The Drifter

by Nick Petrie

  It was cream-colored, with olive-green lettering. The Riverside Veterans’ Center.

  He’d seen this card before.

  Jimmy had one just like it folded into his stash belt when he died.

  “Okay,” said Peter. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I wrote my cell number on the back,” said Lipsky over his shoulder as he strode toward his cruiser. “So you don’t have any excuses.”

  “Hey,” said Peter. “Thanks for finding that window.”

  “I’m a highly trained officer of the law,” said Lipsky. “I can tell when a guy needs a kick in the ass to get him going.”

  Mingus met the detective at his car and sniffed at the pocket of his chocolate-colored coat. “Ah, you caught me. You want one?” He pulled out a small plastic package of dog treats, fished one out, and held his hand with the treat mostly hidden in his fingers. Mingus stuck his nose close and tried to nibble it out, without luck. Then sat and wagged his tail.

  “Shake,” said Lipsky, and Mingus put out a paw. “Good boy.” Lipsky tossed the treat up, and the dog snapped it out of the air, teeth flashing white. “Good boy.”

  Lipsky waved, climbed into his car, and roared out of the parking lot, tires chirping. Peter looked reproachfully at the dog.

  “I thought you were better than that.”

  Mingus butted his head into Peter’s thigh.

  Peter scratched the dog’s heavy strawberry-smelling ruff. “Maybe you’re just hungry.”

  24

  Skinner suggested they connect at an East Side coffee shop. Peter agreed only because he wanted to talk to the man face-to-face and it was too cold for any sane person to meet outside. He parked his truck on the street, locked Mingus in the back of the truck to avoid another hamburger rampage, and left his gun tucked into his toolbox.

  Alterra Coffee was a quirky local place in a repurposed industrial building, now filled with laptop-toting hipsters, businesspeople meeting out of the office, and a few street people getting out of the weather. There was a warm buzz of conversation, but the open feel and tall glass roll-up door and skylights helped keep the white static from driving Peter out immediately.

  He was deliberately late but still had time to get coffee and find a table by the glass roll-up door before Skinner strolled in. The same white-blond hair and pale, aristocratic face. No coat, no briefcase, just a midnight-blue suit worn with the same elegant disregard Peter remembered from the man’s office. Peter wondered if finding investors was like getting a date, where the secret was in appearing not to need one.

  Skinner surveyed the room. Peter caught his eye and lifted a hand.

  “Peter Ash?” Skinner walked over and flashed his easy, careless smile, almost shocking in its warmth and charm. Peter could see how the man had managed to talk so many wealthy, intelligent people out of their money. It was the smile that built Lake Capital.

  You’d never know the SEC was investigating his company.

  They shook hands, Skinner’s grip harder than expected under the pampered skin. “Great to meet you, Peter,” he said, taking in Peter’s faded blue jeans and white shirt. “Boy, I wish I could dress like you every day. Better or worse, finance is still a suit-and-tie business.”

  His eyes lingered on the multicolored bruise on Peter’s cheek.

  Peter was counting on the bruise to get Skinner wondering. He was pretty sure Skinner wouldn’t recognize him from his first visit to Lake Capital. He might have noticed the bruise, but it had turned a deep shade of purple. Regardless, Skinner probably didn’t have many meetings with guys who looked like they’d been in a fight.

  “Anyway,” said Skinner as he sprawled comfortably in the skeletal metal chair. “I appreciate your interest in Lake Capital. Somehow I haven’t heard your name before. What business are you in, Peter?”

  There was also a trace of an accent in Skinner’s vowels, but Peter couldn’t pin it down. As if he’d come from a foreign country just around the corner. Or maybe it was just private school, in the land of money.

  “Oh, you know,” said Peter. “A little of this, a little of that.”

  “Give me a hint,” said Skinner, that smile flashing on and off like a beacon. “What’s the most fun? What makes the most money?”

  “Salvage,” said Peter. “Finding opportunities others have missed.”

  “Oooh,” said Skinner. “What kinds of opportunities?”

  Peter leaned forward. Skinner leaned in to meet him. It was a salesman’s trick, Peter knew, to mirror your customer. People were more likely to trust someone they thought was like them. But Peter could do that, too.

  “If I told you,” he said, “they wouldn’t be opportunities.”

  “Hah! Well, it sounds like you know what you’re doing,” said Skinner, the smile broad now. “And you’ve worked hard and taken risks and now you’ve got some liquidity to invest. Tell me, how did you come to find us? We’re not exactly Edward Jones.”

  “A friend of mine gave me your card,” said Peter. “James Johnson. He used to work for me. Maybe you remember him.”

  Skinner seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head pleasantly. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe I do. Is he an investor of ours?” If he was lying, he was a very good liar. Although he was in finance, so that was part of the skill set.

  “He’s dead now,” said Peter, watching the other man closely. “He was killed.”

  “Oh, what a terrible shame,” said Skinner, with every appearance of thoughtful sorrow. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” said Peter. “This business can be dangerous. Before he died, he told me he wanted to invest with you. And James often had excellent ideas.”

  Skinner’s warm, understanding smile returned, his teeth gleaming with saliva. “How much of an investment are we talking about?”

  Peter wondered if the amount would mean anything to the man. “Four hundred thousand dollars.”

  Something flickered across Skinner’s pale face, like the shadow of a bird flying overhead.

  But it was gone too quickly to identify, and the salesman was back. “Oh, dear,” said Skinner. “Unfortunately, our current fund is only open to investments of a half-million or more.”

  “The money’s in cash,” said Peter. “In a suitcase. Banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills.” He smiled pleasantly.

  Peter was a blind man groping in the dark, but he seemed to have found something. Skinner’s easy smile stiffened. His face became all hard planes, lean and muscular, and his voice went flat. “Who are you?”

  Peter kept his own smile in place. “I haven’t talked to the authorities yet. I thought I’d hear your side of the story first. About where the four hundred thousand came from.”

  Skinner’s face had gotten more pale, if that was possible. The warmth and charm were gone. He stared at Peter with cold, reptilian eyes.

  “If you are truly an investor,” he said, “I apologize, because Lake Capital is unable to help you.” Without the engaging warmth, his eyes bulged slightly from his head. His teeth seemed somehow more prominent. “If you are something else—”

  “Don’t you want to know how I got this?” Peter interrupted. He tilted his head so the other man could get a clear look at the multicolored bruise that had taken over a third of his face.

  Skinner didn’t answer.

  “First I killed a man,” said Peter in a calm, even voice. “Then I put two more men in the hospital with my bare hands. Trying to get a fourth man to answer my questions. So you had better answer mine now. Before things go very badly for you.”

  Skinner’s pale face seemed to belong to another man entirely. He stood, trembling, teeth bared in a kind of grimace. But not in fear. This was aggression.

  Skinner glared at Peter as if memorizing him. “Whatever you are, the next time we talk, I’ll ask the questions.”

 
He turned and stalked out of the coffee shop.

  Peter shook his head. It was an odd conversation.

  He’d thought he would intimidate Skinner, scare him a little. But something else had happened. He’d peeled back the charming veneer and seen what lay underneath. Something very different indeed.

  No, Peter wasn’t done with Jonathan Skinner.

  But when he walked out of the coffee shop into the relief of the open air, he saw the black Ford SUV parked on the far side of the busy street. The man with the scars looking right at him.

  25

  The black Ford was parked on the far side of the one-way street, right at the corner, half a block upstream to traffic. Not obvious unless you were looking for him, but Peter was looking. Not a bad position, either, with a good line of sight through the windshield and side window. A wider view, and a wider field of fire. So the man wasn’t dumb and maybe had some training.

  Or maybe he got lucky with the parking.

  Traffic was heavy and fast, two lanes, a city artery. Peter’s truck was half a block away on this side of the street, in full view of the black Ford.

  Buying time, Peter looked up and raised a palm to the sky, as if checking for raindrops. He was acutely aware of the chrome .32 the man had shown before, and Peter’s own lack of ordnance.

  Lewis’s .45 was locked in the cargo box with the dog.

  The adrenaline surged in his blood, giving rash advice. Peter felt a powerful urge to sprint across the street and pull the scarred man out of his truck.

  What he didn’t want to do was get shot on the way over. Alone and on foot, he wouldn’t be in any position to control the play.

  He weighed his options in a hurry.

  He could walk toward his truck, which was probably what the scarred man expected him to do. This way, Peter would find out what the man had planned and do his best to defend against it. He’d always been pretty good at that.

  Maybe the guy would just follow Peter, as he had before, keeping him in sight.

  But maybe he’d open up with an automatic weapon, in which case a lot of other people might get hurt. And Mingus was in the back of the truck. That mahogany plywood wasn’t stopping any bullets.

  If the man really wanted to kill Peter, though, wouldn’t he have set up outside the coffee shop door? It would have been a simple thing to shoot Peter at close range when he walked outside.

  So walk in the opposite direction, against the traffic, and maybe get the man out of his vehicle. If he stuck in his SUV watching Peter’s truck, Peter could circle behind him. Find something to hit him with. Then have a conversation.

  Which actually sounded like a plan.

  Peter turned and started walking. At a decent clip, as if he had a destination in mind.

  He came even with the black Ford but kept his face turned away, watching the scarred man’s reflection in a shop’s plate-glass window. The man tracked Peter’s path with his head but didn’t get out of his Ford. He wore the same black leather coat and Kangol cap.

  Peter kept walking, turned the corner, left the man behind. Picked up his stride to a higher gear.

  It was a decent city neighborhood, sidewalks and midsized residential buildings, but not exactly an upscale commercial area, although it was trying. He passed a couple of bars, a loading dock, a chain pizza place, and an all-night restaurant. Nobody behind him as he rounded the next corner, circling to come back on the scarred man.

  He walked past a skateboard shop, a hairdresser’s, and an old movie theater, looking for a piece of pipe or scrap lumber but finding nothing to hit the man with but a trash can. That would not qualify as a concealed weapon.

  Moving faster still, he turned the third corner by an upscale sports bar, then a short dead-end alley, and he wasted twenty seconds scouting for a piece of chain or an unbroken bottle, anything, but there was nothing but windblown trash, beer cans, and fast-food wrappers. Then a boarded-up building, yet another fatality of the shitty economy.

  Before the last corner, he stopped and took off his jacket. Turned it inside out to change its color, then balled it up under his arm to change the shape of his body from a distance. Hunched over, he walked slowly into view of the black Ford, letting the traffic slow to flow around him as he made his way across the street. The SUV still parked, the window still down, the shape of a man still visible inside almost a block away.

  But now Peter was on the same side of the street, and unobserved.

  He angled past a fast-food Mexican place to head into the big parking lot that took up most of the block. It wasn’t full, but there were enough cars to provide decent cover. Still nothing to use as a weapon.

  He put his coat on again. He was even with the Ford now. It was about forty yards away, across the parking lot and sidewalk. The scarred man indistinct through the passenger window.

  Then Peter was past. No longer visible from the driver’s seat. He cut across the lot toward the Ford, staying out of the side mirror’s view. Objects may be closer than they appear. No weapon but his hands.

  Then an old bike, shackled to a railing. A heavy cable lock, nothing he could get open without tools. But the seat. The seat post was quick-release. Peter flipped the lever and lifted it free from the bike. Which gave him a metal tube sixteen inches long. With a bicycle seat at one end. It had some weight. Gave him some reach.

  Not much against a .32.

  Better than nothing.

  Still careful of the passenger-side mirror, he walked calmly toward the Ford. Coming at an angle from the rear. He could open the passenger door, but he’d have to attack through the vehicle. His improvised weapon wouldn’t help inside that small space. And the passenger door was likely locked, anyway.

  So he crossed behind. Down low to keep out of the rearview. Holding the seat post like a medieval weapon in his left hand. The arm outstretched. The Ford’s engine running.

  He peeked out for a gap in the traffic and almost got his head removed by a minivan. But he slipped into the stream behind it. Three quick steps up the driver’s side. And he swung the seat post around in a wide sidearm loop, the scarred man registering his movement in the side mirror too late to do much but begin to raise his arm.

  The bicycle seat smashed into the side of the scarred man’s face, knocking him farther into the SUV. Peter swung twice more, quickly, hitting him on the temple and then on his blocking arm. The seat post was not an ideal weapon in a close environment. Peter dropped it on the road and went through the open window, the scarred man leaning over and scrabbling on the passenger seat for something under a newspaper. Peter had no target, just the man’s shoulder and side protected by the thick leather car coat. Peter grabbed for the man’s collar to pull him into range, but there was nothing to take hold of, so he pounded at the man’s neck and face with short chopping punches, turning out to be harder to beat a man inside his own car than Peter would have thought.

  The scarred man turned, showing his teeth, with the chrome .32 in his right fist coming up to bear. Peter reached a long left arm in and put his own hand atop the slide, forcing the nose of the gun down toward the door, jamming two fingers into the trigger guard and pulling hard. The gun went off with a loud bang and the scarred man shoved the gearshift into drive and stomped on the gas, swerving into traffic. Peter kept hold of the .32 but unhinged his elbows from the window frame to let the arc of the Ford’s momentum shed him onto the street with the gun still reversed in his hand. With a shriek of sheet metal, the Ford bounced off a delivery truck, tore the fender from a taxicab, ran a red light to a chorus of horns, and disappeared into the city.

  Peter put a steadying hand on the hood of a stopped Honda. Then dropped the .32 into his coat pocket and threaded his way across the street to the sidewalk, where the parked cars helped hide him from view. Then he unlocked the door of his truck, started the engine, turned on his signal, and calmly pulled into the street.r />
  He wouldn’t wait around for Lipsky to show up for this one.

  He smiled.

  It felt good to do a little damage.

  26

  He still had a few hours before meeting Dinah, and he was starving. So he stopped at Café Corazón, a little Mexican place in an old triangular building around the corner from the lumberyard. He ordered to go and sat outside under a picnic shelter to eat his burrito. It was a very good burrito. Top ten, for sure. Maybe top five.

  Then he took out his phone and tried Aurelia Castellano, the missing Marine’s grandmother. Again he got the woman’s voicemail.

  He was leaving his number when he was interrupted. “Hello? Hello?” A strong voice, but with the patina of years. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m here,” said Peter, strangely relieved. Part of him was afraid she’d vanished, too.

  “Praise the Lord, I was afraid I’d lost you,” she said. Then, “Do you know anything about my grandson Felix?” Her voice was full of hope, absurdly. Her grandson had been missing for months.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t,” said Peter. “But I wonder if I could come talk to you?”

  When she didn’t respond, Peter said, “I’m not a reporter or a policeman. I’m a Marine, like your grandson. I think you met a friend of mine. James Johnson.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. People almost always smiled when they talked about Jimmy. “I met Mr. Johnson,” she said. “Just over a month ago. What a nice man. He was looking for my Felix. But I haven’t heard from him. Not for quite some time.”

  Peter said, “Ma’am? When could I come see you?”

  She was home, just cleaning up. He could come by right now if he wanted to.

  —

  She met him at the door of a 1920s bungalow on the North Side.

  The paint was old but touched up, the yard was neat, and he could see a kid’s play structure in the back. The houses on either side of hers were bigger, but they were boarded up, with a blue tarp over one roof that would not last the next storm, let alone the winter. Four other houses on the block had yellow notices taped up to their front doors.