When he was done with me, Flint let us both go. Sarah got in her Camry and drove off without saying a word. She either didn’t care whether I got back to the city, or assumed that I would be taking Trixie’s car, since I had the keys to it.
I didn’t know whether Flint was going to want Trixie’s car for his investigation. I couldn’t see why, since the murder hadn’t taken place in it. If it were peppered with incriminating evidence, she’d hardly have left it behind and taken mine.
When I was in the back of the police car, Flint had asked me for a full description of my Virtue, including plate number, which I happened to know, since I’m good with licenses, phone numbers, and the like. He was on his cell right away, passing on the description.
The thing was, I needed wheels. It would probably be easier to take the car and say sorry later, if I had to, than ask Flint for permission to drive off in it now.
I got into the front seat of the GF300, settling into the leather upholstery. One glance at the dash told me this was a more complicated vehicle than my Virtue. A multitude of buttons and switches, including about a dozen on the steering wheel itself, and a tiny screen in the middle of the dash that had to be some sort of navigation system. Turn on the car, and a map showing the car’s exact location would probably pop up.
There were some bits of paper in a recessed tray between the seats, what looked like gas receipts, a car wash ticket. Impulsively, I grabbed them and slid them into my jacket pocket, then started looking for the ignition so I could slip the key in and get on my way.
There was a sharp rapping on the driver’s window and I jerked my head around to see a very annoyed Flint looking at me through the glass.
I fumbled around, looking for the power window button. Flint, tired of waiting, opened the door and said, “What the hell you think you’re doing?”
“Heading back into the city,” I said.
“Not in this car you’re not,” he said. “Get out.”
I did as I was told, handed the keys to Flint. “But Trixie took my car. She said I could use hers.”
“Oh, gee,” said Flint, putting the keys in his pocket, shrugging elaborately. “If it’s okay with her, then I guess it’s fine.” He shook his head in disgust. “Do you really work at a newspaper? Have you ever even seen a crime show on TV?”
“I guess your forensic people have to go over the car,” I said.
Flint smiled. “You can catch a train back downtown. There’s a station only half a mile from here. I’ll have one of my people give you a lift.”
It was almost an hour before I got back to the paper. I figured Sarah had returned to the office, and I felt I had no choice but to follow her there. There was still some shit left to hit the fan and land on me, and I figured it was going to happen somewhere in the vicinity of Magnuson’s office.
I wanted to head straight to Sarah’s office, to try to make her understand the bizarre set of circumstances that had brought us to this point, to ask her to forgive me for the stupid things I’d managed to get myself into lately, and most of all, to tell her that I loved her more than anything in the world.
But I didn’t have the nerve.
Instead, I wandered over to my new desk in Home!
“You missed cookie time,” Frieda said when I walked past her desk. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly five. “Where have you been all day?”
I sighed, too tired and too depressed for any sort of smart answer. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about me around here for much longer,” I told her, dropping into my computer chair. The red message light on my phone was flashing.
“What are you talking about?” Frieda said.
“The clock’s ticking,” I said. “It’s only a matter of time before Magnuson suspends me, or fires me outright. I just hope he doesn’t fire Sarah too. None of this is her fault.”
Frieda wheeled over a chair and sat close to me. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody in this much trouble.”
I smiled weakly. “Me neither.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Her concern seemed genuine, and I felt badly for all of my sarcastic outbursts the last couple of days.
I shook my head. “I imagine I’ll be out of here before I can finish your linoleum story.”
She looked sad. “And you were doing so well with it. Finding out where the word comes from and everything. That was real initiative.”
“Yeah, well.” My phone rang. I looked at it tiredly and figured, with all that was happening, I’d better answer it. It could be Flint, or one of the kids. Part of me wanted it to be Trixie, telling me where she could be found, that she would wait there for the police to arrive. And there was part of me that didn’t ever want to hear from her again.
Frieda excused herself as I reached for the receiver. “Walker,” I said.
“Hi, Mr. Walker. Brian Sandler here.”
I shook my head. Who? “Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry, who did you say you were?”
“Sandler? City health department? You called me this morning about an incident at Burger Crisp? I left you a couple of messages.”
It took a moment for me to put it all together. “Oh yeah, right, of course,” I said, glancing at the flashing red light on my phone. “I’m sorry. It’s been kind of a long day.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to put your mind at ease. Everything’s fine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I paid a visit today, after your call this morning, to Burger Crisp and spoke with Mrs. Gorkin, and her daughters, Gavrilla and Ludmilla, and I was satisfied that everything was in order.”
Godzilla and what?
“But how could that be? Their freezer was off for hours, my son Paul said at least one customer returned to the store feeling sick and-”
“I understand your son was fired from Burger Crisp. Or he quit.”
“I told you that this morning. That he quit, was fired, after this incident.”
“That’s not how the Gorkins explain it,” Sandler said, a hint of condescension in his voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“Mrs. Gorkin says they’d already fired your son, that he wasn’t doing a very good job, couldn’t get the hang of it, and that then the two of you came back making all sorts of wild accusations.”
Anger swept over me like a hot wind. “That’s total bullshit, Mr. Sandler,” I said. “My son was working, flipping burgers on the grill, when I came in and he told me what was going on. He wanted to keep me from eating my meal. He was scared for me.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Walker, but your story doesn’t jibe with theirs.”
“Or their story doesn’t jibe with mine. You really think I’d call the health department with a pack of lies just to get even for something, which didn’t even happen?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Walker.”
“Look, did you test the food? Isn’t there something you can do, take it into a lab and dissect the microbes or count the bacteria or something and determine whether it’s contaminated?”
“Of course. But I didn’t see any need in this case.”
“Are you serious? Okay, look, we’ve got an entire meal from Burger Crisp in our fridge. I could bring it down to you, you could have it tested, you’d know then whether the Gherkins-”
“Gorkins.”
“Sure. You’d know then whether they’re telling the truth.”
“Mr. Walker, I’ve taken this as far as I can. I don’t think there’s anything here for you,” and he hesitated, “or your paper to get involved in.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” I asked. “You’re worried that I, or someone else here at the paper, might be planning to do a story on this?”
“I never said nor implied that,” Sandler said. “The paper is welcome to do whatever story it wants, but there’s none here, and I don’t think the Metropolitan would like to find itself the subject of a million-dollar libel suit.”
“Oh, that’s good. I haven’t written a single word yet, and already you’re threatening me with a lawsuit.”
“It wouldn’t just be me,” Sandler said. “I’m sure the Gorkins would do whatever they had to do to protect their reputation and their livelihood.”
My hot wave of anger had turned into a chill. I was pretty sure I’d just been threatened, and with more than just a lawsuit.
“I’m just going to go out on a limb here,” I said, “and ask you how much Mrs. Gorkin pays you to look the other way. It’s probably a lot quicker, and cheaper, to pay off an inspector than bring an establishment up to standard, am I right?”
Sandler’s response was slow and measured. “I’d be very careful about throwing around those sorts of allegations, Mr. Walker. I think the smartest thing you could do would be to let this go. There’s nothing there. Am I making myself clear?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “It’s becoming very clear.”
“Thanks very much, Mr. Walker, for bringing this to the health department’s attention,” he said formally. “And watch your back.”
He hung up.
I replaced the receiver feeling numb. I dialed in for my messages, and both had been from Sandler, asking me to call him. The son of a bitch had threatened me. And he’d more or less passed on a threat from Mrs. Gorkin and her daughters as well.
What else could possibly go wrong today-
“Zack?” I turned around in my chair. It was Frieda. She gave me a pained smile. “Mr. Magnuson’s secretary just called. He’d like to see you in his office.”
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I walked through the newsroom. Word spreads fast. The city desk would have already been tipped to a murder in Oakwood, and chances were that if Dick Colby had been on the phone to Detective Flint, he might already know of my involvement. All I needed, as I took my last steps toward Magnuson’s door, was someone to announce, “Dead man walking!”
Sarah was already there. Her eyes were red, and there was a wadded tissue in her fist.
“Mr. Walker,” Magnuson greeted me from behind his desk. “I was trying to recall the last time one of my reporters found himself handcuffed in a hooker’s basement next to a man who’d had his throat slit. And you know something? Nothing comes to mind.”
“Yes, sir, I don’t suppose it does.”
“I’m suspending you, effective immediately, with pay, which is mighty generous of me if I do say so myself, while the police and the courts and the CIA and the Masons and the Shriners for all I know sort this fucking mess out. I’m also putting Colby on it, see what he can learn. Call the guild, file a grievance, I don’t much care. But when you walk out of this office, keep on walking until you hit the street.”
I thought, considering everything, that I had gotten off easy. I was expecting to be fired outright. Or, possibly, shot.
“Of course, this leaves Frieda short someone once again,” Magnuson mused. “You were barely there long enough to warm a chair,” he said, looking at me. “But fortunately, I can solve her personnel problems immediately. Sarah, you can report to her tomorrow.”
Sarah was dumbstruck. “Sir?”
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“Mr. Magnuson, with all due respect, not only do I not feel I should be punished for any of my husband’s alleged misbehaviors, but I’m in a different job classification. I’m an editor. You’re proposing moving me to a lower job classification, to a feature-writing position. You can’t do that.”
Magnuson said nothing for a moment, then a sense of calm came over him that was nothing short of chilling. “Ms. Walker,” he said, “I can do anything.”
He swiveled his chair around so that he could work on his computer, and it was clear that we’d been dismissed. Once outside his door, Sarah burst into tears.
“I can’t believe this,” she said. She stormed off toward the center of the newsroom. I almost had to run to keep up with her.
“Honey,” I said to her, “I’m so sorry. That was totally unfair. Not what he did to me, but what he did to you.” I reached out, touched her arm, but she yanked it away. There wasn’t anyone in the room who was still looking at their screens. “You should go to the guild, you should fight this-”
She shook her head and waved her hands at me in a fit of rage. “Shut up! Just shut up! Just shut the fuck up and leave me alone!”
The newsroom was dead silent. Sarah turned away from me and headed for the elevators. I took the stairs down to the parking lot. By the time I got there, Sarah’s car was gone.
“No, no, Candace, hold it like this,” Eldon said. He molded Miranda’s hand around the gun. “There, doesn’t that feel better?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
They were out in the country. He’d lined the top of a split-rail fence with half a dozen empty Campbell’s asparagus soup tins. Eldon liked asparagus soup. “Okay, just squeeze the trigger. Just look at your target and your arms will know what to do.”
She squeezed. Blam. God, what a feeling. Thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Would have been even better if she’d hit the can.
She glanced back at Eldon’s Toyota parked on the shoulder of the gravel township road, saw six-month-old Katie through the open back window, buckled into her safety seat, gnawing on a red plastic ring. Miranda waved.
“Okay, try again, but relax a bit this time. Don’t think so much about aiming, just look at your target, concentrate on it, don’t concentrate on your arms or your hands or anything. You’re just one with the gun.”
“Jesus, you’re getting all philosophical on me.” She squeezed again. Blam. Ting! A can flew off the fence. “I did it! I don’t believe it!”
“Yes!” Eldon said, giving her a hug. “Awesome!”
It didn’t take long until she could hit a can about half the time. Not bad, Eldon said, considering how small the can was and how far away she was standing. “If it was a moose,” he said, “you’d have no problem. And really, how often do you see a little can walking through the woods, anyway?”
She went to hand him the gun when they were finished, but he said, “No, it’s yours. I got it for you. You keep it. You know how to use it now. It’s small. It’ll fit in your handbag.”
Well, she didn’t want to carry it in her handbag. She was too frightened by what it could do. She couldn’t imagine using it on anything but a tin can. And there was the baby. It wasn’t safe, having guns around with a baby in the house.
But she didn’t tell him all that. She kissed him and thanked him. He wanted to do the right thing for her. He just wanted her to be safe. Things had been kind of crazy the last few months, and he wanted her to have some protection. But he was her protection. She didn’t want to have to carry a gun around in her purse.
There was a war on, and Eldon was feeling pretty tense. Not just because of the skirmishes between the Slots, who owned the Kickstart and were led by Gary, and the Comets from across town. The battle over hookers and drugs would have been enough to keep someone awake at night. But Eldon was troubled by how ineffective a leader Gary was. Gary needed to take bold action. He needed to make it clear to the Comets, once and for all, that the Slots were in charge.
But Gary wasn’t a planner. He was ruled by impulses, often reckless ones. A Molotov cocktail had been tossed through the window of the Kickstart, starting a small fire. Luckily, it was after hours, no one got killed. But Eldon couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened if Candace had been there. If the fire had spread upstairs, to the office, where she often worked late into the night adding up the receipts, doing the books.
She could have been killed, those motherfuckers.
The Comets were sending a warning, that they were moving in. They had to send a message back.
Eldon, who’d been content up to now to let Zane and Eldridge and Payne handle the more violent stuff, pressed Gary to take a stand. Run a tractor-trailer through their clubhouse, he said. Find their homes and blow them up. Go nuclear on them.
Gary couldn’t decide quite what to do. He wanted to do something, but wasn’t sure what.
So one day, he’s driving around town late one night in his big four-wheel-drive pickup, he sees one of the Comets out and about in his mint, red 1970 Dodge Super Bee, hood scoop, bumblebee racing stripe, the whole deal. Grant Delmonico, a minor player in the Comets, but still one of them. So Gary follows him, figures maybe an opportunity will present itself.
Grant’s coming up to a railroad crossing, lights flashing, big freight coming in from the west, couple of massive SD40s linked together. Gary comes up along behind, truck sitting up high, headlights shining into Grant’s car.
The crossing has no gate. Gary gets an idea. He drops the truck into low gear, shoves the Super Bee right into a passing tank car. The train took hold of the front of the car, dragged it down the track, mangled it all to shit. Some mess. Grant was toast.
Gary was pretty proud of himself when he got back to the Kickstart, telling the boys. Eldon said it was bush league. Grant was small potatoes. And would the Comets even get the message? For all anyone knew, the dumb ass just drove into the side of the train.
Not long after, one of their own, some hanger-on by the name of Sebastian, never really one of the crew but did some go-fering for them, gets beaten to death behind a butcher shop.
What are you gonna do? Eldon asked Gary. “That’s what I asked him, right in front of everyone else,” Eldon told Miranda on their way back into town from shooting practice. “‘What the fuck are you gonna do now?’”
“Not in front of Katie,” Miranda said. “What do you want her first word to be?”
A week later, she found out what Gary had decided to do.
There was a knock at the door around midnight. She’d gotten home early from the Kickstart, relieved the elderly woman from down the hall of their apartment building who often looked after Katie, who was fussy. Teething, she figured. Miranda was cradling her in her arms, walking her around the apartment, trying to settle her down.
“Police,” someone said.
There was hardly anything left of the Toyota, the officer told her. The train hit it at nearly sixty miles per hour, carried it down the track well over a mile. They’d need her to come in and identify this Eldon Swain person, at least those parts of him that were left.