Closer Than You Know

by Brad Parks

She shuddered.

  “Anyhow, I’m done this time,” Wendy continued. “Seriously. No more drugs. No more booze. Not even weed. I get that if I don’t quit, I’m going to wind up being a statistic.”

  Teddy resumed the narrative. “So after we got talking, I showed her the picture.”

  “And I was immediately like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Slash!’” Wendy exclaimed.

  “Slash?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Wendy said. “I mean, that’s what people call him because of the scar and all. He’s this, I don’t know, drifter, I guess you’d say. He claims he paints houses for a living, but I’ve never seen him with a truck, or paintbrushes, or anything like that. He’s just another one of those guys you see around. When he’s not at the mission, he’s at the Hardee’s, or the bus stop near the Howard Johnson. So I asked Teddy if he had checked there.”

  “And I hadn’t,” Teddy said. “But that’s where we went next. We started asking around a little bit. We kind of kept it on the down-low. . . . I mean, I think people just thought we were looking for him to buy drugs, but whatever. Anyhow, this is where it gets kind of interesting, because apparently everyone down at the bus stop said Slash had some kind of big score recently. He doesn’t take the bus anymore.”

  “As of when?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s exactly the point. The word is he dropped out of sight about two weeks ago. He went from being normal old Slash, taking a bus out to this job he had, staying at the mission or at a boardinghouse when he had the money for it. And then all of a sudden, he was flush.”

  “Because someone paid him a bunch of money to plant drugs in my house,” I said.

  “That’s what we think,” Wendy said.

  “But you said you had a meeting with him?” I asked. “How’d you set up that?”

  “We kind of put the word out that we wanted to talk to him,” Teddy said. “We found a few people who knew him, and we said we were looking for him, that it was a business thing, and that we would be hanging out at Hardee’s around dinnertime if he wanted to find us.”

  “And that worked?” I asked.

  “Not the first few days,” Teddy said. “Monday and Tuesday we went there, and . . . nothing.”

  I thought back to Monday. I had shown up at Teddy’s place at maybe 5:15 or 5:20. That’s why I had just missed them. They were heading out to what they hoped was a rendezvous with Slash.

  “But then yesterday,” Wendy said, “one of his buddies came by and was like, ‘You looking for Slash?’ And we were like, ‘Yeah.’ And he was all, ‘What do you want with him?’ And we played it pretty cool and were like, ‘I guess he’ll have to come by and see.’ So this guy texted Slash and Slash texted back and said he’d meet us around five today.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall. It was quarter to five.

  THIRTY-SIX

  We piled into Teddy’s truck, the three of us sharing the front bench.

  On the way, we decided that since Slash was expecting only two people, not three, I needed to keep my distance. Also, compared to Teddy and Wendy—with their tattoos and piercings—I looked like a den mother, with my untorn jeans and uninked skin. Just the sight of me might cause him to spook and run.

  So it would be up to Teddy and Wendy to coax Slash’s real name out of him. They said they had some ideas how they might go about that.

  Once armed with a name, Mr. Honeywell could subpoena the man. Maybe he wouldn’t show up in court, and maybe if he did he’d lie under oath, sure. But merely being able to show a jury that the guy with the scar was a real person—likely one with a long criminal history—would be something.

  If Slash was too cagey to give us his name, which seemed likely, I could at least get some better pictures of him. I was going under the assumption Slash was known to local law enforcement. Maybe a friendly cop would help us out with a name.

  That was about as far as our planning got. As we neared the end of the short ride, I turned to Wendy and said, “Thank you, by the way. I really do appreciate your help.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  We left it at that. When we were two blocks from the restaurant, I had Teddy drop me off so we wouldn’t be seen getting out of the same vehicle. By the time I got to Hardee’s, Wendy and Teddy were already seated at a booth across the way from the counter.

  The establishment was otherwise empty, except for one elderly couple chewing their dinners in silence. I ordered a Thickburger, even though I was far too nervous to be hungry, then sat two booths away from my brother and sank my eyes into my phone.

  My burger was brought out to me a few minutes later. I nibbled at it. Five o’clock came and went. No one else entered the restaurant.

  Ten minutes went by. Then fifteen. Teddy’s legs were bouncing up and down. Another elderly couple came in. Then two kids with their father, who wandered by and leered at Wendy even as he pretended to be concerned with his children’s meal orders. He sat a few tables away, turned so he had a nice view of her.

  Nothing else of even minor consequence happened. I rechecked the same email I had already read three times, then perused headlines whose words I couldn’t even parse.

  The time slipped from 5:25 to 5:35. I couldn’t imagine men who went by the nickname “Slash” were especially worried about punctuality, but I was starting to think we had been stood up.

  Then, at 5:37, I felt a slight change in air pressure as the door behind me opened. I didn’t turn, because a woman lost in her phone wouldn’t notice someone walking in. But Teddy’s eyes had locked in on whoever had walked in.

  Then a man walked by me. Without moving my head or seeming to remove my attention from my screen, I shoved my eyes hard left. Slash was even more angular in real life than he was on camera. His face and arms were almost entirely devoid of fat.

  He was white, racially anyway. But his skin had the rawhide coloring of a man who spent most of his time outside. The only thing truly white on him was that scar, which looped over the top of his head from one ear to the other, like a set of very thin headphones worn too far forward. He stopped in front of Teddy and Wendy’s table.

  “Y’all looking for me?” he said, his Southern accent thick.

  “’Sup,” my brother said casually.

  “Wendy, right?” he said to her.

  “Yeah.”

  “We were at that thing at Cooch’s one time.”

  I had no idea who or what “Cooch’s” was. But I’m guessing Slash remembered Wendy a lot more than the other way around.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “That was epic.”

  “Have a seat,” Teddy said, cleverly switching over to Wendy’s side of the table. It meant Slash would have to sit facing me.

  Slash slid into the booth. With my camera app already loaded, I brought my phone up—while still acting like I was reading headlines—and tried to get a clean picture of him.

  It was impossible. Slash was too strung out. His movements were rapid, almost birdlike. In the span of a few seconds, he wiped his running nose with the back of his hand, cracked his neck, and brought his elbows up to the table. That last act hunched him far enough forward that his face was mostly blocked from my view by Teddy’s back. I lowered my phone so I wouldn’t seem suspicious.

  “So, I might have something I need done,” my brother said, sounding older than his twenty-three years, semi-muffling his voice in his hands.

  “Yeah? What’s that?” Slash asked, looking everywhere but at my brother.

  “I hear you’re good at getting people in trouble.”

  Slash’s head quick jerked left then right. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I paint houses.”

  “That woman on the news, I hear that was you, planting that stuff in her house.”

  Slash’s denial of this was laced with curse words.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” T
eddy said, playing it cool. “But let’s just say I wanted you to do the same thing to someone else.”

  Slash was now even more animated and agitated. He wiped his nose again. I still wasn’t trying to take his picture. It was too big a risk for too little chance at success.

  “You working for the cops or something?” he demanded. “You a snitch?”

  “Are you serious?” Teddy said.

  “Come on, Slash, you think I’d really be hanging out with someone like that?” Wendy said.

  “I think he could be, and you wouldn’t even know it,” Slash fumed. “They got snitches all over, you know.”

  Said the guy who would know.

  “I’m not working for the cops,” Teddy insisted. “I just got someone I need to eff up, that’s all.”

  “Then why don’t you do it yourself?” Slash asked.

  “Because I hear you do it right. Where’d you get that plumber’s van, anyway?”

  Slash got a little smile on his face and, for the first time, stopped moving quite so much. I quickly brought my phone back up like I was taking a selfie and tapped off five quick pictures.

  Then I brought my phone back down to look at the results. All of them missed. I got Teddy’s wide shoulders, the back of Wendy’s head. None had Slash’s face.

  “How you know about that?” Slash asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. I just know people.”

  “Lift up your shirt,” Slash said.

  “Huh?” Teddy said, confused.

  “I want to see if you’re wearing a wire.”

  “Whatever, man,” Teddy said and, without standing, brought the hem of his T-shirt up to his chin for a moment.

  “Let’s see your phone. You could be recording this.”

  Teddy fished it out of his pocket, tapped in his PIN, then handed it to Slash for inspection. While Slash was distracted, I brought my phone up, more brazenly this time, and took a few more pictures of him. But I worried all I was getting was the top of his head. It shouldn’t have been so difficult, getting a picture of someone who didn’t know they were being photographed, but I was starting to panic I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

  “Slash, he’s not working for the cops,” Wendy said.

  Slash ignored her. He sniffed loudly. “Yeah, well, I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but you couldn’t afford it anyway.”

  “How do you know?” Teddy asked.

  “Because if I did that sort of thing, and I don’t, I’d need at least five.”

  “Five?” Teddy said. “As in five thousand?”

  “You said it, not me. It’s that, and you supply the stuff. But I take ten percent of it as a thank-you.”

  “Okay, I hear you, I hear you. Damn,” Teddy said, looking at Wendy. “You think our friend will be able to make that happen?”

  “Maybe,” Wendy said, playing along. “He can get the product, but he’s going to want to do the Western Union thing. Send the money straight to Slash. No way he’s going to trust us with that much cash.”

  The Western Union thing? Where was Wendy going with that? I wasn’t going to be able to wire anyone money I didn’t have. Meanwhile, my angle for a picture had gotten worse. Teddy was blocking me again.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Teddy said.

  “Western Union?” Slash said. “I don’t know about that, man. I—”

  “No, no, it’s really easy,” Teddy said. “Our guy pays us this way all the time. He wires the money to Western Union. You can cash it out at the grocery store. You give them your name and your ID, they give you the money. What is your real name, anyway? I could have that money waiting for you there tomorrow.”

  Ah. Now I got it. Genius.

  Except Slash was now bouncing around again. “Naw, man. It’s cash or nothing.”

  “Our guy won’t do cash,” Teddy said.

  “This is some bull right here,” Slash said. “You’re just trying to mess me up. I paint houses. That’s it.”

  He slid out of the booth and stood. Now desperate, I brought my phone up, squared him in the camera’s frame, and started furiously jabbing at my screen. I was going to get as many shots as I could and hope one of them was decent.

  “Come on, man,” Teddy said. “Don’t be like that.”

  Slash wasn’t hearing it. He swore at my brother one more time, then started heading for the door.

  That put him on a path directly for my booth. This was my chance, my only one. He took one step toward me, then another.

  I had dropped any pretense at subtlety. I was firing as fast as I could, my finger a blur.

  As he passed directly by me, he looked down for a moment and I could almost see the curiosity crossing through his drugged brain.

  What’s she doing? Why is she aiming that thing at me?

  But ultimately, he couldn’t reach any solid conclusions about the random woman on her phone. His neurons were too jammed up with other stuff—with anger and suspicion at my brother, with the cocaine he had just taken and the cocaine he had done in the past.

  All he did was walk on by.

  * * *

  • • •

  As soon as he was out the door, Teddy and Wendy came over.

  “Nice try with the Western Union thing,” I said.

  “It was worth a shot,” Teddy said. “Did you get any good pictures?”

  I switched over to the photo gallery and started scrolling through them.

  And yes. Yes, I did. The ones as he got up and left the restaurant captured him perfectly—in focus, in the middle of the screen, and square-on.

  I handed the phone to Teddy. He smiled. “Good stuff,” he said, then showed it to Wendy.

  “Bingo,” she said.

  “I’m going to email these to my lawyer right now,” I said.

  I selected the best photo, then included a short narrative about our Hardee’s rendezvous. If a cop wouldn’t help Mr. Honeywell with an ID, someone would. Maybe another defense lawyer who had represented Slash in the past. Maybe a bail bondsman. Someone had to know Slash’s real name.

  Once I sent the best photo on its way, we squeezed ourselves back into Teddy’s truck.

  On our way home, we discussed what we had just heard. Slash’s employer had procured a half kilo of cocaine (plus fifty grams as an added bonus to an addict), created a fake decal for a van, then paid Slash $5,000 to break into my house and plant the drugs there.

  That employer—the person who wanted to separate Alex from me—had obviously gone through a lot of trouble and planning. And it was now clear, if it hadn’t been reasonable to conclude already, that it was a person with some financial resources.

  The first question was: Who?

  It was, obviously, someone who wanted a baby. But there had to be easier ways to go about getting one. Which led me to the question that really bewildered me: Why Alex?

  Had someone just randomly selected a healthy white baby boy and gone after him? Or was it because his mother was both well educated (and thus likely to pass her smarts on to her offspring) and poor (and thus unlikely to be able to put up much of a fight when she was framed)? Or was there something in particular about Alex this person prized?

  I didn’t have any answers, and neither did Teddy or Wendy.

  It was getting dark by the time we pulled back into my driveway, but I was surprised to see the lights of his truck glinting off a vehicle that was now parked there, a sedan I didn’t recognize.

  “Who’s that?” Teddy asked.

  “Beats me,” I said.

  We came to a stop. I hopped out of the truck.

  As I did, two people emerged from the car: a man from the driver’s side, a woman from the passenger’s side. They walked toward us.

  As soon as their faces became clear, I felt myself rock backward. I had to lea
n against the truck for support.

  They looked like the doppelgängers of two people I knew long ago, in another life. They were now older, their features thinned out and wrinkled, their movements creakier.

  But of course I recognized them. There are some faces you never forget, for however much you might like to.

  They just stood there for a moment, grinning awkwardly. I didn’t know whether to run away screaming, demand that they leave immediately, or have Teddy ram them with his truck.

  And then my mother said, “Hello, pumpkin. We’ve missed you so much.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  It’s difficult for a man to get his thoughts straight when he’s just done two lines of cocaine and he’s already itching for a third.

  What the hell was that all about? Slash wondered as he walked, head down, away from the Hardee’s.

  Then he asked himself: What if they really could come up with five grand? Should I go back?

  It was tempting, to be honest. The job he had done on that woman, the one who was now all over the paper, was pretty easy. There was the one night, when he stole her phone. And the man hiring him had told him exactly where he could find it. And then there was that next afternoon, breaking back into the place to plant the drugs.

  A few hours here and there for five grand and all that coke.

  What if it was that easy again? What if these people—smoking-hot Wendy and whoever that guy was—could really deliver?

  But no. Slash didn’t like the vibe. Why did they need his name? Why didn’t they just deal in cash like everyone else?

  He could practically smell the trap, and he wanted no part of it. He had been in jail before and he was not eager to go back. With all the time he had hanging over his head—suspended sentences and whatnot—all it would take was one slip-up.

  He wanted more money, yeah. He knew he was going quickly through what had once been a nice stack of hundred-dollar bills. But this payday wasn’t worth the risk.

  Worrying that Wendy and that guy might be watching him or trying to follow him, Slash got the brilliant-seeming idea to walk past the Howard Johnson, where he was staying, until he was out of sight. Then he doubled back around, entering from around the other side, and took the stairs up to Room 307.