Bad News

by Linwood Barclay

  Her eyes went back to the overnight bag. ‘You’re going away?’

  ‘Uh,’ I said. ‘I was just throwing in a few things—’

  ‘Maybe that’s a good idea,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I mean, maybe we do need a bit of time. Apart, I mean.’

  ‘You see, I was actually—’

  ‘Where are you going to stay? Are you going to go back up to your father’s place? He might be happy to see you. You know, spend some time without all that other stuff hanging over you.’

  ‘Uh, no, I’m not going to see him.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Lawrence Jones would let you move in with him,’ Sarah said softly. ‘Even for the short term.’

  ‘No, I don’t imagine he would,’ I said, feeling a growing emptiness. My detective friend Lawrence, he liked his world well ordered. I would be a piece of paper not lining up with the edge of his desk.

  ‘Have you told the kids?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘The thing is, Sarah,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t actually leaving. I was just figuring to be away overnight, maybe two nights at the most, sorting out some things. But not actually leaving. But now maybe I should get a bigger suitcase, take a few extra things, if that’s what you’d like.’

  She started to speak, stopped, opened her mouth again, closed it. Finally, ‘I just figured, when I saw you packing …’

  I looked into Sarah’s eyes and said, ‘I would never leave you.’ I paused. ‘Unless you didn’t want me here.’

  Sarah broke eye contact, saw her watch on the bedside table. She went over, picked it up, slipped it over her wrist, concentrating on the task, making more out of it than she needed to. But it only takes so long to put on a watch. Finally she said, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to try to figure out what’s going on. I’m heading to Canborough, and then on to some place called Groverton.’

  ‘So you’re helping Trixie,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘And maybe not. All I want to do now is find out the truth. I’ve been suspended from work, handcuffed next to a corpse, and implicated in a murder. And’ – I shrugged – ‘now that I don’t have a job to go to, it’s important to keep busy.’

  She still wouldn’t look at me. ‘I used to laugh when the suggestion of you having an affair came up. The idea that someone like you, someone as nervous as you, someone whose emotions and anxieties are so close to the surface, could pull it off.’ She took a tissue from the box next to her bed and appeared to be dabbing at her eyes. ‘Now, I don’t know anymore.’

  ‘The lipstick,’ I said.

  Sarah froze, said nothing.

  I couldn’t tell her that I’d already explained this to Angie. ‘It was when I was handcuffed,’ I said. ‘Trixie gave me a kiss goodbye, before she ran off, with my car, leaving me there to be found by you. Maybe she thought it was the least she could do for the trouble she’d caused me.’

  I knew I wasn’t being totally honest here, at least not about how I had perceived Trixie’s kiss. It had seemed like more, on her part, than a simple kiss of apology, or goodbye.

  And I didn’t quite know what to make of that.

  ‘Everything started to go wrong when you decided we should move to Oakwood,’ Sarah said. ‘You got into that trouble, you met Trixie. If you’d never moved us out there, you never would have met her. And you wouldn’t be in this mess you’re in now, and I wouldn’t be heading in to my first day in the home section, having been humiliated in front of the entire newsroom.’

  There was that.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I can see how you might put it together that way. But I need to follow this through now. I can’t just sit here.’

  She turned around, her eyes red, her make-up smeared. ‘I think I liked it better when you were home, writing your books.’

  I nodded. ‘It’s when I’m allowed to go out into the world that I start getting into trouble,’ I conceded. I thought maybe she would laugh at that, but there was nothing. I took a breath, and asked, ‘Do you want me to pack a bigger bag?’

  Sarah bit her lip, looked out the window. She lowered her head, glanced at her watch, and said, ‘I’m going to be late for work.’ She sniffed. ‘One doesn’t like to be late the first day of a new job.’ She had to move right by me to get out of the room, and as she passed she reached out and touched my arm for just a moment. ‘Be careful,’ she said.

  I listened to her go down the stairs and out the door, then, feeling almost dizzy and with a lump in my throat, dropped onto the edge of the bed. She hadn’t told me to pack a bigger bag, but she hadn’t told me not to. I had to make this right. I had to climb back out of this hole, to—

  The phone rang.

  I glanced at the digital readout, didn’t recognize the number, and picked up. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Walker? Zack Walker?’

  I thought I knew the voice, but wasn’t sure. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry for calling you at home, but when I called the Metropolitan, they said you were on leave or something. But there was only one Z. Walker in the phone book, so I took a shot.’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Brian Sandler. From the city health department.’

  Sandler? I suddenly felt my guard go up. The last time we’d spoken, he’d implied any number of threats. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I – I need to talk to you.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I think I may have crossed some sort of line when I was talking to you yesterday. I think you might have taken what I said as a threat.’

  I wondered what sort of game he was playing here. ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I think I’m ready to talk. I need to tell someone what’s going on.’

  ‘Talk about what? What’s going on?’

  ‘I can’t talk to you about it on the phone. Could you meet me someplace?’

  I shoved a pair of rolled-up socks that I’d tossed onto the bed into my bag. ‘I’m heading out of town for a day or two,’ I said.

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Pretty soon.’

  ‘I could meet you in the next hour. You know Bayside Park?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. I hadn’t even picked up my rental car yet. I might have to grab a cab if I was going to meet him within the hour.

  ‘I’ll be in a blue Pontiac. In the parking lot that faces the lake.’

  I was curious, and thought, What the hell. ‘Okay. In an hour.’

  ‘Don’t bring anyone with you.’

  ‘What is this, Sandler? Are you setting me up for something?’

  ‘God no, just do it, okay?’

  I ran my hand across the bedspread, feeling the texture of it on my fingers. ‘An hour,’ I said, hung up, and instantly wondered whether I had done the right thing.

  What if this was some kind of trap? What if Sandler was setting me up for a meeting with Mrs Gorkin and her charming daughters? Maybe they planned to rearrange my face, fit me with concrete overshoes, or even worse, make me eat one of their burgers.

  Was it smart to go into something like this alone?

  I walked down the hall to my study, where, if I still wrote science fiction novels, I’d be writing them. It would be nice, I thought, to be doing that again. How much more relaxing it would be spending my days imagining encounters with multi-eyed, acid-spewing aliens than dealing with real-life thugs.

  I found my address book and opened it to J, found the phone number I was looking for, and dialed.

  ‘Jones,’ said a voice after the third ring.

  ‘Lawrence,’ I said.

  ‘Zack, I’ll be damned,’ said Lawrence. ‘How ya doin’?’

  ‘Well, I’m thinking that I might be in a situation where I’m in over my head.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lawrence. ‘There’s a surprise.’

  hidden text

  Of course, Gary denied having anything to do with Eldon’s death. Shocked, he was. Simply shocked. But Miranda was pretty good at
spotting liars. She’d had one for a father. When Gary said, ‘I can’t imagine what happened. How could he not see that train coming?’, it was just like when her father would say, ‘I was just tucking you in, sweetheart, don’t make a federal case out of it.’

  And there was what the police had told her. That the engineer, up in the cab of the diesel that took Eldon’s Toyota for its harrowing trip down the track, said he’d seen a pickup behind the car, that he could have sworn the truck rammed the car, shoved it right onto the tracks just before the impact.

  The police already suspected Gary’d had something to do with that other gang member whose Super Bee got pushed into the side of a moving train. So they figured this for a retaliation, a tit-for-tat kind of thing. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

  ‘That must be what happened, Candy,’ Gary said, when Miranda told him the theory the cops were working on. ‘A revenge thing. Although, still, it might have been an accident. You never know, right? Crazy shit happens sometimes.’

  ‘It’s just funny,’ Miranda said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. ‘Eldon dying just like that other guy.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Gary.

  The thing was, if the other gang had killed Eldon, why didn’t Gary want to launch some sort of counterattack? Even Payne and the others were puzzling over that one. ‘It’s time to be reasonable,’ Gary said. ‘We need to come to some sort of a whatchamacallit, an accommodation.’

  Accommodation my ass, Miranda thought.

  She could have gone to the cops with her suspicions. That detective, Cherry was his name, he’d been around asking questions, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. She could talk to him, tell him, Yeah, Gary did that other guy, but he did Eldon too, because he was getting too uppity, too big for his britches. Followed him around until he could do him the same way he did Grant Delmonico.

  She could have done that. She could have gone to the cops.

  But she decided not to. She decided on another course of action.

  The tough part would be pretending to get over it. Pretending to believe Gary’s version of events. Pretending to accept Gary’s argument that retaliation was not the wisest course of action.

  Pretending to go along.

  But you did what you had to do.

  So she kept on working at the Kickstart. Managing the money. The legit and the not so legit. Moving it here, moving it there.

  Moving it to a few new places.

  It wasn’t even all that difficult. Phony invoices worked best. You drew up a fake bill, you paid it. Except the fake company didn’t exactly have a bank account. But you did.

  Once she had enough, she’d be gone. Just wouldn’t come to work one day. She’d take Katie and off they’d go, with more than enough cash to start new lives, with new names, in a new location.

  She was doing it for Katie.

  This was no kind of world in which to raise a little girl. In a world full of drugs and strippers and hookers and bikers who shoved people into the front of trains. She was going to get out.

  And when she did, she was going to rip off this miserable fucker for everything she could.

  Except one night, before she had all that she needed, there was a problem. A situation that made it very difficult to go on pretending.

  It was after hours at the Kickstart. Katie was with the sitter. Miranda was counting receipts from the night, doing what she always did. And working some new financial magic, shaving off a bit of money into this account here, that account there. Gary, he couldn’t count his own fingers and toes if his life depended on it.

  They’re all in the upstairs office, Miranda at her computer, the guys sitting around drinking. The girls – not just the strippers and waitresses from downstairs, but the ones giving blowjobs upstairs as well – have all gone home.

  Eldridge and Zane, they’re drunk. Payne’s catching up. Gary’s there too, and his dimwitted friend Leo, the one he treats like a little brother. All a bit giddy. Made a lot of money tonight. There’s piles of cash on the tables. Some obscure Doobie Brothers song, ‘I Cheat the Hangman’, playing on the radio.

  Payne comes over and grabs her by the arm, pulls her out of the chair, starts dancing with her. She says, ‘No thanks, really,’ but then he’s got her pushed up against the wall, his mouth pressed up against her ear, saying, ‘It must be tough, huh, Candy? Eldon gone, no one to meet your needs,’ and then everyone’s hootin’ and hollerin’ and turning up the music and then she’s on the floor and she can’t stop them and they’re holding her down and someone says, ‘Whoa, remember these? Haven’t seen these since you were onstage, what the fuck we got you up here doing the books for?’ And they go one after the other, all except Leo, who’s off in the corner, sounds like maybe he’s whimpering, until finally Gary tells him to go downstairs, have a piece of pie or something. The Doobie Brothers sing, ‘The rain that fell upon my stone, Like tears you cry I shared alone.’

  Afterwards, they’re very quiet. Someone says maybe they should get Candy a cab.

  The next day, she doesn’t come to work. She hurts.

  The day after that, Gary comes by the apartment. She comes to the door holding Katie. He’s got a ‘Come Back to Work Soon!’ card he bought at the drugstore, and there’s cash in the envelope. It’s $110. This is the part Miranda can’t figure out. A hundred, maybe, but what’s the extra ten for?

  He says the guys are sorry, they got carried away, but they really need her back soon, you know? She’s so good and all. But if she wants, take an extra day. He won’t dock her pay or anything.

  And she goes back.

  And works with them.

  And pretends to get over it.

  Because she’s not done yet.

  Not by a long shot.

  SEVENTEEN

  I put my toiletries into my bag, zipped it up, and bounced down the stairs. I had a lot on my agenda. Grab a cab to meet Sandler of the health department, hit the car rental agency, drive to Canborough to see what I could learn there, then head further east to Groverton. I was doing a last-minute check. Cell phone? Check. A map? Check. The photo of Trixie from the Suburban? Check. A bit of cash? I checked my wallet. Forty-eight dollars. Check.

  I had a go for lift-off.

  I slung the strap of the bag over my shoulder, opened the front door to leave, and came face-to-face with Detective Flint.

  He had his fist suspended in midair, or mid-knock, and I guess we both surprised each other, taking half a step back.

  ‘Detective Flint,’ I said, catching my breath.

  He smiled kindly, lifted his fedora a tenth of an inch in greeting, and set it back on his head. I looked over his shoulder, and there, at the curb, was Trixie’s GF300. A man got out the driver’s side, walked halfway across the yard and tossed the keys to Flint, got into the passenger side of an unmarked car parked in front of it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re done with it,’ he said, tipping his head towards Trixie’s car. ‘Forensics went over it, didn’t find a thing. She took your wheels, so go ahead and use hers.’ He dangled the keys in front of me and I took them warily.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, pocketing them. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Don’t go thinking I made a special trip. I have more questions. First one being, you taking a trip?’ His eyes were on my overnight bag.

  ‘Uh, just an overnighter, I suspect,’ I said.

  ‘Little vacation?’

  ‘No, it’s for an assignment. An out-of-town assignment, a feature I’m doing,’ I said.

  Flint nodded. ‘You mind if I come in?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I said, admitting him to the house and tossing my bag onto the floor as we eased into the small living room at the front of the house. Flint, clearly a man of manners and breeding, took off his hat once inside, and held it in his right hand by the brim.

  ‘What sort of assignment?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘I
can’t really discuss assignments I might be working on for the paper, with the police. I’d have to speak to my editor about that.’

  ‘The reason I’m asking is, it’s my understanding that you’ve been suspended.’ He gave me that friendly smile again. I said nothing. ‘So I don’t understand how you could be going off to do an assignment for the paper if you’re not actually working for the paper at the moment.’

  I was starting to sweat. Flint didn’t even have me under the hot lights in an interrogation room yet. I was here in my own home, and I could feel beads of perspiration on my forehead. I could see how bad this looked. Found with a dead guy one day, discovered hitting the road with bag packed the next.

  ‘I talked to some people where you work – well, where you worked,’ Flint said. He tossed his hat onto the couch so that he could reach into his jacket for his notebook. He turned over a couple of pages, squinted to get a better look at his own handwriting. ‘You know a woman named Frieda, I think it is?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘She runs the housing section at the paper?’

  ‘Home,’ I said, without the exclamation mark. Flint would have wondered what was wrong with me had I shouted it at him.

  ‘You got moved there, according to Mr, hang on … Mr Magnuson?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Yeah, I had a little chat with him. You got moved out of your feature-writing job because of this difficulty with Mr Benson, the deceased, this business about trying to get him not to write about Ms Snelling.’

  ‘That was his interpretation. I never told him not to write about her.’

  ‘Yeah, well, unfortunately, it’s kind of hard to ask him about that at the moment.’ I felt a droplet of sweat run down my neck and under my shirt collar. ‘So,’ Flint continued, ‘you went to work for Frieda, and she said things didn’t work out very well there.’

  ‘Not really. But I didn’t have much of a chance to settle in.’

  ‘She told me you were upset about a lot of things, including your troubles with Mr Benson. She said, and just hang on a second here, I wrote this down. Okay, here it is. She said you referred to him as a “dipshit” reporter. Does that sound right?’