“If he’s not guilty, what does he have to hide?” Driscoll said. He was down at the Impala now with the door open. “No heroics, Drake.” Driscoll closed the door and pulled away. His red taillights still visible up the drive when Drake got in his own vehicle and brought it around toward the lake road.
Drake ran a circuit around the lake, as far south as he was willing to bet his father could get on foot, then again north. When he’d finished, he turned up into the forest and followed the road past the Fish and Wildlife Quonset hut, shining the spot all over the parking lot and down the sides of the metal exterior. He went all the way up to the border crossing and talked with the guard there, giving the man a description of his father. Not a single car gone past in the last two hours, either south or north.
When he came into town he was feeling frustrated and betrayed. His father was out there and he was running. There was no other explanation.
Driving past the Buck Blind he eased the car to a stop. He sat there with the engine running. The dash lights giving the inside of the car a green aura of light and the bar shut down with its windows dark. Drake got out anyway just to feel the air on his skin. Cool in the night with the smell of pine resin like menthol on the wind.
He sat back down in the cruiser and took the radio in his hand, intending to contact Driscoll, but as he sat there his eyes caught the reflection of an upstairs window in the rearview mirror. The window was a block down on the opposite side of the street and Drake knew it right off as Gary’s place over the Laundromat.
Drake knocked and waited. He was standing at the top of the wood stairs that led to Gary’s place, a good view back toward the lake and the moon shining on the water. No one came to the door and he looked around at the window with the light still on and then he pounded the door several times with the heel of his palm.
Gary came to the door almost as soon as Drake finished. “I figured it was you,” Gary said. He stepped aside and let Drake into the crowded apartment.
“You know he’s gone, then?”
“I know.”
“And you were waiting to tell me…”
Gary shook his head. “More of a feeling,” he said. He crossed to the kitchenette and took a beer from the fridge. He offered it and then when Drake wouldn’t take it he opened it himself. “Driscoll wasn’t going to leave him alone. You know that.”
“That doesn’t mean he can just run out on his problems.”
Gary grinned. “That’s what you think?”
“What else is there?”
“You sure you don’t want a beer?” Gary asked. He stood waiting for an answer and when none came he walked back into the living room and sat heavy in the solitary lounge chair. “Driscoll’s fucking obsessed with the man.”
“Should he be?”
“Your father’s trying to make things right, that’s all I know. He fucked up.”
“Where is he?” Drake asked, his eyes darting over the apartment. Pictures on the wall that had been there as long as Gary lived in the place, a gun rack against the back wall, and the old television in a corner below the kitchen counter. The whole place lit dull yellow by a single floor lamp standing at one end of the room. “He’s not here, right?”
“Be my guest.” Gary waved at the open room, telling Drake to have a look.
When Drake came back into the living room Gary was still sitting there sipping from the beer. “I think I might be going crazy,” Drake said. He rested his back on the door and then slid to the floor, cupping his face in his hands and rubbing at his eyes with his fingers.
“It’s okay, son. Driscoll has that effect on people.”
Drake looked up. “My father has that effect on people.”
“Don’t worry about Patrick. He knows what he’s doing.”
“He said nothing to you?” Drake asked. “He just took off? He doesn’t have a car. He doesn’t have more than twenty dollars in his wallet.”
“Honestly,” Gary said, “I don’t know where he is. All I know is he’s a resourceful guy.”
For a time, after coming out of Gary’s apartment, Drake sat in his cruiser listening to the blank fuzz of the radio, not knowing what to do. Every once in a while he took a call from Driscoll, relaying his position, and then letting the radio go silent again. No one was out on the streets, and Drake didn’t see a single car pass in all the time he sat watching the road. Eventually Driscoll got Drake on the radio and told him to go home.
Sheri was still up. A pot of coffee steaming on the counter when he came in, Sheri sat on the couch waiting on him to say something. He shook his head and went through to the kitchen and poured himself some of the coffee. The clock on the stove said it was three A.M.
“I’ll wake you up if anything happens,” Drake said. He was back in the living room now and he put a hand out for Sheri and helped her up off the couch.
“How long have you known about Driscoll?” Sheri asked.
“A few days now.”
“Do you believe whatever he’s saying about Patrick?”
“No,” Drake said. “But Driscoll is saying things about other people besides my dad. I don’t know what to think, really.”
“Like who?”
“Like Gary,” Drake said.
Sheri shook her head and he knew she didn’t believe him. “Patrick is smarter than this.”
“I hope so.” He led her back through the hallway and closed the door behind her. After a time he saw the light go out under the door and he walked back to the living room. His coffee cup sat steaming on the table. He picked it up and drank a quarter of it in one long gulp. He was sitting on the couch with the television turned on low to the late-night infomercials when he began to nod off. His eyelids falling once, then twice, and his chin diving onto his chest for a moment before rising once again. The clock on the stove said four thirty A.M. There were birds chirping in the trees outside, but the sky was still dark.
WHEN HE WOKE up there was a big man wearing a padded flannel—eating milk and cereal from a bowl—in Drake’s kitchen. Another man, blond and slightly built, sat across from Drake on the opposite couch wearing a black suit. Both were staring at Drake.
“Help yourself to some Frosted Flakes,” Drake said.
The man in the kitchen took another spoonful and stood chewing it like a cow with its cud. He was much larger than the other man, the muscles beneath his pink temples working in parallel motion with his jaw. His forehead glistening slightly with oil or sweat and his dark eyes appearing like two pinpricks beneath the girth of his brows.
“You Driscoll’s guys?” Drake said. “I told him we didn’t need the help.” Drake could feel a little drool at the corner of his lip from where he’d sat sleeping. His neck ached from resting his head on his chest and he was aware for the first time that no one except for him was making any effort to speak. “You just let yourself in?”
“It was open,” the man behind the kitchen counter said. He took the cereal box up and poured another helping, then walked to the refrigerator and poured some more milk, leaving the carton out on the small bar that divided the living room from the kitchen. “We didn’t want to wake your wife.” He was back behind the counter now and he was watching Drake.
Drake wiped two fingers across his lips and then wiped the drool on his pants. The television was on and an old TV star from the eighties was trying to sell a juicer to an audience of retirees. Drake was still dressed in the same warm-ups from the night before. Outside he heard rain falling. The sound of big drops hitting against the roof above. “You guys find my father yet?”