“We have a job of work,” said Hanshaw. He knew that the boy wouldn’t be able to hear him, but this was a ritual he performed to satisfy his sense that the world had become ridiculously and unmanageably barbaric during his lifetime. He repeated himself, louder, and struck the boy lightly on the thigh with the back of his hand. Jeramy’s eyes opened and he sat up abruptly, removing the headphones in the same motion.
“’Sup, Hanshaw?”
“We got work,” said Hanshaw.
“Kind of work?”
“Finding shit out about someone,” said Hanshaw.
They went out to Hanshaw’s truck.
“What’s in it for me?” said Jeramy.
“You get training wage,” said Hanshaw. He reached back and handed him the remaining Pepsis.
They drove into Cherry City and Hanshaw parked downtown on Front Street, across from a Starbucks. Jeramy was dozing beside him. Hanshaw reached out and slapped his thigh, twice, hard.
“The fuck?”
“Sleep when it’s your turn to drive. As usual.”
“Fuck, dawg. Why you got to wake a nigga up like dat?”
“You’re not a nigger,” said Hanshaw. “You’re going in there,” he pointed at the Starbucks, “and boosting a laptop.”
“Why I gotta go in there? Why not you?”
“Because,” Hanshaw said. “Because, first of all, I stand out.”
“Oh, you distinctive, like.” Jeramy made a mocking face.
“No. What I am is six-eight, is what I am. And the guy in there knows me.”
“He know you.”
Hanshaw rolled his eyes, partly at the locution. “It’s a small world out here, Jeramy.”
“So what I’ma do?”
“You’re going to go in there and order a coffee and wait until someone goes to the bathroom or something.”
“What for?”
“It’s part of finding shit out about someone. I want a computer I can toss so it can’t be traced.”
“I need money.”
Hanshaw gave him five dollars and the kid opened the door and got out. He crossed the street with a practiced hobbling gait, as if he were wearing a set of leg irons. Hanshaw watched him go. He thought it would be unnameably righteous if the kid could walk in there amid all the hiss and steam, the pale young people composing poems and screenplays while some singer with a dorm-room-tragic voice played over the sound system, and swipe one of their fancy machines. In Hanshaw’s youth the place had been a record shop; he remembered fondly the deep-space serenity of flipping through the bins at the rear of the store on yet another squandered afternoon. Five minutes later, Jeramy appeared in the street swinging a silver computer under one arm. He stepped off the curb and bounced on his toes until there was a break in the light traffic, then jogged over to the truck. He held up the laptop, displaying it exultantly, a goofy grin on his face.
TODAY
Mulligan leaned against the pickup, waiting while Kat called her friend. He had some questions. She paced, walking a serpentine path, occasionally glaring at a distant point overhead. The old man, Salteau, came out of his trailer, carrying something. He stood at the top of the steps and watched Kat for a moment. When he glanced Mulligan’s way, Mulligan raised his hand in a wave. Salteau ignored him.
When she was finished, Kat walked briskly over and got in behind the wheel.
“She get her TV yet?”
“Still waiting. But I don’t think she’s going to be able to help with this.”
“Help how? What does she have to do with this?”
“Forget it.”
They rode in silence for a while. Mulligan discreetly worked away with his right pinky at the inside of his right nostril. Every now and then Kat would throw a quick angry glance in his direction.
“What?”
“He’s gone.”
“Maybe we made a mistake.”
“Mistake.” Kat snorted. “That was the address he gave, you know? We got played.”
Mulligan found a tissue in the glove compartment and wiped the tip of his pinky. He held the used tissue gingerly, bundled in a wad, and glanced around the front seat.
“Conceal that on your person, please,” she said.
“Body’s got to eliminate it. Just like anything else.” He stuffed the tissue in his coat pocket. “What is a John Saltino, anyway?” he asked.
“A ghost,” said Kat. “Someone they invented to drive me crazy.”
“No, really.”
“Really,” she said.
They rode in silence for a while.
“Now what?” he said.
“Now I go back to Cherry City and think about whether I have a story or not.”
“Looks like maybe you’ve got a better story.”
“Oh, isn’t it just so intriguing,” she said sourly.
They rode in silence for a while.
“Is John Salteau really John Saltino?” said Mulligan. Kat didn’t answer. “Because he sure looks like that picture.”
“No,” said Kat, in a tone suggesting correction, “he looks like an eighty-three-year-old retiree.”
They rode in silence for a while.
“Do you think that the eighty-three-year-old knew something?” asked Mulligan.
“He knew everything. Salt of the earth. Font of wisdom. Respect your elders.”
“Because I’ve been right here, and I don’t know anything, as it turns out.”
“Who asked you?” said Kat. “Who said, ‘come,’ ‘do,’ ‘help,’ ‘be,’ ‘join’? Who said ‘want,’ ‘need,’ or even ‘like,’ for that matter?”
They rode in silence. After a while, Kat pulled over to the side of the road and opened her door.
“What?” said Mulligan.
“Chinese fire drill,” she said. “You drive.”
They got out to swap positions. Kat carefully brushed off the passenger seat before sitting in it. Mulligan said nothing.
“Saltino worked at Manitou Sands,” she said.
“The casino.” He steered onto the empty road.
“Yes. A little less than a year ago he disappeared without a trace at the same time as about four hundred fifty thousand dollars went missing.”
“Cops couldn’t find him?”
“The cops were not informed of the theft. The money involved officially doesn’t exist.”
“Casino stuff.”
“Casino stuff. How do I even know about all this? Becky, my friend, worked at the casino for a while and saw how the money was being manipulated. Saltino was key. He was in charge of removing the nonexistent cash and delivering it to wherever it ended up.”
“A bagman.”
“They hired him on as a ‘transfer pricing manager.’ ”
“What the hell is that?”
“My question exactly. Take my word for it, it doesn’t have anything to do with his job. He’s basically a thug. Guy’s been breaking heads since he was in junior high. Whole adult life in and out of prison kind of thing. He keeps track of the money, he takes the money, he makes sure the people who know about the money keep their mouths shut. And one day he takes off with it. Anyway, Becky spotted him a while ago. And guess what? He’s an Indian now. A traditional Ojibway storyteller, working his way around Michigan using the name John Salteau.”
“Salteau?”
“Yes, your big pal.”
A state police cruiser appeared abruptly from behind them, siren wailing, shooting past them in the opposing lane and veering back over the solid double line. It vanished in the distance within seconds.
“Why did you want me to meet your friend today?”
“Becky? Never mind.”
“Why never mind?”
Kat pushed her hair out of her face. “I thought you could help me.”
“Of course I’ll help you.”
“I mean something else.”
“I’m mystified.”
Kat thought for a moment. “I thought you could be helpful. I thought tha
t you could discover, quote unquote, the story, this story, by talking to Becky and then I could make you my primary source. I thought you’d be more of a hook than some Indian woman no one ever heard of. My editor’s trying to kill the story and I got desperate. It’s totally unethical, it wouldn’t have worked, and I’m sorry.”
“So it’s a big story. For you, I mean. Professionally.”
Kat looked at him. He seemed to be taking it with equanimity, or perhaps he was flattered by the idea that he was a bigger hook than Becky. He kept his eyes on the road. “I think it is. It could change things for me, yeah,” she said. “If I find him, that is.”
“Your friend’s sure?”
“She’s sure. She identified him.”
“Why do you think he stayed around here?”
Kat shrugged. “Perversity. Sense of humor. Wanting to see if he’d get caught. Who knows?”
They’d entered the motel strip on the outskirts of Cherry City, neon motor courts and cocksure three-story chains looming over their dingy patches of private beach. Vacancies everywhere. The state cruiser was stopped, lights flashing, in the parking lot of one of the motels, but there was no other sign of activity.
“Why would he want to get caught?”
“Why would he want to spend his life running from people who’ll kill him as soon as they find him, with a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills to worry about?”
“Too complicated for me,” said Mulligan.
Kat snorted.
“What’s so funny?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Me? You’re kidding, right? You just confessed to this Machiavellian scheme. At least I try to keep things simple.”
“Oh, is that right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kat opened her mouth and then shut it again.
“Go on,” said Mulligan. His voice had a forced quality to it, as if the chipper tone he attempted wasn’t good for his respiratory system. “Go on. You have a theory. Everybody’s always got a theory they like.”
“Maybe I do have a theory. It’s not about you, though. OK?”
“I thought you were talking about me.”
“No, you were talking about you. As usual.”
“You were saying?”
“What I was saying.” She pursed her lips and nodded her head for a moment. She continued. “What I was saying was this. I looked you up.”
Mulligan’s face registered a kind of dumb smirky pleasure.
“Obviously, I was interested,” she went on. “I found out a lot more about you than I expected. You’re notorious, in a way. Or you were, anyhow.”
“Good old Internet,” said Mulligan. “Keeps everything fresh.”
“All that trouble, over this little piece of private business that didn’t have to hurt anyone. I’ve done it. As you’re aware. The gas station attendant’s probably done it. Look at all these motel rooms around here, Alexander. How do you think they pay the bills all winter long? A pair of bodies coming together, just for fun. No greater motive. And it could have stayed just between the two of you, but you both tossed a grenade into a crowded room and then stayed around for the explosion. Which makes me think something.”
“What,” said Mulligan, tightly.
“You must have liked it.”
“You think I liked it.”
“I think you both liked it. It was built into the affair, some self-destructive drama factor. So don’t come on all shocked about why Saltino would want to get caught.”
They rode in silence for a while. Kat said, “You know what else? What you did, what Saltino’s doing, that’s the typical thing. Look, Mom, no hands. Check me out. Which I don’t get. I think that every day you should do one thing you’ll never tell anybody about, that you’ll make sure no one ever finds out about. Every single day, to remind you that you’re free. To be free. Sometimes it’s the only way you know you’re alive, by keeping some secret knowledge that’s going to die when you do.”
“That’s a whole lot of secrets.”
“And a lot of inconsequence. All that BS about everything being connected, about chains of cause and effect. It’s not true. We’re just each of us alone.”
“Pretty cynical.”
“It’s not that it never matters, Alexander. It’s that it rarely matters.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“’Course you don’t. It’s the total opposite of you. Secrets? You don’t need no stinking secrets. Whatever you do, whatever pops into your head, you have to turn it into a story. It’s compulsive.”
Mulligan didn’t speak. They were in some traffic now, moving into downtown.
“What happened to her, anyway? You went back to your wife. Did she end up back with her husband? When you were done with her?”
“No,” said Mulligan. “She never went back to her husband.”
“You in touch?”
Mulligan glared at her. “I thought you looked it all up.” He made a left and headed into the residential sections. “I’m taking you with me to my house,” he said. He felt a sharp thrill speaking to her as if she were an object.
“What if I want to go back to the hotel?” she said.
He didn’t have to look at her. “You don’t,” he informed her.
FOUR DAYS AGO
Hanshaw dressed in a clean, faded pair of coveralls that he found in his garage, in a box that hadn’t been touched since Annie had packed and labeled it and hoisted it onto the shelf. It was a box of folded clothes she’d probably intended to take to the Goodwill, and she had left nothing of her essence in it, but he’d lingered over her careful everyday handiwork for a moment. She’d been a tidy one. Then he’d rifled through the box until he found what he was looking for and shoved the box back on the shelf. From under the front seat of the truck he retrieved a magnetic sign that read SUMMIT HEATING AND VENTILATION SERVICE AND REPAIRS and slapped it on the driver’s door. He drove to the casino in a light mist, wipers flicking intermittently across the windshield. He went around to the back of the building and parked near the service area. He took a toolbox out of the truckbed and carried it inside. He rode up in the service elevator with two maids and their trolleys.
“What’s broken now?” one said.
He looked at her.
“I don’t know what holds this place together,” said the other. “The entire building must have been rebuilt already piece by piece.”
“Did you know,” said the first, “that all your cells die and get replaced numerous times over the course of your life? We lose over a pound of skin alone every year. There’s no part of us you can see that’s original.”
“Have a nice day,” he said, getting off on his floor. He walked purposefully into the corridor, deliberately nodding at a passing pair of guests, then crouched at the door to Argenziano’s suite. He opened the toolbox and removed a butter knife and a pair of gloves. The likely cycle programmed into the security system would bring his image into view on the monitors in the security room at ninety-second intervals for four seconds each time. He assumed that the odds were in his favor. Of course, all of his activities would be recorded on the DVR, but it was unlikely that anyone would review the data before it was deleted, unless he was interrupted, in which case it would hardly matter. Still, he worked quickly to get the door open, inserting the blade of the knife between the Saflok and the jamb and forcing it downward. In and out. Once inside, he placed the toolbox on the floor and removed his shoes. The suite was modest; the door opened onto a small sitting room with a love seat and an easy chair. The television dominated the room. A kitchenette was in an alcove to one side. Hanshaw crossed the space and entered the bedroom. There was a bed, a bureau, a nightstand, a desk. He proceeded from most obvious to least obvious and hoped that he would find what he was looking for before he had to plunge his arm down the toilet or into a jar of mayonnaise. It occurred to Hanshaw as he flipped through the papers in the desk that while he rarely asked q
uestions, he often looked for answers. He knew that he wanted to be sure about what he was doing. He had about three scruples left and he liked to exercise them when he could. He looked through financial documents for ten minutes before deciding that Argenziano probably hadn’t left any obvious record of his misdeeds, which figured. He opened the closet and poked around for a while amid the suits and shirts. Nothing. He sat down on the bed and looked around. As he gazed at the wall opposite the foot of the bed, he noticed a jagged crack running from about eight inches beneath the ceiling. It disappeared behind a framed reproduction of Wheat Field with Crows, then appeared again below the frame. Hanshaw stared hard at it. The reproduction, alone amid all the fussily symmetrical decor, was off-center, and appeared to have been moved from its original spot above the bureau. He rose and lifted the frame from the wall. A safe had been installed behind it. It was definitely aftermarket: he’d already spotted the room safe in the closet. It was also definitely too small to hold much cash. He returned to the front door and retrieved the toolbox, then sat on the bed again and contemplated the safe. It had a basic keypad entry system. He could try to remove the safe from the wall and reset the code through the mounting-bolt holes, but it would be crude and time-consuming. He went to the desk and found a document with Argenziano’s birthdate, then returned to the safe and entered the first four digits, figuring it was worth a shot. The safe emitted three beeps and a small green light went on next to the keypad.
The interior of the safe was cylindrical, with a diameter a little greater than that of his calf. He reached inside and felt around, withdrawing three pieces of correspondence from Banco de Pegado (Panama) and a U.S. passport. There were also four Polaroid photographs, each of which showed a different faded-looking and overly made-up blonde performing oral sex upon the photographer, presumably Argenziano, right here in this room. The photographs saddened Hanshaw in a way he couldn’t articulate to himself. He put them back. The passport was Argenziano’s, and it showed that in April 2007 he’d traveled to Juan Santamaria International Airport in San José, Costa Rica, made a two-day trip to Panama City a week after arriving, and then had returned to Costa Rica for another four days before traveling back to the United States, entering the country in Miami. The correspondence was addressed to a P.O. box in Cherry City. Inside one of the envelopes was a smaller envelope that contained a safe deposit box key. Hanshaw thought about it for a moment. Then he laughed and tucked the key back in its little envelope. He returned everything to the safe. He straightened the room up and prepared to go. As he was headed to put his shoes back on, the door opened and he found himself face to face with one of the maids from the elevator.
The Fugitives Page 24