The Way Home

by George Pelecanos

  “So those two men were here because of a card debt.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit,” said Flynn.

  The two of them sat there and drank. Flynn finished his and went to the fridge and got another. He caught a look from Chris as he retook his seat.

  “You should slow down,” said Chris. “You gotta drive home.”

  “Fuck that,” said Flynn. “I’m a grown man, and you sound like your mother.”

  Flynn took a long pull from his bottle.

  “I’m not comin in for a few days,” said Chris. “I need some time off.”

  “How you gonna pay your gambling debt if you don’t work? What about the vig? Isn’t that what you guys call it?”

  “There is no vig.”

  “On account of there’s no debt. ’Cause this card game thing is bullshit.”

  Chris chuckled. “You can’t let it go, can you?”

  “That’s all right,” said Flynn, his eyes a bit unfocused. He drank off more of his beer. “You’ll tell me the truth when you’re ready, I guess. I don’t wanna pressure you or nothin like that.”

  “Can I say something else?”

  “Go ’head.”

  “When I come back to work, I’m not wearing that polo shirt anymore. I’ll wear anything you want, but not that. Me and Ben, we never liked those things. They reminded us of our uniforms at the Ridge. Is that all right?”

  Flynn could not look at Chris. He said, “Yes, Chris. It’s fine.”

  Chris cleared his throat. “I’m…”

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking of taking a class or two, spring semester, over at Montgomery College. American history.”

  “That’s nice,” said Flynn. And because he was his father, he added, “What would you do with that?”

  “Just check it out and see what happens, I guess,” said Chris. “Maybe work toward a teaching degree. I dunno. Things are gettin kind of serious between Katherine and me. If I’m gonna be, you know, responsible for someone else… I’m sayin, I don’t want to be installing carpet all my life.”

  “I don’t want that for you, either.”

  “Anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  Flynn got up and went to the kitchenette and stood over its sink. He drank deeply of his beer, took a breath, and finished what was left. He placed the bottle along a row of empties on the counter and walked toward the front door.

  “I’m outta here, Chris.”

  “Dad?”

  Flynn stopped walking. “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for coming. When I called, I mean.”

  Flynn stared at Chris, his eyes sad and knowing. Now would be the time to say the words that needed to be said, but he could not. He waved and walked out the door.

  Chris stared at the bottle in his hand. He drank from it, his chest heavy with emotion.

  FLYNN STOOD at his bar cart and poured three fingers of Beam into a rocks glass. He sipped at the bourbon and felt it bite as Amanda came into the dining room. Her eyes traveled over him and flickered away.

  “I’m just having one before bed,” said Flynn.

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “What would Jesus have done, Amanda? If he’d had a son like ours, I mean. Do you think Jesus might have a drink once in a while, just to take the edge off?”

  Amanda hugged her arms. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I got there and whatever was going on was over. Chris says he’s in a little trouble over a gambling debt.”

  “Chris doesn’t gamble. Does he?”

  “No idea. But he’s lying about what went down tonight. Still lying to me, after everything we’ve been through.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason.”

  “He was mixed up with Ben on something. Ben was killed because of it, and Chris won’t tell me or anyone else what it’s about. That’s the reason, Manda. Chris fucked up again. He’s into something wrong.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And you’re blind. You always have been.”

  “At least I didn’t give up on him.”

  “Yes, you did. Call it nurturing if you want to put a sweet name to it, but to me, you just gave up. Because you stopped expecting anything from him. I never did.”

  “He’s our child.”

  “He’s a man. And I can’t accept what he is. I won’t.”

  “Give him a chance.”

  “I always have,” said Flynn. “And I’m not the only one. You remember that time he broke into those cars in the parking lot of that Tex-Mex place on Wisconsin?”

  “Tuco’s,” said Amanda. The owner of the restaurant had called them at home. His people had watched Chris do the crime on live camera. He’d been caught by a couple of employees and brought back into the kitchen. Her husband had told the owner he’d make restitution when he picked Chris up.

  “When I got there,” said Flynn, “I went up the stairs with these Mexicans, or whatever they were, to this little security room they had with video monitors in it, on the second floor. In the dining room of that restaurant the waitstaff was dressed in bright outfits, the music was festive, and everyone was smiling. Y’know, one of those happy ethnic eating experiences for white people in Ward Three. But up in that room these guys looked like some rough Spanish dudes who’d just had a well-to-do kid come to their business establishment and ruin that experience for their customers. I mean, these guys were hot. I had to beg them not to call the police. And I had to stand there with them and watch a tape of my son in that lot, looking around and hesitating before he made the decision to break into those cars. I was saying, ‘Don’t do it, Chris. Please, don’t do it.’ But he had already done it. I was watching a tape of something that had happened an hour earlier. Those Mexicans must have thought I was nuts.”

  “What difference does it make now?”

  “The point is, I gave him plenty of chances. The guy who owned the restaurant, he gave the kid a chance that day, too. Chris just kept on screwing up.”

  “That was ten years ago.”

  “Right.” Flynn swirled bourbon and looked into the glass. “You’ll be happy to know that he’s making plans, at least. Says he’s going to take a couple of classes at Montgomery College in the spring. And apparently he’s serious about Kate.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Amanda.

  “His blue area’s finally catching up to his green area.”

  “What?”

  “Reasoning and emotion. The limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. Remember Dr. Peterhead’s presentation on that easel? Chris’s brain is evening out. Now if he can only stop himself from stumbling. Refrain from those criminal impulses he’s got. I guess that’s a different area of the, the cortex.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “So?”

  “I’m going to bed.”

  Amanda left the dining room. Flynn listened to her footsteps ascend the stairs.

  “I’ll be up in a minute,” he shouted.

  There was no reply. He closed his eyes and drank.

  IN HIS apartment, Chris sat in the dark and drank another beer. He had been thinking on something the little man with the thick mustache had said. As the pieces began to connect in his head, murder came to his heart.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  CHRIS FLYNN sat at a window deuce with Mindy Kramer in Thai Feast. Their view was of several painters’ vans and pickups jumbled in a parking lot dominated by a green Dumpster. But neither of them was looking out the window. Before Mindy was her noodle special, a glass of water, iced coffee, and a full cup of chicken–lemon grass soup that had gone cold. Mindy was staring down at the table, her oversize sunglasses and BlackBerry neatly aligned beside the plates. Her hands were in her lap and her fingers were tightly entwined.

  Chris had ordered nothing and was drinking water. Mindy had agreed to meet him after hearing the malice in his voice during an early-morning phone call. She knew what this was going to be about. She wanted the conversation to take
place in public.

  “How did you know?” said Mindy. Her hair was heavily gelled and her makeup was as thick as a cardboard mask.

  “One of them called me Chris Carpet. It’s the same stupid name you bragged about giving me when you entered it into your phone.”

  “I meant you no disrespect. It was just a mnemonic device I used.”

  “And I got an anonymous call on my cell last Saturday night. The caller addressed me as Chris Carpet. So it all goes back to you.”

  Toi, the house waitress, came to the table and refilled Chris’s water glass. She looked at the untouched food and drink in front of Mindy.

  “You are not hungry today, Miss Kramer? Something wrong with the noodles? You don’t like?”

  “Everything’s fine,” said Mindy, making a short, impatient chopping motion with one hand.

  Toi smiled wanly and drifted to another table.

  “Why’d you give up my name?”

  “I was frightened,” said Mindy. “I thought they’d murder me if I didn’t give them a name. Can you understand that? I assumed that you and your partner—”

  “His name was Ben.”

  “I assumed that the two of you found the money and took it. I certainly knew nothing about its existence until the day those animals came into my life.”

  “You were wrong,” said Chris. “We didn’t take anything.”

  Mindy used her thumb to rub at the corner of one eye and smudged mascara onto the side of her face. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Tell me what they looked like.”

  Mindy ran a hand up and down the goose bumps on her bare arm. “A large man with one of those mustaches that curve down around the mouth. It looked like he had false teeth to me. He had a small tattoo on his hand. A four-leaf clover.”

  “And the other,” said Chris, his eyes losing their light.

  “Much smaller. Bushy mustache. An awful, ugly face.”

  “Their names?”

  “The big one called himself Ralph Cotter. He made the appointment and I wrote the name into my daybook. I don’t remember what the little one went by. Cotter wasn’t his real name. He told me as much.”

  “Any weapons?” said Chris, and Mindy looked at him quizzically. “You said you thought they were going to kill you. What would they have used?”

  “The little man had a knife.”

  “What kind of a knife?” said Chris.

  “He kept it in a sheath tied to his calf. It had a wood handle and teeth on the blade.”

  Chris mumbled something that she could not hear.

  “What?”

  “They killed my friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mindy.

  “He didn’t take their money. He never hurt anyone. He couldn’t.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Chris said nothing and drank water from his glass.

  “I have a daughter,” said Mindy Kramer. “Lisa’s about your age. She’s been… I don’t mind telling you, she’s been a disappointment to me. It’s not uncommon for a parent of my generation to feel that way, you know. We were so ambitious and hard-charging, and our children seem so, I don’t know, unconcerned with what they are going to achieve in life.” Mindy sipped her iced coffee and placed the glass gently on the table. “Lisa had two little girls. She’s no longer married to the father, and I don’t feel as if she’s equipped to handle the responsibility of motherhood. So I’m practically raising Michelle and Lauren myself.”

  “I’ve gotta get going,” said Chris.

  Mindy reached across the table, put her hand on top of Chris’s, and squeezed it. “They threatened my granddaughters. The big man said the little one would… he said the little man would cut their heads off. Do you understand what I went through that day?”

  Chris gently pulled his hand free from hers. “Don’t speak of this conversation to anyone. Ever. Not even if you get a sudden case of conscience. Especially not if you read something about these men in the paper or see it on the TV news. Don’t ever speak on this again.”

  “I won’t, Chris.”

  “And it’s Chris Flynn.”

  He got up out of his seat and walked from the restaurant. She watched him cross the parking lot to the white work van with the magnetic sign that read “Flynn’s Floors.” Realizing now that he was the owner’s son. She wondered if he was going to kill the men who had visited her and murdered his friend. She was not a violent person, but she found herself hoping that he would do just that.

  “You finished?” said Toi, reaching for the main dish of uneaten food. “You want me to box it up for you?”

  “No,” said Mindy, wiping a tear that had threatened to break from her eye. “Just get me the check.”

  Toi went back to the waitress station, smiling to herself, thinking of the tall blond man who had humbled the bitch and made her cry.

  SONNY WADE and Wayne Minors had moved out of the hotel in the badlands of the eastward strip of New York Avenue. In addition to the foreign tourists, who seemed shell-shocked to find themselves in such a place, the hotel was heavy with low-level criminals of various stripes, people drinking themselves to death, and one-night-stand women, both professional and amateur. Hence, a police car was often in the parking lot, either surveilling the premises or responding to a call. Sonny was aware that their old vehicle stood out, especially in Washington, where everyone, even those without the means, seemed to be driving late-model cars. Plus, their plates were certainly on the hot sheet now. It was not a good idea to stick around.

  Sonny and Wayne were uncomfortable in cities, and in this one they felt particularly out of place. It wasn’t just that they were among many blacks and Spanish. The white people made them feel different, too. Sonny and Wayne had been institutionalized for most of their lives, and they did not know how to dress, converse, or wear facial hair like straights. In an urban environment, they were socially inept.

  After checking out of the hotel, Sonny and Wayne drove down to the bus depot near Union Station. Sonny had suggested it, as he had always had luck making friends in those kinds of places. They were looking for girls of a certain type, and they had what was needed to make their acquaintance: cash and drugs.

  They had taken off a meth dealer at gun- and knifepoint in Wheeling, West Virginia, on the way to Washington, after they’d purchased the Mercury. Wayne enjoyed snorting the powder, and though Sonny did not partake, being a Jack-and-Coke man himself, he wanted his little friend to be happy. So they had gone to a bar to find a way to make a purchase. There they met a young dealer who had the distinct body odor and the pale, poorly complected look they were searching for, and when they followed him to his garden apartment to party and cop, they decided to relieve him of his money and premeasured, snow-sealed goods. Sonny ransacked the apartment while Wayne held his knife to the boy’s throat. The threat of murder made it easy. Sonny didn’t have to show the boy his tattoo.

  At the bus station, they found what they were looking for, a girl named Ashley and her friend Cheyenne. Sonny had spotted them first and pegged them as runaways, hookers, or both. Neither had baggage or a backpack, and he guessed they were doing the traditional bus depot hustle. He approached both girls and engaged Ashley in conversation, choosing her because of her generous bosoms, a feature that had always closed the deal for him. Her face was plain, but she was young, and she had a belly on her like many young women did these days, but he didn’t mind. While Sonny spoke to Ashley, Wayne stood back against a wall, tapping his foot nervously and head-shaking his long center-parted hair away from his face. Sonny waved him over. As Wayne neared the girls, the one named Cheyenne could not hide her look of revulsion, but she was no prize herself, bone skinny, dotted with acne, lank hair. Her features softened when Sonny mentioned the meth. Wayne added that it was “high-octane hillbilly coke” and didn’t burn “too awful goin up the nose.”

  Sonny and Ashley quickly negotiated a fee.

  “Let’s do it,” said Sonny. “Trouble is, W
ayne and me don’t have a place to throw no shindig.”

  “We know a spot,” said Ashley. “You studs got a car?”

  “A beauty,” said Sonny.

  Wayne, who figured himself a proper gentleman around the ladies, uncurled his fist and made a sweeping motion with his hand, as if he were pointing to a red carpet.

  “Ladies,” said Wayne. “After you.”

  On the way to their destination, they stopped at a liquor store for a big ball of Jack Daniel’s, a liter of Coke, multiple cases of Coors Light, and, because Wayne thought they’d like it, a package of wine coolers for the girls.

  * * *

  CHRIS PHONED Ali down at his office and asked for Lawrence Newhouse’s cell number.

  “I’m ready to talk to Lawrence,” said Chris. “I just wanna find out if he or Ben discussed the money with anyone. For my own peace of mind.”

  “Okay,” said Ali.

  Chris waited. “Well?”

  “I’m gettin it.”

  “There a problem?”

  “You sound different,” said Ali. “Your voice got that hard thing to it. The way it used to when you had the need to show the world how tough you were.”

  “I’m still broke up about Ben. That’s all.”

  “It’s more than that. You sound like you got purpose.”

  “Give me the number, Ali.”

  “Here it is.”

  Chris wrote it down. “Thanks.”

  “You gonna get up with Lawrence, maybe I oughta come with you.”

  “I’d rather see him alone.”

  “Y’all could meet right here in my office.”

  “I’ll hit you later,” said Chris. “Tell you how it went.”

  Chris ended the call. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he stared at his cell awhile as if he were deciding, but it was theatrical hesitation. He had already made the decision, and he punched Lawrence’s number into the grid.

  “Who is this?” said Lawrence Newhouse, his voice raspy and low.

  “Chris Flynn.”

  “What you want?”

  “I know who killed Ben.”

  After a long silence, Lawrence said, “Who was it?”

  “Two men. I met them last night.”