A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1)

by Iden, Matthew

  Julie stood in front of me, her eyes diving into mine. I looked back at her, then raised my hands to her shoulders and slid them up to her neck. I cupped her face. She said nothing. I leaned in and kissed her slowly. Her mouth parted. She tasted of smoke, which doesn't normally make my top five turn-ons, but the acrid sensation on my tongue had the opposite affect and my heart tripped into overdrive. We stripped the couch of all its pillows, leaving it shamefully bare, and in a minute so were we. I got up only to turn the lights off and then we made love in front of the fire and under the gaze of the city.

  . . .

  I wouldn't have won any awards.

  I was tired, worried, sick with a potentially fatal disease. My awareness of those problems curled in on itself and threatened to derail what confidence and energy I had. But Julie was gentle and patient and I think that was where the real lovemaking took place, not in the thunder and lightning of the act, but her acceptance--without pity--of my situation and the way we worked around it. We slept on the floor afterwards until the fire had died down into embers both cherry-sized and colored and the chill crept up over our shoulders like a blanket. Julie nudged me and we got up and stumbled to the bed and under the covers, where people over thirty are supposed to sleep.

  . . .

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke. Eyes open, lucid, wide awake. Not panicked or alarmed, though I must've stirred or made a sound, because Julie's arm reached out in her sleep, slid down my arm, wrapped around my waist. Her warmth joined mine. We stayed that way for long minutes, until I began dropping off again. My thoughts--cohesive a moment ago--fragmented, separated, drifted apart on a sleepy current. I thought about my life, which had seemed a lot like death until recently, and how meeting Amanda had changed it for the better in one way and how meeting Julie again had made it worth living in another. I fought to linger on that thought, to anchor it down and savor it, but it split and flowed through and around my mind, evaporating into nothingness.

  I slept.

  . . .

  A few hours later, the angry insect buzz of my phone woke me a third time. I eased out of bed and padded out to the living room where I'd left my pants, hoping to snag the call before it fell through. It was Kransky.

  "Singer, where are you?"

  "At Julie's," I said, hesitating. "We got back late."

  There was a pause, then, "It's that way, huh?"

  "It is," I said. "Any problems?"

  "Would it matter if I did?"

  "Not really."

  "Then why ask?"

  Something in his tone took my patience between finger and thumb, snapped it in half. "You call me with something important, Jim, or just to punch me in the nuts?"

  "I need to drop Amanda off with you or find another place for her. I got a call this morning from IAD. They want me in at eight and I don't know how long I'll be."

  "Internal?" I said, surprised. "What about?"

  "They're reviewing a case where I potted a meth dealer on a bust two years ago." He let the statement hang in the air.

  "Two years ago?"

  "Uh, huh."

  "Let me guess. The case was reviewed, you were cleared, and no one's mentioned it since then."

  "Pretty much."

  "Sounds like we poked the bear." I walked over to the window, looked out at a different, less romantic, view of Washington. It seemed scuzzy and brittle in the morning winter light. "Can you handle it?"

  "This is the warning shot, not the thumb screws. Someone's going to be checking my computer searches, logging phone calls, maybe tailing me. If it looks like I've gone off the reservation, they'll have the excuse they need."

  "Jim Ferrin has that much pull?"

  "Maybe not with everyone, not all the time. But he has enough to make life miserable."

  Decorative white molding framed the window. I traced one of its ridges with my thumbnail. "You know what I'm going to say next, right?"

  "Yeah. And I'm still in. I told you, I'd do whatever had to be done to make things right. But maybe next time don't kick me in the teeth when I ask about you and your new lady while I'm getting fucked by IAD," he said, then hung up.

  Julie had gone into the kitchen while I was talking and rummaged around until she found what she needed to make coffee and toast. I explained the situation to her while we ate and sipped coffee out of the anonymous white hotel mugs.

  "Where does that leave us?" she asked. Her face was pensive. She made connections quickly. "You said last night we could use Kransky to run Lawrence down, maybe even start a real investigation. If Kransky gets taken away, what do we have left?"

  "Jim Ferrin has influence, but he doesn't own the MPDC outright. If the worst he can do is ruin Kransky's day with a couple of meetings, then we'll be alright."

  "What if he can do more than that?"

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I don't know, Julie. Kransky's not the only guy in the MPDC I know. They can't all be on Jim Ferrin's bankroll. We'll have to play it by ear."

  She was quiet, then said, "Is Amanda coming here?"

  I winced. "I should've asked."

  She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. We're running out of options. I'll set up the office for her."

  I took a hot shower and dressed quickly, wanting to be downstairs to meet Kransky and escort Amanda into the building. The elevator whisked me to the first floor, where I walked the halls until I found the back door that led to the loading dock. Custodial staff glanced at me as I walked through the bay leading to the dock, but an air of authority and a frown go a long way sometimes. Once I hit the dock, I jogged down the steps to the alley in the back of the hotel. Dumpsters and delivery trucks were lined up in white-lined stalls. An eight-foot high cyclone fence topped with razor wire separated the hotel from the hillside behind it.

  The corner of the building gave me enough cover to case the parking lot. The morning was sharp with cold and overcast like a sheet had been thrown over everything, giving off that kind of ambient, soapy-gray light that makes eight o'clock look the same as four. I flexed my hands and wiggled my fingers to keep the cold away, but my new sensitivity made my stakeout even more miserable than it had been as a beat cop.

  Nothing jumped out at me. Traffic on 50 was vicious as usual, a thousand pissed-off people, one to a car, tailing each other into work. The parking lot was placid in comparison, with only two cars either pulling in or out the entire time. The second car was Kransky, this time in a blue station wagon. He took his time, circling the parking lot at a snail's pace, checking each car out as he passed. I stepped out from my hidey hole as they came near and let him see me. Kransky stopped, Amanda waved.

  They conferred, then she got out and opened the back door to grab her bag. I glanced over the parking lot, then leaned through the passenger's side window. Kransky looked at me with his bladed face. The only evidence of stress he showed at either the guard duty he'd pulled or the impending IAD investigation were light blue smudges under each eye. He probably hadn't slept in the last two or three days.

  "How are you going to play it at the hearing?" I asked.

  "Cool, calm, and collected," he said. "I don't want to give them any excuses to label me a hard case."

  "Call me when you're through. We need to huddle up on strategy."

  "You got it."

  "Thanks, Jim."

  A flicker of a smile crossed his face, then left, as though the current had been turned on by accident, then shut off. "You're welcome, partner."

  He took off and Amanda and I went inside. Her face wasn't closed, exactly, but she looked thoughtful on the ride up the elevator.

  "What's up?" I asked.

  She picked at the stitching on her jacket. "Jim told me what you found in Waynesboro."

  "Hard to swallow?"

  She nodded. "I'm feeling lost. Michael turns out to be dead. The bogeyman of half my life turns out to be nothing. This guy Ferrin…I don't even know who he is, but it turns out he's the one who wants to kill me. Then Jim g
ets a call this morning and he won't tell me what's happening, just mumbles something about people having connections, making life hard for us. What's going on, Marty?"

  I gave her the rundown I'd offered to Julie and intercepted many of the same questions. And, like Julie, she had the same kind of controlled dismay on her face.

  "Listen, I know it seems like we're starting over again, but we're not." I said. "We thought we knew who we were dealing with and we were wrong, which is why we were running into walls. Now we know who we're up against. Lawrence has connections. But so do we. I'll get on the horn with some friends of mine, guys in the department and the prosecutor's office who weren't any friends of Jim or Lawrence Ferrin. We'll nail them to the wall. You're not going to have to worry about any of them soon."

  She gave me a wan smile, trying to look reassured for my benefit, but it had been another pep talk. And we both knew it.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Once we got up to the apartment, Julie gave Amanda a hug and got her settled in. I camped out in the office and made some calls to find out what I could about Kransky's predicament, Jim Ferrin's current status in the world, and what--if anything--anyone knew about his son. But either the old man's reach was longer than I thought or there just wasn't anything to know, because no one had any answers for me. I sighed in disgust and went back out to the main room. The two were on opposite ends of the couch, talking. I looked in the refrigerator for something to drink but the inside of the thing was white, cold, and empty.

  "Since you've been with me for the last day and a half, I think I know the answer to this," I called to Julie, "but you don't have anything to drink do you?"

  She looked over. "I don't cook."

  "I...never mind," I said. "We still have drinks in the car, right? In the cooler?"

  She shot me a look.

  "Ah, of course we do. I'll be right back. Lock the door after me."

  They waved and I headed downstairs.

  . . .

  "You see Singer, yet?" Jackson said. "Or Jailbird?"

  Taylor held his phone in one hand, a pair of Zeiss binoculars in the other, scanning the parking lot across the street. He spoke without putting them down. "No. And if the old man hears you say Jailbird, he'll cut your balls off."

  "Sorry," Jackson said without a hint of apology. He was eating pistachios and Taylor could hear him cracking the shells over the phone. "I was referring to Target One, Sergeant Taylor."

  "Don't be an asshole. Okay, there's Singer. He just came out of the building."

  "He leaving?"

  A pause. "No. Looks like he's screwing around with the car. Anything on your end?"

  "Nothing."

  They held the line open while Taylor kept the binoculars locked on the parking lot. A minute passed, with nothing but the sounds of chewing filling the line.

  "Jackson, could you please put the phone down while you eat? You sound like a fucking cow."

  "Yes, SIR. Right away, sir--hey, hey."

  "You got something?"

  "Hell, yes. Target One pulling up to the loading dock, plain as day. White panel van, red logo on the side."

  Taylor tossed the binoculars on the passenger's seat and started the truck. "It's go time. Give me five, then drop the hammer on Jailbird. Let's get done with this shit."

  . . .

  I pulled out the cooler full of drinks that I could thank for starting my amorous romp with Julie, then looked around inside. My car was full of the crap that seems to accumulate on any trip: used tissues, crumpled up receipts, a soda can or two, gum wrappers. I put the cooler down and started scooping the garbage and shoving it in a bag. I wasn't much good as an investigator; the least I could do is keep my car clean.

  I was on my knees on the passenger side, trying to reach a plastic cup that was maddeningly out of reach when the whole car bucked and shook, accompanied by the scream of metal on metal. My head smacked against the bottom of the dash and stars shot across my vision, but I had my gun halfway out of the holster as I scrambled backwards and away from the car.

  An old GMC was half-in, half-out of the space next to mine. The part that was half-in was actually into the back fender of my car and had lifted it about eight inches off the ground. A guy hopped out of the GMC. Short, trim, close-cropped dark hair sprinkled with gray.

  "Shit, man," he said, looking at my fender. "Damn."

  I gave him a once over, then slid the gun back in its holster and came around to the other side. I stared at the side of my car. I was too amazed to say anything at first: I had driven almost three hundred miles the day before without getting hit by so much as a mosquito. I pull into a parking lot in Arlington and someone causes two thousand dollars worth of bodywork to my car. I looked at the monstrous truck.

  "What the hell?" I said. "I know that thing is big, but you weren't even close."

  The guy closed his door and bent down to look at the damage, hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. "Don't look too bad. You pull the fender out right there, bet you could still drive the thing. Here, let's give it a shot."

  "Hey, don't touch that," I said. "We have to call the insurance company."

  "Sorry, friend," the guy said, placid. It looked like his pulse had barely lifted a beat despite having pushed his bumper a foot into my car. "No insurance. I mean, I'm sorry and all, but you can drive it, right?"

  I took a closer look at the guy. He had sweat on his upper lip and smelled heavily of the kind of faux-aftershave body spray they sell cheap at the drugstore. The way he held himself, the set of his shoulders, looked familiar and bothered me. "You have any ID?"

  He looked surprised. "I'm not going to give you my license, man. I can pay cash, if you want. What do you say?"

  "I don't need cash," I said. "I need a name. And you're going to give it to me."

  "Fuck that," he said, looking angry. But with a trace of a smile at the same time. The arrogance, the overall look...something clicked. I reached for my gun.

  Things happened fast. I heard the deep-throated roar of a big engine from across the street and glanced over to see a blue Mustang rocket into the far side of the parking lot. In that second, a fist caught me on the side of the face, above the cheekbone. The guy was carrying brass knuckles, a roll of quarters, something. It felt like a bat wrapped in blanket. Which is to say, soft but not nearly soft enough. I bounced off the trunk of my car and slid to the ground. I could hear, but things were going black real fast.

  I felt, rather than heard, the slim figure crouch next to me. Lips moved close to my ear. "Name's Taylor, asshole."

  And then I was out.

  . . .

  He hadn't wanted to hit her, but there wasn't much time.

  He'd made the big GMC easily, squatting in the parking lot across the street like a tank. But his father would've sent more than one of his flunkies to handle the job. So there was a second car. Probably driven by the guy he'd spotted wandering around GW's campus trying to look like a student or a parent, but looking exactly like what he was: an ex-cop.

  So, with Amanda out cold, he put his gun on the older one, the lawyer. She, at least, cooperated, and both were wrapped like Christmas presents in under a minute. He drug them into the bedroom, then ran back out to the foyer, leaving the front door unlocked. Eyes darting, he scanned the little hall. There was a utility closet to one side of the elevator. The lock was stubborn, but he had the door open in a few seconds and ducked inside. The smell of bleach and orange-scented disinfectant filled his nose as he crouched in the dark, watching through a crack in the door. He heard and felt the rumbling of the shaft gears long before the elevator door opened.

  It was the clown from the campus, just like he'd thought, coming out of the elevator holding something in both hands like a gun, but smaller. A Taser. So, his father wanted him alive. He smiled and waited for the idiot to move into the apartment, then slipped his gun into its holster, pulled out a Benchmade folding knife, and followed. Might as well make this one quiet.

&nbs
p; . . .

  I came-to feeling like my head was split in half. Cinders and chunks of asphalt ground into my back, so I guessed I was still in the parking lot. One leg was bent underneath me and after a second I could tell I was under the bumper of my own car, so I hadn't been moved.

  Weak, I inched my way from underneath the car and unwound my leg from its pretzel shape. The motion made my head wobble painfully, too much, and I puked to the side. I groaned and pawed my way to my feet, using the bumper as a crutch.

  The GMC was gone. I held my watch up, trying to move my head as little as possible. Not twenty minutes had passed since I'd come down from Julie's rented condo. A couple quick pats on the way up told me what I didn't want to know. I groaned. Gun, wallet, and keys: all gone. I was dead in the water.

  Or maybe just dead, depending on what was waiting for me. I felt stupid and reckless, angry at myself for being taken in the parking lot so easily. I limped to the entrance of the apartment, trying not to panic. There was no one in the lobby and I hurried to the elevator.

  It opened at Julie's floor. I hurried across the foyer and listened at her door.

  Nothing.

  I pushed the door wide and saw nothing in the hall. I took a sniff, hoping not to smell cordite or something worse, then padded down the hall into the living room.

  Face-down on the carpet in front of the fireplace where Julie and I had made love just hours ago was a large man, a white guy in a black pea-coat. A full moon of blood was spread into the carpet beneath him, originating from his throat, which had been slashed. One arm was bent awkwardly under his body. I searched him quickly, keeping half an eye and ear out for someone coming out of the bedroom or office.

  The guy had a .38 stainless Smith and Wesson still in a shoulder rig, a speed-loader in a pocket of the windbreaker, fifty-four bucks in a wallet with no ID, and a cell phone. A handful of pistachios rattled around in the other pocket. I filched the money and the phone and felt a hell of a lot better with a gun in my hand. Wincing a little at the blood, I gave his face the once-over, but didn't recognize him at first. White, mid-forties, broad in the face and the gut. Then I thought about how the guy who had slugged me had looked familiar and some things clicked into place.