by Meg Gardiner
The chair had no handles. It wasn’t meant to be propelled from behind. It was supposed to be another set of legs. I knew he had to feel humiliated. I wrapped my hands around the low seat back and started toward the house.
I said, ‘‘You going to tell me?’’
‘‘Yago arranged a welcoming committee at the grocery store. Tub o’ lard supreme, black clothes, wussy chin beard. Drives a Mercedes SUV.’’
‘‘Win Utley.’’
We reached my front door. Inside, I steered into the bathroom. He turned on the water and started rinsing his hand in the sink, while I got hydrogen peroxide and gauze pads. His white shirt was covered with dirt and what looked like food.
I said, ‘‘What’s all this?’’
‘‘Milk and tomatoes. Utley went for me when I threw my groceries at him.’’
He fumbled with the gauze and with the spool of medical tape, tearing it with his teeth. Gently I took it from him and started fixing a bandage.
‘‘He went for you?’’ I said.
‘‘I think it was the cantaloupe that hurt him. Or maybe the bottle of bleach.’’
The bandage went on. He winced.
I said, ‘‘Let’s go to the emergency room, have this wrist looked at.’’
‘‘I’m not spending the evening at the ER.’’
‘‘What if it’s broken or dislocated?’’
‘‘It isn’t.’’
‘‘You don’t know that. You look like you fell hard.’’
I smoothed his hair back from his face, examining the lacerations on his cheek and forehead. He took my hand and lowered it to his lap.
‘‘Evan, I’m not made of glass.’’ His eyes were hot blue under the lights. ‘‘I didn’t hurt the wrist hitting the ground. I hurt it hitting Utley’s face.’’
I looked at him. ‘‘How many times?’’
He nearly smiled. ‘‘Once. He walked right into it.’’ His face sobered. ‘‘He responded by giving me a big shove. Would have just sent me backward, but Yago was standing right behind me and he flipped me over.’’ His voice ebbed. ‘‘He put his boot down across one of my arms, and Utley knelt on the other one. They pinned me.’’
The image of him spread-eagled on the asphalt caused my stomach to squeeze.
‘‘What do they want?’’ I said.
‘‘Let’s get out of the bathroom.’’
With his left arm he tried to back up, swerved into the tub, said, ‘‘Suck.’’ I did the backing, and got into the living room. I crushed some ice cubes in a Baggie and gave it to him.
He wrapped it around his wrist. ‘‘Okay, fine. I’m going to physical therapy in the morning anyway. I’ll get the PT to check it out.’’
The physical therapist was not a doctor, but I knew this was the best I could hope for. I did not mention the word X-ray.
I said, ‘‘What do they want?’’
‘‘Money.’’
‘‘How much?’’
‘‘Two hundred thousand dollars.’’
I stared. ‘‘My God.’’
‘‘And they want it in forty-eight hours.’’
I sank down onto the sofa. My vision was throbbing. ‘‘Why?’’
‘‘Because they’re extortionists, Evan. That’s their game.’’
‘‘You have to tell the police.’’
‘‘I have. After Yago and Utley drove off, the clerk in the grocery store saw me in the parking lot. He called the cops.’’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘‘But Lieutenant Rome already thinks I’m mixed-up with Brand. He’ll consider this demand from Yago as more proof of a falling-out among thieves.’’
The wind was picking up. I heard the bushes shimmying outside. I felt an awful premonition, a sense of foreboding.
‘‘And if you don’t get the money? Then what?’’
He adjusted the ice pack on his wrist, not responding. The dryness in my throat worsened.
‘‘What’s the or else?’’ I said. ‘‘If you don’t pay them, do they tell me ‘everything’?’’
‘‘There is no everything.’’
A gulch seemed to be forming in my stomach. ‘‘Jesse, it doesn’t matter. Nothing you tell me could shock me or turn me away from you.’’
‘‘Do you trust me?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘Then trust me.’’
We gazed at each other. I said, ‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘They didn’t specify the consequences. They just said I wouldn’t like it.’’
I stood up. My nerves were crawling. I wanted to bite the furniture, to scratch holes in the walls.
I paced. ‘‘Why you? Why now?’’
‘‘Yago thinks I owe him money.’’
‘‘Say again?’’
‘‘He told me he wants his money. And if he can’t get it from Brand, he’ll get it from me.’’
‘‘Whoa, whoa.’’ I waved my hands. ‘‘His money?’’
‘‘Apparently so. Which makes me think Brand owes Yago money.’’
‘‘Two hundred thousand dollars?’’
‘‘Could be.’’
‘‘Why do they want the money from you? What do you have to do with it?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Because I got the settlement from Mako? Because I have a house I can mortgage or a portfolio I can liquidate?’’
‘‘Not in forty-eight hours.’’
‘‘Of course not. And I wouldn’t do it anyway.’’
My stomach was knotting. ‘‘That makes me think they don’t expect you to make the deadline.’’
‘‘Which means they’re planning to hit me with something else. Something worse.’’
‘‘Oh, my God. Jesse, what did you tell them?’’
‘‘To shove it up their ass with a ski pole.’’
I waited, knowing there was a punch line.
He said, ‘‘Yago told me I’d be hearing from them again. Utley was complaining that I’d hurt his face, saying what a bastard I am, but Yago was calm. He just ground his heel into my hand and walked away.’’
I could hear him breathing. I didn’t say anything.
‘‘Utley kept moaning that I’d bruised him. He pulled off his glasses and patted his cheek. He started kicking the groceries. They were spilled all over the asphalt. And as he was walking away I told him, ‘Hey, asshole, you forgot something.’ ’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘He turned around. He had his glasses off, and he couldn’t see, I guess. So he stepped back toward me, squinting.’’
‘‘And?’’
‘‘That’s when I sprayed him with the Raid.’’
He spent the night, feeling embarrassed every time I had to assist him. Squeezing toothpaste onto the toothbrush. Taking his socks off. Taking his jeans off. Going to the bathroom. He felt . . . disabled. Really disabled.
We had been through all this at the beginning, of course. The day he was released from rehab we went out to dinner and he stared across the table at me.
And said, ‘‘So, are we going to do this?’’
‘‘This. I presume you mean . . .’’
‘‘Sex. Us.’’
The sun was on him. I looked at his blue eyes, his handsome face. In just a few months all the youth had been scoured from it.
He said, ‘‘Fucking Fact of Life number one. I can’t walk worth shit and don’t know if I ever will. If that’s too much—’’
I stood and leaned across the table and kissed him. Feeling crazy, thinking I was jumping off a cliff, hearing a plate hit the floor and shatter. Knowing I wanted him no matter what.
‘‘My place,’’ I said.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, he unbuttoned my blouse. ‘‘I have to just say it, Evan. I have an incomplete spinal cord injury. It’s not as bad as it could be, but I still got the full menu. Can’t move or feel much. Muscle spasticity. Bowel and bladder and sexual dysfunction.’’
‘‘I know we aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.’’
‘‘And we missed
the exit for Oz way back.’’
‘‘So, where are we?’’
His hand slid around my waist. ‘‘Lie down. Let’s find out.’’
We’d spent three years making our way. And now it was the beginning all over again, with the issue that never disappeared. He was dog tired, so I got him some ibuprofen and a new ice pack and helped him into bed. But I felt fried, scorched with anger. I went into the living room, put on The Matrix, and poured myself a drink. On the coffee table I spread out the printouts of the files from the minidisk. I wanted to take a hard look at the data.
I stared at the printouts. This information had come primarily from Mako’s files, but also contained the bank records for Brand’s FB Enterprises accounts. The disk was a personalized record of Brand’s transactions.
I looked at a list of companies and venture capital funds in which Mako had invested. When Adam first analyzed it, we had all looked at Firedog. But other firms had received angel funding from Mako. They were listed here.
My breath caught.
There it was. Segue. Two hundred thousand dollars had been transferred from an entity called Segue into Brand’s Bahamas account, and then moved, along with the faked half-million Firedog investment, on to the Caymans.
Two hundred thousand dollars. Brand had taken two hundred grand from this Segue account.
And it hit me full force. Brand didn’t go to the Biltmore to get the minidisk. He went for another purpose, and Mickey had surprised him. The minidisk was a bill. An invoice delivered to Franklin Brand by Yago, for money they thought he had taken from them.
Brand the embezzler. Brand the clever monkey, who had been moving money around as if he were a huckster running a game of three-card monte. Franklin Smarter-than -thou Brand, the idiot, had plundered Segue. He had ripped off some major-league thieves. And now they wanted payback.
But he didn’t have it. So they had decided to take it from Jesse instead.
Quicksand. We were sinking in quicksand.
When the phone rang the next morning I was dripping wet from the shower. Jesse was still asleep, my quilt ruched around his ribs. I grabbed the phone from the nightstand.
His mom coughed. I heard her cigarette lighter flicking. ‘‘Is my son there?’’
‘‘Hang on a second, Patsy.’’
‘‘Never mind, you just give him a message. Tell him his mother doesn’t think he’s funny.’’
‘‘Excuse me?’’
‘‘If I wanted garbage first thing in the morning, I’d go stare into my trash can.’’
‘‘Patsy, you’ve lost me.’’
‘‘I suppose that means you find it amusing, too.’’
Jesse didn’t open his eyes, but held up his hand for the phone. I gave it to him.
‘‘Mom, what’s wrong?’’
His voice was rough with sleep, which no doubt gave Patsy Blackburn the image of her boy in my bed. I hoped the vision wouldn’t drive her to take a nip before she went to work. No—she’d pull out the vodka she kept in the Evian bottle under the driver’s seat and drink while she drove.
‘‘No, I didn’t—I wouldn’t do that,’’ Jesse said. ‘‘Mom, let me check this out. . . . No, I swear to you, absolutely . . .’’
He listened, and opened his eyes. The look on his face was the one people get when the IRS calls them in for a tax audit.
‘‘Evan had nothing to do with it. I don’t care how much it looks like her; it couldn’t be. Look, I’ve been having computer problems; somebody’s harassing me; it’s . . . No, I don’t want to talk to Dad. Listen, let me—’’
He squeezed his eyes shut again.
‘‘Dad, yeah. This is a sick joke. I didn’t have anything to do with— No. It’s not her. I swear to God . . . Anyone can digitally alter an image to make it look like . . . Yes, I’ll tell you how I can be sure. Because Evan doesn’t have a devil’s head tattooed on her backside.’’
I changed my mind. It wasn’t Patsy Blackburn who needed a drink. It was me.
I paced back and forth next to my desk. ‘‘This is contemptible.’’
The e-mail had been sent to me as well as to Jesse’s parents. And to God knew who else. It was from jesse. [email protected]. The message said, How’s this for stag night?
‘‘This is outrageous. It’s defamatory.’’ I stabbed my finger at the computer. ‘‘Not in a million years is my butt that big.’’
Jesse stared at the screen, tilting his head. I slapped him on the shoulder.
‘‘No, of course it’s not,’’ he said. ‘‘Your butt’s perfect, optimum size, the paradigm butt against which all butts are measured. And this . . .’’
The woman in the photo had my face, the grimacing face on my driver’s license photo. The studded dog collar, thigh boots, and bare buttocks thrust toward the camera belonged to someone else.
He ran a hand through his hair. His wrist seemed more limber, less painful to him than it had last night. Or maybe this new problem was distracting him.
He said, ‘‘Utley sent this because I sprayed him with the Raid.’’
‘‘And to tell you what they can do to you if they want,’’ I said. ‘‘How do we put a stop to this?’’
That’s when Nikki knocked on the door. Her voluptuous lips were crimped tight.
‘‘God, you saw the e-mail,’’ I said.
‘‘No, Carl did. He’s at the sink now, washing out his eyes. Woman, couldn’t you at least have worn a thong?’’
I sat down and put my head in my hands.
17
My e-mail in-box was crammed, and the message light was blinking on my answering machine. Seventeen messages.
My brother, Brian, expressed the prevailing sentiment. ‘‘Jesse had better keep a cyanide capsule handy. It’ll save me the trouble of killing him.’’
I replied to everyone, even the wailers and shouters. The last person I phoned was Harley Dawson.
She said, ‘‘A piece of advice. Never let the man keep the negatives.’’
‘‘It’s fake, and don’t you dare comment about the tattoo. I’m not in the mood.’’
‘‘Guess not.’’
‘‘Harley, the people who faked the photo are tied in with Brand and Mako.’’
Dead silence on her end.
I said, ‘‘I’m not shooting in the dark here.’’
‘‘Brand and Mako. No, I’d say you’re throwing grenades in the dark.’’
‘‘Listen, Harley—’’
‘‘No, you listen. I talked to George Rudenski. I know you went out to Mako and threw accusations around. Threatening that Kenny’s going to, what was it—go down with Brand?’’
‘‘That’s what Brand told me.’’
Now there was real anger in Harley’s voice. ‘‘Suggesting things like that will get you in trouble.’’
‘‘Why? Is Kenny dangerous?’’
‘‘Don’t be asinine. You’re making a slanderous accusation. And you’re making it to Kenny’s lawyer.’’
‘‘It’s a caution, Harley. I’m asking for your help here. You know Kenny’s not right. He’s . . . off. And he was a friend of Franklin Brand. He dislikes Jesse. So you tell me who’s leaping to conclusions.’’
Her voice sounded weary. ‘‘Evan, don’t. Just don’t screw with Mako. It’s not something you want to do.’’
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘It will only cause trouble. Take my word for it.’’
Forty-eight hours, down to thirty-five. What could I do? Talking to the police wouldn’t do any good right now, not with their current attitude. How I wished that Chris Ramseur were still here, and running the investigation.
Chris had been involved with the case from the start, doing the detective work on the hit-and-run. I sat down at my desk. Jesse had given me a copy of the police report and I flipped through it, recognizing Chris’s attention to detail and occasional sharp comment.
Turning a page, I came upon information I had neglected before. There wa
s a witness.
One witness, not to the crash but its aftermath: a man named Stu Pyle. He was a plumber who had been driving up the road looking for an address, and found Jesse and Isaac. He recalled seeing Brand’s BMW racing downhill past him, just before he arrived on the scene.
I found Pyle’s statement. He couldn’t specify the driver’s gender, much less identify any passenger. It had been three years. Was it worth prodding his memory?
I found his number in the Yellow Pages, Pyle Plumbing.
‘‘The accident, I been through all that with the police I don’t know how many times.’’ His voice sounded wet, as if he were eating a gummy sandwich. ‘‘I talk about it anymore, you’re gonna pay my hourly call-out rate.’’
I felt the growl starting in the base of my throat. ‘‘Bring your tool kit. You can tighten the pipes under my kitchen sink.’’
When he arrived Nikki was there, and Thea, crawling on the carpet, eating crumbs. We had taken bets on what Pyle would look like—on how thick his stubble would be, the diameter of the beer belly, and how low his pants would sink toward his butt. I put my money on cleavage.
‘‘You Ms. Delaney?’’ he said.
For a second I didn’t answer. He was built like a juicy steak, with biceps almost throbbing in his shirtsleeves. His cheeks were spanky pink and radiated musky aftershave. Nikki lifted an eyebrow and stifled a smile.
I said, ‘‘The sink’s this way.’’
He hauled his toolbox into the kitchen. His thighs were tree trunks. He squatted down in front of the sink and ran his hand along the drainpipe. ‘‘Feels dry to me.’’
‘‘Good. Now, about Franklin Brand.’’
He twisted to look at me over his shoulder. His blue shirt pulled free from the waistband of his jeans, exposing a hairy lower back.
He said, ‘‘I been thinking about that.’’
‘‘Excellent. I want to ask you about the passenger in his car.’’
He had a wrench in his hand. He hunched his shoulders, and his jeans started slipping down his waist. Nikki shifted behind me.
‘‘My call-out fee gets your sink looked at. But now that I’m here, I realize it don’t work on my memory.’’ He stood up with a grunt. ‘‘Memory takes overtime pay.’’
‘‘I see.’’ I frowned. ‘‘And if I appeal to your sense of civic duty?’’
