by Rob Cornell
“Oh, boy.”
“Talk to Matt. You two are the most in love people I have ever known. You can work this out.”
She leaned her head back against the seat’s headrest. “Fine. But I’m not putting any pressure on him.”
“Fair enough.”
“And I’m not giving up my toys.”
Seven
Arlie Eckman had the largest hands Jake had ever seen on a man. They looked like they could engulf Jake’s entire head between them. Probably not. But he’d known Eckman since he was what? Seven? Eight? He’d worked for the family a long time, and back in the early days Arlie had played the Guess Who? game with little Jake, sneaking up behind Jake to cover his eyes and ask, “Guess who?” Back then, Arlie had been able to hold Jake’s whole head. Arlie’s hands had felt like a helmet made of flesh and bone. The calluses on his fingers and palms scratched against little Jake’s cheeks like hard knots of leather. He smelled of Old Spice and clove cigarettes. Arlie had been the closest thing to an uncle Jake had growing up.
But things had changed after Jake grew up. Arlie hardly looked at him anymore, almost as if he were embarrassed by him. And maybe he was. Why not? His own mother considered him her biggest embarrassment, and let him know it on a near daily basis ever since his older brother, Joshua, was killed in that stupid shootout.
With that in mind, Jake had expected Arlie to turn him down flat when he’d invited him out for a drink. Instead, he’d shocked Jake and agreed.
Now they sat together at Bill’s, a favorite restaurant of Jake’s. The tables were draped with blue and white checkered tablecloths. An ornate chandelier hung above them in quirky contrast to the rustic wooden ceiling it hung from. Nearby, a buck’s head with an impressive rack stared down at them, sharing wall space with an old-fashioned painted portrait of a man with impressive sideburns and a white ascot. Jake appreciated the eclectic decor, though he did not get it one bit. But he didn’t come to Bill’s for the atmosphere, he came for the Provimi Veal Marsala.
Alas, there would be no veal this afternoon. This meeting was strictly business.
Neither of them said much until their drinks arrived. Arlie got Beefeater on ice. Jake ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. Arlie drank his entire gin in one go, staring at Jake over the rim of his glass while he did. Then he smacked his thick lips and planted the glass back on the table, ice cubes rattling. His scraggly eyebrows drew together. He had a big, puffy nose that looked like it had taken more than its fair share of jabs during its lifetime. He wore a navy suit with a silver and blue striped tie.
“What do you need?” he asked in a flat tone.
Jake lifted his glass of Pinot. A tremor in his hand made some of the wine spill across his knuckles. He set the glass back down. “What makes you think I need something?”
“We’re not social, Jacob. Besides, I seen the look on a guy facing life more than once. You got that look. You in trouble with the law, Jacob?”
“Nothing of the sort,” he said, but he felt his cheeks flush as if Arlie had caught him doing something naughty. “Nothing of the sort.”
“You’re in some kind of trouble anyway. Must be quite a pickle, you come to me.”
“You used to like me, Arlie. I don’t know what changed.”
Arlie gave him a flat stare. “Don’t make this more awkward then it needs. If you want a heart-to-heart, you came to the wrong guy.”
Jake rested his hands on the table, one over the other, and took a steadying breath. Maybe coming to Arlie was ill-advised. Which should surprise no one, since Jake had advised himself on the matter, and such self-prescribed advice had not worked out so well for him lately.
“While you think it over,” Arlie said, “I’m gonna go over to the bar and get me another drink.”
You’re already messing this up and you haven’t even told him anything. Quit being such a weakling.
Arlie moved to stand.
“Wait,” Jake blurted.
Arlie settled back into his seat. “Get on with it.”
“You’re right. I need your help. And I can’t trust this to just anyone. Whatever your feelings toward me, you’ve worked for the Seelenbergers a long while. I know I can trust you.”
“I’m on the payroll,” Arlie said with a shrug. “You could have gone to Ona.”
“That’s just it. This matter doesn’t concern Mother. I’d rather she not know about it.”
The derisive laugh that puffed out of Arlie made Jake feel three inches tall. The look of contempt he leveled on Jake shrunk him to next to nothing, a microscopic bug.
“I don’t keep things from the boss, Jacob. That kinda shit gets you permanently fired.” He made a gun with his hand and pointed it at the side of his head, as if Jake didn’t know what permanently fired meant and needed the illustration.
This was the sticking point Jake worried about when he first thought of asking for Arlie’s help. His damn loyalty. Or his fear of death. Or both. When you worked for a family like the Seelenbergers—especially for a woman like Ona Seelenberger—loyalty and fear of death became difficult to separate.
Thankfully, Jake had also thought of a possible way around this sticking point.
“I can make it worth your while, Arlie.”
“Your momma holds the purse strings, kid. You got nothing to entice me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Those scruffy eyebrows pulled together again, and Arlie’s broad forehead wrinkled. “What?”
Jake’s heartbeat quickened. He felt like his insides were vibrating. This plan of his could backfire in so many ways, and Jake could picture all of them vividly. One particular scenario involved Arlie pulling the gun he always wore under his coat and shooting Jake in the face. That was why Jake had Arlie meet him at Bill’s, hoping Arlie would be less inclined to kill him in the middle of a public place.
Moment of truth.
“I know about Sabrina,” Jake said.
For a second, Arlie didn’t move. Not a twitch. Not so much as a single breath. But then he slowly drew his shoulders back and sat up straight. A pink hue rose in his cheeks. Those scruffy eyebrows lowered over his simmering eyes.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you,” he said slowly. “And you’re going to pretend you never said that.”
Jake willed his hand to steady as he reached for his Pinot. Carefully, he lifted the glass to his lips and took a long drink. The wine’s dry fruitiness rolled over his tongue and refreshed his throat. Like Arlie had, Jake emptied his glass all at once, then gently set it back onto the table.
The pounding in his chest almost hurt.
He tried to look Arlie in the eye. Only got his gaze up as far as Arlie’s chin.
“I know about Sabrina.”
Arlie slammed his fist on the table, making both of their glasses hop. Arlie’s remained standing, only the ice clattering. Jake’s wine glass tipped over. He quickly grabbed it to keep it from rolling off the table’s edge.
The noise drew the attention of several other patrons. Arlie didn’t appear to notice or care.
He did, however, whisper when he said, “I’m going to kill you.”
“Of the things Mother would permanently fire you over, that would be high on the list.”
“You would think so,” Arlie growled, “but I have my doubts.”
Jake swallowed the lump in his throat and righted his wine glass. “Be that as it may, you won’t kill me right here, so you might as well listen to what I have to say.”
The anger in Arlie’s face twisted into an amused smirk. “Whose balls are you borrowing, Jacob? ‘Cause they sure as hell ain’t yours.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or are you that desperate?”
“Here’s what you need to know, Arlie. I know where Sabrina lives. I know where she goes to school. I know her daily routine. I know that if Ona ever found out these same details, she wouldn’t be as…passive with them as I plan to be.”
“You do have a little of your mother in you after all.
”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Take it however you want. The second we walk out of here, you’re getting a knife in the kidney. What you think you know won’t matter.”
“Please. However low your opinion of me, you know I’m not stupid. If something happens to me, news of your secret daughter will spread. Mother will know, certainly. And maybe she won’t use that leverage against you like she does with so many others. But what of any of our family’s rivals? What do you suppose someone like Venezio Moretti would do with that kind of knowledge?”
Arlie rested both his large hands on the table and squeezed them into white-knuckled fists. He looked down at them with curious contemplation, as if wondering how much damage he could do with them. Quite a lot, Jake knew. He had seen Arlie beat a man to death once.
“How did you find her?”
“I’ve actually known about her for a few years.”
That pulled Arlie’s gaze back up to Jake. The look in his eyes was hard to read. Pained? Confused? Sad? Maybe a combination of all three. It was a vulnerable look. One Jake was not used to seeing on his mother’s toughest lieutenant.
“Years?”
“That’s right, Arlie. I’ve known for years, but never said a word. Because I’m not quite the same as Mother. I have a soul, for instance. A conscience. I don’t see everybody who surrounds me as someone to manipulate.”
“Except for right now.”
“You’re right. I’m desperate. I would have never brought Sabrina up if I thought I had any other choice.”
Arlie looked back down at his hands, those massive hands that used to play Guess Who? with Jake. Those same hands that had also caved in the center of another man’s face. “What do you need?”
A jolt of excitement shot through Jake. He’d done it. He had actually done it.
“I’m missing something,” Jake said and pulled the business card Jen had given him out from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He set the card on the table between them, turned around so Arlie could read it. “I believe a man who works at this detective agency might have it.”
Eight
The stakeout of the Kingsley Motel went till almost three AM before they finally caught Junior hauling two bags of ice to the outside dispenser. Quite a feat for a young man with a supposed slipped disc in his lower spine that had him bedridden—except when dad ordered him to refill the ice, apparently.
Harrison captured Junior’s miraculous recovery on video while Kamille used a camera with a telephoto lens to capture some up-close stills. It was good to be thorough.
After that, Kamille dropped Harrison off at home. He shambled through the house as quietly as possible to avoid waking Dylan, who suffered wicked bouts of insomnia at times. Harrison always let his brother sleep whenever sleep deigned visit him. He did stop in the hall outside Dylan’s door to listen to his soft snores for a few seconds. Then he slipped into the master bedroom.
Entering the room that had belonged to his parents as if it were his own always gave his head a spin. They had long ago converted Harrison’s old bedroom on the first floor into a den. When he moved in shortly after Mom died, it didn’t make sense to re-convert the small room back while a perfectly fine bedroom with significantly more space already existed. He had purchased a brand new bed—the thought of sleeping in the bed his mother had died in obviously held no appeal—and sold all the bedroom furniture at the estate sale. The room now only held the new bed and a nightstand and dresser he bought from IKEA. It gave the room an empty, sparse feel. But he still thought of it as his parents’ room. Until that passed (if it ever did), he would leave it as is.
He sloughed out of his clothes and added them to the growing pile on the floor at the foot of the bed. The sight of the pile reminded him he had to run some laundry soon. He was getting dangerously close to having to dip into the section of the closet where he hung the pants that didn’t quite fit him anymore but he held onto in case of emergency or sudden weight loss.
Didn’t everybody have contingency pants?
He slept hard. Didn’t get out of bed until nine the following morning. He found Dylan already up and in the kitchen munching on a bowl of Fruit Loops. He wore a plain white t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts with flip flops.
“Late night?” Dylan asked when Harrison stumbled in, still a little sleep drunk.
“Stakeout.”
“Cool.”
Harrison smiled. “Yeah, kinda.”
He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard, poured himself some Fruit Loops, and joined Dylan at the table. “How are you doing? Take your meds yet?”
Dylan nodded. “All drugged up and ready for the day.”
Harrison liked the light tone in Dylan’s voice. Maybe he’d pulled free from his down swing. “Got any plans?”
“Looking forward to a hard day at work,” he said, full of phony bluster and a cheesy grin to go with it. Then he went deadpan. “Oh, wait. I’m not allowed to work.”
Hoo-boy. He’d apparently stepped into another one of Dylan’s minefields. He should have realized it was the wrong kind of question to ask. But, for crying out loud, he couldn’t tiptoe around every damn word he thought to utter in Dylan’s presence.
“You’re on disability,” Harrison said, knowing explaining was pointless, knowing it would probably lead to an argument, but not able to stop himself anyway. “It’s not that you aren’t allowed to work—”
“I’m just too much of a screw up,” Dylan cut in. “Who wants to hire the moody head case? Drug him up and make him sit at home where he won’t bother anybody.”
“Dylan—”
“Except his older brother. I’m a real pain in the ass to you, aren’t I?”
“No.”
Dylan rolled his eyes, then stood and took his bowl to the sink. “My big plans,” he said with his back to Harrison, “are to rinse out this bowl.” He turned on the water and rinsed the bowl out. “Then I’m going to put it in the dishwasher.” He opened the dishwasher and put the bowl on the top rack. “Then?” he said as he closed the dishwasher with a bit of a flourish. He turned to Harrison and held his arms out, palms up. “Who knows? Six hours of Halo on the Xbox?”
“You don’t have to be a smartass. I was just asking.”
“Well, it was a stupid question and you know it.”
“Are you painting at all?”
Dylan looked down and picked at his thumbnail. “Not really.”
For as long as he could hold a crayon, Dylan had been creating astounding artwork. Before the bipolar got the best of him, before the suicide attempt, he had graduated from the graphic design program at Detroit’s College of Creative Studies. Right out of college, he had snagged a job at a prestigious ad agency in Detroit. He had, as the cliche goes, a Bright Future. Until his “erratic behavior” (as his boss put it) got him fired after six years with the company. What followed was a relentless struggle to hold down any sort of job while getting into one unhealthy relationship after another, until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and sliced his wrists open.
Dad had sometimes called the suicide attempt a blessing in disguise. Dylan’s subsequent hospitalization led to a diagnosis, which gave a name to the mysterious shadow that plagued him. At least now they understood what was going on with him and could try to do something to help.
After he got out of the hospital, Dylan moved back in with Mom and Dad. One of the first things they did was convert a corner of the basement into an art studio. His art gave him something to focus on beyond his mental illness. At least, that was the idea. But as far as Harrison knew, Dylan hadn’t drawn so much as a sketch since Mom passed.
“Could you try painting?” Harrison asked.
Dylan shrugged. “I’ve not been particularly inspired lately.”
“Why don’t you give it a try?”
“All right already. Jesus, Harrison. Lay off.”
“I’m just—”
“Trying to help. Yeah, yeah.” Dylan hu
rried out of the kitchen.
Harrison dropped his spoon into his bowl and raked his hands through his hair. He couldn’t seem to do anything right with his brother lately.
Appetite gone, he dumped his cereal down the disposal. He showered and got dressed, then headed out to the office. Kamille had assigned him the job of delivering the video and photos to Junior’s insurance company. At least he got to deliver some good news today. That would make him feel a little better.
He was on the road by ten-thirty. He ran through the drive-thru of a Biggby for some much needed coffee, then headed for the office.
Kamille’s agency was located on the third floor of an office building on Stephenson Highway in Troy. From his house, Harrison could take Rochester Road north to Stephenson and get there in anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes, depending on traffic. His late start got him out of fighting rush hour, so he was settled at his desk by eleven, even with the stop for coffee.
Kamille had already uploaded the files for the video and pics to their private network. He printed hard copies of the photos and burned the video to a DVD. Then he wrote up a report for their client while he finished his coffee. This was the less glamorous side of the private investigation biz, but it didn’t bother Harrison. The reports he’d had to write up for the FBI were a hundred times more tedious.
He printed the report, gathered everything into a file folder, slipped the folder into a plain manila envelope, and headed back out.
The client’s office was down in Midtown Detroit. A straight 20-minute or so shot down I-75 if I-75 didn’t have massive construction going on. He wasn’t in any rush, and in no mood to sit counting orange and white barrels while parked on the expressway, so he took surface streets in a sort of zig-zag pattern. He knew the city well, knew its snags and quirks and secret routes no GPS device would dare direct you through.
That’s what made it possible for Harrison to spot his tail.
If he had taken the straight shot, he doubted he would have noticed. The car was a beige Toyota Camry probably only a few years old, the kind of vehicle that blends with traffic the same way a minnow blends with its school. Yet when that same bland car kept showing up in Harrison’s rearview despite his customized route into the city, it stopped blending and started sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb.
