“P ard, he let us out on a short break. If I’d known we were getting the break, I would have done the job myself.”
We sat on the solid cement slab behind our apartment in cheap green and white Walgreens lounge chairs, drinking cheap Genny long-neck beers. I’d accepted the beer from him, even though I’d paid for it, but I hadn’t said a word. I was still shook up over the GPS incident. The one that my roommate suggested. The one he was going to handle. Until he conveniently couldn’t do the job.
James took a deep drag on his Marlboro, letting it drift into the air. I took a deep breath. Secondhand was better than starting up again. And besides the health issue, I couldn’t afford to smoke.
“Skip, I will admit, I talked to Eden, and she sent me to Sandy’s office. I asked him if he didn’t think we should be allowed to leave the building for even half an hour.”
“Eden?” I’d never heard the name.
“Eden Callahan, the cute security guard.”
Leave it to James. The next thing would be he’d have a date with her.
“By the way, I asked her out for next Friday.”
And I hadn’t even considered that. Not asking the guard out on a date, but asking for a break. I’d gone along with Feng’s program. The little soldier rode roughshod over everybody and I’d let him do it to me.
“Sandy said we could take a break and passed it down the line, and so we did.” He stared at me, waiting for my response. I just took a long swallow of beer. “Anyway, Feng was furious. He was stomping around, just totally pissed off that someone had gone over his head. Of course, as short as he is, just about everything goes over his head.”
I smiled.
“See, you can’t stay mad too long.”
I gazed down the row of apartments, the little cement porches like a board game, one after another. Cracked, pitted, stained concrete, littered with cheap grills, kids’ broken toys, and worn out lawn furniture. Just beyond our pathetic living quarters there was a mud brown ditch, half filled with brackish water that flowed with the runoff from somewhere. I was mad. But only mad because I was settling for this miserable existence. I wanted success as much as James, maybe more. Maybe for different reasons. James wanted success that his father had never achieved. I wanted success to show Em that I could amount to something. James and I both had something to prove.
And even with this job, even with the nice paycheck at the end, I still felt like success was just beyond my reach. And that almost getting myself killed this day was probably not the way I was going to make a million dollars.
“Listen, you did a great job, amigo. You got the GPS under his car.”
“At the risk of killing myself.” I could feel a crick in my back and the soreness of my arms and legs.
“Yeah, but you’re alive and we can track that little weasel.”
“James, it was stupid. We did it on our own. Mrs. Conroy didn’t even ask us to do it. We had no business-”
“Skip,” he stood up, tugged his baggy shorts up high, and walked back into the apartment, returning moments later with two more cold beers, “we did have business. Somebody died in that building a couple of days ago. Could be suicide, could be murder.” James twisted the top and tossed it over his shoulder. Nobody kept up the back of our apartments. Nobody kept up the front either. “And this little guy shows up every time we turn around.”
“Still-”
“No still. Carol Conroy comes to you and says there’s some kind of mystery going on there, and I maintain that we have a right to check it out.”
“Well, what’s done is done. The GPS is on his car. If it hasn’t fallen off yet.”
“I called Jody. He said that it should stay on. The magnets are strong.”
I looked back the other way, more apartments stretched out to the road. I saw J.J.’s. rear screen door, hanging from only one hinge. What kind of a handyman lets his own door go unrepaired? What kind of a security guy can’t even put a GPS on a car without nearly sabotaging the entire effort?
“So, you’re going out with this-what’s her name?”
“Eden. Eden Callahan. Like, garden of Eden. All the fruits-the delights.”
“Yeah. James, I don’t know my Bible that well, but I think there was a snake in the garden as well.”
He thought about that for a moment, leaning back in his webbed chair and sipping on his beer. “That’s fitting, isn’t it?”
It was.
“And if you’d just bring the laptop home with you, we can follow this guy. From home and from any mobile location. Pretty cool, eh?”
I had the laptop in my car.
“I’ve got his car spotted on the computer inside. He’s at a residential address. I assume it’s his home.”
Five hundred dollars down the tubes. It was on approval, but if we bought it, we’d have spent that much to prove, without a doubt, that, when not out and about, Em was parked at home. We’d now proved that Feng, after work, was at home.
“Come on, Skip. You’re still upset that you got stuck putting the GPS under the car. It wasn’t my fault. You know me, pally. I would have done the dirty deed. Relished it.”
“Did you know that the Honda had a plastic gas tank?”
“I did. Looked it up on the Internet.”
It figured. “Did you know that Feng stopped three places yesterday afternoon?” I wanted the element of surprise. I got it.
“I didn’t install the program until I got home. How could I know that?”
“I loaded it last night on the laptop. I’ve been following the little guy all day. On the laptop’s screen.”
“You son of a gun. And you never told me. Leave me out to hang, eh? You’re getting into this aren’t you?”
“A little.”
“So where’s he been?”
“Addresses. That’s what I have. I have no idea if these are businesses, maybe a restaurant.”
“So we could drive the same route and see where he’s been.”
I nodded. “We could do the same thing. Take our lunch hour and follow his path. Except that gas costs money and nobody is paying us for these little jaunts.”
“True.”
“All right. I’m making enough on this job, let’s do it. Tomorrow for lunch we’ll follow his path, just to see if anything sticks out. Happy?”
“I am, my man. We’re officially spies.”