“Thanks, honey.”
“Promise me you’ll have them check that bump on the side of your head?”
I smiled. “I think it’s fine. It might even have knocked some sense into me.”
She was puzzled by that, but let it go. “You were something,” she said. “You were really something.” And then her mouth dropped open, as though she’d suddenly remembered something.
“What?” I said.
“Shit,” she said. “I’ve got an essay due in the morning.”
I smiled. “I think being kidnapped and narrowly escaping death is an even better excuse than having your dog eat your homework. I’m sure the paramedics will write you a note. Which course is it?”
“My psych course. I had all the research done. All I had to do was write it up, which I was gonna do last night.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Your professor will understand. What was it about, anyway?”
She smiled. “Man and masochism,” she said. “Trying to figure out why some guys get turned on by pain.”
My eyebrows went up. “This is what they’re teaching you in school?”
“College, Dad.”
Tumblers started falling into place. “So, what kind of research did you have to do for a paper like that?”
“I read all kinds of stuff, and I even talked to Trixie.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, like I was trying to remember. “Our old neighbor.”
“She’s hardly old. She’s pretty dynamite looking, actually.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Yeah. Like, it’s no secret anymore what she does for a living, so I gave her a call, she gave me all kinds of great quotes. I made her promise not to tell you, ’cause I knew you and Mom would freak if you knew I was going out to see her.”
“No,” I said defensively, “we’d have understood.”
“She’s actually a very nice person,” Angie said.
“Yeah, for sure. She is.”
“It’s not the sort of thing I’d like to do for a living, though, you know?”
I nodded. “Well, I don’t like to judge.”
Angie smiled. “I hope you’re not pissed.”
It was my turn to smile. “I’ll get over it. Listen, you really should get checked out.”
She turned and there was Trevor, trying hard to look nonchalant in his long black coat, but you could see it in his eyes, that he was rattled, that he’d been through a night like no other. Morpheus seemed a bit drained, too, standing at Trevor’s side, leaning into him, his long tongue hanging in front of him.
Angie approached Trevor, smiled. “Thank you,” she said. She leaned in and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for being there. I guess I’ll give you shit later about how you happened to know where we were.”
He said, “Nothing I ever did was meant to hurt you. It was meant to protect you.”
“Yeah, well, I think you got lucky on that one.”
“I wasn’t the only one,” he said, as if to remind her that her good fortune was linked to him in some small way. “I think this is one of those defining moments.”
“What?” Angie said.
“A moment that defines who you and I are, what we mean to each other. We’ve been caught together in a confluence. I don’t see how either one of us can ignore that.”
The attendants were closing the ambulance door, leaving Angie with nothing else to say, but she waved her fingers at me and mouthed, “I love you.” I waved back and watched her face through the window as the ambulance pulled away.
I got out my cell and phoned home. It was going to be hard to explain to Sarah that Angie being at the hospital, in the overall scheme of things, was actually the best news I’d had to share all evening.
“Hello?” she said tiredly.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Hey, what time is it? Oh my God, do you know what time it is?”
“It’s late, yeah, sorry.”
“It’s the middle of the night. Wait, I’m going to see if Angie’s back.”
“Just listen a sec. The first thing I have to tell you is, everybody’s fine, we’re all okay.”
You just know, when someone starts off the conversation that way, everything you’re about to hear is going to be bad.
The cops kept me, and Trevor, for hours. I guess they had others interviewing Trevor, but me they put in a car so that we could all take a trip to Bullock’s place, where I showed them the haul from the Brentwood’s heist, the room where Angie’d been held, Pockmark and the Barbies shot. Pockmark wasn’t there, but was picked up early in the morning in the ER at Mercy General. There was blood on the garage floor, presumably from where Blondie had shot Trimble before putting his body into the Annihilator.
I told them Bullock, or possibly one of his two henchmen, had put Lawrence Jones into the hospital and killed the Metropolitan photographer Stan Wannaker. Not to get back his film, but to get even for the incident at the auction.
I told them about how I’d bought a car at a government auction that had supposedly, at one time, been loaded with drugs, and how Eddie Mayhew had hoped to pull a fast one on Lenny Indigo’s people by sneaking the drugs out and selling them to a rival organization. About how the only cop I felt I could trust was the last one in the world I should have called, and how Trimble’s apparent moves toward redemption had come too late to make a difference.
There were lots of other details to fill in, but I gave them the broad strokes. And then I called the city desk and said that, after I’d gone home and had a bit of sleep, I’d be coming in.
I had a story to write.
A couple of days later, we had a few people over to the house. Sarah made a chocolate cake. A Betty Crocker mix, with icing out of the can. Angie’s favorite. I wore some more of my new clothes.
Trixie drove in from Oakwood. A few of the people from the paper, friends of Stan’s, came by. Bertrand Magnuson even dropped by, briefly, and took me aside. “If it’d been me,” he said, “I’d have shot that fucker in the nuts instead of the leg.” A detective I’d spent several hours explaining everything to dropped in for a short visit, long enough to grab a piece of cake. It was a low-key affair, no speeches, no toasts, just a chance to celebrate quietly that Angie was okay, and that this whole mess with Barbie Bullock and his gang was behind us.
Trevor Wylie was there, wearing his shades in the house, shadowing Angie as much as she’d allow it. At one point, when they were both in the kitchen, I heard him pressing her to take a short walk with him, to get some air. “Maybe later,” Angie told him.
What I learned was, she was expecting some special company. “I’ve invited Cameron to come by,” Angie said while Trevor was out of earshot. She sidled up next to me as I used one of our carving knives to cut a piece of cake for a guest. I knew we had a pastry knife and lifter somewhere, but that was the kind of thing only Sarah would be able to find.
“That’s great,” I said.
“He’s been really worried about me, after all that happened, so I asked him to come over. It’ll give you a chance to meet him. He’s really a nice guy, and I’m ready to introduce you, provided you don’t go wandering around his house late at night when I’m already upstairs asleep.”
“That’d be nice,” I said, trying to suppress a smirk. “I’m sure he’ll be interested to meet me, too.”
Trevor interrupted us. “Can I get you anything, Angie?” he asked.
“No, I’m good.”
“You want to catch some air now? Because there are some things I’d like to talk to you about.”
Angie glanced at me, the back of her head to Trevor, and her eyes rolled. “I can’t just walk out now, Trev, not with all these people here, okay?”
“I’ll be around,” he said, slipping out of the kitchen.
Quietly, Angie said to me, “I know he was there for me, for us, at the right time, but honestly, he’s freaking me out. But there’s like some Chinese or Indian tradition o
r something going on here, that he feels he’s obligated to watch out for me forever now. You save someone’s life, you have to hound them till the day they die.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s awkward, isn’t it? Considering.”
“Yeah. You know what he told me?” I leaned in. “He said we’re linked cosmically. At first, I thought he said ‘comically,’ and so I laughed, and that was definitely the wrong thing to do. He tells me, if he’s not with me, he won’t ever be with anyone. It was like he wanted to add I wouldn’t ever be with anyone else either.”
“Let me think about a way to handle it,” I said. Angie gave me a look. “I’ll talk to your mom. I won’t do anything crazy. How you doing, otherwise?”
“I don’t know if it’s all hit me yet. It’s hard to believe it all really happened. Like maybe it was just a bad dream.”
“That’s kind of how I feel,” I said, and kissed her on the forehead before Angie went back to talk to our guests.
There was a knock at the door. I opened it and came face-to-face with my attacker: Angie’s boyfriend Cameron. I’d never had a good look at him, and he was a good-looking boy, about my height, trying to grow a bit of hair on his face and not having a lot of luck with it.
He eyed me curiously, leaned back to double-check the number above the front door.
“Uh, are you Angie’s dad?”
I admitted it.
“I came by to see her? She said there was sort of a thing going on?”
“Sure,” I said, and when I turned to open the door wider, he was able to see what was left of the bruise on the left side of my face. He stopped in mid-step.
“Do I… don’t I know…” And then, as the realization sunk in, he muttered, “Holy shit,” and his body seemed to collapse in on itself.
I extended my hand. “I think we’ve met, but we didn’t have time for proper introductions the other night at McDonald’s.”
He shook my hand limply. “Oh shit,” he said again. “I’m really sorry. I had no idea…”
“I know. And you were just looking out for Angie, and that makes you okay in my book, so why don’t you come in.”
I led him down the hall, and when Angie saw him she put down her cake and walked briskly across the room, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a kiss. And not on the cheek, either. He glanced back nervously at me and, pointing my way, whispered something to Angie. She looked at me, opened her mouth as if in shock, then slowly a smile developed as she put it together. She shook her head at me, as if to say “What next?” and then turned back to Cameron to gave him another kiss.
Trevor was at the far end of the living room, watching Angie and Cameron locked in their embrace, and even through his sunglasses, you could almost see the hurt in his eyes.
He stood and watched them for a moment, then turned and walked out of the room. I went after him, figuring a couple of words were in order, but he’d slipped through the kitchen and, apparently, out of the house.
An hour or so later, after everyone had cleared out, and Sarah and Paul were out front making some farewell chitchat with our friends, the phone rang. I grabbed it in the kitchen and looked at the sliver of cake still sitting on the table. I was stuffed, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have more.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey.” Even though the voice was tired and a bit weak, I recognized it immediately.
“Lawrence!” I said. “Is it ever nice to hear your voice. How are you?”
“Well enough to make a phone call, anyway. Cops were by, filled me in a bit on all your news.”
“I tried to call yesterday, but the nurse said you were still pretty out of it.”
“Painkillers, man. Gotta love ’em.”
I told him my own version of the events of the last few days, filling in a few gaps that had been overlooked by the cops.
Angie appeared in the kitchen doorway for a moment, and she’d been cornered by Trevor. Cameron, I gathered, had already left, along with most of our guests. I was trying to hear what they were saying at the same time as I was listening to Lawrence. Trevor was, I think, asking her again for a moment alone to speak to her.
“Fine, okay,” Angie said.
“Hang on,” I said to Lawrence, and then to Trevor, “You off, man?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”
“We’re just gonna walk down the street a bit,” Angie told me. “I’ll be back soon to help you and Mom clean up. And,” she said, looking scornful, “to discuss what happened the other night at McDonald’s.”
“Sure, hon,” I said.
Back to Lawrence. He said, “I guess this is the last time you take advice from me on where to get a good deal on a car. Next time, try a dealer.”
“Barbie Bullock said the same thing. Might be the only advice he ever gave that was worth paying attention to.”
“Yeah, well, shit, sorry. I feel terrible about all this, like it was my fault.”
“It’s okay. I’ve still got the car. Got the door panels back, just need a little body work on the back to patch some bullet holes.” I paused. “There any satisfaction in knowing that the guy who did this to you is no longer with us?”
“I’ll tell you this much,” Lawrence said. “If Bullock had lived, I don’t know that they’d ever have convicted him for what he did to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d have made a pretty bad witness. I never really got a look at him. He got me as I was coming down the hall, going into my study, the lights were off, all of a sudden there’s this searing pain in my gut as he drives in the knife, and then he’s gone. I managed to drag myself into the bedroom, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in a hospital.”
“Yeah, well, maybe things have a way of working out, you know.”
“I wanted to call you to say thanks, for being there, calling 911 and getting me to a hospital, but also, I never had a chance to get back to you about that Trevor Wylie kid.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, only now remembering that Lawrence had promised to give me some information about the teenager when we met that night on our Brentwood’s stakeout. Only problem was, Lawrence and I never had that meeting.
“It hardly matters now,” I said.
“Why?”
“Well, he’s a bit strange, no question, but I might not be talking to you now if it weren’t for him being in the right place at the right time. He’s kind of latching himself onto Angie, and she’s going to have to hurt his feelings, I suspect, but I imagine she’ll be as nice about it as she can.”
“Well,” Lawrence said, “you know, just ’cause a kid does something right doesn’t mean he’s still not screwed up. Stalking someone, that’s not normal behavior.”
Lawrence couldn’t see my shrug at the other end of the phone. I mean, he was right, but it all seemed a bit moot now.
“The thing is,” Lawrence said, “I’d done some checking on him that day, after our run-in with him at your place, when we found him back of the garage, and I got in touch with a few people I know who’ll tell me things that they’re not supposed to, mental health types, and they faxed me some stuff, told me some other things, and I’d made some notes.”
“Yeah?” I said, slightly curious, my eyes still drifting back to the cake.
“This Wylie kid’s got a long psychiatric history. Violent outbursts, obsessive-compulsive behavior. Slightly delusional behavior. And there’s something about a sister.”
“Yeah?”
“The reason he’s here, living without his parents, is, he attacked this sister, maybe even tried to kill her. No charges were ever laid, the family had enough money to make sure that didn’t happen, they kept the authorities out of it, but they ended up kicking the kid out, he was scaring the shit out of them.”
I felt very cold. “You’re not making this up, are you, Lawrence?”
“There’s more, Zack. I was checking out his car, that Chevy of his. This was shortly after I left your place. It wa
s unlocked, and down there between the seats, I find all these snapshots of Angie. He’d been taking pictures of her, making a collection. And I grabbed those, nearly lost my hand to the fucking dog when I did it, too. He was dozing in the backseat, woke up quick.”
“Jesus,” I said. That cold feeling had turned into a shiver. And I thought back to a few nights earlier, when I’d been riding behind Trevor’s Chevy, on the way out to Oakwood, and he’d become distracted by something between the seats. That must have been when he’d discovered the pictures were missing.
“But here’s the really creepy thing. I put those photos in a folder, with the other stuff I’d found, in my study, and I sent Kent-you met Kent, right?”
“Sure. That night, at the hospital. Nice guy.”
“Yeah, he’s really been there for me these last few days. Him, and my sister Letitia, who’s heading back to Denver tomorrow. Anyway, I sent Kent back to my place to get this stuff, so I could give you more details over the phone, but he couldn’t find the folder anyplace.”
“Go on,” I said slowly.
“The place had been totally torn apart, and the folder was gone, and the pics along with it.”
“But that was Bullock and his crew,” I said. “I saw your office that night. It was a complete mess. They were tearing apart your place, trying to find anything that would tell them what happened to the Virtue. They found the check I wrote you, for the same amount you’d paid the people at the auction, and that’s what led them to me.”
“They didn’t have to tear apart my place to find that check,” Lawrence said. “It was sitting right on the counter, in the kitchen, on top of some mail. I’d left it there so I’d remember to deposit it. They couldn’t miss it. It would have been the first thing they found.”
“Then why would they tear apart your office?” I asked. “And why would they want your folder on Trevor Wylie?”
But even as I said it, I knew Bullock and his crew would have had no use for the folder on Trevor Wylie.
But Trevor might have been interested in it.
And if Trevor knew that Lawrence Jones was investigating him, and had gone to get any incriminating evidence himself… After he’d turned back early on that drive out to Oakwood, he’d have had time to go to Lawrence’s before the detective and I were supposed to meet at Brentwood’s…
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