I call Leon, and as soon as he picks up, he bursts out, “Yo, this shit ain’t right!”
“You mean the addresses?” I ask.
“Yeah. They’re all the same,” he says. “They’re exactly the same at all three credit bureaus.”
That is a problem. Usually, one will say 13th St., with the digits “1” and “3” and the abbreviated “St.” Another will have “Thirteenth” and “Street” spelled out. One will be in all capitals, and one will have mixed upper case and lower case letters. But for this guy, they all match exactly.
“What do you think that’s about?” Leon asks.
“This kind of thing happens every now and then,” I say. “When someone gets careless.”
“Hey, I’m gonna put Bethany on. She got some info for you.”
Bethany says, “Hey Freddy. How’s Texas?”
“Hot. What’s up?”
“You saw those reports Leon pulled?”
“I saw them.”
“Well I put in some calls to libraries in Illinois and Iowa. Schaumberg, Oak Brook, Freeport, and Davenport. All the places Charles Johnston used to live. You know some libraries keep old phone books around?”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
“Well, the credit bureaus say Charles Johnston lived in Davenport, Iowa from 1998 to 2001, but the phone book says he didn’t. Not at the address they list. In the directories from 2001 to 2004, there’s no Charles Johnston listed at the Freeport address in the credit reports. None at the Oak Brook address from 2004 to 2009, and none at the Schaumberg address now.”
“All right, Beth.” I take the last sip of my coffee and push my empty plate away. “Thanks for the work.”
“What does it mean, Freddy?”
“Right now, it means I gotta go. I’ll check in later, OK?”
I leave a twenty on the table to cover the meal and tip, and then head out to the car. I’m back on the highway in a couple of minutes with the AC running. The sun is shining, and traffic is light, but I have a lot on my mind.
See, here’s the problem. You can make someone up in all the computers in the world, but you can’t go back and alter all the paper records from years ago that are spread all over the country. In the pretech world, it was impossible to completely cover your tracks.
So, how does a guy who doesn’t exist get a credit card? There are two ways. One, he goes into the Witness Protection Program. The government makes up a whole history for him, including a credit history. If they’re careless, they’ll submit the same data to all the credit bureaus. Then you get records that match exactly.
And the other way… Well, that’s the one that has me worried. I have a bad feeling Anna Brook has every reason to be as scared as she looked. She’s not going to come out of hiding. She can’t.
I leave the highway in a town called Temple, and pick up a couple of burner phones from Walmart and some cash from an ATM.
17
The final leg of the drive, from Temple to Dime Box, takes about an hour and a half. The candidates for governor are on the radio, and I’ve already had enough of them. I switch away from the news station just as a reporter is launching into a story about a major drug bust in Longview. I land on a country station, and the music goes well with the terrain.
This part of Texas is mostly flat, with open fields and farmhouses and occasional stands of trees. Travis Seldin’s white clapboard house sits a hundred feet off a two-lane road, behind a clump of trees and shrubs. You can just see the house from the end of the dirt and gravel driveway. It has a sagging wood porch in front and another clump of trees out back. There’s no truck in sight.
Maybe Travis is in town having a beer.
And maybe I better go talk to him first. Anna Brook didn’t like me watching her at the airport back in San Francisco. I don’t think she’d appreciate me walking in unannounced. And in this part of Texas, who doesn’t have a gun in their house? If Travis is easy to talk to, maybe I can get him to introduce me. She might feel less threatened if I show up with someone she knows. I continue on past the house toward town.
Dime Box is about what I expected. A few blocks long, a few blocks wide, and a few decades past its heyday, with old grain elevators and faded buildings of brick and wood. There’s a barbecue joint and a little market, and down the way, a bar called The Buckaroo with a white Ford F-150 parked in front. The tags match Seldin’s.
According to the background check, Seldin got his license back a year ago, after losing it in Mississippi for driving under the influence. He’s served a few stints in jail—thirty days for possession of marijuana, sixty for stealing live chickens (who the hell does that?), and ninety for possession of methamphetamine—but no hard prison time. He used to work as a welder but hasn’t had steady employment, other than drinking, for the past few years.
In his mug shots, he ages two full decades in the span of six years. He’s smiling in the first one. A good-looking, dark-haired guy with obvious charm. In the later photos, he looks tired and worn. Sometimes his hair is short, sometimes it’s long, but it’s always jet-black. When it’s long, he wears it pulled back into a braid, like the Indians in the photos of the Old West.
Before I go in, I plug my phone into my laptop and copy some photos from the Gate 76 folder.
The Buckaroo has a worn wood floor, a few small tables, and a wooden bar with ten stools. It smells of hamburger and French fry grease and spilled beer. If I knew country music, I could tell you whose song was playing when I walked in. Outside, it’s just getting dark. Inside, the place is lit with a purple hue from the red-and-blue neon signs behind the bar: Lone Star, Miller Lite, Budweiser.
There’s a young couple sitting at a table in back, leaning in close and talking. The four bearded guys at the table near the front are louder. Travis, with his braided black hair, is at the bar. He’s got his back to the tables, absently twisting his almost-empty beer glass in little circles and staring at the football highlights on TV. The bartender, a big-boned woman wearing jeans and a light brown ponytail, has a little bit of a paunch, like a man, and a face that looks like it might have been pretty before she wore it out.
At the bar I stand two stools down from Travis and ask for a Miller Lite. I don’t like light beer, but if I’m going to spend any time here and draw this guy into conversation, I’d better stick with the watery stuff.
As she slides me a beer, the bartender asks where I’m from. I say, “Washington, DC.”
Travis turns his head and gives me a sideways look. The creases in his weather-beaten face show he’s had some hard years. He’s slouching on his stool, but I know from his arrest photos he’s six feet tall. He has a medium build, a thin nose, black eyes, and a week or so of dark stubble on his chin. His loose, faded jeans are stained with black grease and white paint. The belt with the wallet chained to it doesn’t seem to be doing its job. I noticed when I came in he was showing an inch and a half of ass crack between the top of his pants and the bottom of his shirt. He wears black jackboots and a black Molly Hatchet t-shirt, and his arms have a few bare patches that haven’t been tattooed yet.
“I used to have a friend up in DC,” he says. “What brings you to Texas?”
“I’m looking for someone,” I say.
“Ain’t we all?” His eyes go back to the TV before I can answer.
“Cowboys blew ’em out, didn’t they?” I say.
“That’s what I kept telling everyone! The Eagles ain’t all that. I won three hundred and fifty on that game.” He raises his glass to the TV. “Picked the Cowboys by ten.”
He drinks the last ounce from his glass and adds, “People were laughing at me. They ain’t laughing now.”
“You want a beer?” I ask.
He eyes me with mock suspicion and says, “You ain’t a Redskins fan, are you?” His eyes are droopy and bloodshot.
“I’m not into football.”
“’Cause you know this is Cowboys country.”
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“Yeah, I know where I am.”
“Wait,” he says, “let me guess.” He gives me a quick look up and down. “You’re a wrestler. You look it, man. Big, strong, and all beat up.”
“I used to box,” I say.
“Is that right? Well, that’s a hell of a sport. Thing about boxing is, it’s all up to you.” He points a shaky finger in my face. “Ain’t no teammate gonna come in and pick up the slack when things go wrong. What’s it like when you’re getting the shit beat out of you?”
“It’s like getting the shit beat out of you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. And that ain’t no fun at all. You want a shot of Jack?”
“No thanks.”
He turns to the bartender and says, “Gimme a Lone Star and a couple shots of Jack.”
I said I didn’t want one. Did he not hear me? This guy’s already half crocked, and if he starts doing shots, he’ll be headed for oblivion. I better get to the point.
“Look, buddy, I’m looking for someone down here—”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“—and you might be able to help me.”
The bartender slides a pint of Lone Star into Travis’s waiting hand and then pulls two empty shot glasses from beneath the bar and turns to get the bottle of Jack.
“I’m looking for a woman,” I say.
“Well that’s the start of all troubles right there,” he says. “My daddy used to say if you go out looking for trouble you deserve to find it.”
The bartender pushes a shot to Travis and one to me. Travis picks up the glass, tilts it toward me as if to make a toast and then drinks it down.
“Took me a while to figure out my daddy was right,” he says. “Now that,” he points up at the TV, where the highlights show Dez Bryant burning a cornerback and a safety for a sixty-yard touchdown, “that’s how you juke a guy. He sent ’em in opposite directions. I used to wear that number in high school. Eighty-eight. You got Drew Pearson, Michael Irvin, Travis Seldin, and Dez Bryant. You know which one of them don’t fit in?”
He leans in and says in his just-between-you-and-me voice, “I’ll give you a hint. One of ’em ain’t black.” Then he slaps his knee and laughs like he just told the funniest joke in the world.
It takes him a few seconds to get a hold of himself again, and he doesn’t seem to care that I’m not laughing. Talking to drunks is my least favorite part of this job. It’s even worse than talking to lawyers.
“All right Travis, let me cut to the chase.”
He gives me a quick suspicious look. “How’d you know my name?”
“You just said it. You’re not Drew Pearson, Michael Irvin, or Dez Bryant. That leaves Travis Seldin.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Let me show you something.” I pull out my wallet and lay my PI license and my driver’s license on the bar.
His hand goes straight to his pocket, and he says, “You a cop?”
“Not a cop,” I say. “Private investigator. Read the license.”
He picks it up with his left hand and looks at it. His right hand stays on his pocket. Whatever’s in there is too small to be a gun. I have a guess as to what it is though. His background check turned up a lawsuit in which he was the plaintiff. He’s on disability from a shoulder injury. He got a payout, and probably a bunch of prescriptions. Whatever it is under his hand makes a rattling sound when he moves.
I say, “You got pills in your pocket, I don’t care.”
He lays the PI license back on the bar.
“I didn’t come here to mess with you,” I say. “I told you I’m looking for someone.”
“Sorry, bud,” he says. “Can’t help you.” He picks up the second shot and drinks it.
“She’s a friend of your wife,” I say. “Your late wife. I’m sorry about that. Sorry you lost her.”
That got to him. At least it looks like it opened the door a crack.
“Let me show you something,” I say. I pull out my phone and find the photo of Julia I copied from my computer before I came in here.
I give him the phone, and he looks at the image for a few seconds.
“That’s not the one I’m looking for,” I say. “That’s her sister.”
“Looks just like her,” he says.
“I know,” I say. He still seems like he’s on the fence, and he’s also too drunk to notice he just gave himself away. How would he know who Julia looks just like? “Her sister is worried.”
He looks up at me, still a little uncertain, so I throw one more jab at his conscience. “Anna Brook’s sister is worried.”
He lets out a long breath and says, “All right, buddy. If I can help…”
I take a guess, but I say it like I’m sure of it. “She’s at your house.”
Immediately, he’s defensive. “She ain’t coming out,” he says, shaking his head. “You ain’t gonna get her to leave. Hell, I wish she would. The woman’s unstable. I can’t even be in my own goddamn home.”
“Well I need to talk to her.”
“I wouldn’t try it,” he says. “She might shoot you. Or herself.” He picks up his beer with a shaky hand and drinks a third of it.
“I want you to take me to your house and introduce me. I can’t just walk in on her.”
“No, you can’t,” he says. “She’s running from someone.” He twists his beer glass in circles as the bartender clears out the empty shots. “And for all I know, it might be you.”
“It’s not me,” I say. “I already know where she is. If I wanted to get her, I’d have gone to the house and got her alone. I wouldn’t have come here and found you.”
“Hey Kendra,” he says to the bartender. “Another shot.”
“You don’t need any more to drink.”
“Don’t tell me what I need,” he says. “Fact is, right now you need me.”
“I need you standing and talking. The way you’re going with the booze—”
“I can’t leave yet anyway.”
“Why not?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Can it wait?”
“No,” he says. And his hand goes back to his pocket.
The bartender looks at the two of us as she pours him another shot.
“Someone coming to buy those pills in your pocket?”
Travis eyes me suspiciously, so I tell him again. “Look, I’m not a cop. I don’t care what you do with the pills. I just need to talk to Anna.”
“All right,” he says. Then to the bartender, “Another beer too. You want one?”
“No,” I say.
“Give him another,” he says to the bartender. Then to me, “We got forty-five minutes before this guy shows up. You can’t sit forty-five minutes at a bar and not drink.”
An hour and fifteen minutes later, we’re still waiting for some guy from a town called Snook who’s willing to pay $450 for a bottle of OxyContin.
Travis says he can’t take the pills himself, because they interfere with his drinking. “Shit nearly killed me one time. And I can’t take ’em back to the house, ’cause the girl holed up there is trying to kick the pills. She had it bad the first few days.”
I ask him to tell me about “the girl.”
“She showed up kinda rattled,” he says. “Said she needed sanctuary. That’s a funny word, ain’t it? Sounds religious. I tell you, after living with her for a week, I think asylum’s a better word, ’cause she’s about as close to the edge as a woman can get. Got me walking on eggshells ’cause I never know what’ll set her off. I try to stay out of there mostly. Hey, how’d you know I had a wife?”
“I talked to her mother.”
“That woman,” Travis says, shaking his head. “I don’t care for her and she don’t care for me. She don’t like the way I drink, but she’s just as bad as I am.”
He’s wobbling on his stool.
“We ain’t been together for a while now, Katie and me,�
�� he says. “And she died a few weeks ago. That’s part of what rattled Anna.” He drinks a few ounces of beer and adds, “That and being mixed up with some guy wasn’t treating her right.”
“Again, I’m sorry about Katie. She looked like a good person.”
He shrugs and makes an indifferent face—a drunk who can’t connect with his feelings. “Some people you just can’t help. I knew when she married me she didn’t have no judgment. Funny thing is, when we were married, we couldn’t get along unless we were both high. Then we split up, and we could talk on the phone stone sober for an hour at a time. I guess you go through enough hard times with someone, and if you don’t come out the other end hating each other, you’re friends for life. Don’t matter how much time goes by. You saw ’em through their lowest point, and they saw you through yours, and that’s a bond that don’t ever break.”
When I steer the conversation back to Anna, he tells me she’s gotten a little better since the first couple of days, when she was so anxious she was shaking and wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t leave the house, except with him, and only to the woods, where no one could see her. Travis walked her back there every day, three or four times, like a convalescent.
On the third day, he said, things started to turn. She slept more. She ate a little bit. She stopped shaking. She started walking in the woods on her own and she read the Bible she’d forced him to buy for her. She watched the news and sent him out for papers, but not just the local ones. She wanted the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He had to drive toward Austin or College Station for those. She underlined parts of the news stories and made notes. Same with the Bible. Lots of notes and underlining. She didn’t talk much, but she seemed to be thinking a lot. She could be calm for two hours at a time, and then she’d have a fit of panic. She’d shake and pace, and if he tried to talk to her, she’d snap at him.
“I want her out,” he says flatly. “Only she ain’t got nowhere to go. Woman don’t do nothing all day but read the news to get worked up and then read the Bible to get calmed down. You religious?”
“No,” I say. “I go to weddings and funerals. That’s about it for me and church.”
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