The Drifter

by Nick Petrie

  “The Riverside Veterans’ Center,” she said. “How many of these cards do you have now?”

  “Three,” he said. “One from Jimmy’s belt compartment. One from behind Felix’s dresser. One that Lipsky gave me. And they all had the same phone number on the back. The same handwriting.”

  “And what does all this have to do with the man with the scars, and that money?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I’ll find out.”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” she said.

  —

  They climbed the steep, narrow steps to the apartment.

  Peter stood just inside the door, the static jolting his brainstem, while Dinah prowled the room from corner to corner, trying to capture the last faint traces of her murdered husband.

  She looked at the clean dishes neatly set out to dry, at the books arranged on their shelf, at the sagging chair where he had sat. She looked at the frayed rug and the cracked plaster walls and the narrow bed where he had slept. And the shell of anger and ferocity she had built slowly peeled away. What remained was utter sorrow.

  She sat carefully on the bed, put her face in her hands, and cried.

  Peter tried to make himself stand and watch. He had already cried for his dead friend. He knew how much it hurt. It still hurt.

  Finally he couldn’t help himself. He sat on the bed beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. She folded herself into him. He put his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest. Her shoulders heaved.

  She cried for her dead husband, and for doubting him.

  She cried because she had thrown him out, and because he had gone without a fight.

  She cried because she had believed he’d killed himself, and because he hadn’t.

  Her sobs were wrenching and violent, as if she could barely gather breath between them, as if something were dying, or being born.

  —

  After she was done, she wiped her eyes with a tissue taken from her shirtsleeve. She sighed and shook her head. “You got a lot more than you bargained for.”

  Peter didn’t say anything. She tilted her head then and looked at him sideways. “Peter,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how long has it been since you’ve showered?”

  Peter looked at his hands. “It’s been a few days,” he said. “I’ve been busy. That’s mostly the dog, by the way.” It was embarrassing to blame his own stink on Mingus.

  “Why have you been sleeping in your truck?”

  He didn’t want to explain it to her. “I’m not sleeping in my truck,” he said. “I’m sleeping in front of your house.”

  Her face held an expression he couldn’t decipher. Her voice was gentle. “Why are you sleeping in front of my house?”

  “To protect you,” he said. “Because Jimmy can’t.”

  There was a moment when neither of them said anything. He filled the silence. “I was planning to get a hotel room today,” he said. “To shower. But I didn’t have time. I need to do laundry, too.”

  The corners of her mouth twitched. She said, “If James were still alive, would you stay with him?”

  No, he thought. Because I can’t stay inside for more than twenty minutes before starting to scream. And I’m nearing my limit.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Well,” said Dinah, “this is his apartment. James wouldn’t mind. The rent is paid up, right? I think you should stay here. You can use his bathroom.”

  “Okay.” Peter nodded again. “I will.”

  “No,” Dinah said. “I mean right now. Really. Go take a shower.”

  She stood up and took Jimmy’s bathrobe from the hook by the door, and held it out. It was far too big. Peter took it anyway.

  —

  The bathroom was cold, and it felt odd to take his clothes off. Like he was removing his second skin. His protection. He was naked and Dinah was in the next room, behind the thin veneer of a hollow-core door. It was disturbing and exhilarating at the same time.

  But the water of the shower was delicious. It sluiced over his shoulders and down his back, as hot as it would go, relaxing the knotted muscles and driving the white static down to a hum. He felt his pores opening up, releasing the dirt and dried sweat and the smell of dog.

  He rubbed the ancient dried-out bar of soap on his chest, down his legs and the crack of his ass. He wanted to be clean. The noise of the falling water was loud in the cheap fiberglass shower stall. It sounded just like the shower his father had installed in the basement when Peter was a kid. The memory eased the static.

  He closed his eyes to wash his hair and stubbled beard with the cheap shampoo. He wanted to sit on the floor and wash his feet, between his toes. He wanted to lean back and fall asleep in there.

  He couldn’t help wondering what Dinah was doing in the other room.

  He wondered if she thought about him, too.

  Peter was not proud of himself.

  But that wasn’t the same as being able to stop himself.

  He imagined her stepping into the bathroom and standing on the other side of the shower curtain. The water coming down, the steam rising.

  He imagined her slipping out of her clothes. How she might part the shower curtain with her fingers and step inside. With him. Under the water.

  He imagined how she would look, the sheen of her skin, the water beading up. The slope of her breasts, the gentle mound of her belly. The softness of hair, the slickness between her legs.

  The taste of her lips.

  He imagined how he would pick her up. He would lift her legs and raise her up and set her slickness down on him. Gently at first, up and down. Up and down, again and again, the strength of his arms made for this, for nothing else, not made for war or fighting in the street, no, not anything else but this, only this.

  The heat in the water faded to cold. He opened his eyes. He must have nearly emptied the tank. The hot was gone.

  He stepped out of the shower and toweled off, put on Jimmy’s enormous bathrobe. His clothes were missing from the floor.

  When he opened the bathroom door, she was gone.

  His jeans were neatly folded on the bed, with his keys, wallet, and new phone. The folded shirt lay beside them.

  Atop the shirt was the picture he’d been carrying in his pocket.

  The picture of Jimmy.

  28

  The light was on at Lewis’s place. Walking to the door, Peter looked up at the security camera. The door opened before he got there.

  Lewis wore the same tilted smile, the world and its inhabitants a source of endless amusement. “You come to sign your ass up? Could make you some serious money. I know you need it.”

  “Come outside and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Man, what I want to come out there for? It fucking November in fucking Wisconsin.”

  “Put on a coat.”

  Lewis looked at Peter a little closer. “Why don’t you want to come in here? I know you ain’t scared of me.” The tilted smile grew wider and reached his eyes. “Oh, I get it. You don’t like to be inside. Maybe you had too many of those door-knocks over there. Little too much house-to-house.” He shook his head with genuine amusement. “This just get better and better. How bad?”

  Peter wasn’t going to talk about it. “Listen, how much would you make on this job you’ve got coming up?”

  Lewis let it go. “Anywhere from fifty to three-fifty. ’Less we get real lucky.”

  “And what are the odds you make nothing?”

  Lewis looked at him. As if to say, Man, who you think you talking to?

  “Come on,” said Peter. “If you don’t even know what the payday is, your intel is incomplete. What if there’s more resistance than you expect? Or some teller trips the silent alarm?”

  Lewis smiled at that, too. “Robbing banks is for chumps.�
�

  Peter smiled back. “Isn’t that where they keep the money?”

  “Oh, there money all over, you know where to look,” said Lewis. “I don’t steal from nobody in a position to call the police. Takes all the fun out of it. But I do need another body. Ray’s hurtin’ bad. You in for a share?”

  “I have a better idea. Let me buy you a beer and explain it to you.”

  “Have a beer right here.” Lewis angled his head at the bar next door. “Ain’t nobody listening.”

  “Outside is better,” said Peter. He turned to get in his truck. “Come on.”

  Lewis shook his head. “Ain’t riding in that damn antique,” he said. “I be right behind you.” The locks chirped on the Yukon.

  —

  Getting out at Kern Park off Humboldt, Lewis looked around at the empty parking area; the long, curving walkway; the big old trees looming skeletal and dark. He stood easily, unconcerned, the mountain lion ready for anything.

  “You not gonna try and shoot me, are you? This be a nice quiet place for it.”

  Peter took two beers out of the little cooler he kept behind his seat. “Not right now,” he said, popping the caps with the handle of his knife and handing Lewis a bottle. “Right now, I want to hire you.”

  Lewis raised his eyebrows and took a sip. Then tilted the bottle to look at the label. “This pretty good.”

  “Goose Island,” said Peter. “Chicago.”

  Lewis nodded. “First place,” he said, “I ain’t for hire.” He took another sip of beer. “Might discuss a limited partnership, though.”

  “Call it what you want,” said Peter. “I don’t care.”

  Lewis nodded again. “Tell me.”

  “It’s a little hard to explain,” said Peter. “But the pay is an eighty-twenty split after expenses. And it doesn’t count the money I found at Dinah’s, that’s hers regardless.”

  “Twenty percent ain’t enough for a guy with my résumé.”

  Peter snorted. “You don’t have a résumé. But your end is eighty. Twenty goes to Dinah and the boys.”

  Lewis drank more beer without expression. “So what’s your end?”

  “Jimmy,” said Peter. “I get the guy who killed Jimmy. And Dinah stays safe.”

  That was the most important part. Dinah. Dinah and the boys.

  Lewis pointed the bottle at him. “You an idealist. I don’t like idealists. They dangerous.”

  Peter shrugged. “Jimmy was my friend.”

  Lewis looked at him steadily. “You don’t want money?”

  “Past putting gas in that truck, I don’t much care. Most of what I want, money can’t buy.”

  Lewis watched Peter’s face for another moment. Then nodded. “How much is the payout?”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t know yet. So far, it’s all on spec. I have all these pieces, but I don’t know what they add up to. It already turned up serious money at Dinah’s. Maybe that’s all there is. But there could be more. A lot more.”

  “But I might be workin’ for nothin’.”

  Peter looked at him. He figured Lewis for a career criminal who made his living with his brain, his nerve, and a shotgun. The only paycheck Lewis had ever gotten was from his time in the Army, and that was for killing people. He’d probably never had a straight job in his life.

  Peter said, “Think of it as pro bono, with a possible upside. Good for your image. You can put it on your résumé.”

  Lewis snorted and stared out into the darkness of the park. But he didn’t say no.

  Peter let him think. The wind came up, whispering through the tree branches and underbrush. It carried the fermented smell of the river and the cold flavor of the coming winter. Beer always tasted better in the wind.

  Lewis turned to face him. His tilted smile wide. “What the hell,” he said. “I’m in. Where we start?”

  “Nothing heavy,” said Peter. “At least not yet. Right now, we need to find a guy. All I have is a license plate. You know any cops?”

  “I know a guy can run me a plate.”

  Peter told him the number. “I got a pen in the truck, you want to write it down.”

  “Don’t need to,” said Lewis.

  Peter nodded. He hadn’t needed to write it down, either.

  “It’s the Ford Excursion,” he said. “The guy with the scars.”

  “That same guy from outside Dinah’s house? Followed you to my place?”

  “Same guy. Black, late thirties to mid-forties. Big but not huge. Scars on his cheeks, here.” Peter put his fingers on his face. “Missing his right earlobe. Wears a Kangol cap and a black leather car coat, thinks he’s Samuel L. Jackson.”

  “That ain’t right, man. I’m Samuel L. Jackson.”

  “In your dreams. Anyway, the Ford’s all torn up on the driver’s side now. You might check the body shops.”

  “Why we want him?”

  “I think he’s the one who sent that kid to shoot me. And I think he’s probably an explosives guy.”

  Lewis raised his eyebrows. “And why the fuck is that?”

  “The scars, for one thing. And with the money under Dinah’s porch? I found four chunks of C-4.”

  The tilted smile got as wide as Peter had yet seen it. “This ain’t gonna be boring, I can tell already.”

  Peter clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s why I need a guy with your résumé.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So tell me the rest of it.”

  “Jimmy didn’t kill himself.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. I think Jimmy took the money and the C-4 and hid it under Dinah’s porch, and someone killed him for it. Made it look like suicide. Jimmy was looking for a young Marine gone missing. There’s our explosives guy with the scars. And also the head of a hedge fund, but I don’t know how he connects to anything.”

  “You just making this up as you go,” said Lewis.

  “Absolutely,” said Peter. “But the scarred man keeps showing up. Somebody already tried to kill me once. I’m getting closer. Maybe someone else will take a run at me and we’ll find a crack in this thing.”

  “You know that a seriously fucked-up thing to say, right?”

  “Like you’re so goddamn normal,” said Peter. “Anyway, I’m hoping you can find this guy with the scars. Maybe he can help us connect the dots.”

  —

  Peter went to the cooler for two more beers, then broached the next topic of conversation. “What about Nino and Ray? Are they gunning for me?”

  Lewis shook his head. “They won’t sign on to this thing, if that what you asking. Especially not for no pro fucking bono. But I don’t think you got anything to worry about. Neither one of them got an ass-whipping in five years of crime like they got from you the other night, and they still hurting. Ray’s balls are swollen up like grapefruit to hear him tell it, and Nino probably gonna need surgery on his trachea.”

  “I didn’t start that fight, remember.”

  “I know it, and they know it, too. Anyway, they not so bad off. They been making noises about getting out for a while, but now I think they serious. I made them too damn much money. Nino got his eye on some land up north, spend the rest of his days drinking beer and fishing. Ray going back to Tulsa, he got a girl down there.”

  “But not you,” said Peter.

  Lewis moved his shoulders. “My number a little bigger than theirs.”

  “I can’t see you retired,” said Peter. “What would you do? Buy some apartment buildings and collect the rent every month? Drink yourself to death?”

  Lewis looked off into the trees. “Build a house. On the water. In the islands.”

  “That’s a much bigger number.”

  “Well,” said Lewis. The tilted smile came back. “I got a new business partner. Just might win the jackpot.”
/>   The Man in the Black Canvas Chore Coat

  “You don’t want me in the basement?” said the tank truck driver, talking loud over the gravelly rattle of the big diesel. He had a bushy black beard that hung down over his oil-stained coveralls, and a green-and-gold-striped winter hat with the Packers G front and center.

  “The tank is fine,” said Midden. He stood on the parking strip in front of the house, illuminated by a single streetlight and the work lights of the tanker.

  “It’s a safety check,” said the driver, tapping his clipboard. “I gotta do it. To make sure your oil tank is sound. The company requires it once a year for all tanks, and for new customers I really gotta. It’s free.”

  Nothing is easy, thought Midden. “It’s a new tank,” he said. “We just had it installed.” He reached for his wallet and began counting out bills. “It’s two hundred gallons. I don’t need a receipt. What’s that, about a thousand bucks?”

  The driver shook his head. “Sorry, man. Company rules. We had a tank with a rusted bottom three years ago; the driver pumped eight hundred gallons into the basement. That house had to be torn down. Your money isn’t worth my job.” He turned to walk back to his tanker.

  Midden was very tired. “Please,” he said. “Hang on a minute. What will it take to make this work?”

  The man with the clipboard had one foot on the running board. “It takes me inspecting that fuel tank in your basement. I seen too many bad installs and rusted bottoms and cracked fuel lines to take any man’s word for it.” He looked through the pale glow of the streetlights at the dark house with the siding falling off, the yard littered with fallen roof shingles. “And I’m starting to wonder what you’re doing that you don’t want me down there.”

  Midden sighed. This was not the way he wanted this to go. He liked the guy. He liked the way the guy knew his job, the way he refused the money. Nobody refused the money. Plus Midden had never run the controls on one of those big tanker trucks. But he could figure it out.

  “Okay,” said Midden. “Tell you what. The basement’s a mess. We’re renovating, and there are some structural problems. We just want some heat so we can stay warm while we work. But why don’t you get your hose run, and I’ll make a path to the tank. Before you start pumping, I’ll walk you down for a look.”