Red Shirt

by A. J. Stewart

  “Nurlan wants to meet.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  I told the Dunbars that I had to go out, and I felt a darkness descend on the evening. Coach lost his verve. He knew it was something about Brett, even though I didn’t say so. I grabbed the coat from the kitchen and followed Nurlan’s man out into the night.

  He was driving a limo. It really wasn’t a town car. There were seats facing front and back in the rear, where I half expected to find Nurlan. But I didn’t. I was all alone in the back. The round man drove in silence. He got onto the Merritt and headed south, and as soon as he did, I knew where we were going.

  It is a truth universal that crime kingpins prefer to do their dealing after dark. It was like they were vampires or something. The warehouse in Stamford was all closed up. We parked right in front of the door and the round man unlocked it and held it open for me. I stepped into the same bland anteroom, and then he held open the next door and I walked into the warehouse proper. Computers were still whirring, but the roller door was closed. Despite that, it wasn’t warm enough to take off my jacket. Nurlan sat at the end of the table in a furry coat that reminded me of Russia, which made me think there were reasons why everyone kept mistaking him for one. I sat at the first chair along from him, so we looked at each other across the corner of the table.

  “Where is your friend.”

  “Who?”

  “The Italian.”

  “With his family, I assume. It’s nearly Thanksgiving.”

  “He does not live here.” He had an intonation that made every sentence sound like a statement even when I was pretty sure it was a question.

  “No, he lives in Florida.”

  “Why is he here.”

  “I told you, it’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Why is he in my business.”

  “That was an accident.”

  “Why is FBI involved.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, although I knew exactly why. I knew better than anyone. “My guess is that there are some improper dealings going on in Boston, with this project you were all so keen to get in on. I suspect politicians have been bribed. You’re familiar with bribes?”

  He either didn’t get the barb or he didn’t care.

  “I don’t want FBI.”

  “Guys in your line of work rarely do.”

  He said nothing for a while. He just looked at me, his drawn face giving nothing away. He looked like he had traveled a long road to get where he was, and that road hadn’t been all that pleasant to be on.

  “You shouldn’t have taken the girls,” I said.

  One of his eyes flickered. It might have been his version of a shrug.

  “They are home. It’s no problem.”

  Then I saw something in his eyes. Even the deadest of eyes reflect light, and I suddenly wondered why I was there. I wondered why exactly he had brought the girls home when he did. And then I knew. I had known all along. Don Mondavi had said he had a daughter, he had said it was a misunderstanding. He said he would make a call.

  He had called Nurlan directly.

  I wondered for a moment if these criminal chieftains had each other on speed dial, or if there was some kind of secret phone directory. I brushed those thoughts aside and focused on the now. Nurlan was confirming that the Italians were not involved because Don Mondavi had told him—maybe promised him—that they weren’t.

  So now it was over to me.

  “Forget Brett Pickering,” I said.

  “Forget? No.”

  “Yeah, you really want to do that.”

  “No.”

  “Let me tell you where things are at. Pickering is so screwed he’ll be lucky to own the trousers he’s wearing by the end of the week.”

  Nurlan opened his mouth to say something but sucked the words back in. He raised an eyebrow, which was actually a lowering of the other eyebrow, and then he waited.

  “Pickering is out of the Boston deal. The Irish screwed him over and used his Bahamas event to consummate deals behind his back. I guarantee you that. So if you’re thinking about getting into that market on his back, you picked the wrong pony.”

  The eyebrows now tilted down into a frown, which was not a pleasant look. Nurlan looked mean, like he might kill the messenger, so I kept moving along quickly.

  “I can get you your investment back, plus the vig.”

  “What is vig.”

  “You don’t say vig? Whatever. It’s interest that you’re owed. And you can probably get a little more than that, the way I see it.”

  “Go on.”

  “And I can do it so the FBI don’t even think about you. Any interest they have will be directed at people in Boston. Not you.”

  “What is plan.”

  “Pickering got nailed by these guys, so he’s going to lose it all. He could use his house to pay some of his debts, but that will take time, to find a buyer, process the paperwork. Unless he sells the house . . .”

  Nurlan said nothing.

  “. . . To you,” I said. “See, he has some equity in the house. If you buy it—legitimately—using one of the companies I’m sure you have, then the FBI will see nothing but a property transaction, even if they look, which they won’t because they are only interested in Boston.”

  “How do you know they are interested in Boston only.”

  “The FBI guy that came to see Pickering at his house? That guy was from the field office in Boston. That’s their focus, that’s where they are looking.”

  “I buy house, he still owes me money.”

  “That’s the thing. You’re only going to pay the cost of the mortgage on the house plus two-fifty cash. The equity is yours. You look into the values in New Canaan. You’ll see what the house is worth. You on-sell it next week you’ll make five to seven hundred thousand, or you could hold it for a year and clear a million. Property in that part of Connecticut isn’t getting cheaper. Or you could move in. It’s a great house. I’m sure the neighbors would love you.”

  He blinked and I could see him thinking it through. I got the feeling that he was seriously interested in the idea of moving in. I didn’t care. It wasn’t my neighborhood, and it wouldn’t be the Pickerings’ soon, either. Perhaps he was a really nice guy to live next to. He probably took pride in having the nicest lawn, and he seemed to do all his business in the dark, so the house would be quiet at night.

  “I pay mortgage, no more.”

  “Nah, see that won’t work. Pickering has debts, other than you, and those creditors are going to go to the FBI if they don’t get their money back. That’s going to give the feds reason to look at him, and because those creditors are here in Connecticut, it will take their eyes off Boston. They’ll start sniffing around. And I know you don’t want that. So that’s non-negotiable. It’s win-win, and I can see you’re a pragmatic guy. We do it this way, Pickering stays out of jail, which means he’ll keep his mouth shut, the FBI stays focused on Boston—and I know you want the guys up there to hurt—and you come out of it with up to a million dollars return for your five hundred invested. One hundred percent ROI. Hard to beat.”

  Nurlan sat impassively and looked me over. Perhaps he was trying to see if I was bluffing him in any way. He took his sweet time, and I just sat there, watching him look at me. It drifted into an uncomfortably long silence, and then finally he spoke.

  “Let me think on it.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Good plan.”

  He didn’t move but I got the distinct impression that it was the end of the conversation. The round guy was standing by the door, and he opened it, so I got up and walked away. He led me back through the anteroom and opened the door. I felt the bitter cold before I got anywhere near outside. I stepped out into the darkness, and then I heard the thunk of the door close behind me. I turned to find I was alone.

  It seemed they weren’t offering me a ride home, which was pretty inhospitable given I was saving Nurlan’s bacon as much as Brett’s, and making him some seriou
s dough in the process. I was a good hour’s drive from New Haven, and in a dark warehouse district with no car. I could see the train station from where I stood. It was a local line, so I would have to go back to Stamford and then change to Metro North.

  I was standing there assessing my options when the first snowflake landed on my nose. I instinctively looked up, and saw random droplets of ice coming out of the darkness. It wasn’t exactly snowfall; there wasn’t enough of it, not yet. It was just enough to make my toes cold. I wondered what Danielle was doing. Sleeping, hopefully. Probably with the air-conditioning on.

  I flicked my collar up and started walking. Ice crystals had settled in my hair by the time I reached the station. There was nobody around. I wasn’t even sure if the train was still running. There was no sign of a timetable, and I was searching for one when headlights lit me up from behind. It was a taxicab, like a camel out of the Sahara. I asked the guy if he would take me to New Haven. He wasn’t keen. I gave him fifty bucks and told him I had another hundred for his trouble once we got there, and he changed his tune.

  By the time I got back to New Haven, the Dunbar house was dark. I gave the driver the hundred and wished him a happy Thanksgiving, and then I crept along the driveway and up into the room over the garage. I was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling when I heard the soft knock.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Are you decent?”

  “Is that you, Coach?”

  “Yes, son.”

  I flopped off the bed and opened the door. Coach Dunbar was standing at the top of the stairs in another of his school branded warm-up jackets. He looked wide awake, as if he had been waiting for me.

  “It’s late,” I said. “Come in.”

  He stepped inside slowly, as if it was my house rather than his, or he expected me to have company. I offered him the chair by the desk and he pulled out two beers from his jacket pockets before sitting down.

  “Would you like one?” he asked.

  “I’d love one.” I took a beer and sat down on the bed. I was overcome by the idea that the two of us had never sat together in this room, that the two of us had never shared a beer together. I opened my beer and held it out for Coach to tap his against. He did, before taking a long pull.

  “How are things, Coach?”

  He half grimaced and half smiled. “I can’t complain.”

  I sipped my beer. “Is that it?”

  “Did I tell you I’m glad you’re here?”

  “More or less.”

  “I know Jennifer’s over the moon having you home. She misses you. You and Kerry.”

  “I miss Mrs. D, too. But I’m more worried about you.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about me.”

  Ever the martyr.

  “How’s retirement treating you?”

  “Honestly, Son, I spend a lot of time in front of the TV.”

  “I take it you’re not watching film.”

  He snorted. “No. I watched enough film to last a lifetime.”

  He looked at his beer bottle like it contained the elixir of life, and then took another sip. I watched him. I knew he was in pain, and I was doing all I could to fix that, but ultimately, as a famous man in a big hat once said, folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. I thought about what Coach would have said to me in this situation. I thought about what Lenny would have said. I realize that it was the same speech, and I got the odd sensation that it was time for the student to act like the master, even if he didn’t feel like one.

  “So what’s the plan, Coach,” I said. “It’s the fourth quarter, time to push hard for the win, or to give in and quit. And you never grabbed me as a quitter.”

  “I’m at a loose end, Son.”

  “This isn’t about Brett, or the money, is it? Not really. Your problem is, you’re a man who always had a plan, and you went into retirement—into the final quarter—without one. You don’t know what to do with yourself.”

  The face I saw was unfamiliar to me. Coach was always the man with the plan. He wasn’t always right, but he was always sure. At times, he filled us with hope when we really shouldn’t have had any. But now he looked like a man without the answers. But I had a sneaky feeling it wasn’t about answers. It was about questions.

  “Coach, don’t beat yourself up. Retirement sneaks up on a lot of people. Hell, pretty much everyone I know in Florida who is of that age refuses to do it. Some of them quit their job, or their job quits them, but they don’t stop. My business partner wastes his days keeping me or a local yacht afloat. Another buddy runs a marina when he could be kicking back. Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you spent so long thinking about what you were doing before, you haven’t given yourself a chance to think about what to do next.”

  He was nodding to himself, but he said nothing.

  “Ask yourself what you and Mrs. D want to do now. You want to learn the piano? Go and learn. And don’t use I’m too old as excuse. It’s no excuse for anything.”

  He looked at me. “Why would I learn the piano?”

  “It’s an example, Coach. You have time to do things, but too much time can be wasted time. You can’t wander around without a game plan and expect to win. You need to sit down with Mrs. D, and you need to ask the questions. Then make a plan. Then execute, damn it.”

  I took a sip of my beer. I was having a hard time believing that I was talking to Coach Dunbar like this. This was a man who accepted no backchat—except, apparently, when he did.

  “I let Jennifer down,” he said. “She had plans. It was her turn. And I busted the coverage, I misread the play. I should never have given that money to Brett.”

  “Coach, you didn’t know. This is his doing, not yours.”

  “It was my responsibility.”

  “No, Coach. You’re not a money guy. It was his responsibility.”

  Coach shook his head and took a deep breath.

  “He was a good boy. He really was. I thought he would become a good man. I let him down, too.”

  “Coach, come on, cut yourself a break. You weren’t his dad. He has one of those. And Brett is responsible for his choices as a man, not you. I had dinner with a few of the boys the other night, down at the lobster pound.”

  He glanced at me like he knew it, which he did.

  “There were a lot of guys there who were thanking you for who they had become.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Those boys did good all on their own.”

  “Yeah, they did. But you played a part. It was just a part. For some, it was a little part. You taught them how to tackle or throw or maybe a few life lessons about being a better person. For others, like me? You played a huge part. Honestly, Coach, I’m the one who should feel bad. I’m sitting here in the room that you let me sleep in, drinking your beer, and it occurs to me at this moment that I never said thank you.”

  Now it was my turn to shake my head. It was true. I had never thanked him. Maybe sons never do thank their fathers, even the de facto ones. Maybe that’s the way it works. We pass on our thanks by teaching the next generation. I didn’t know. I didn’t have a next generation.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” said Coach.

  “You know what, Coach. I do. I should have done it a long time ago. Because you touched a lot of lives in a positive way, none less than mine, and yet here you are, blaming yourself for one guy’s mistake. A mistake that isn’t yours.”

  “I just expected better from my boys.”

  “I know, Coach. So did I. But we’ll make it right.”

  Now he looked me in eye. “Will you?”

  For the first time in our lives, here he was, depending on me, rather than the other way around. He had never let me down. Now I felt the weight of the burden shift and come to rest on my shoulders. And for the first time, I knew my pitcher’s shoulders were up to the job.

  “Yes, Coach. I will. We will.”

  He watched me for a moment, and then he looked at his beer, and then back at me.

/>   “I believe you. I really want Jennifer to get her time, you know?”

  “I know. But that’s just a thing you want to do for her. It’s not the rest of your life. You need to think that through, you need to talk to her about it. Trust me, she wants to talk about it with you.”

  He nodded and looked around the room. It hadn’t changed since I’d left, and I wondered if he ever came up here after I was gone.

  “We had some good times, didn’t we?” he asked.

  “We did. A lot of good times.”

  “You know I never really planned on being a football coach.”

  I smiled. I never planned on being a private investigator.

  “You were a good one. You never thought about going up to college level?”

  “Nah. A couple schools came by, after we got to state, but that wasn’t for me. My life was here. My boys and girls were here.” He smiled. “A lot of good times,” he said again, but his face didn’t look like he was thinking over the good times.

  “Can I ask you something, Coach?”

  “Of course, Son.”

  “What happened with Pete Masterson?”

  I thought the name might get a reaction or take the wind from his sails, but his face didn’t change. Maybe he was already there.

  “You heard about that?”

  “Fragments, rumors.”

  Coach sipped his beer. “Not my finest hour, Son. Not by a long shot. He was a cheeky kid, liked mouthing off. But kids like that come and go. You can usually work the backchat out of them. But not Pete. He’d do extra laps, do a hundred pushups, and then come back with more. I could take it when it was aimed at me, but the other coaches, they were mostly volunteers and it was disrespectful to them.”

  He looked at the floor and sipped his beer again and then continued. “The night of the state semis, he took to one of our assistant coaches, cussing at him for this and that. It got real personal and the coach told me he was leaving, that he didn’t have to listen to it, and he was right. So I told Pete he was benched. He was a good player, but it was high school football, not the Super Bowl. I benched him. He lost it, he took a swing.”