. Tom didn't budge. He caught a whiff of perfume drifting up from Jason. So she was his girlfriend after all. And they'd just been together. Hathaway was right. Again.
"Will you excuse me?" Jason gestured with his jacket.
Tom stepped aside.
Hathaway went on. "You peel one layer, there's another one. Then another one."
Jason turned from the door, his jacket on a hanger in its proper spot, keeping free of wrinkles while he worked the afternoon away at his desk. Tom wondered how these guys kept their sanity, locked up in buildings all the time.
"I'm familiar with the analogy, but it's weak." Jason said. "The thing is, you keep peeling them, and there's nothing inside but more onion. There's nothing under all the layers. That's your problem."
He sat behind his desk and reached for a pen. He held it in his fist, his thumb clicking the end. Between that and the snapping of Hathaway's gum, Tom didn't think he could stand being in this room too long.
"Yeah, but we've got something here. I can feel it," Hathaway said. "You lie to me. Your girlfriend lies to me---and don't bother saying she's not your girlfriend." Hathaway scanned the room, the ceiling. "I told you, I can tell when people are lying."
"It's a gift."
Hathaway smiled at him. "Right."
Tom stepped to the desk. "Something stinks around here. We're going to find out what it is."
A knock on the door, and Tom turned. The blonde leaned in. When she recognized what was going on, her face lost the look of warm expectation and turned into a frown.
Hathaway stood. "Come on in, baby."
She hesitated.
"Or we can talk in front of all your friends out there."
She looked at Jason and must have gotten some kind of signal because she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Tom watched her move. Chin up, shoulders back, she carried the image of the enduring salary slave all the way across the room.
It was an act.
She didn't look at Jason, but the banker let his eyes linger on her. Tom would have sensed the connection between them even if he hadn't smelled her perfume on him. It was as obvious as the clock ticking on the wall.
She nestled into the chair and crossed her legs. Tom caught himself taking in their shape.
Hathaway's voice shook his attention away. "So what we've got here is a convict on the run." He started ticking things off on his fingers. "A brother with access to all kinds of dough. That same brother tumbling with his secretary in his spare time---"
"That's enough." Jason held the button in on the pen in his fist. "I told you---"
"No, see, you two kids have to get your stories straight. We caught her in a lie last time, and she spilled it about the little thing you've got going."
The banker shot a glance at her. It only stumbled him for a second. "Whatever she told you, I'm a married man. There's nothing between Brenda and me but what you see right here."
Hathaway laughed. He sat back into the sofa and rolled his eyes. Tom could see the wad of gum pinched between the surfer's teeth.
The banker didn't let his eyes go back to the secretary. Tom wished he could listen in on their conversation after he and Hathaway left the room.
Hathaway settled down. "A married man. I guess not all guys wear a wedding ring, huh? We talk to your wife, what's she going to tell us? Maybe we should go talk to Mrs. Dunn, Tommy. What do you think?"
"I think we should." He turned for the door.
"You talk to whoever you want." The brother stood behind his desk. "I've got nothing to hide, you understand? I'm not the convict here. I'm not the one who's been in and out of prison all his life. I've never been him. I never will be. You getting this?"
Tom watched him. Something here. Something real. "So you're the good one. He's the black sheep. That's the story?"
"Yeah. That's the story." The brother's chest was pumping, his back hunched to pin both fists knotted against the desktop. "You're leaning on the wrong guy."
"Nothing here but more onion, huh?"
Jason stood away from the desk and folded his arms over his pressed shirt. This guy had some of Flip's bulk, but he was softer. No pumping iron in the yard like his little brother, but there was some toughness hidden underneath.
He turned to face him. "Let me see your hands."
"What?"
"Your hands. I want to see how clean they are."
"Cute. They're clean. I'm not the one you need to worry about. Like I said, if I see him, I'll call you. You have my word."
Tom wanted to make a crack about the word of bankers, but he let it go. He went back to the door.
"Hold on a second, Tommy. I got one more thing." Hathaway slid forward on the sofa. That gum would be worn out soon. He leaned toward the secretary.
"What school in Philly'd you go to, baby?"
"Stop calling me baby."
No tears now. Letting that cat with bared claws out just enough. She had it on a tight leash.
"What school? Penn? Drexel?"
"None of your business."
Hathaway smiled. He stood. "That's okay. We can find out. I just thought you might want to save us a little time. You know, support your local law enforcement."
Her face shifted. Something back there behind her eyes working. It didn't take long. "All right. I'm sorry. You just . . . I went to school at University of the Arts. Graduated in '04."
Tom looked at Hathaway.
"Oh, sure. That's up by Wister Woods, isn't it?"
She leveled her green eyes at him. "No. It's near city hall, and you know it."
Hathaway smiled at her again. "You caught me, baby."
"I told you not to call me that."
He stood. The smile didn't fade at all, but his constant gnawing at the gum warped the smile into a smirk. "Well, Tommy, I'd say we better get on."
\*
Jason watched Brenda shut the door behind them. She turned the latch to keep everyone out, put her back to the door, and locked her eyes on Jason.
They melted him every time. That color, the shape of them. They were visual music. Nothing else was like them. They hit him in a place he'd forgotten existed.
"I'm getting the IDs." She said it quietly. A secret between them like all the others.
He came around to the open space between them, and as soon as he was past the desk he wanted to close in on her. A smile spread across his face, and she answered it.
"Then it's on."
"It's on." She put her arms around him, and all space went away.
This close, he lost himself in that greenness, sunlight refracted inside green jewels. He kissed her.
She nodded over her shoulder. "What about them?"
He pulled away. "You'd better unlock the door. We've got to play it cool around here. It's hard, though, being so close to you and keeping my hands off you." He touched her side. Her hand ran down his arm.
"We have to do something about them, Jason."
"I'll rub them out." He made a gun with his fingers.
"I'm not kidding." Those eyes, so clear, crisp as a cloudless country sky. They held something he hadn't seen before. They'd become cold.
Time stopped. The ticking of the clock on the wall continued, but here with Brenda, the planet stopped spinning. He heard phones ringing outside the door, the murmur of dozens of voices conducting business. A different kind of business than what was happening in here.
"What do you have in mind?"
"They're not going to stop until they find something out."
"They won't find anything. Or if they do, it'll be too late."
Her arms folded. "I thought you were all-in on this."
"Sure I'm all-in."
"You're sure?"
"Sure I'm sure. Like I said before, we just have to get it right. You get the IDs. Keep practicing that signature. That's your part. I'll handle the heavy lifting."
"The heavy lifting just left. We have to get rid of them."
"Get rid of them? How?"
She stared at him. Jason had the sense that they were standing alone on ice so thin the wrong step would drown them forever.
"I'm not killing anybody," he said.
"Okay."
"Neither are you."
She lifted an eyebrow. "I couldn't. I'm just saying---"
"You'd better get back to your desk. We don't want to give them anything else to talk about."
She held her stare for another few seconds. Then she turned and left the door open. Rounding her desk, she caught his eyes again for an instant and then disappeared behind the wall.
He was afraid to take a step. Afraid of drowning in the icy waters.
His own words echoed in his mind. "I'm not killing anybody."
Like a ghost haunting his own life, Jason's motions had no impact. He moved among the living, but they didn't really see him, didn't know him or the burdens he carried. He was only an apparition now, gliding through meetings and decisions and commutes, occupying a place on freeways and packed boulevards, among crowds on the city's cool sidewalks. His wardrobe occupied a smaller and smaller space in the closet he shared with Serena, his gear transitioning piece by piece to Brenda's apartment as if he himself were fading away.
And it wasn't really him among these Angelenos. The real Jason lived only in Brenda's arms, in the mingling of her breath and his, and more and more as November marched on, in the planning.
The fall LA air lacked the still, palpable quality of summertime. Today the smog didn't veil every object in gray but funneled between the walls of glass-fronted buildings and lifted the trash of millions of Angelenos into swirling and spinning clouds of detritus. A pack of it floated toward Jason as if someone had cast handfuls in his direction. He squinted, felt dust ping his cheeks, and ducked his head to blink away what stung his eyes.
A specter wouldn't feel such things, would it? He had to force himself not to smile as the dust cloud passed, and he lifted his eyes to scan the faces across the street. Did they see him? Or was he the ghost of banker past, revealing himself only to the Scrooge of the day?
At the corner of Wilshire and Camden, Jason waited for permission to enter the crosswalk. Men and women crowded around him, the curb only inches tall but enough to contain the wall of obedient pedestrians.
He kept his eyes pinned on the box perched on the pole ahead. The red hand disappeared, and the green man flashed its footless silhouette. The instant it changed, he stepped off the curb and felt the crowd surge forward behind him.
He wouldn't be a Scrooge when he and Brenda disappeared together. A man could do a lot of good with $30 million. He could make anonymous gifts. He would share it. He and Brenda didn't need the whole amount. He would create his own private bailout, a golden parachute for the poor. Dozens of charities could benefit. Maybe he'd even send a gift to that pastor's church, that Pastor Gates.
The command of the red hand stopped him at the Bedford intersection.
What had made him think of Pastor Gates? He pictured the big man, so secure, so confident when they'd met at Starbucks. Jason couldn't imagine the pastor having a need for $30 million. Or even one measly million.
It was a bribe. Jason saw it as clearly as the flat red hand shining at him from across the street. Send a million to a church to buy off God. Would a million do it? Two?
He shook his head. All the preparations he had to make to pull this off, and here he was thinking about God.
But his mind would only focus briefly on the signature cards and the IDs and the credit presentation he was drafting. There was going to be a lot of fallout. This could fatally wound BTB. The regulators would descend with even greater ferocity than the feds. They would scope out and tear apart every procedure and policy, every frail structural scaffold built into the organization until each flaw and weakness was exposed at its roots.
And they would find plenty. At the most fundamental places. They would finger the extent of authority and the lack of oversight at the higher levels of bank management. That a senior executive could fabricate a $30 million transaction without raising any questions would put the whole institution in the defendant's chair.
A sudden loss of that magnitude was enough to shock the balance sheet of even the strongest bank---and BTB had problems already. The bags under Scotty's eyes had darkened and grown deep enough to store wads of the currency they'd had to charge off over the past six months. The loan portfolio of every lender in the bank had been affected. They all had borrowers struggling, companies reeling from one quarter to the next like drunken tourists looking for a bar to collapse into.
The walking man lit on the pole across the street, and Jason stepped out before he could be trampled. Car traffic on Wilshire powered past, knifing forward to the next light to wait again.
Another two blocks, and the security guard opened the lobby door for him. He nodded to him, and the guard's shoulder twitched a greeting. Jason was tempted to look at the nameplate on the guard's lapel to remind himself of the name of this guy he passed nearly every day, but he decided not to bother. In eleven days he would walk out of this place for the last time, a rich man with Brenda at his side. What was the use of making new friends now?
Up the escalator he climbed, his rising double-timed by the machinery. As he ascended above the lobby ceiling, the clap of his shoes on metal rang out. The second floor came into view, and forty feet ahead, Brenda lifted her eyes. She eclipsed every other person and object out of his vision. Trying to be unaffected was useless. As he stepped onto the metal plate that sucked the escalator stairs down, his palms broke into a sweat, and somewhere in a place deep inside him, a place without a name, he was whisked into a frothing, boiling stew of confusion. He tried to look away, but the pale hue of her irises and the heart shape of her face drew him toward her like gravity.
Something was wrong. With pursed lips and a frown hardening her brow, she was trying to signal him.
He stopped.
She nodded to one side. She was directing him toward a conference room near Vince's office.
He changed course and had the conference room door closed before his cell phone rang. Her name on the readout was precious to him. He stared at it for a moment before answering.
"Long-distance call."
She didn't play along. She whispered, "I think you should go back out for a while."
He turned up the volume. "Why?"
"There's a bunch of people in your office."
Jason looked through the window but couldn't see into his office from this angle. "Who is it?"
"I don't want to say."
"I'm not going to be chased from my own office."
"It's her."
"Serena?"
"Yeah." Across the lobby, he saw Brenda lean over her desk to look inside. "And Kathy." She raised her voice only slightly. "And Kathy's pastor. I remember him from the funeral. They won't tell me what it's about, but I think you want to avoid this."
He clicked off and stepped outside. Brenda looked up, and her frown deepened when she saw he had no intention of avoiding anything.
He passed her desk and refused to be drawn into her eyes.
Kathy and Serena didn't rise from the sofa. The pastor sat in the chair before Jason's desk and had it angled so he could take in the whole room. His fingers formed a steeple in front of his chest.
Jason closed the door. "It's good to see you, Kathy. How was Montana?" He wanted one of the old hugs, but she stayed on the sofa.
So that had changed too.
"It was good to be with Carol for a while. But I needed to come back."
He removed his jacket and parked it on the hanger and went to his desk. "Oh?"
"Jason, come on. You heard the messages I left for you."
He keyed in his password, and his e-mail screen appeared. Eighteen new e-mails had arrived since he left for lunch an hour ago and now awaited his answer. "You know me. Busy, busy."
Serena spoke up. "We're concerned about you."
He took his eyes off the computer screen. Serena sat forward on the sofa, knees together, ankles crossed, her elbows on her lap and her hands clasped. She did have a look of concern on her face. It was a good face---he had to admit it. And no matter how much work was piled on her desk or how little sleep she'd gotten---or whom she was having an affair with---she always looked ready for the next appointment.
The pastor hadn't moved. The guy didn't even blink.
"So you've got a little intervention going here, is that it?"
"Something like that," Serena said.
"And you decided to do this in my office."
"You've been a little unpredictable at home."
"So have you."
She didn't take the bait. Only a flicker of fight in her eyes before she mastered it. "I've told you a dozen times, I did not cheat on you. I did not write that letter. But this isn't about that anymore. It's about what you're using it as an excuse to do."
"An excuse."
"That's right. Let's face it---you've been looking for a way out for a long time."
Jason was afraid he was going to crush his teeth from clenching. He had to force his jaw open. "Go on. Say what you've got to say. That's why you brought all this support, right?"
She didn't look away. "You can't escape, Jason."
Could she know? He and Brenda had done nothing but plan. No, it was impossible. His imagination was taking over. "I'm waiting."
"You've built your own little prison for yourself," Serena said. "If you don't get over your past, you're never going to have a present."
"That's pithy. Did you get it from a positive-thinking guidebook?"
"I'm serious, Jason. What happened with Danah was twenty years ago. You've lined your walls with plaques showing all the ways you've tried to make up for it, but you can't. It's done. You have to move past it."
"This is classic Serena. It couldn't possibly be about you, about what you did. It must be something else. Nice try."
"This is what it's about, Jason. It's why we're here. No matter what happens with our marriage, you're never going to be happy until you deal with what you've done."
Images flicked through his mind. Danah's face. It somehow mingled with Brenda's. He was again struck by how Brenda reminded him of her. But this thing with Brenda couldn't end the same way. He wouldn't let it. He remembered Danah looking at him that night as they fled, the expression on her face, her whole world wrapped up in him. And his in her. Their lives were beginning that night. They thought nothing could stop them. Their love was impregnable. Nothing could separate them. No one.
Except themselves.
The pastor finally spoke. "There can be healing, Jason." His words rumbled into Jason's chest. He felt them more than heard them. A promise. Those big, spectacled eyes had seen things. That mind knew things. He spoke words blocked together differently, as if he were reciting them out of some ancient manuscript. This man occupied some other plane of understanding.
But Jason didn't live on that plane. He was here. And he was a man who long ago had done something that could never be forgiven, something this pastor with his insulated holiness could never abide.
"You can't heal everything."
"Not me. God." Gates's thick, steepled fingers held their upward point.
"God. That's your answer for everything."
A smile broke out on the pastor's face, but he didn't bother affirming.
Jason turned back to Serena. "I'm not going to have this conversation. I'm not going to let you use against me what I've told you in confidence as my wife."
"I'm not using anything against you. I love you, Jason. I'm trying to save our marriage. I'm trying to help you. Trying to help us."
A current moved through the room between them. Like a furious wind, in an instant their history swirled like a palpable thing out of her eyes, and every pore of that fine, good face pleaded with him from across the room. He had loved that face. He had cupped her chin in his hand, had felt her eyelashes flutter against his cheek. He had at times held her so closely and so intimately that the pounding of her heart in counterpoint to his was a single consumption of flesh. He had loved her truly and with all his hopes. Had committed his life to her. How could he throw their marriage away, no matter what she'd done?
Tears pressed against his eyelids. He tried to beat them back.
Her head tilted. Auburn hair trickled forward past her cheek. That was hair he'd kissed, caressed.
His phone rang. Brenda's name appeared on the readout.
"Jason," Serena said from the sofa.
Another ring.
His wife's eyes sharpened. He knew that look well. He'd seen it in arguments and debates. The look itself was a command. She was saying, Don't you dare answer that phone.
He lifted the receiver.
"You're not leaving?" Jason asked the pastor.
The big man shook his head.
The door swayed on its hinges from Serena's retreat. Kathy had run off too after casting a look at Jason meant to shrivel him on the spot. She'd opened her mouth to say something, but Jason would never know what it was.
So now only the two of them remained.
A trill from his phone. He let it ring this time, kept his eyes on Pastor Gates.
Miles said, "Now you don't answer it."
Jason let it go.
"Let's take a walk." The pastor slid in the chair and rocked forward to get to his feet.
"I just got back from a walk."
"Yes, but I didn't. I've been sitting here for an hour." He stood over Jason, looking at him across the desk.
Jason considered telling him to buzz off like the ladies. Insult him. Get rid of him forever. The words swam around in his head, but something about the pastor's eyes and rounded shoulders kept the words from coming out of Jason's mouth.
"All right. We'll walk."
They left the office. Jason told Brenda he'd be back in a few minutes and endured another frown of disapproval.
A few blocks north, a city park ran along Santa Monica Boulevard. The narrow space of grass and trees gave an illusion of someplace outside the city's grasp. They arrived at the path, and Jason took in the place for what would be the last time.
The pastor slowed. He chuckled. "That was probably the least-effective intervention I've ever been in."
Jason glanced up at him. "You think it was funny?"
"I wouldn't call it that."
"Then what's there to laugh about?"
"Wonder."
Jason waited for him to explain what that meant. "What is that, an inside joke or something?"
"Yes. Between me and Jesus. But let's talk about you."
"Do we have to?"
"No. We could talk about anything you like. But you're an interesting topic."
"How so?"
"A man bent on his own destruction. Do you have any awareness of what you're doing?"
"If you think I want to destroy myself, you've got another thing coming. That's the last thing I want."
"The last thing. Well put."
Jason stopped. The pastor turned to him, eyebrows lifted like a scientist peering through spectacles into a petri dish. He should have been wearing a lab coat. All this was just a big research project to him.
"All right, Miles. Let's have it."
"When you're ready to hear it."
"I'm not looking to destroy myself."
"You talk like I'm the first one to bring this up."
"Serena doesn't know what she's talking about either."
The pastor nodded. "Sure. On the other hand, who knows you better than your own wife?"
Jason tried to keep his feet still, but the awkwardness of his body was impossible to ignore. It was as if the path constantly shifted underneath him. The need to stay in motion got the better of him. His feet shuffled. His hands weren't at home in his pockets or hanging loosely at his sides.
He stepped away. He wanted the pastor to stay behind. But at the same time, he wanted nothing more than the pastor at his side.
The path jutted to the right. They followed it, and after a left turn Jason found himself in front of Good Shepherd Catholic Church. One of the doors stood open. Inside, he could make out pews filing toward the front of the sanctuary, where Jesus was nailed in drooped agony, rendered in shining metal against a smooth wooden cross.
The pastor stopped. "Do you want to go in?"
"Not really."
"I only ask because I noticed you were looking inside."
Jason moved on. "I've always been interested in architecture."
"The master of diversion."
"What does that mean?"
"Someone gets close, and you move in another direction."
They checked for traffic and crossed Bedford. After the carefully groomed grounds of the church, they now passed into a desert of dirt and yuccas and cacti in this part of the park.
"So, am I ready yet?"
Miles went to a white rock and eased his bulk down onto it. He looked to the sky, breathed deep, and crossed his arms. He looked back up to Jason. "I'd like to help you, Jason. But the fact is, without Christ, there's nothing to be done. Without him, you're at the devil's mercy."
"Now I'm the one amused."
"Yes, that's one of his schemes. To try to keep you from believing in him. All this has been your idea, has it? Trust that ridiculous letter over the word of your wife. Pursue another woman instead of pursuing reconciliation. And whatever else."
What did he mean by whatever else? "So in your world, if I don't believe in God or the devil, I'm at the devil's mercy?"
"You don't believe in God?"
"Maybe I do; maybe I don't. If he exists, he sure makes himself scarce."
"He's as scarce as you want him to be. Or as close. Like I told you before, it's your choice."
Jason's shoes were losing their shine in the dust. Who had chosen this landscaping? He kicked at the dirt and watched the brown flecks cloud into the air and settle on the black of his shoes and the gray cuffs of the big man's slacks.
"Can I tell you something, Jason?"
"You're asking permission now?"
The pastor smiled. "I've been studying something recently you might find interesting. I imagine you like statistics, being a banker."
Jason didn't bother answering.
"Have you ever thought about how many people have been on earth? I'm not talking about the six and a half billion here right now. That we're pretty sure about. But how many have ever lived?" The pastor shifted on the rock. He put his elbows on his knees and made that steeple with his fingers again. "Now, the thing about questions like this is that they lead to many more questions. Like when did the first humans live? The fossil record isn't really very good, so we don't know for sure. And how long did they all live? How fast did they reproduce? All this is guesswork. We have population information that's even remotely accurate for only the past few centuries, and even that just covers the developed world. But the most conservative estimate I've found is around a hundred billion."
He unclasped his hands and crossed his arms.
Jason said, "I have no idea where you're going with this."
"Stay with me for just a minute. I know this seems off subject. But now, what's the worst thing you've ever done? Don't tell me what it was, just have it in your mind. Do you have it?"
Jason was back to high school. Back to Danah. Back to Philip. Back to his father and a dark room behind a bar. The images circled in his mind for the second time in an hour. Why couldn't he put this behind him? He nodded.
"Now take that memory. That's your worst?"
Jason nodded. He wanted to take that memory and ball it up and throw it away forever.
"Now consider this. To God, every sin is level with every other sin. From that thing in your mind to the worst thing in mine, to the vilest offense ever committed, to what you or I would consider a little nit. A white lie, a cross word. A prideful thought. We classify them and rank them because it helps us rationalize them. But to God, they're all offenses."
"That's one offended God."
Miles was not distracted. "Now say you're what you'd call a really good person. Say you can go through a whole day and just tell one little white lie. That's your only sin. Say you can hold yourself to just one sin a day. Say everybody could keep their sin in check like that. So that's 365 sins a year. Say every person over the course of history lives an average of fifty years. A hundred billion people, times 365, times fifty years. You're a banker. You can probably do that math."
"Yeah, all right. I get it. A lot of sinning. So?"
"So that is what Jesus Christ took on himself on the cross, Jason. The sins of the whole world. Throughout history---past, present, and future. And I don't know about you, but I sin a lot more than 365 times a year. Did you know the UN says world population could reach ten billion in forty years?"
"Can we move on?"
The pastor reached a hand forward. Jason took it and leaned backward to help the big man up off the rock. They walked back toward the church. The smell of the yucca and dust pricked at Jason's nostrils.
"I thought you might be interested in the statistics."
"It makes my sins seem pretty insignificant." Jason realized he was about to say something he could never take back. He pressed his lips closed, but the words pressed against them.
"That's where everyone seems to go with that information, Jason. It's human nature to use data to your advantage. What's the expression? 'Figures don't lie, but liars figure'?"
He didn't want the words to escape, but he couldn't contain them. "I was just a kid. I didn't know what I was doing. I was only nineteen."
The pastor stepped more slowly than Jason, but his strides covered more territory, giving the impression of a stroll next to Jason's clomping gait. Jason's neck tensed with the effort of holding back the emotions rocking him. He stopped.
"We were in love, and we wanted to get away together. My whole world was wrapped up in her. I didn't want anything besides her."
He saw her face in profile, glowing under passing street lights as he drove. He saw her face turned to him, saw her speak words he would never remember because his attention was focused on the movement of her lips and the love he held for her. Her hand pressed into his. Love loosed from every joint and cell and vessel in his body, urgent love with more meaning than the universe could contain, more righteousness than any rules imposed on them by the dispassionate world. Their love would propel their lives forever. It had more power than anything stacked against them.
He and the pastor had crossed Bedford. Again they stood in front of the church. Jason didn't dare look at the metallic Jesus at the end of the room beyond the open doors.
"We weren't gone an hour before we fought. She got out of the car." He choked on the words. They were like chunks of flesh rattling in his throat, threatening to strangle him. He had to cough them out somehow.
"It was the worst possible place. The worst time of night. She ran into this bar. And I. . . I let her go."
He fought to keep tears back. The heels of his hands went to his eyes. He wanted to push his eyeballs through his head, as if that would erase the images.
"It took me too long to swallow my pride and go in after her. They kicked me out. I called home, and my dad said he was coming with Phil. I went in and tried again. I got into a fight with the bartender. By the time I got to the room where they had her . . . Oh, God."
"Jason---"
"They were having a party, and she was the main event. I heard them whooping and hollering before I even opened the door. Then my brother showed up. I remember afterward, he was holding a baseball bat broken in two. He was pushing Danah and me to the door. Yelling at us to get out before the cops got there. My dad was pulling me away from her. There was blood all over the room."
Jason looked up at Miles. Those black eyebrows were knitted. "I'm sorry, Jason."
Jason ran his knuckles over his cheeks and blinked. "Not half as sorry as I am."
"Jason, I have to urge you. Be reconciled to Christ. He can take this guilt from you."
The doors to the church were still open. It was a place he couldn't go. Never mind the pastor's statistics.
"God is bigger than your sin, Jason. He can forgive. Even if you can't forgive yourself, God can forgive you. And teach you to live with it. I know what I'm talking about. But don't take my word for it. Believe God."
Jason toed the grass that hedged the sidewalk. These grounds were so green. Across Bedford, the dirt of the little desert shone brown in the angled sunlight of the late afternoon. He didn't belong in the perfectly maintained garden of the church. That cactus-infested desert was where he belonged.
He shook his head. "I can't believe in this."
"You can."
"No."
"I have to say one more thing." The pastor extended his hand. Jason took it. "You're using this thing as an excuse, just like you're using the letter. Your own sin is not so great that God won't forgive it. God's gift in Christ is greater than any sin ever committed and all of them put together. That's how big God is and how great his sacrifice was. Be reconciled to God, Jason. And stop using that letter as an excuse to leave your wife."
Jason wrenched his hand free. "All right. You made your point. You've done your duty. You can punch the clock now."
"There's no clock, Jason. Time has never been the issue, O master of diversion."
Jason looked at the traffic backed up on Santa Monica. It would take some time to cross. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But my marriage is my business---"
"And Serena's."
Jason turned his heels to the pastor and stalked away.
Flip inhaled the darkness. It was fuel to him, elemental as the blood that spun through his clenched fists. He let it consume his thoughts, fill his consciousness. He breathed out any thin line of light, breathed in blackness, envisioned his tissues and bones and veins darkening from the colors of life to a thick and unalterable pitch.
Only shadows within.
He'd already smashed the only light in this section of the alley. Smashed it as if it represented anything that could remove his darkness. It had exploded with a light tap from the crowbar he now wedged smoothly into the gap between the edge of the door and the frame. He popped the door open.
The music of the Ragtop Club erupted into the alley. A singer's shouting stoked the night.
No one was in the hallway leading to Mr. B's office.
He pulled out Mr. B's pistol. Slid off the safety. With the gun in one hand and the crowbar in the other, he stepped inside.
He blinked at the pale intensity of the light.
The door wouldn't close again. It inched outward toward the gaping black outside. He let it go.
The crowbar's weight comforted his palm.
Two steps ahead, three, four. The door at the end of the hallway leading to the kitchen leaked the fragrances of boiling grease, onions, potatoes, and hamburger, but he had no hunger for food.
The singer screamed a dozen times, ". . . a denial, a denial, a denial." A final chord from his guitar lingered to an end.
They'd fixed the plaster where Garrett's head had broken through. Flip wouldn't have been able to spot the repair if he hadn't been in this hallway when the damage was done. He came to Mr. B's office door and stood to the side. From his pocket he took a small stash of duct tape and tore off a strip to cover the peep hole.
Another song started.
He put his back to the patched wall and considered the office door. A metal plate now surrounded the doorknob, encasing the edge of the door. Mr. B had learned something since the last time Flip stood here. It would be tough to bust this down.
So he would wait. He was prepared for this. He listened for a moment and, hearing no one coming, returned to the exit door and placed the tip of the crowbar against the nearest bulb recessed in the ceiling. He ducked his head and shoved the crowbar up, and the bulb blew. A shower of glass trickled over his cap and shoulders.
He listened. The explosion could have been just another thump of bass from the club.
Two bulbs remained. He moved to the other end of the hall, closest to the kitchen, and used the crowbar there, too. The last light was directly outside Mr. B's office door. He took his third shower of glass, and darkness resumed its rightful place.
He leaned against the wall opposite the office door, the crowbar against the back of his left leg, the pistol against the back of his right. In his peripheral vision he could see creases of light from the doors leading to the kitchen and to the club. One of these doors would open. Or the office door itself would. Either way, it was only a matter of time before he brought the fight into Mr. B's office.
He focused on the shadows. At the edges of his vision, the glowing thin lines grew in intensity as his eyes adjusted. The angles and corners of the hallway emerged out of the dimness, the blank spaces of the walls becoming gray. It struck him how easily darkness was bullied by light. One tiny source, and the dark oozed away, polluted.
From the kitchen came the clatter of utensils banging and scraping on surfaces, dishes rattling onto counters. From the other door and through the wall at his back, thudding music pounded its rhythm into his brain. As if removed from himself, he saw his position in the building, an isolated figure against a wall in an unlit hallway while employees bustled in other rooms, while partiers eyed one another and shouted above music in the club, drowning themselves in alcohol and conversation, in munchies and banter. He was only a few feet away from all of them, but he might as well have been in another world.
This was taking too long. Like the dissipation of the blackness around him, he felt darkness's hold on him slipping, his mind losing its sharpness as his thoughts floated. Next he would be thinking about Diane. She shouldered into his consciousness, her green eyes, her fragrance, the silk texture of her skin under his fingertips. She stared at him, brought her hand to his shoulder, her lips to his ear to whisper another mission. . . .
At least this thing with Mr. B had nothing to do with her. This job was his alone. This would show her that he didn't need her for everything, that he could create his own paydays if he needed to. The bracelet had been supposed to show her, before he had seen the table set for someone else. He had planned to give her the bracelet and watch her eyes widen when she saw the glitter of the diamonds. She would have held her wrist out to him so he could lay the platinum-encased jewels across it and pin the clasp together. She would have thrown her arms around him for not just the gift but also with surprise that he'd done the job himself, apart from her.
Instead, she'd had to scramble off the floor to hustle him to the door. He'd dropped the bracelet in a trash can at the foot of the stairwell.
The light seeping into the hallway irritated his eyes. He wanted to crush it forever.
She had her job, and he had his. So it had gotten a little away from him. He'd made a mistake with the motel phone, and somehow they'd figured out who he was. Now he had Mr. B's guys tracking him. The truth was, he'd bungled it pretty good. But he still had the list. And Mr. B's thirty-two grand. Or thirty-two grand less what he'd paid for the bracelet and a few other necessities.
And tonight he'd finish it.
The hallway flooded with light. The kitchen door.
A waiter stepped into the frame. The door swung back. Flip jumped away from the wall and pinned him with the crowbar.
"Be quiet," he hissed. "Don't say a thing. This is a gun in your side. You feel it?" He shoved it into the waiter's ribs.
"Don't. Don't."
"Quiet, I said."
The waiter was stiff as plywood under Flip's grip. A noise like a whimper escaped from his throat.
"You're going to Mr. B's door, and you're going to knock. I'm going to have this gun on you. Don't say anything wrong. Understand?"
A shake of the waiter's body made Flip think he was nodding. They walked like lovers to the office door.
"Now knock." Flip brought his arm back and shuffled to the side, the barrel of the pistol digging into the waiter's side.
He knocked three times. From behind the door, someone asked who it was.
"It's Tony."
"What do you want?" It was a voice Flip didn't know. Not Mr. B. Not Garrett or Ronny.
Flip whispered, "Tell him you've got some food for him."
"I got some food for you."
Muffled voices inside talked it over. Flip shifted his feet. He peeled the tape off the peep hole, staying to one side.
A voice cursed on the other side of the door. "I can't see you, man."
"Tell him the light's burned out."
"The light's burned out. Open up." He edged away from the gun. Flip let him.
The door opened a crack and Flip burst inside.
The guy behind the door trotted backward, off-balance. It was the spider. Not such a smooth mover now.
In a second, Flip saw his odds. They were not good. Garrett brought a shotgun up. Mr. B sat behind the desk, grinning. Ronny, against the wall, was the only one in the room Flip didn't worry about.
The spider regained his footing and jumped to the wall.
"Hi, Flipper." Behind his desk, Mr. B leaned forward. His hands were hidden. His gold necklace swayed, flashed in the glow of the fluorescents overhead. It was enough to drive Flip crazy.
"You said the wrong thing."
Mr. B glanced at Garrett. To Flip, the barrel of Garrett's shotgun was a gaping cave, beautiful and terrible in its perfect blackness.
"Wha'd I say?" Mr. B asked.
"You said you were going to my father's house. That was the wrong thing."
Mr. B's grin turned down and Flip guessed what was about to happen. He dropped to the floor.
The front of the desk exploded.
The waiter yelped from the hallway. He wouldn't be taking any more orders tonight.
Splinters of desk wood spun through the air. Flip rolled to the corner as another shot rang out.
His shoulder was rocked. A bullet. His left arm went limp.
Beneath the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard Mr. B shouting.
Flip got off a shot in Garrett's direction. Garrett flinched. Flip didn't know if he'd hit him or not.
He rolled back toward the door.
The spider looked like he might try to climb the wall back-first. He wasn't moving with all the lead flying around.
Garrett was down.
Ronny cowered behind a chair.
It was just Flip and Mr. B.
Flip's left arm hung dead. He shot at the desk as Mr. B disappeared behind it. Flip scuffled to his feet. Firing, he stepped toward his adversary's hiding place. Three shots. Four. The bullets shattered the wood in a frantic pattern. Six shots, seven.
The trigger snapped. No recoil. No shot. Empty.
He had no more cartridges.
He dropped the gun and hurdled the desk.
Mr. B trembled in a ball. He was a mess. Flip wrenched the gun from Mr. B's hand. Underneath Mr. B, blood spread across the floor planks like a living thing.
"You shouldn't have said that about my father."
Mr. B's eyelids fluttered. He looked up at Flip, coughed a sputtering cough and clutched himself.
From the corner, Ronny said, "Hey, Flip, man. I'm leaving, okay?"
Flip didn't look at him. Something seeped down his arm from his crushed shoulder.
The spider had edged away from the wall. He was near the door, calculating. Flip watched his eyes.
Ronny moved between them. It was the spider's chance to get out. But he didn't. Ronny was gone. Flip didn't see the waiter lying outside the door. Maybe he'd crawled away.
Mr. B's new gun was in Flip's hand. Plus, he could go for the shotgun. Garrett didn't look interested in firing it anymore. He was using both hands to hold onto a rib. He kept saying, "Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man."
Flip watched the spider.
"You're wondering, is this empty?" Flip held up Mr. B's gun.
The spider smiled. "Doesn't matter."
Flip waited. The spider stood motionless, waiting in the middle of a web for dinner.
"I like you, Flip," the spider said. He spat on the floor and nodded in the direction of Flip's feet, where Mr. B hid dying. "You come in here, shoot it out. Just like the Old West, man. I got to hand it to you."
"Are you going to leave my father alone?"
The spider grinned. "Sure, Flip. What you think I'm gonna say?"
"I want you to mean it."
"I mean it. I mean it for real."
"So why are you standing there? Your meal ticket's on his way out." He looked down at Mr. B and stepped away from the red tide creeping over the floor. Pain flared from his shoulder. He couldn't move that arm. His head began to swirl. "You might as well go away too."
"Yeah. It's like a car wreck, man. Just watching to see what happens. That's all." He backed up a step toward the door. "Hey, one thing. Like I said, I like you. You ever need a wingman, look me up. This is my neighborhood. Ask anybody for Luis."
The spider crept out.
Brenda slid the passports out of the cardboard envelope and spread them before Jason. Three for him, three for her. Each cover was embossed with the emblem of a different country. They would be Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders. He flipped one open. He would have to memorize his new names.
"How did you do this?"
"I told you---I know some people who know some people. That whole six-degrees-of-separation thing." She still wore her work clothes, and Jason hadn't removed his jacket yet. They'd been in her apartment for only five minutes, but everything was changing. The whole world was changing.
His face stared back at him from inside the passport, the picture embossed into the page. He held it under a lamp to try to see how they had inserted it, angled it under the light, but he saw no imperfections in the surface of the page.
When he held this document out to the customs official, that face would be the face of a fugitive.
The other two were equally well done. If there were any flaws in the documents, they were beyond his ability to see.
"They look good. Really good." They were the last piece of the puzzle. With these, he could establish the overseas accounts. And the two of them could travel without leaving a trail.
Underneath his starched shirt, a drop of sweat trickled down from his chest and lodged near his belt.
He ran a finger over his brow and it came away wet.
"What's the matter?"
He slipped his new identities into the inside pocket of his jacket. The credit memo covering the $30-million loan to Northfield was nearly finished. A loan the company had never applied for. A loan the management of Northfield knew nothing about.
Sweat was breaking out from every crease of his body. It was the passports that were doing it to him. Even the credit memo as he'd drafted it had the taint of fantasy to it. It was still a game, and at any point he could fold up the board, box up the pieces, put it on a shelf, and walk away. But now he and Brenda had passports, and good ones at that.
Too good.
"How exactly did you get these?"
She smiled. "A lady never reveals her secrets." She stepped to him and slid her arms around him, her hands moving up to his shoulders, his neck, the back of his head. In an instant, her lips would be on his and he would be finished.
He pulled away. "No, really. I want to know how you got these."
Her hands moved back to his shoulders. She let her eyes roam over his face, his chest, back to his eyes. "I told you. I know this girl from college whose daddy has connections."
"Who's the girl and who's her daddy?"
"Darlin', what's the matter with you? You wanted me to get the passports, and I got them. They're good. Real. I don't know how they got them, but they did. They swapped out the pictures or something. She said they should be good for at least a few weeks. That'll get us wherever we want to go."
"And what makes you think you can trust her?"
"She was my best friend in college. I know I can trust her. You're just going to have to take my word for it." She stared at him a moment, her head turning, eyes at an angle toward him, and that smile crept back onto her face. "Come on over to the sofa, darlin'."
She pulled at him, and he obeyed. They sank into the cushions together, and her hands began to move over him again. "I love it that you're so taken up in the details, Jason. It's what's going to make this work. You'll get that loan approved tomorrow, you'll get the accounts opened and funded. It's happening, Jason. We're going away together. You and me, forever."
Her hands coasted over his arms and chest; her face was close enough for him to feel its warmth. She pressed against him, her breath a caress on his neck. He wanted to tell her to stop, but with every sensation he weakened.
Instead, he said, "So how many people know about this? There's your friend, her father, the passport guy. Who else?"
She didn't stop the movement of her hands. "Nobody knows, Jason. Not really." She brought her lips to his neck, his ear, his cheek, her hands pulling him to her. "All they know is they did a favor for my friend. They saw those photos---that's all. Nobody knows our names. Don't worry, darlin'. We're going away together."
She pulled him toward her, but he resisted. It was maddening. It had gotten out of his control. Others were in on it now. It had gone beyond a game with a pretty girl. Beyond revenge for Serena's affair, beyond getting even with Vince and Mark and the whole bank system that had brought him to this place of desperation and fury. And yet, Brenda . . .
She would not relent. Her hands, her lips. Every inch of his flesh cried out to her with an urgent reach. The longer he endured her touch, the weaker he became. Stories filtered through his mind---of a man strapped to the mast of a ship to prevent him from yielding to a siren song, of a man shorn of his hair and blinded by his enemies, abandoned by his God. Where were the mast ties now? Where was God when he needed him?
Here. Here in her arms, her hands, the movement of her body against his, a cascade of motion and desire, Brenda, her eyes the green of a sea in sunshine, her skin milky, tender and hot, her flesh---here was his god.
Across the boardroom table, Scotty Inverness scooted in and perched his reading glasses on the tip of his nose. "Somebody get the door," he said.
Behind Jason, the doors drew to a close with the finality of a vault door sealing. Or a tomb. The sound of it made Jason's stomach wrench.
He had the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. Air seemed to swirl around inside his head. His heart hammered at his rib cage as if looking for an escape route. His empty stomach was a pestle grinding against the bowl of his abdomen.
He clenched a handkerchief---the only one he owned. It was damp already, and the meeting hadn't even begun. With Scotty's eyes averted, Jason lifted the palmed handkerchief and swept it across his brow.
Scotty tilted his head back to read through his glasses. He spoke a name, and a lender to Jason's left began a recital he'd no doubt practiced in front of a mirror all morning.
Vince had a question about the credit. Mark listened and gave his spin on what he knew about the applicants. Hanson and Granger monitored the tide of opinion before weighing in. Scotty listened quietly as he always did. Soon he would bring this one to a head, and they would be on to the next one.
For the hundredth time, Jason reviewed the agenda. His Northfield deal was fifth. He would have to endure three more discussions after this one. Then it would be his turn.
He flipped through his memo. Each committee member had a copy. It contained information he'd cut from other write-ups about Northfield---background needed in every presentation. But what was igniting the butterflies in his stomach was not what was true in the memo. He'd falsified so much in this report that even he as its author was beginning to question what was real and what wasn't. He'd chosen a European competitor as the acquisitions target Northfield was supposed to buy. Drusseaux Industries. Northfield had battled against them for decades. It was better than using a fictional company. Occasionally some of these committee members got the wild notion to do a little research of their own for a deal, especially a deal of this size.
He wiped his forehead again. Beneath his jacket, beneath his oxford shirt, beneath the tie that threatened to choke the breath out of him, his T-shirt was as wet as the rags they used at the car wash.
Every butterfly he'd ever felt before a committee presentation was back---with friends. They fluttered against his stomach wall, a whole flock of them tumbling against one another.
Swallowing did nothing to remove the bitterness in his mouth. His tongue was dry. A pitcher of ice water beaded into a plastic tray before him. He wanted a drink, but the thought of pouring water into one of the glasses standing around the pitcher---the ice cascading down into the glass and splashing the table, the attention it would draw to him, the freezing water inching painfully down his gullet---was enough to keep his hands in his lap. He clenched the handkerchief.
In the back of his mouth, his tongue began to cramp. It was the first sign of a threat that he might throw up.
He had an image of himself vomiting all over the table. That would be a first in committee. He tried to amuse himself with it, but it only made things worse. His throat opened, his stomach knotted.
He had to get out.
His cell phone. That was his excuse. He quickly pulled it out of his pocket, pretended to check an e-mail, and turned to the lender seated next to him.
"I'll be right back."
The lender looked at him with an expression of complete bewilderment as Jason rose from his chair.
He tapped the phone's screen as if entering letters as he approached the door like an escape hatch, and then held the phone to his ear as if an urgent call couldn't wait for the end of the meeting.
He rattled the door to a close behind him. The chairman's sphinx of a secretary lifted her goggled eyes to inspect this escapee. He nodded to her and tried a smile with the phone plastered to his ear, ducked his head, and exited the suite. Gulping, trying to forestall the inevitable, he pocketed the device and made for the bathroom like a man on fire. He burst in. The first stall was empty. He had no time to lock the stall door, just leaned over the porcelain and tried to keep his tie out of the way.
No butterflies came out. Just the remnants of the dry toast and coffee he'd choked down this morning over the protests of a throat and belly wanting nothing inside.
He spun a handful of toilet paper off the roll and wadded it against his mouth. One hand against the wall, his head ached and swam.
There was no way he could go back in there. It was hard enough to get a real loan approved. This would be impossible. The questions would turn him into a blathering idiot. He would break down and sob in front of every key decision maker in the bank. The truth would come out. They would escort him out of the building and onto the street. Or worse, they might prosecute him. He could spend years in prison for trying this. What was he thinking?
The door to the men's room pounded open.
"Dunn!" Vince's voice.
Jason lifted his head. "Yeah."
"What are you doing? You're up."
The sound of that voice stirred the fibers in Jason's back, and he straightened. "Sorry. I'll be right there."
"Well, hurry up. It's costing the bank a fortune with all this talent sitting around waiting for you."
The door sighed to a close, and Jason was alone again.
Any butterflies in Jason's stomach lay dormant now. Good old Vince. Count on him to remind you why you hate this place more than you dread prison. Jason wiped the back of his hand across his lips and flushed. At the sink, the water he swirled in his mouth did little to remove the sour taste, but splashing a bit on his face helped his vacant appearance.
He stood straight and looked in the mirror. For an instant, he saw the battered face of his brother Philip staring back.
He shook his head "I'm not him. Let's do this."
He returned to the boardroom.
Mark jumped right on him. "Nice of you to join us."
"Sorry. Mother Nature." He managed to get into his chair without tumbling over it and onto the floor. "Do you want a presentation? You all know Northfield."
Scotty looked at him with one eyebrow perked. "I'm sure everyone would like to know what you're thinking here."
So Jason launched into it. Like a junior lender, he'd rehearsed this one in his mind for days. A brief nod to the Northfield relationship, their repayment of all debt a month ago after their stock offering brought sixty million onto their balance sheet, the profitability of the accounts over the past year. He even had a figure for how much the bank had made from the relationship since he'd brought it in six years ago. It was a generous estimate, but no one questioned the number.
Once he was into the monologue, his nervousness settled into a simmering boil. He guided them to page thirteen of the memo, where he'd summarized the cost savings Northfield could expect to achieve by eliminating management of Drusseaux and other redundant overhead. On page fourteen he'd laid out the effect of the acquisition on Northfield's income statement. He floated the expected words, accretive and cash flow impact and ROI, and called the committee's attention to the detailed pro forma balance sheet in the addendum.
It was Granger of all people who piped up first. "Can't we sell down some of this? Thirty million's a big bite for us."
Jason stared at him. Paper-white hair layered over a scalp darkened by hours on golf courses around town, this pencil pusher was usually the last one to speak up. How did he expect to make points with this kind of a question? BTB needed every dollar of loan outstandings after all the payoffs of the past six months.
"We can try to do that on the back end. We don't have time to bring another bank up to speed. Northfield wants to close this thing before the news of it leaks out. They're already seeing some increased volume in their stock." This much was true, but it had nothing to do with Jason's false acquisition.
Granger flipped through the memo. "We can move fast."
With a start, Jason remembered that Granger now ran the syndications group. The income from selling half of this credit to another bank would be a shot in the arm for his group with year-end approaching. But getting another bank involved would expose the whole thing. They would want to meet with management, conduct their own due diligence.
"No," Jason said. "This is moving too fast. There's no time. Besides, we've had more out to Northfield than this. They'd think we didn't have the stomach for it. It would risk losing the whole relationship."
Granger wanted Mark to step in. He looked to him. "We could boost our income on this with the syndication fees."
Vince chimed in. "It wouldn't offset the loss of the interest income on fifteen million."
Jason listened to their chatter and nearly laughed out loud. They were fighting over income from a deal that didn't exist. Everyone's attention was turning from the merits of the credit to what to do with all the money they were going to make from it. Granger wanted the fees from partnering with another bank, and Vince wanted all the income to stay in his group. Their competing interests were so transparent a referee was going to have to make a call.
Mark spoke up. "We need the outstandings." He turned to Jason. "But I am concerned these guys are outgrowing us. This is right at our legal lending limit. It gives us no room to do anything else for them. Do they understand that?"
"Sure," Jason lied. "I can talk to them about getting another bank involved after this acquisition's closed. Line up a partner to give us some room to work for them. They'll understand. The important thing is moving fast for them now."
Mark returned his attention to the package. No one had said a word about the quality of the credit since Jason finished his presentation. It was clear that they'd read the memo, but this was a lot of dough. The record had to show discussion. Next to Scotty, the analyst assigned to take down the minutes of the meeting dropped his hands from his laptop.
"The pro formas look solid," Mark said. "Both companies are strong on their own. They'll be even stronger together."
Scotty was silent.
Vince folded his copy of the memo closed. "Well, it's been a while since you've been in here, Jason. Thank God for Northfield, huh?"
Only Vince could make a win sound like a failure. Jason stared at him across the table and almost wished he could be around to see Vince's face when the news flashed about his group taking a $30 million fraud loss. It would lead to a shakeup. Every gray head around this table would probably roll.
"Not really much to talk about here," Mark said.
Everyone waited for Scotty to call a vote. But his head began to move slowly from side to side. As he flipped the pages of his copy of the memo, Jason saw that Scotty had scrawled all over it. Nothing unusual, but those blue ink marks could have been a judge's handwritten death sentence for the effect they had on Jason.
Scotty brought his hand to his face and clenched his mouth. He drew a long breath. His hand returned to the table.
"I don't know, guys. There's something bothering me about this."
Mark folded his arms and scowled at him. "What? What's the problem?"
Scotty kept shaking his head. "Ever since I read this last night, something . . ." He went back to the memo.
Jason held back. Mark wanted this deal done, and it was going to happen. The CEO was digging his own grave in front of loan committee and a handful of his lenders, and he had no idea. In a month he would be consigned to a fishing pole. Jason imagined Mark seated on a dock someplace, bare feet dangling in the water, his eyes trained on a line bobbing in the water.
Mark's face reddened, the color ascending from the white collar of his shirt and reaching his cheeks before he said, "Scotty, the numbers work. This is a good customer. There's no reason not to do this deal."
Scotty looked over his reading glasses at Mark. "I'm telling you, Mark, something about this isn't right."
"Well, what is it? Is it the pricing? The financial covenants? What?"
"No, none of that." Scotty pulled his reading glasses from his face and sat back. From across the table, he stared at Jason.
Jason's skin prickled with new eruptions of sweat against a T-shirt already damp. He had to say something to divert Scotty's thought process.
"This company's never let us down, Scotty. They always have a backup plan."
"Why do they need to borrow so much? They're sitting on a ton of cash."
"I asked them that. They just want to stay liquid. They think in this market, the more cash you have the more opportunities you'll have. And it's a statement to the market when they have the juice to take down a new $30-million loan."
Scotty rubbed his right hand across his face.
Mark looked like he was ready to explode. "We don't have all day, Scotty. If you don't want to do this deal, I need to know why."
"Because my gut's telling me not to. That's why."
His gut. Jason had gone over every detail of this plan a thousand times. He'd pored over the words and analysis of his memo, deconstructed every logical argument and propped up every invented fact with others until the house stood too tall to topple. But he couldn't fight Scotty's intuition. That was beyond debate.
Mark leveled his eyes at his CCO. "Your gut."
Scotty just kept shaking his head.
"What did your gut tell you about Innovative? Or Cal Foods? Or Dale Tech? Do I need to go on?"
He seemed ready to list every problem credit the bank had charged off in the past six months. The analyst taking minutes pounded away at the keyboard. Jason knew Scotty would edit the record later, but that couldn't take away the sting of being dressed down in front of everyone else in the room.
When Scotty finally answered, fatigue weighed on his words. "You know those were done under delegated authority. I didn't sign a single one of them."
"And who delegated the authority? You did. What did your gut tell you when you gave authority down the line?"
"The market turned on us, Mark. None of us saw it coming. Not me. Not you."
"But I'm not the CCO." Mark pointed a finger across the table. "You are. If I made a mistake, it was making that call."
There it was.
Scotty's eyes narrowed. "All right, Mark. You've made your point." He turned to the analyst taking minutes. The kid looked like he wanted to crawl into his laptop. "New set of minutes." The kid stared at Scotty, mystified. Scotty smiled his kindest smile and leaned over. "Leave the Northfield minutes open, but open another document, Zack."
The instructions shook the kid loose, and he clicked away at the keyboard, then looked back to Scotty for the next order.
"Note that the Chief Credit Officer has announced his resignation. Back on the Northfield minutes, put me down as abstaining due to my resignation."
Scotty pushed his chair back and stood. He walked around the table to the door. The sound of it opening and closing reverberated in the silence.
The color had drained out of Mark's face. From all the way across the room, Jason could hear the muffled creak of Mark grinding his teeth. The CEO looked around him. "Vince, what's your vote?"
"I'm a yes."
"Granger?"
"Yes."
"Hanson?"
"Yes."
Mark said to the analyst typing up the record, "I'm a yes vote too. So it's unanimous." He turned to Jason. Something in the assurance that always chiseled the CEO's face seemed to shift and quake. He blinked five times.
Jason didn't move.
Finally Mark reached for the Northfield memo and flipped it over. "Get it closed, Jason."
"What a mess." Hathaway's face lit for an instant in a camera flash. The forensic photographer scrabbled around for another angle on Barnes. Hathaway took the gum out of his mouth and turned it between his thumb and fingers. The movement pulled his eyes away from the bloody lump Barnes had become, but he must have decided not to leave the gum at the scene. He popped it back into his mouth.
"You think it was Flip," Tom said.
"'Course it was Flip." Hathaway pointed at the victim's mouth. A wad of paper was hanging out of it. Maybe three pages. It was tinted red and gray from blood and saliva.
Tom ran his tongue across the roof of his mouth where Flip had jammed the end of the tether after the beating two weeks ago. The tender skin there had healed enough that it only felt like he'd burned it with hot pizza.
"You're right." Tom called over to the detective. "Hey, Lance."
Lance was talking to one of the bartenders in the hallway. His gray sport coat hung open and might not have fit well enough to button even if he wanted to. He was skinny apart from that gut. When he was done with the bartender, he came back to where Tom stood with Hathaway over Barnes. The photographer circled off to snap pictures of bloodstains.
Lance started putting on the latex gloves. "What?" He was staring down at what was left of Barnes.
"We're pretty sure Flip Dunn did this. See the paper in the mouth?"
The second glove snapped at the wrist, and both hands were covered. He flexed his fingers. "What about it?"
"It's what he does. Stuffs something in the mouth of his victims."
"Oh, come on, Tom," Hathaway said. "You have to fess up." He told Lance, "Tom tried to put a tether on Flip and got beat up. When he woke up, the end of the tether was in his mouth. That right, Tom?"
"Yeah."
Lance looked back down to the victim. "You got a picture of this Flip Dunn?"
Tom took it out of his pocket, but before he could show it to the detective, Lance crouched down to get a closer look at Barnes. He pinched an edge of the paper sticking out of Barnes's mouth, folded the page back. It was one of the few white spaces left.
"Looks like names and phone numbers. Some notes. Plenty to follow up on here." He straightened and stripped off the gloves. "Give me the description."
Tom rattled off Flip's stats. He handed the picture to Lance, and Lance got started on the radio. Another APB on Flip Dunn, this time for a 187.
"Can we talk to the other victims?" Tom asked.
"You know better than that. I'll get over there and do a photo lineup when I'm done here. If you want, I'll give you a call and let you know if I get a positive."
"Fair enough. Thanks. And thanks for the heads-up on this."
Lance waved them off and got another set of gloves going.
Tom took one last look at what Flip had done to Barnes. For the hundredth time, he wondered why Flip hadn't turned him into roadkill too.
He caught up with Hathaway in the hallway. The uniforms had set up floodlights. Light glinted off the thousands of shards of glass that crunched under the soles of their shoes. Hathaway was looking up at a dark hole in the ceiling where the remnants of a shattered bulb were still threaded into the fixture.
"Took his time setting this up, didn't he?"
"I guess," Tom said. "Let's get over to the brother's. See if we get lucky."
"Seems to me you've already been lucky."
"Yeah. I get that."
At this hour, Venice Boulevard was just a string of lit-up asphalt waiting for traffic. Tom slowed for the red lights but coasted through when he was sure no other cars were coming. In a couple of minutes they were off the main boulevard and prowling toward the banker's place. The houses here sat toward the back of their lawns like mausoleums. Most of the windows were dark. A few glowed with the lonely blue flicker of late-night television.
Tom scanned the sidewalks. It was walking distance from the Ragtop to the brother's house.
"You think he got clipped in that firefight?"
Hathaway had his elbow propped outside, his jacket sleeve ballooning in the wind. "Maybe. A lot of holes in that room. Couldn't tell if the bloodstains in the hallway were from the victims or what."
Tom wheeled the Explorer onto the banker's street, cruised past his house, and parked three doors down. "Doesn't look like anybody's up."
"They're about to be." Hathaway opened his door and stepped out.
Tom killed the engine and followed. Nobody was on the sidewalks. He checked his watch---2:35.
Hathaway reached the door before Tom and leaned into the doorbell. It took three rings before they heard a woman's voice behind the door asking who was there.
Tom said, "It's Tom Cole, Mrs. Dunn. We talked over the phone a few days ago."
No response.
Tom tried again. "We need to talk to your husband."
The porch light lit up, and door hardware started unbuckling. She opened the door about six inches. Tom held up his badge.
Mrs. Dunn's bleary eye peeked back, scared out of sleep. "Jason's not home."
Tom looked at Hathaway, then back through the crack in the door. "Where is he?"
A flicker of something painful moved across her cheek before she said, "I don't know." She began to close the door.
Tom put his hand on the panel. "Have you heard from his brother?"
"Philip? No."
"If you hear from him, you need to call me. It's very important." He pushed a business card through the gap.
She took it. "I haven't talked to him in years."
"I hope it stays that way. But if you see him, try to stay away from him. And call me right away."
That eye looked from Tom to Hathaway and back. "I understand."
Tom turned.
"My husband doesn't have anything to do with his brother." The door had opened a little wider.
"Good. But Philip's in the area. The immediate area. It's a little too coincidental for me."
"They hate each other, Officer. They have for years."
Tom approached the door. "Why is that?"
She stared out at him. Tom felt that she was performing some kind of assessment of him and Hathaway.
The gap widened another six inches. "Maybe you should come in after all."
The waning moon bled its light every night, becoming smaller and darker with the passage of the month. Flip stared at it, his two eyes on the single bright misshapen orb above. For once, he felt a sense of kinship with it. Endless cycles, waxing, waning, orbiting around and around, lifeless, dusty, dry.
Pointless.
From this alley he could watch its motion another hour maybe. If he lasted that long. His idea was to hide here until the sirens died down and then make his way to Diane's. Brenda's, that is. He didn't even know what she wanted him to call her anymore. He would go to her. She would know what to do. After all, she was the one he orbited.
But since dropping to this spot against the bricks, he himself had waned. This alley had become too comfortable to leave. The asphalt carpet, the bricks mortared together to cradle his back, the mirrors of the puddles reflecting the moonlight---he'd even grown fond of the fetid smell of garbage seeping from the trash bins. And anyway, there was no standing now. He was dizzy enough just sitting here staring back at the moon's prying, half-blinked eye.
His heart charged in his chest. Pump faster and faster. Get what blood's left through these veins.
Diane would know what to do. Brenda would know. His cell phone had been in his good hand for a long time. He'd meant to call her before he'd become engaged in this staring contest with the unwinking, pitted eggshell overhead.
Another hour, maybe two, and the moon would pass behind that wall, and he would be alone. The water and oil puddled in the street wouldn't glow any longer when the moon turned away.
He had her number stored in his phone. She could be here in ten minutes, her hands on him, helping him into a car. Maybe she would nurse him herself. Or maybe she would think it best to take him to a hospital. She would know what to tell the doctors to keep the police out of it. If that was possible.
He set the cell phone on the pavement and reached for his left arm. Adjusting it was like moving a piece of a cadaver. Someone else's arm sewed onto his shoulder. He tried bending the arm with his right hand, as if he could pump sensation back into it by levering it back and forth. Finally, he gave up again. It was dead.
Like he would soon be. If he didn't make the call.
But she might be with him again. Her mark. The one this job was all about. She might have lit candles again tonight. They'd be burned down to stubs by this hour. She'd hadn't told Flip much about her plan, really. She never did. She just gave instructions and expected him to carry them out. That was his job. Stand by for more orders. Don't call me; I'll call you. Then we'll be together.
Deep down, he always knew she was stringing him along. Since the first night he was back. When he'd read the letters she'd written to him while he was in Lancaster, something had told him that she had a reason to keep him on a hook. He didn't want to believe it. He wanted to believe that a girl like her might want him. He thought maybe there was a chance that what he'd done for her over the years might have earned him something from her, even as she grew up and he had to grow meaner and meaner to survive. She liked part of his meanness, that was sure, but now, with the last drops of his life oozing through the sponge of his clothing and onto the blacktop, he saw it all clearly. Finally.
She had no desire for him. He was just another tool in her kit. Another piece to the puzzle of the life she was assembling for herself. What would the rest of the puzzle pieces look like? She'd shown up in the evenings dressed like any of the career women striding the sidewalks of Beverly Hills or Century City in their heels and skirts, entering office buildings or shops. She spent her days in that world and her nights plotting and planning how to set the next piece of the puzzle into the frame.
No, a wounded convict had no place in that puzzle. If he called her, she might not even answer. And if she did, she would have an excuse for not coming.
He could call his dad. Inglewood was only fifteen minutes away. The old man might drive over in his Buick. Flip pictured him covering up the seat with a towel to keep the blood off the upholstery. He imagined the words he would say. The disappointment. Again.
No.
And then there was Jason. Closest of all. That snug house in Cheviot Hills. The perfect little lawyer wife. The sweet little job handling other people's money all day long.
Flip's mind flashed on the familiar image of Jason as a boy, counting the cash from the paper route they shared.
He smiled. Kids playing with cash. Daffy Duck sitting at a folding table.
The walls framing the moon at the end of the alley were spinning now, a dizzy rotation around that glowing eye. The back-and-forth motion was hypnotic.
He closed his eyes. Very tired now. Very sleepy. He caught again the image of Jason at the summer card table, the fan blowing air at Flip, Jason not letting the fan blow on him for fear of ruffling the piles of bills he'd collected. Jason counting and recounting, as if the number could grow larger by repetition. Keeping a list of those he'd collected from and those who still owed him. And Flip poking fun. Calling him the cartoon character who was crazy for dough. Jason preferring to sweat rather than have anything interfere with the organized stacks before him. Beads of sweat standing out on Jason's forehead like dewdrops.
Twelve-year-old Jason lifted a five from a stack. He pursed his lips like a lady and dabbed at his forehead with the bill to make his little brother Philip laugh.
And Philip laughed.
Jason inspected the signature. The R and S were the keys to pulling it off. The rest of the letters could be anything, the way they lumped together and trailed away. He compared it to one of Randy Sloan's authentic signatures. Perfect. Even the size of the signature matched. And the way Randy wrote "CFO" on the title line underneath---Brenda had nailed that, too.
"Looks good." It had to pass inspection in the loan operations department in a few hours, but if Jason didn't see any flaws, they wouldn't either.
Brenda handed him the corporate resolution of Northfield Industries, certifying that the company's board of directors had authorized the CFO to execute documents borrowing $30 million from BTB. She'd had to forge a series of signatures for this one. Jason compared the scrawl of the corporate secretary and the signatures of the board members the corporation required to authorize a transaction like this. He saw no flaws.
"You're talented, lady."
Brenda winked. "Practice, practice. Check this one." She slid the loan advance request to him.
The LAR contained the borrower's instructions to the bank to disburse funds on the loan. The sum of $30 million was typed next to the words Amount of Advance. Since most loan advances went into the customer's account at BTB, the form had a separate box that contained a set of instructions for wire transfers. The instructions in that box directed the bank to send the full amount by wire transfer to the offshore account of Nor-Dru Holdings, a shell corporation Jason had created with the help of a London attorney. The holding company was supposedly created for the purpose of facilitating Northfield's acquisition of Drusseaux Industries. The attorney was delighted for the opportunity to do some work for Northfield, and Jason had to use all his persuasive energies to keep him from calling Northfield directly. Brenda's forgery of Randy's signature on the letters to the attorney and the account-opening documents two days ago had appeared as genuine as these.
He compared the account numbers. They were accurate.
The rest of the documents looked right too.
"Let's take a look at how our bankers are managing our money."
Brenda came around behind him. He'd brought his personal laptop to the hotel. When he gained Internet access through the cellular network, he connected with the account in Nevis he'd primed for the past three weeks with transfers of his personal funds. He'd taken loans against his retirement savings and moved that money into the Nor-Dru International Business Corporation in Nevis. Since then, he'd made a series of transfers to other accounts he'd set up in other names in Belize and Panama, everything ultimately ending up in the Swiss account. The banks would have no way of knowing he controlled every one of the accounts. He'd been shuffling wires back and forth in various amounts and had conducted a series of conversations with the bankers in those countries to prepare them for the big payday he'd promised when he opened the accounts.
He typed in wire instructions to the Nevis account that now contained most of his money, entered a PIN, and sent a chunk of it over to Panama. The wire fees and foreign exchange fees were enough to choke a lesser corporation.
Brenda leaned over his back and kissed his ear. "You're a wizard at this stuff, Jason. You're a natural." She kissed his neck. "I can't wait to get you on a beach in the Mediterranean."
Jason checked the time in the corner of his screen---4:45 a.m. They'd been at it all night, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He swiveled around, and Brenda stood away.
"We don't have much time," he said. "We need to get out of here. I'll go into the office at eight. You come in at your usual time. Nothing can be out of the ordinary. Do you understand? This is just another workday. The day before Thanksgiving. We have plans with our families tomorrow. You'll tell everyone you're flying to Pennsylvania."
"I already bought a ticket."
"Good. What about the flight you're really taking?"
"Orange County to New York. From there to Zurich."
"Good. We'll meet in Lucerne. My flight's out of San Diego tonight. You have your new cell phone?"
She nodded. "Oh, Jason. It's really happening. You and me. Forever." She nestled into his lap and threw her arms around him. Her kiss transported him out of this cheap room and into a place of warmth and passion and freedom.
It was almost enough to make him forget the danger.
"Brenda," he said. His hand pressed to her cheek, softness, heat. "Today is the most important day of our lives. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing. Do you understand?"
She nodded. "You've done everything so well. I'm so proud of you."
"All right. Now go home. But when you go into the office, remember---nothing unusual. You're packed for a weekend out of town. Nothing else. Got it?"
"I got it. I'm just so excited."
"No. You're not." His grip on her wrist tightened. "It's a normal Thanksgiving weekend trip. Turkey and cranberries. That's all."
"Right. Normal." She tried to twist her arm away from his hand.
He let her loose. "Now go."
She kissed his cheek, brushed her lips against his, and stood.
He watched her go to the door, soaked in the shape of her, the movement. This was what he was doing it for. This and revenge. As she slipped outside, he caught a glimpse of her profile, the upturned nose, the curve of cheek and chin in the glare of the light in the outdoor hallway. And she was gone.
Revenge. Vince and Mark had done everything they could to squash him under their petty rules and regulations. He'd endured the weight of them for years. For a long time he'd found ways of operating within the rules to do his job to his advantage. But over the past year, Vince had made the rules his personal weapon to destroy Jason. And Vince had wielded them more expertly than Jason could have ever expected. The fat man had even brought Mark along by the nose until the CEO was like his little puppy, whimpering, expectant.
It was time to make them pay.
Jason shut down his laptop. He rubbed his eyes. Another few hours. Work until 2:30 or 3:00, say Happy Thanksgiving to whoever might still be hanging around the office, and hit the freeway for San Diego. It would be a grueling drive in Thanksgiving Eve traffic, but he had plenty of time until his 9:00 flight. Jerome Michaels---that was his name on this flight. He would go by Jerry.
His cell phone vibrated. He checked the readout and saw Serena's name again. What good could it do to answer? He clicked Ignore and tried not to think of her.
He didn't want to love her anymore. He wanted a new start with Brenda, and he was going to get it. Serena and her cheating lies, her lawyerly self-confidence. The law game had made everything a negotiation with her, a bend of words, a twist of implication and blame. She was good at it. He had to give her that.
Let's be honest. Here in a cheap hotel room with stains on the carpet and dust crowded into the corners, let's be honest before we do this. You're jealous of her, aren't you? Jealous of her success, that she made partner and a lot more money than you. That her hard work and brains produced more results and respect than anything you'll ever do.
Yes, why not be honest? Here and now, alone with your little plot, let's strip away all the excuses. You've been looking for a way out for a long time, haven't you? The backstabbing and politics were just a way to keep things interesting. The truth is, you've been bored to death with the forms and the rules and the regimentation. You've resented Serena's success and the growing sense that she wasn't your wife but that you were the lawyer's husband. That was a big part of it, wasn't it? Jealousy. Boredom. Resentment. Growing every day by millimeters, worming deeper and deeper into the soil of your soul until Brenda Tierney brought her eyes and her body into your office with a means of escape.
Serena. Denying that she'd written that letter when the penmanship was unmistakable.
He gathered the paperwork and slipped it into the envelope.
Well, they'll never forget you. That much was sure. You won't be another gray-haired banker shuttled off into retirement with a gold watch and a kick in the rear. No, not you. They'll talk about you for the rest of their lives. You'll give them something to spice up their cocktail parties, something to talk about over lunches and dinners. "Did you hear the one about the banker who stole $30 million?"
But how would their stories end?
He opened the envelope again. Something nagged at him. The signatures were perfect. For the loan documents themselves, he'd used old legal documents his attorney had prepared for other transactions, drafts emailed back and forth in formats easily manipulated. Just change the dates and dollar amounts. It was easy.
So what was wrong?
His eyes focused on the signatures. He compared them to the authentic ones.
They were perfect. Absolutely right. Not a curve, not an angle wrong. As if Randy and the others had themselves set their pens to these papers. Even the printed CFO could have been penned by Randy's hand. Really, it was remarkable how she'd copied it so well.
He slid the documents back inside and ran his hands along the edges of the envelope.
Honesty, now at least. Before you get these fraudulent documents to loan ops. Before the wires fly. Before you step onto a plane a felon with $30 million and that blonde waiting for you. Let's be honest.
Serena was right about you, wasn't she? Everything always comes back to that night twenty years ago, back to Danah. Ending your marriage won't change that. Thirty million dollars won't. The memory will always haunt you no matter how much money you've got or whom you're with or where you are. What you did to Danah will always be there. And come on, let's really be honest here. What you did to your brother.
You're a liar.
You're a cheat.
You're a murderer.
Bankers drifted in late today. From his office, Jason listened for them and watched them pass. Some called good mornings to him. Billy sent out a Happy Thanksgiving e-mail.
Phones sat idle. The whole feel of the bank was different on a day like this. People were here and yet not here, their minds elsewhere. On this abbreviated day, not much was expected. Projects would be postponed and more time spent in idle conversation than on anything impacting the business.
But Jason sat with his hands knotted together underneath his desk, his arms straining with the clutching of his fingers. After the hours of watching the staff enter, he tried to keep his face pointed at the papers before him. Rows of numbers, columns of them. Sixteen years he'd been eyeing these things, searching for trends and trying to look beyond them into the uncertainty of the future to ascertain the likelihood of repayment. But now these figures lined up on a sheet had lost any meaning. They might as well have been skimmed from a bowl of alphabet soup to be sorted and bunched by a child's hands.
He'd delivered the documents. Walked them down to loan ops himself to explain the importance of funding the loan today. At this second they were being reviewed by the loan operations department. The processing staff would compare the documents to the approval memo for accuracy. Right now, one of them was probably going through a checklist, making sure the package was complete, the terms correct, the signatures valid. Next they would make entries on the bank's computer system, taking from the documents the name of the borrower and the total commitment amount and entering it into the bank's system along with the date the bank expected payments that only Jason and Brenda knew would never be received. The staff would check and double-check the input before finalizing the files on the system. Then, once the loan was properly entered, they would instruct the wire room to send out the funds.
Today as always the loan ops staff would be conscientious. They lived for details, for accuracy. They judged their performance by the absence of mistakes and one-upped one another with their perfection. Catching an error was a highlight of their existence. Correcting it was a bonus.
But nothing could go wrong now. He'd received the approvals he needed. The loan committee had blessed it. The memo bore the committee secretary's stamp and the signature loan ops would be looking for. The documents were based on the very templates prepared for other credits to Northfield. The signatures Brenda had forged were perfect.
But still his heart thudded in his chest like a caged man pounding on a wall. Thirty million. Sure, he wanted revenge against Vince and Mark. But this would sink the bank. The jobs of every one of the people bantering outside his office would be jeopardized. The jobs of branch employees, tellers, the guys in the mail room. The FDIC would invade this place with their plans and suitors, and before a week was out, BTB would be either absorbed by another bank or shuttered. Another $10-billion bank on the skids. But not because of toxic assets this time. Because of fraud.
He stared at his phone. He could pick it up and call loan ops and tell them the whole thing was off. The customer had changed his mind. The acquisition had fallen through. Something. Anything. The $30 million hadn't left the bank. He could tell them not to post those debits and credits. The loan wouldn't be funded.
The readout on the phone read 10:42 a.m. Another couple of hours, and he could walk out of here forever. With Brenda, ready for a life of travel and pleasure.
Or into shackles and a prison cell if anything went wrong.
No. He'd considered every angle. It was perfect. In its timing. This day. No one would suspect anything today. No one would be surprised that he and Brenda were both taking a day off on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In its execution, it was flawless. The documents were right. Every letter of them. The signatures.
His computer chimed. An e-mail from Nancy, head of loan ops. He nearly crushed his mouse clicking on the icon.
The lawyer's consistency letter was missing from the package.
A grunt escaped from his throat. How could he have forgotten the consistency letter? It usually came over e-mail along with the final set of loan documents from the bank's attorney.
Brenda was at his door. Eyes wide, she glanced over her shoulder and back at him. She'd been copied on the e-mail, as usual.
She marched to his desk. "What's a consistency letter?"
Jason sorted his e-mail for everything he had from Casey Flynn. He'd used Casey for every loan he'd ever done for Northfield. There had to be a consistency letter saved somewhere in his e-mail.
But no.
"It's a letter that lists out everything they prepared. It says the docs are consistent with the bank's approval and the bank's standards for documentation. It put the onus on the law firm for mistakes in the documents."
He went to his archived e-mails. There were hundreds of e-mails from Casey. "I've got to have one here someplace." He began clicking on every e-mail with an attachment. Casey never labeled his documents with anything decipherable. The attachments were always coded with a series of numbers broken by underscores. Some kind of code within the firm that made it easy for them to find a particular piece of paper but made it impossible for Jason to differentiate between a consistency letter and a collateral search.
Jason reached for his phone. Nancy picked up.
"Hey, Nancy. It's Jason. Can we get this thing boarded without the consistency letter? I don't know if I'll be able to track Casey down." He opened another attachment. A security agreement. Next.
"Sure, just need credit admin's approval. Cynthia's covering today. Do you want me to e-mail her?"
It was the last thing he wanted.
Every attachment he opened took a lifetime to load. His archived e-mails were someplace in the bank's cyber-warehouse, so who knew how many firewalls and links each document had to pass through.
"No, I'll see if I can track down Casey." He struggled to keep his voice level. Just a documentation glitch. It happened with nearly every single legitimate loan ever boarded. "How do the rest of the docs look?"
Brenda paced back and forth on the other side of his desk. He couldn't meet her eyes.
Nancy said, "Everything else looks good. Rebecca's just about done with the data entry. Just need that consistency letter to board. Do you need any help tracking down Casey?"
"No, I'll try his cell. I'll take care of it."
They clicked off. He found the execution documents for his last deal for Northfield. Eight attachments. He began opening them.
The last one was Casey's consistency letter.
"Here." He printed it. "Check the printer."
Brenda spun for the door and was back in seconds, reading the letter. "Do we list out the same documents?"
"Give it to me. There are too many people out there. Somebody might look over your shoulder." He put the letter in his lap and prepared to type it out. He looked up at her. "What do we do about the letterhead? It's got to be on their letterhead."
"Just type it out." She returned to her desk.
He heard a noise. When he looked up, she was in the doorway again. "E-mail it to me when it's done. With the other one." She closed his door.
He had the list of documents typed out when the door opened and the two parole officers walked in, looking ready for a fight.
"You come in too, baby." Hathaway talked to Brenda like she was his pet. "Come on."
"I've got work to do."
"This won't take long." He winked at her, chomping at his gum.
Tom faced the brother. No tie today. Bankers dressed down the day before Thanksgiving, apparently.
"What do you want? I haven't seen him. I'll call you if I see him."
"And good morning to you too," Hathaway said. Tom heard the door close behind them. Hathaway ushered Brenda into the little circle they formed with Jason. He hadn't moved from behind his desk.
Jason looked at Hathaway. "We're trying to get some things done around here so we can take off for the holiday. What do you want?"
"You haven't heard from him?" Tom asked.
"No. I would've called you."
"Well, you won't. He's dead."
A breath escaped from Brenda. Her hands clenched and went to her abdomen.
The banker laughed. People did that sometimes. "No way."
"Trash men found him in an alley this morning about a mile from your house."
His face started twisting. Here was what Tom wanted to see. Jason fell back in his chair and his head turned away. His top lip snarled upward.
"Well, lookie here." Hathaway leaned forward to get a better look at Brenda. She tried to get away from him, but Hathaway caught her by the chin. "I told you, Tommy."
"Get your hands off her." The banker came out of his chair. Papers fell from the edge of his desk onto the floor. He was around the desk and ready to shove into Hathaway, but Hathaway chopped the banker's arms away. He caught Jason by the shoulder, twisted him around and had his arm ready for breaking by the time he pinned his chest against the wall.
"I understand you're in a state of shock, brother Dunn," Hathaway breathed into the banker's ear. "So maybe you're not responsible for your actions. But you don't want me to haul you in for assault, do you?"
Tom kept his eyes on the girl. She blinked away tears. Her arms folded across her chest and then fell back to her sides. She couldn't seem to keep her feet still.
Again, Hathaway had been right about some kind of connection here.
Hathaway backed away from the banker and shoved him toward his desk.
Jason's sport coat had been ripped at the shoulder. He looked down at it, stripped the coat off and threw it at Hathaway. "Why did you come here? What did you expect to find out?"
The girl wouldn't look at them. Hathaway got in her face. "Trying to think about something else, aren't you? Don't want to think about Flip."
"I don't even know him. It's Jason's brother, that's all."
Tom looked close. "Just feeling sorry for your boss, is that it?"
She nodded. But tears brimmed her eyes.
Hathaway's head shook back and forth, and a smile warped his mouth. "No, no, no." He pointed at her face. "You knew him. Didn't you?"
"She's never even met him," the brother said. He supported himself with the desk. Tom could see the anger draining from the banker's face. "I've got to call my father." The words came out vacant of emotion.
Tom and Hathaway watched as Brenda touched away a tear escaping from her left eye.
She lifted her chin and shook her head as if she'd just come out of the water. "Can't you get out of here? Poor Jason's just lost his brother. Don't you have any decency?"
"How did you know him? His brother doesn't think you did, but we know better, don't we, Tommy?"
"Yes, we do. What was it you and Flip had going?"
The threat of tears was gone. It was as if she'd lowered over her face the veil of the character she played. The real woman was again replaced by the part of Brenda Tierney.
"I'm telling you, she doesn't know him." The banker returned to his chair. He lifted from the floor the papers that had fallen when he went after Hathaway. He stared at them for a long time.
Hathaway didn't take his eyes off the girl. "Tell us about the real Brenda Tierney."
For an instant, her guard dropped. Those green eyes betrayed fear. Then the veil dropped again. "You're looking at her."
"No, the real Brenda Tierney," Tom said. "The one born in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania."
Her eyes held. She didn't allow them to shift. She was good, all right.
"We got your social. The one you used when you applied here. Your HR people really want to cooperate with us. That Brenda Tierney wasn't born around here at all."
"So I was born in Westmoreland. So what?"
Tom stepped in. "So how do you live in two different places? You've still got an address in Pennsylvania, and this address here in LA. What's that about? And what's the tie with Flip Dunn?"
"There's no tie. My parents live in Pennsylvania. I went to school there. They still get some of my mail."
Hathaway looked at her as if he were peering through a magnifying glass. "Tidy."
She waved a hand. "You guys need another hobby. Jason, I don't think we have to listen to this."
The banker slouched in his chair. His eyes had the appearance of having sunk far into their sockets. "Get out."
"Don't you want to know where the body is?" Tom asked.
"No." He blinked, seemed to regain something. "All right. Where is he?"
"Coroner's. You need the address?"
"No." He stared at the papers he'd picked up off the floor. "I have to call my father."
Hathaway leaned into Brenda. "We'll be in touch, baby."
"I'm not your baby."
Tom said, "They really want to cooperate with us. We've got your picture, your fingerprints. It's just a matter of time until we find out who you really are."
"Get a life." She went to Jason. "You better call your dad. I'll finish that up for you."
He looked up at her. The papers drew his attention like something from the distant past. Things like a brother's death had a way of dividing time into before and after.
The banker handed her the papers.
Alone in his office, holding the handset to his landline, Jason stared at the telephone and tried to think of what he would say to his father. How do you tell a man his son is dead? Do you drag it out, tell him you've got some bad news, try to prepare him for the worst thing he'll ever experience by giving him five seconds to brace himself? Do you tell him to sit down?
He thought of his father in that old shell of a house, the only sounds the clink of bottle on glass or the scrape of a dog's toenails against linoleum. The old man shuffling from room to room or collapsing into an easy chair to try for something on television that didn't make him too angry to watch. No friends. No companion other than the canine that watched mutely from the corner.
The old man might be expecting a call like this. Maybe not today, but knowing his son, knowing the kinds of things he was capable of, the kinds of things he did and people he associated with, he must have expected to get news like this one day. Maybe that's why he drank so much, to dull the dread of a uniformed policeman showing up on his doorstep or an unwelcome voice on the other end of a phone call telling him his son was dead.
This wasn't helping. Jason had to call. It was better coming from him than from someone like those two POs.
But Phil. Poor Phil. Before he could distract himself to stop it, a picture came to Jason's mind: Phil before they were grown, before mom left, when things were . . . no, not good, but at least settled. Jason pictured him as a kid, running through the neighborhood, that stupid corduroy jacket ballooning out behind him, the jacket Jason had worn until the sleeves didn't reach his wrists anymore. It was threadbare by the time it got to Phil, and it hung nearly to his knees, but he had loved it. He'd loved everything he got from Jason.
How did their lives get so far away from them? They were just a couple of boys with the aspirations boys have. They were going to be astronauts, soldiers, spies, firemen. Anything you could attach the word hero to. But now, before they hit forty years old, their lives were spent.
Poor Phil. His one heroic act had ruined everything. Jason ran his hand over his face. No tears. How could he cry when all this was his fault?
We're looking for the truth these days, aren't we? So let's go for the truth. Let's really go for it, like we never have before. You've been pretending for years. You've blamed everyone and everything but the one person who should take all this on his shoulders. It's all your fault, Jason. You were the one who ran off with Danah. You were the one Phil had to chase down. You were the one who called for help.
His fingers went to the telephone keypad. They touched the same numbers he'd called that night twenty years ago from a payphone outside a bar.
The busy signal beeped back at him from miles away. It churred again and again until the recurring rhythm embedded in his brain.
He hung up.
Brenda bounced in. She laid the consistency letter before him and stood back.
The letterhead, the signature---it looked as authentic as any copy of a consistency letter he'd received from Casey.
"Don't you want to know how I did it?" She smiled at him. No pain on that lovely face, nothing remotely touching the grief tearing through Jason's chest.
"Sure."
"A little copy-machine magic. I printed out the old one, taped in the new text, ran it through the copier, some white out, copied it again, and voila."
It would have fooled him if he hadn't known. Surely it would fool loan ops. Even the signature.
"Want me to PDF it to loan ops?" she asked.
"Yeah. Sure. That should do it."
She turned, and he watched her body shift and the movement of her clothes around her as she crossed the room and left.
He picked up the phone again. Redial. Buzzing busy signal five times, six, seven. Whom could he be talking to?
Jason slammed the receiver down. He would have to go over there. News this bad shouldn't be delivered over the phone anyway.
While he waited for his laptop to shut down, he looked around his office for the last time. All the years in here cutting deals, winning and losing against the competition, growing the team and driving his region to higher and higher success, and he was leaving in the middle of the worst downturn of his generation.
"They can have it," he said and shoved the laptop into his briefcase. He walked out in his shirtsleeves.
Brenda looked up. "Where are you going?"
"I have to go to my dad's. I can't reach him." He looked around, but no one was close enough to hear their conversation. "Call me if anything goes wrong with the funding. I'll watch my e-mail for the alert that it booked."
She smiled, and that dimple in her right cheek appeared. "Okay, Jason. Good-bye."
He stared at her. For an instant, her smile faltered.
She whispered, "I'll see you there."
His briefcase had grown heavy. His legs felt mired in mud, in quicksand.
Everything in him wanted her. In a day they would be across the ocean together, their pockets lined with all the cash they could ever need. So what was wrong?
What was wrong was that he was committing a federal crime. They would fine him enough to break him for life. They'd give him the full thirty years in prison. What was wrong was that he was risking his life for this girl and the money. That was what was wrong. He'd known it ever since they'd decided it could be done. Now they were actually doing it. They were going to pull it off. That's what was causing the tugging at his insides, worse than any bad decision he'd ever made. That had to be it.
So why had he only started feeling it when she said good-bye?
He edged away.
She returned to her keyboard and mouse. Her eyes shifted back to him. The dimple returned with her smile.
It was no good. That feeling in his gut wouldn't go away. Something was wrong, and it wasn't the crime. The crime was perfect.
He returned to her desk. "What's going on here?"
She lifted her face to him. "Loan ops is good with the consistency letter. They're boarding it now. The wire should go any minute." She looked over her shoulder, whispered, "Oh, Jason, it's so hard not to kiss you right now. We're almost there. Everything we want is happening."
Play it out. That was what occurred to him. Despite everything warning him that it was all wrong, the prevailing thought was to play it out.
He turned away. He had to find his father.
The instant Jason stood clear of his car, his bones chilled at the sound. A wail, feral, primal, muffled by walls and locked doors into a distant sound.
Coming from his father's house.
He bolted. Across the lawn, up the steps.
He tore the screen door back, pounded on the wood, shouted. "Dad! Dad!"
Max barked from the other side, whined, and again tried to howl out his fear.
The doorknob wouldn't budge. Jason shook it, shouldered into the door, but it had no give to it at all.
He turned and ran to the side of the house. Max wailed sadness and want, the siren of it rising and falling, cutting through the house's sides to ice Jason's core.
The door next to the gravel driveway was solid too. The old man refused to put bars on his windows, but nobody would get in through these doors. Jason shouted through it, but the only answer came from Max.
He went for the gate to the backyard. Maybe the old man hadn't reinforced the door in the back of the house. Jason's fingers scratched for purchase on the latch to free the gate, tripped it. He crashed into the backyard.
He'd been through the back door thousands of times. This one had never been changed. Max's cries came through more clearly here.
Jason seized the knob. It was locked, but it wobbled in his hand. The deadbolt above it would be locked too. But this old door wouldn't hold. He leaned into it. Backed away, shoved it. Stepped back. A running start, and he crashed into it.
Something cracked. Either his shoulder or the door.
Five steps back now. He sprinted at it. It exploded inward. Jason stumbled into the kitchen. He lost his footing, broke his fall with his hands.
He looked up. Level with Jason's face, Max barked out his fury, teeth long, eyes red where they should be white at the edges. But the dog didn't bite. Max turned and ran out of the room. Returned, barked some more. Jason got to his feet.
"Dad?"
He willed himself forward. He stepped on the stained linoleum as if the thin layer were the only thing between his feet and oblivion. From the back of his mind came information on the composition of linoleum from research he'd done on a loan to a flooring company. It was worthless information, and he despised himself for thinking about linseed oil and limestone here and now.
He rounded the corner. Max stood whimpering at the end of the hallway, where a doorway led to the bedroom.
A smell hit him. Vomit. Excrement. He covered his nose and mouth.
"Oh, no."
He walked to Max.
Hank Dunn lay half off the bed, his face buried in the carpet. The seat of his pajamas was stained, and near his pillow another stain pooled, peppered with partly digested chunks of food. The telephone was off the hook, the handset dangling by the extended looped cord to within an inch of the floor.
Jason knelt next to his father's head. "Dad?"
Max nosed in to lick the unmoving face.
"Dad?" Jason put his hand on the old man's shoulder. He couldn't remember the last time he'd touched him. "Dad?"
He pushed on the shoulder. No response.
His fingers probed into the folds of the old man's neck. Along the ribbed tube of his father's windpipe, he searched for a pulse.
There.
A faint quiver against his fingertips.
He pulled his hand away. The smell assaulted his throat. His hand again went to his nose.
No noise came from the phone. It must have been off for a while. He'd been on the phone when it happened. Or he'd tried to call 911.
Jason went to it and pressed the button, held the handset to his ear. When he had a dial tone, he dialed the three numbers. He was in the middle of giving the address when his father spoke.
Jason put down the receiver. "Dad? What?" He went to his knees.
The old man's face drooped as if half of it was melted. One eye blinked slowly and remained partially open. The right side of his lower lip pressed against his teeth to form a sound, and then the lips drew together again to end it. It was one word, and Jason knew the word even though the old man's tongue couldn't make the L sound anymore.
He was trying to say Philip's name.
Jason returned to the phone, confirmed the address, and hung up on the operator.
He decided to try to move his father. It couldn't be good for him to be in that position, whatever the problem was. He slid his arms underneath his father's shoulders and lifted him onto the bed. When he had him lying down, his arms were underneath his father's shoulder blades. It occurred to him that this was the first time he'd hugged him since he was a child.
He stood away. The old man was still trying to say Phil's name, and something else. One eye wouldn't open, but the right eye flickered at Jason like a dying lightbulb.
His father was trying to tell him Philip was dead.
"I know, Dad. That's why I'm here."
"Ph-p, ne-n," he kept saying out of the right side of his mouth. He couldn't make the D sound or the L sound with his tongue. His head was inches away from what he'd thrown up.
His old right eye closed slowly. It reopened.
In the distance, a siren wound through the air. Paramedics would be here soon.
The right eye closed again. A frown pinched the right side of the old man's forehead, then smoothed.
The eye didn't open again. His father's chest thinned into the bed.
Deep in the emptying cavern of Jason's mind, he wondered if he should call 911 and tell them they could turn off their siren now.
Brenda didn't answer.
She might have abandoned the phone. It wouldn't be a bad idea. Jason cut off the call when her voicemail picked up for the third time. No point leaving another message.
He was numb. More numb than his old man had been when the paramedics told Jason what he already knew. He sat in the living room that used to be his father's, on the same sofa Jason had dozed on when he was a teenager. His hand stroked the worn pattern of the cloth. The wooden coffee table at his knees bore the marks and wear of heels propped on it, of cold glasses beading moisture onto it. Across the room, the gray face of the old television reflected a square of light from the window. Jason had bought the set for his father for Christmas years ago, and the old man had never replaced it.
This would all go. Box it up, take it to some charity. He would have taken care of it, if he were going to be around.
He looked at his phone. Nagging, nagging. The feeling beneath all his numbness pestered and prodded him. Good-bye, she said to him. There was no one around to hear her. Why had she said that?
He shivered.
His smartphone contained an e-mail telling him that his fraud was complete. It was an automatically generated e-mail. He'd seen hundreds of them in his years at BTB. It informed him that a loan assigned to him had funded. He opened the message again. At some point when he was standing over his father's dying body, a $30 million wire transfer had left BTB for the federal reserve. Now, an hour later, the fed had probably processed it. The money was on its way to Nevis.
Good-bye.
He stood. The front door was still unlocked from the paramedics' exit. He went outside and found himself searching the street for signs that he'd been discovered. No one apprehended him on his way to the car.
His personal laptop was in a case in the trunk. He took it out and powered it up. Standing in the street, he waited for it to go through its starting sequence. He stared at the house where he grew up. The paramedics had taken his father's body away, but the stained bed remained. Jason was unable to parse sorrow from the sense of dread overtaking everything else inside him.
He made his way onto the Internet. A cloud broke free from the sun, and glare obliterated the screen. He walked to the house. In the shade of the porch, he typed in the web address for his bank in Nevis. It came up and prompted for his user name and ID number. He typed them in. Pressed Enter.
In two seconds, red letters flashed across the screen. We're sorry, but we are unable to recognize that combination of user name and password. Please try again.
He might have entered them wrong. It happened all the time. One missed key, one lowercase instead of an uppercase letter.
His mouth was dry. Deliberately, with his eyes fixed on the keyboard, he entered his user name, and tabbed to the password field. He typed it in. His finger trembled over the Enter key. He hit it.
Red letters again. Blanks below waited for the proper character entry.
She'd stood over his shoulder while he entered the codes. She'd been at his side when he created the accounts. His lover, his coconspirator. She'd watched him type the letters and numbers. She'd stroked him and kissed him and purred into his ear while he obediently gave her the keys to the bank.
It would be 5:30 pm in Nevis. He'd never reach a banker there now. She could have changed his ID information on the Nevis account as soon as the wire left BTB. After watching him initiate wires in and out of that account, she could have given the bank wire instructions to direct the $30 million out of Nevis to anywhere in the world.
He'd never seen her passports. He had no idea what identity she was using.
He threw his laptop across the room.
From the back of the house, Max wailed.
His phone rang. Brenda Tierney, mobile.
He clicked on. "Where are you?"
"LAX. Meet me at the Encounter. I'm waiting for you." In the background he heard voices, clatter.
"What did you do?"
"Time's wasting, darlin'. I'm here. I'll explain everything. I'm at the Encounter. I'll wait for you in the bar."
"What---?"
It went dead.
"Brenda? Brenda?"
He ran to his car, jammed the key into the ignition, and sped away from the curb.
She wouldn't call him if she meant to steal it. It must have been a mistake at the bank. Or maybe he'd entered the password wrong after all. With everything that had happened, he could have just been confused. He might have entered the password for one of the other accounts instead of the Nevis account.
He eased off the accelerator. Slow down. The last thing you want is to attract attention. She called you. You've been wrong before. There's no reason for her to call if she doesn't want you. She wants you. Nothing's changed. Maybe she changed the password for security. With $30 million going in, it's not a bad idea to put in a fresh password. Why would she call if she didn't want you?
He turned onto Manchester. LAX was only a few minutes away. He'd park at the airport, meet her in the restaurant. He could still make the flight out of San Diego. He had seven hours to get down there before takeoff. Then on to Switzerland. Meet her there, and freedom.
Oh, come on. You're a fool. You know this is all wrong. You know she's had you pegged from the minute she laid eyes on you. She played you from the first day, with her eyes and her lips. With every motion of that body she was playing you. Every stitch of clothes she put on to play you.
Horns blared. A truck headed for his door. Smoke billowed from its tires. He wrenched the steering wheel and punched the gas. He waited for the collision.
The truck missed him by inches.
He'd blown through a red light.
Get yourself killed. That's the idea. Why leave one more Dunn on the planet? The other two are already gone.
He made his left on Aviation. A jet cruised overhead. Another mile, and he waited for his turn to make a right onto Century. Traffic was absurd. All these people flying around for a turkey dinner. It would take forever for the four cars ahead of him to get onto Century and for him to find his own break.
You were ripe for it. She picked you like an apple off a tree. Unhappy at home, a cheating wife . . .
Brenda had forged Casey Flynn's signature. She'd copied everything else on the copier, but that signature was original. She hadn't practiced Casey's signature once. He was sure of it. She forged it in an instant.
It was an act. All of it was an act. The signature practice, the poor renditions she'd done early on. Randy's signature was perfect. CFO underneath it matched his lettering. She hadn't needed any practice.
Serena never wrote that letter.
He laid into the horn. "Get moving!"
In five minutes he was on Century, cutting between cars, and in another ten he was running past the curved arches of the Theme Building. The elevator doors opened into the restaurant, and he walked into the futuristic cartoon of the place. Blue lights in the ceiling floated like gigantic amoebas overhead.
He marched into the bar. The place was packed. His eyes swept for Brenda. Two blondes, but neither one had the face of the girl he wanted.
"Hi, Jason."
He turned. It wasn't Brenda. Black hair, spiked short on top. A tattoo of a snake with wings on the side of her neck. Gold looped earrings marched up the edge of one ear.
"Do I know you?" He scanned the crowd for Brenda.
"No. But you used to."
He looked in her eyes. Green.
His knees weakened.
"Danah."
"I didn't recognize you. . . . I . . . it's been . . ." He was going to try to add up the years, but with the shock of seeing her here, when he was looking for Brenda, looking for answers, the concepts of simple mathematics escaped him.
He didn't want to think about the last time he saw Danah. He tried to connect these green eyes to the girl she had been before that night, before everything changed, before what happened in the back of that bar. The girl before that night was strong, confident. She had a way of walking that was so graceful every movement could have been set to music.
This woman was different. The features were still there, the set of her nose and the swell of her cheekbones below those hypnotic eyes. But something was lost. In the drawn implosion of her face, the way her skin hugged her skull, the wiry cut of her shoulders, something elemental in this woman had changed from the girl he'd known.
"It's great to see you, Danah." He thought to put a hand on her arm, but the appraising look in her eyes kept his hands at his sides.
"I have a table." She tilted her head to direct him, and the gesture was familiar. She might have been leading him in a walk across the quad to trigonometry.
Before she could step away, he spoke. "Wait. I'm meeting someone." He looked over the crowd again. No Brenda.
Danah stepped close. "She's not coming."
Her eyes glimmered in the blue lights from the ceiling, watching him with great care. Now a smile began to emerge, hidden underneath a frown.
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
"This way." She began to move away.
Jason clutched her arm. He meant to demand an explanation, but before he could speak again, she spun on him. She grasped his thumb and twisted it. His hand lost its grip as he turned to release the pressure, his elbow and shoulder forced inward and around. He fell to one knee.
Looking down at where he knelt, she said, "How ironic" and released his thumb. She moved away, behind a woman who was not Brenda. The woman held a wineglass in both hands as if someone might try to steal it.
Jason jumped up. His thumb and shoulder throbbed. He moved around the woman and caught sight of Danah cutting through the crowd in the bar, on the way to a corner table.
A tourist stood in front of him. "Get out of the way." Jason shoved past him.
Danah slid into a booth and took up her glass. She downed its black contents and signaled for the waitress.
He reached her table. He looked around for Brenda but knew he wouldn't be seeing her. Not now. Maybe not ever.
"Sit down, Jason. What are you drinking these days?" Danah gestured with a nod to the seat across from her.
The waitress held a circular tray level, empty. It struck him as absurd that she would hold the tray that way when she carried no glasses or plates. She lifted her eyebrows at him.
He collapsed into the padded seat. Danah. It had been twenty years.
"I guess he's not drinking. I'll have another one of these."
The waitress shrugged and moved off through the crowd.
Danah turned her attention to Jason. "If you put your hands on me again, I'll break your arm."
"What did you mean when you said she's not coming?"
"Oh, you think your little scheme is still on, don't you? For a guy who's had so much success in business, you sure are dense."
He sat back.
The waitress appeared with the drink. Danah thanked her and sipped it. The snake tattoo on her neck writhed with each swallow. She turned back to him.
"I followed your career. You did well." Another sip. Another clenching of the winged snake. "But that's over now."
He couldn't keep himself from looking through the crowd. Brenda had called him. Danah must have it wrong. Why would Brenda call him if she didn't still love him?
"Look at me, Jason. I told you---she's not coming."
Green eyes. Brenda had blond hair, like Danah used to have. He'd known there was some elemental connection between Danah and Brenda, a subtle similarity in the flesh of their faces. He'd always seen it. It was one of the things that first attracted him to Brenda. He'd known that.
Like a carousel rotating to a stop, his mind settled on a truth. An evening twenty years ago, picking Danah up some night. While he waited in the foyer of her father's house, a little girl peeked down at him like a caged sparrow from behind the banister upstairs. Her small fists gripped the posts. Blond hair. Eyes a shade unmistakable in the light from the chandelier.
"Your sister."
"Now you're getting it."
"Diane."
Danah took a sip. Writhing snake. "Very good."
Jason wanted to run. He looked up again, no longer expecting Brenda---Diane. Now he expected to see uniformed cops approaching. Or FBI agents in cheap suits bulging under the armpit.
"Look at me, Jason."
Her eyes. He could stare into them for eternity. Despite the narrowness of her body now, the shrunken leanness, those eyes still glowed. He said, "This was all about you."
"Not everyone's as self-absorbed as you are, Jason." She opened her phone. "I only have a couple more minutes. It'll take a while to get through security on a busy night like this." She closed the phone.
She sipped her drink again. Jason was transfixed by the snake tattooed on her neck. The wings moved whenever Danah turned her head.
"Before I leave, you need to know what you did to my family," she said. "After that night, my mom and dad fought all the time. They couldn't handle what you let happen to me. They split up, and Mom took us back to Pennsylvania. Back to Westmoreland, her hometown. That's where Diane met the real Brenda Tierney. I went into treatment. Our brother Dante, remember him? He was dead a year later from an overdose. Diane was the only one who held it together. Are you listening to me?"
Jason nodded. He lifted his eyes from staring at the smooth texture of the ice cubes melting in her glass. Tired. He was very, very tired. No sleep. Constant vigilance about this plan. It had caught up to him, and now he didn't want to hear any more. His father was dead. Philip was dead. Brenda was a little girl named Diane watching him from a perch above.
"It was her idea. She found something about you on the Internet. Some award you got from a charity six or seven years ago. What was it? Something about family, youth?"
He kept nodding. It was a mechanical motion now. They were right about him, all of them. Kathy, Miles, Serena. His wife's words echoed in his mind. "You've lined your walls with plaques showing all the ways you've tried to make up for it, but you can't."
"It made us sick. You of all people, being honored. After what you did."
He turned to her. "You had your part too, you know. I didn't exactly drag you away that night."
"This isn't about me. You're not hearing me at all. I thought we were starting our life together. But all you wanted was to get rid of your problem. I didn't want an abortion. I was such a fool. I wanted you. You. And your baby. Well, you got your wish. Not exactly a surgical abortion, but I lost the baby all right."
"You went into that bar. I tried to keep you in the car."
"I had to get away from you somehow." Those green eyes were framed in red now, tears rimming the black-painted lids. She rubbed away the tears before they could get all the way down her cheeks.
"I stopped it, didn't I? I risked my life stopping it."
"You were too late. You waded in there with the bartender's baseball bat and took them out, but you were too late." Her teeth clenched. "And you let your poor brother take the fall for you."
The hatred in her eyes was deeper than any love he had ever seen in them.
"He wanted to. Dad wanted him to."
"Does that work for you? Telling yourself that?"
"It was his choice. He wanted to do it for me."
"And you let him. Didn't you? Didn't you?"
"I didn't see you stopping him, Danah. You didn't come forward."
"I was in no shape to testify. I was in no shape to do anything." She fumbled with her purse. Her fingernails were black. She leafed a bunch of bills out. Fives and ones. The fives were crisp. New bills, the portrait of Lincoln offset without the circle around him, not the old Lincoln fives. She slapped them onto the table.
"Now Phil's dead. His blood's on your hands, Jason. Every drop of it. And the blood of our baby. On your hands." She slid away. "I have a plane to catch."
For twenty years he'd thought of her. It couldn't end like this. He reached out for her. "Wait. Don't go."
"Keep your hands off me. I'm warning you." She stood away from the booth.
"But I never meant for any of this . . . I wanted . . . I wanted . . ."
She leaned over the table, close, those green eyes hating, hating. He smelled the rum on her breath when she said, "Yeah, you wanted."
She stepped away, and the crowd filtered between them, and she was gone.
Absently, as he watched people file past, Jason's fingers went to the bills she'd left on the table. He stroked the texture of the paper between his thumb and fingers. He brought a five to his nose and inhaled the scent. It brought memories back to him. Of a twelve-year-old boy with his brother, counting up paper-route collections in their room. Phil making fun of him for being so serious. But the bills had fired his imagination back then. He'd imagined that cash at the centers of dramas of commerce, corruption, theft---heart-breaking plots. As a boy, he pictured bills in stacks passed hand to hand by shadow-jawed thugs or packed into briefcases or tossed into the air in jubilation.
Federal reserve notes. On the front of the five was the portrait of the man who had abolished one kind of slavery. Offset from center in their own special shade of green, serial numbers were printed. He'd learned the meaning of the numbers a decade later when he went through his bank training---the code duplicated on the bill, surrounded by other letters and numbers equally mystifying to him as a boy, along with the inscription that these notes were legal for all debts. On their reverse sides, the bills portrayed buildings in the nation's capital, or on the single, the great seal of the United States, whose inscrutability added to his fascination: a pyramid with a glowing eye at its peak.
And more improbable than all those symbols and notations, contrary to every other impression on the bills, across the top in bold letters blazed words like a carryover or some kind of concession: IN GOD WE TRUST.
"Jason."
He looked up. The man's shirt was green and red with pictures of surfboards and island girls leaning against palm trees. That was supposed to be Jason's life. On a beach, on a small island with the fragrance of the sea and mangoes blended in the air. His island girl was supposed to be a blonde.
Hathaway chewed at his gum.
Coach stood next to him, looking like he'd just lost a game against his cross-town rival.
Behind the parole officers, in crisp black uniforms, stood three LAPD officers.
The crowd stayed well back.
Tom Cole said, "Your girl told us we'd find you here. Where is she?"
Jason pointed to the island scene on Hathaway's shirt. "There."
The parole officers looked at one another.
Tom Cole said to Hathaway, "I hate it when you're right."
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