The old man blinked at him. “I wanted the best for you—”
“Your best! What you thought I should be! Face it, Dad, you were always too busy saving the country from the forces of evil to give a shit what I did, as long as I kept my grades up, my room clean, and I didn’t bother you.”
“Robert—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, listen to yourself! Everybody in the world calls me Bobby except for you! I asked you to do that a hundred times! You didn’t listen. You never listened.”
Nobody said anything for a long time. Finally, Drayne said, “So, what are you going to do? Give my name to your friends who owe you favors? Have them investigate me?”
The old man shook his head. “No.”
“No? Why? Because I’m your son and you love me? Or because you wouldn’t want your old FBI chums to know your son was anything less than the soul of respectability?”
The old man was spared whatever answer he might have made as the waitress returned with their breakfast. Drayne had never felt less like eating in his life, but both he and the old man smiled at her.
When she was gone, the old man said, “You can think whatever you want. You… You’re a brilliant man, son. Smarter than I ever was. I always knew that. You could have gone into legitimate business and made a fortune. You could have been somebody important.”
“What makes you think I can’t do that now?”
“Oh, you could. I don’t think you want to. You were always more interested in pulling my chain than anything else, weren’t you?”
And I still am, Drayne was smart enough to realize. But he didn’t want the old man to walk away with any kind of victory, no way, so he said, “No. All I wanted was to get your attention. Any attention, good or bad, was better than indifference. That’s what you gave me, Dad. Indifference. So now you finally notice me, enough to bust my balls. Thank you so fucking much. You want to turn me in for being a criminal, go ahead. I don’t care.” And if you do turn me in, I win, he thought.
Drayne stood, dropped a fifty on the table, and said, “I’m not hungry, but you enjoy your breakfast. It’s a long drive back to Arizona. Give my regards to the dog.”
Drayne turned and stalked off. Dramatic, but he’d made worse exits. Let the old bastard chew on that for a while.
Once he was in his car, he realized how shaken he was. Even after all the years of layering scar tissue and callus over it, on some level, he still cared what the old man thought of him. Amazing to realize that.
Tad couldn’t sleep. He was topped off with enough drugs to put a stadium full of rabid football fans into a trance, but his mind wouldn’t go down.
He had taken a hot shower. He had tried to blank his mind. He had gotten up and eaten another phenobarb, and while he was so stoned he could hardly move, he was no way about to sleep, and he needed that, bad.
Bobby had told him about the new operations plan, the safe house, moving the money, and wanting to hire some armed muscle to ride shotgun. Tad had shrugged that off. Whatever Bobby wanted was fine. Tad had made some calls. Some guys were coming by to see Bobby later, shooters who didn’t care who they cooked, long as the money was good. It wouldn’t cramp things here, they had five bedrooms, plenty of space. Bobby was thinking he could post one as a lookout, have him watching the road, scanning police radios, shit like that. Somebody came calling, they’d hit the beach before the visitors got to the door, jog a ways down to the parking lot where his car was already parked, ready to roll. Could maybe leave another ride in the opposite direction, at the bed-and-breakfast place, slip the owner a few bucks for parking. Maybe even have a jet ski or something, take to the ocean. Maybe rig a bomb to the front gate or something.
Bobby got into the details of stuff like this, and once he did, he covered it pretty fine.
Tad didn’t think it was gonna come to that, but that last biz had put the fear of God into Bobby a little, so that was cool, whatever.
Tad went out on the deck, sprawled in the padded lounge chair, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke at the ocean. The wind blew it back in his face, and he smiled at that. Bunnies in thong bikinis jogged past, guys with tans dark as walnuts, all going about their boring lives. Tad waved at them, some of them waved back. Jesus.
A helicopter zipped by a few hundred feet up, probably looking for people caught in the rip and pulled out beyond the surf. Welcome to the Promised Land, folks. Sun, water, beautiful people, even airborne lifeguards to make sure you don’t venture too far away from paradise by accident.
Tad finished the cigarette, ground the butt out on the arm of the chair, then snapped it out toward the water using his thumb and middle finger. This was what his life had come to: There was the Hammer, and then there was waiting for a chance to grab the Hammer; that was it.
Except for the waiting part, it was okay.
He leaned back and watched the seagulls wheel and work the uncertain air currents over the beach, diving and rolling, sometimes hovering almost still against the force of the wind. Some real intricate patterns there, those flights.
The aerobatic dance of the gulls was what finally lulled him to sleep.
31
Michaels said, “Mean anything to you?”
Jay shook his head. “Nope, not right off, but I’ve turned the searchbots loose on it. I should be getting a first-hit list any moment.”
Howard came into the conference room. “Sorry I’m late. I had to park in the secured lot. There’s some, ah, hardware I was checking out locked in the trunk of my agency car I didn’t have time to return yet. I wouldn’t want to lose it.”
“No problem. Do you recognize the names Frankie and Annette?”
“No, sir.”
Michaels slid a hardcopy printout across the conference room table to Howard, who picked it up and looked at it.
Howard shook his head. “And this came from where?”
Michaels explained how Toni had discovered the hidden message inside the capsule. He was feeling a certain sense of pride when he told them.
Jay said, “Tell Toni that’s nice work. Nothing in the DEA reports about this. Somebody there is maybe sitting on this information?”
“That’s what I thought,” Michaels said. “I asked the director to pull some strings, and she’s gotten the original lab reports from DEA. They went over the caps they’ve recovered with a fine tooth comb. None of those have this little grandkids riddle inscribed in them.”
“We think the DEA might be hiding things from us?” Howard said.
Michaels nodded and brought him up to speed on what Jay had discovered.
“And there’s one more little tidbit,” Jay said when Michaels had finished. “I have a record of a telecon between Hans Brocken and our Mr. Brett Lee, of the DEA, from three months back. Herr Brocken is the chief security officer for Brocken Pharmaceuticals, of Berlin, Germany.”
“Careless,” Michaels said.
“I did have to look for it. It wasn’t something you’d stumble across accidentally. They made a pretty good effort to hide it.”
Howard said, “You really think Lee is in bed with a drug company? Looking to sell the formula for this stuff?”
“It makes a certain kind of sense,” Michaels said. “We talked about reasons for him shooting the movie star before, remember.”