Prodigal Son

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Evan hit the target at the fourth location. The Szechuan Rose, enticingly sandwiched between a Chevron station and a pawnshop, had glazed red roof tiles and a glossy plastic dragon standing sentry at the entrance. The place bustled, the dinner shift in full swing. After several requests got lost in translation, the hostess sent Evan up the chain of command, pointing him to the kitchen. The inexplicably Japanese owner, busy orchestrating a massive take-out order, waved him up a back flight of stairs.

  Evan knocked on the flimsy door at the top. A chain rustled, and a moment later Andre’s face appeared at the gap. His features contracted.

  “How the hell’d you find me?”

  “Long story.”

  Andre’s eyes darted to look over Evan’s shoulder. “Your dumb ass was prob’ly followed here.”

  “I wasn’t followed.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I’d know.”

  Andre glared at him. “I told you to leave me alone.”

  “Look. I’m here. No point in putting this off. Let’s just sit down and talk.”

  “It’s a bad time.”

  Evan said, “No shit.”

  He held an unremitting gaze until Andre rolled his head back, cursed, and opened the door. When Evan stepped inside, the cooking aromas from the kitchen only intensified. He looked at the heating vents, and Andre nodded and said, “All day long I’m breathin’ egg foo yong up in here.”

  Unmade bed. Dirty clothes heaped on the floor. A folding closet raked open to reveal a few crooked shelves. Evan could have spread his arms and touched opposite walls. In the far corner, a hot plate, basin sink, card table, and single chair composed a woeful kitchenette. A bathroom the size of a coat closet.

  The only note of grace was a beautifully rendered sketch thumbtacked to the wall. Sofia gazing out with lifelike eyes, an openmouthed smile. She seemed happy to see whoever she was looking at. Even all these years later, Evan recognized Andre’s hand behind it.

  He imagined that the drawing was precisely how an estranged father would want to remember his daughter.

  Set before Sofia’s sketch on a chair, like an offering at an altar, was a bottle of drugstore rum.

  Unopened.

  Evan said, “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about none of your business.”

  Evan lifted the full bottle. Beneath, hidden from view, rested an Alcoholics Anonymous medallion. 1 MONTH. GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN, AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

  Andre kept his eyes lowered to the floor.

  Evan said, “Want me to pour this out?”

  “No.” Andre wiped his nose. And then, “Yeah.”

  Evan unscrewed the cap and glugged the cheap rum into the basin sink.

  He dropped the bottle into a mound of fast-food wrappers at the base of the bed and looked for somewhere to sit. The room stank of alcohol, unwashed clothes, and Chinese spices. The walls seemed to lean inward. It was hard to breathe.

  Andre picked at his nails, cleaning dirt from beneath them and flicking it onto the floor.

  Evan felt it again, that black fog of disgust that had choked up his chest when he’d sat across from Danny at the prison. He felt that same urge to pull away, to scrape their shared history off himself, the primordial sludge from which he’d emerged.

  Andre said, “I didn’t always live like this.”

  “Okay.”

  Andre bustled around, tidying up, which really only meant moving items from one crowded surface to another. “This is just temporary.”

  “Okay.”

  Beneath the bed a sheaf of sketches lay half visible. Andre crouched and gathered them up lovingly. “I’m better than this.”

  “I know.”

  He rose sharply. “No you don’t. I can see it in your eyes. I’m used to folks lookin’ at me that way.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The question put Andre back on his heels. “I dunno. Where we came from. No money. My race or whatever.”

  “Or whatever?”

  “Who knows what I am? Some kinda mutt. I’m earth-colored and beautiful. That’s what I am.”

  “Okay.”

  “And we wear it.” He slapped his chest with an open palm. “White boys like you don’t get it. You can outgrow your shitty upbringing. Can’t outgrow your skin. We wear it when we get pulled over and some asshole cop wants to break our balls. You don’t know shit. How hard it is to get from nothing to something. How sixty-five dollars can be the end of you.”

  “Sixty-five dollars?” Evan said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Christ, nothing.” Andre swiped his hand across the back of his neck, aggravated. “How much you got in your pockets?”

  Evan said, “I don’t know.”

  “Count.”

  Evan pulled out his folded bills, freed the money clip, and counted. “Three hundred eighty dollars.”

  “See.” Andre gestured at a yellow zippered pouch by his pillow. “Seventy-three dollars, twenty-two cents. That’s all I have in the world.”

  “I don’t understand what conversation we’re having.”

  “Course you don’t. That’s what I’m saying. Someone like you can’t understand someone like me.”

  “There’s nothing more dangerous than thinking you’re a victim.”

  Andre snorted. “Ain’t that some shit. How ’bout the people who want to kill my ass? They more dangerous’n me?”

  “They think they’re victims, too,” Evan said. “That’s where it gets you.”

  “Listen to your judgmental ass.”

  “Without judgment,” Evan said, “we’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “I don’t need you.” Andre jabbed a finger at him, a threat of violence underscoring the gesture. “The hell you do anyhow? You some kinda what? Social worker?”

  “I don’t do anything,” Evan said. “I’m retired.”

  “Right. You’re here ’cuz of Ms. LeGrande. Working a charity case. Like you know a damn thing about what I’m into.”

  “I know Jake Hargreave was murdered that night at the impound lot. I know something materialized out of thin air to open his throat. I know that two well-dressed siblings, Declan and Queenie Gentner, were behind it. I know very powerful people are looking for you. I know you’re not safe anywhere you go.”

  Andre’s eyes bulged, bloodshot squiggles showing in the sclera. Unguarded, stunned—a flicker of the face Evan recalled from childhood. Andre rested a quavering hand on the mattress and lowered himself to sit. Head bowed, cords of his neck pronounced, breathing. His voice much softer. “What else you know?”

  Evan told him the rest, from his trip to Buenos Aires to the Hellfire blowing up the house.

  Recalling all those field trips Andre had taken as a young man in search of his parents, Evan did not divulge his own relationship to Veronica. And he honored Veronica’s request, leaving out the part about Andre’s disturbing provenance.

  When he finished, Andre said nothing.

  Evan asked, “What don’t I know?”

  Andre filled him in on some remaining details—the visit by the Gentners, the fake U.S. Marshals phone number, how he’d watched from the darkness as Jake Hargreave bled out.

  Evan said, “Have you been back to the impound lot?”

  “Nope.”

  “Still have the keys?”

  Andre flicked his chin at a plastic hook on the wall where his key chain dangled.

  Evan checked the watch fob dangling from his belt loop. “The lot closes in an hour and a half. Once it’s empty, I’ll go look around.”

  Andre popped up and snatched the keys from their hook. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  “You think I’m just gonna wait around here? Hail no.” He scrambled to tug on his shoes. “This is my life. You want to help me? Then help me. But you ain’t taking over.”

  “Andre. No way.”
>
  “You said it yourself. I’m not safe anywhere I go. Might as well be with your white-knighting ass.” He finished lacing up, his knuckles brushing the empty bottle of rum. He picked it up. Sniffed it, eyes closed. Hearing the siren song. He seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped the bottle again. “I need to go to a meeting. Or I gotta call my sponsor.”

  “You’re not calling anyone,” Evan said. “Zero contact. You’ll put us both at risk. Understand?”

  Andre smiled. “So that means I’m going with you?”

  31

  Chasing Good

  Evan parked in the precise spot across from the impound lot where Declan and Queenie Gentner had positioned their Corvette as they’d lain in wait for Jake Hargreave, a good distance back from the surveillance-camera scope of the First Union Bank’s ATM. Though it wasn’t yet six o’clock, the sky was nearing full dark, December early twilight crowding ever earlier. This stretch of downtown, mostly factories and plants, was already largely deserted.

  Through the facing chain-link, the wrecked vehicles slumbered in imperfect rows, strobing into view between streamers of low-lying fog. Evan kept the headlights and dome light off, the engine killed, his door cracked to prevent the windshield from fogging with his and Andre’s breath.

  “Why don’t you just roll down a window?” Andre asked.

  Because the laminate armor glass didn’t retract, and even if it did, there’d be nowhere for it to go given the Kevlar-plate reinforcements filling the door panels.

  “Broken,” Evan said.

  Andre shivered. “Fancy-ass truck like this, I’d figure you could afford to get that shit fixed.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  The kiosk was lit from within, illuminating a man in a Carhartt jacket chewing a pen and watching a tiny portable television that looked decades old. Evan checked his watch fob again. Ten minutes to closing.

  He retrieved a tube of superglue from the center console and spread a thin layer across his finger pads.

  “Why’re you doing that?” Andre asked.

  “Cover my prints.”

  “Shouldn’t I do that, too?”

  Evan looked at him. “You worked here. Your prints should be all over the place.”

  Andre said, “Good point.”

  A white Mazda drifted past and a few moments later a Tesla Model S with tinted windows. Evan noted the plates, watched them turn at the intersection ahead and vanish. He adjusted the side mirror to better capture the street behind them.

  Andre was at it again, prying dirt from beneath his fingernails.

  Evan grimaced. “Can you stop doing that?”

  Andre peered over at him. “Why?”

  “Because it’s gross. And you’re in my truck.”

  Andre blew an annoyed puff of breath through his lips. “You’re so fastidious. All anal retentive and shit. Even your hair’s fastidious.”

  “Big word.”

  “Says the guy with fastidious hair.” Andre shifted in his seat, enjoying himself now. “Is a little bit of dirt bothering you?” He waggled his dirty finger in the air. “How ’bout this? Oh, no! Oops.” He wiped it on Evan’s thigh.

  Evan resisted the urge to administer a kenpo ridge hand strike to the bottom of Andre’s chin, shattering his jaw. Instead he shoved Andre’s arm away. “And you could use a shower. You smell like hot-and-sour soup.”

  Andre laughed. “Don’t I know it.” His eyes warmed. “Shit, Evan. There you are. For one second you’re almost like your old self. That little-ass kid always getting knocked around. But I’ll give you this. You always got back up.” He shook his head. “I used to be like that, too. I used to get up every time they knocked me down. Till I couldn’t no more.”

  “’Cuz of the booze?” Again there was the loose articulation, the street slang, coming out of Evan’s own mouth, catching him off guard.

  Andre shrugged. “When you’re young, you self-medicate and shit without knowing it. Just to feel better. Good times. Loosens you up. Why not? Then you get older, you do it with purpose. Try combinations. Rum and Xanax. Get pharmacological and shit. You start out chasing good but end up just trying to dull the bad. Till one day…”

  “What?”

  “You wake up with blood on you, don’t know from what or from who.” Andre rubbed at the scar over his eyebrow. “Had to get in the shower to find out it wasn’t mine. Didn’t know what I’d done till I’d done it. Looked in the mirror, saw a fuckup staring back. Husband in name. Father in name. But really? God’s truth? Just a fuckup.”

  Evan didn’t know what to say. Over at the kiosk, the worker had moved on to picking his nose with vigor. The fog crept and bloomed, turning the lot swampy.

  “We were all fuckups, weren’t we?” Andre said. “Kids no one wanted.”

  Evan thought about Andre’s mother looking down at him as a newborn, seeing the features of her rapist looking back. “Yeah.”

  “When you’re outside life, it’s hard to get in. Know what I mean?”

  Evan pictured Mia’s condo, candles and throw blankets, laundry and a stocked fridge, TV blaring cartoons, Peter fussing or cracking up, Mia sipping red wine and listening to Miles Davis.

  So much warmth. And color. Like looking through the aquarium glass at a wondrous new world.

  Evan said, “Not really.”

  “Like, ever watch some sports match you don’t understand? On one a’ them second-rate ESPNs—international or something? Like, I dunno, rugby. Or Australian football. It takes you out, right? All those people cheering, crying, chanting, like their lives depend on it, like they’ve been empty their entire lives and now they’re full, brimming with life, with triumph. And you’re outside, right? You don’t know this game. You don’t give a shit. But you envy them being so goddamned alive, for knowing what they care about and what they want and for trying to get at it. For being in it, man. And you’re just sitting there watching.” Andre’s voice grew hoarse. “When you’re like us, that’s how everything feels sometimes.”

  Evan caught the words before they came out. I’m not like you.

  Andre said, “You’re never jealous of folks like that? People who can just be … you know, happy.”

  “You think happiness is the point?”

  “Of what?”

  “Of life.”

  “Ain’t it?”

  Evan shrugged. “I don’t know if you can build anything on it.”

  “What do you build on, then?”

  “Responsibility,” Evan said. “Duty.”

  The air seeped through the cracked door, tightening Evan’s skin. He thought about the calm nights since he’d retired, sipping vodka at his kitchen counter in his climate-controlled penthouse. Then he thought about strolling through a mist-draped South American cemetery, tracking and being tracked, a police-force battalion waiting in the wings; the heat blast of a Hellfire missile putting him on the brink of disintegration, every cell screamingly alive; and the sensation filling him sitting here now on the razor’s edge of a mission, each step a high-wire act, lives hanging in the balance, danger coiling itself around him, fork-tongued whispering in his ear.

  One trajectory offered what he wanted. The other what he needed.

  He didn’t want to hold them up side by side in his mind, because then he’d have to admit which one spoke to his truest self.

  Over in the passenger seat, Andre was still musing. Evan checked the mirrors, the intersection ahead, the weight of the dilemma tugging at him.

  “Maybe happiness is overrated,” Evan said. “Freedom, too. Maybe the only way to get anywhere worth being is to pick up the heaviest thing you can carry. And carry it.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Is it?”

  “The heaviest thing to carry is family. A marriage. A kid. You ever try?” Andre glared at Evan, reading his silence. “What I thought. You don’t know how hard it is.”

  An edge of resentment rose inside Evan. It felt unfamiliar, toxic. “I know it was
too hard for you.”

  “Hell, man. You think it’ll be different, you’ll be different, but you’re not. Our honeymoon we went camping, up the hill, just me and Bri and her PMS. We fought from the beginning. Had fun, too. Then it was all one and not the other. Women all wind up the same.”

  “You mean the piece of them you know how to interact with is the same.”

  But Andre didn’t even hear him. “And you got no idea what it means to make a baby. People say it’s a miracle. Sure. But you see them, man. They have knuckles. You put your pinkie finger out and they grip it. And it’s just you, man. It’s just you. And what if you’re not up for it?”

  Evan thought about Veronica, buzzed and breezy on the wide Bel Air couch. My circumstances weren’t suited to it. His voice came hard. “You get up for it.”

  “I didn’t know how to be a father, man. I kept thinking, ‘What if she winds up like me?’” Andre wiped his mouth. “Shit, maybe the best thing I did was remove myself from the equation.”

  Evan pictured Sofia spying on his conversation with Brianna, the worried furrows in her brow, how desperately she wanted to know that her dad was okay.

  He said, “I doubt she sees it that way.”

  “I want to see her. I do. But I been afraid that I’m not … good enough.”

  “If you don’t do it, where will you be in five years?” Evan said. “Where will she be?”

  Andre’s eyes moistened. He shook his head. “All this talk ’bout responsibility, and you here running around in the shadows, won’t even say who you are.”

  “I didn’t say I was any good at responsibility.”

  Andre chuckled, the tension dissolving between them. He palmed the back of Evan’s neck affectionately. Evan had to force himself not to wipe off his skin.

  A Ford Explorer turned onto the street, headlights flaring the side mirror, but it lumbered by without incident.

  Andre exhaled, his breath fogging. “It’s freezing here. Can’t we turn on the motor, get some heat?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t want to signal that we’re in the truck.”

  “Signal to who?”

  “The people trying to kill you.”