A spacious picture window dominated the wall opposite me, affording the Club’s occupants a fine view of the marina. It also afforded me an equally fine if narrowly delimited view of several pairs of men, sitting opposite each other at dining tables occupying the length of the window.
At one of the tables I recognized Chief Jansen and Mr. Tubbs dining together, but their lunch date seemed to be less than congenial. The way Tubbs emphatically gesticulated at Jansen, the way Tubbs’ mouth rapidly opened and closed, suggested he was not enjoying a relaxing meal. Jansen, on the other hand, wore a bland condescending smile indicating his digestion at least was not disturbed by the current conversation.
Sam’s Lincoln pulled up to the curb and he got out, came over to join me.
“You keep showing up, keep getting in my face,” I said. “You trying to be friends here?”
Sam shook his head. “Don’t dodge the issues. I been on your butt since you walked away from the Gardens. I seen you checking out the bus station.”
“And if I did decide to split, so what? You’ve made it clear I’m on my own and there’s nothing between us. What I do or don’t do is none of your never mind.”
He aimed a look at the Andersen Club’s parking lot, grunted at all that automotive wealth on display. “Uncle Karl told me once that when you run away, you only give them a free shot at your backside. Is that the kind of role model you want to be repping to people, old man?”
I turned the pained look that arose on my face into a sneer of my own. Karl had stolen the ‘free shot at your backside’ line from me, but now didn’t feel like the right time to reclaim the quote for my own. My brother’s ghost could continue taking credit for it.
“I miscalculated,” I said. “I figured the Driver for the kind of coward that’d only come at you from behind. Looks like I was wrong, but I wasn’t the one who paid for it.”
“You’re ashamed,” Sam said in wondering tones. “You’re only human. No one expects more than that. You’re the one with unrealistic expectations of yourself old man.”
He changed tack: “I asked Uncle Karl about you once. He said, ‘All you need to keep in mind to understand your d-.’” Sam stopped, and then began again, his voice a little raised. “’All you gotta know to understand Markus is two things: first off, to him, perfect paranoia is perfect awareness. Second, he’s got a 200 IQ for hate.’”
I smiled. “Well, you know, playing eternal second fiddle to Karl, I had to have some way to vent my angst, right?”
Sam gave me a sour look. This kid had no sense of humor whatsoever.
“Karl never used to be one to tell tales out of school, Sam,” I said. “But yeah, you may have gathered I’m not necessarily the trusting kind.”
Sam grunted. “I’ll admit we’ve given you little enough reason to trust, you and me being family or no. But you’re not being played here, or at least no more than’s necessary for survival. And so what if I did maybe convince Moe we needed you when you first stumbled into the Gardens? A guy can have more than one reason for doing things, right? It’s not always about you, old man. You’re not the center of the universe, and maybe you need to get over being embarrassed.”
“Is it worth it, Sam?” I asked. “Can we even win here?”
Sam appeared surprised and unhappy; he thought for several seconds before he replied. “I know you don't have much reason to like this place. Maybe Stagger bay isn’t much, but it belongs to me. This place is all the home I’ve ever had.”
“Moe and JoJo and Natalie and the others?” Sam said. “I’ve known them all since kindergarten. They’re my people even if they’re nothing in your book. They don’t have to matter to you; it’s okay they don’t. I’m not trying to sing Kumbaya with you here, but they really need you not to turn your back on them. There’s people around here would lose heart if you left.”
“How about you, Sam. You one of them?”
“Quit fishing,” he said, his eyes avoiding mine. “I’m not gonna beg. Fuck you if you think I’m ever gonna.”
I thought about it. Sam was holding some important things back. But that was only natural – hell, so was I. Then the switch clicked in my head and it felt good: It didn’t matter if I could trust Sam or not, he was all I had left – and if he did do me dirty it didn’t matter either, because I had nowhere else to go and no one else to care about.
My son thought this was his home? Maybe he was a fool to back these people’s play, but did I really have any choice but to back his folly in turn? If I didn’t take this on Sam would just try to game all by himself, and die as surely as Karl.
I grimaced as I pulled Karl’s FBI letter out my pocket, opened it up and studied the letterhead for Agent Miller’s contact digits.
“Is there a pay phone around here?” I asked. But Sam just handed me his cellie.
Chapter 40
The FBI switchboard put me directly through to Miller’s extension, and he picked right up. When I identified myself he laughed.
“Talk about synchronicity,” Miller said. “Was just listening to one of those syndicated radio talk shows, girl in the next cubicle had it on. You were the subject of discussion, and all the callers seemed to have strong opinions.”
Next door to the right of the Club, a young girl walked up to stand at the bus stop in front of the Stagger Bay Library.
“Oh?” I said. “What was the upshot?”
“The upshot? Let’s just say you’re getting mixed reviews and leave it at that. So you’re Karl’s brother, right? Small world.”
The girl at the bus stop was on the stroll, judging by her dress and demeanor. Her feet were bare and filthy as if she’d been too busy to find shoes before going to work. From the way she fidgeted, the cement sidewalk was painfully cold against her soles.
She also looked like a girl with a lot on her mind. But that was understandable: this area used to be wall-to-wall working girls, and now here she stood all alone.
“Have to ask,” Miller continued. “What inspired you to become a cop-caller, Markus? Isn’t that against the code or something?”
Chief Jansen exited the Club, wearing his SBPD uniform and looking smug as ever. He got into his cruiser and backed out of his parking space.
“If it was good enough for Karl, its good enough for me,” I said, my attention divided as I focused as much on Jansen’s actions as on Miller’s words.
“So how is Karl?” Miller asked. “He was supposed to get back to me a while ago. How come I’m not speaking to him right now?”
“You’re saying you’re not aware he’s dead?” I grinned to myself despite the subject matter, letting him hear my sneer. “Maybe you junior G-Men aren’t as all-knowing as you’d like us common folk to think you are.”
As Jansen came out the exit his gaze clicked over to as if magnetically attracted to the girl at the bus stop. He stared at her, not even glancing in my direction though I was only twenty feet away across the street.
Agent Miller was silent for several seconds. “How did it happen?” he finally asked, in a quiet voice.
“You sure suck at interrogation,” I said. “It’s hard to be offering me a soda or a smoke over the phone, but shouldn’t you at least be trying to establish rapport or something? Maybe play schizo and give me Good-Cop/Bad-Cop all rolled up in one package?”
“Quit playing around,” Miller said. “I shouldn’t have to work you if your brother’s dead. If I’m wrong about that, just hang up and stop wasting my time. Otherwise, spill what you know and be quick about it.”
I clucked my tongue at his impudence. “It was a justifiable shooting by Stagger Bay law enforcement. Apparently in dealing with my brother you were associating with a major pot dealer, the kind of guy who’d try to shoot the cops serving his warrant. Funny how that works, huh?”