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Something for Nothing

Page 15

by David Anthony


  “Just concentrate on what you’re doing,” he said to Martin, his voice level, even a bit reassuring. “Tell me if anyone looks familiar.”

  Martin had been through about a dozen or maybe fifteen sheets of photos, when he saw the blond guy who’d been in his office.

  “Hey,” he said. He put his finger on the image, as if to keep it from moving away now that he had spotted it. (“No you don’t,” he’d say to the guy if he tried to sneak away from the little box that framed him in his photo. “You’re not going anywhere.”) He looked up at Slater. “Here he is. This is the guy.”

  Slater turned quickly from his scrutiny of one of the racing photos, and started walking over to Martin. He looked serious—his brow was furrowed, almost like he was frowning.

  “Really?” he said. “Are you sure? Which one? Show me.”

  Martin kept his finger on the spot just in front of the image, and turned it so that Slater could see it right-side up. “There he is,” Martin said. “That’s the guy.”

  He felt pleased to have found the guy’s image. He knew as he sat there, finger pointing proudly, that he was being sycophantic, acting like a pet cat that had just left a dead bird on his owner’s doorstep. But he couldn’t help himself. He was scared, but he was also impressed by this guy. The self-assurance, the intensity—and the gunshot wounds, of course. The guy had been shot in the line of duty after all. And not once but twice. Either he was an idiot or he really cared about his job and really wanted to put the bad guys behind bars. And although Martin was himself one of the bad guys (at least technically), he was excited to be able to help nab this other shadowy figure from the criminal underworld. Get him off the streets and all that. For all Martin knew, this very guy had been involved in supplying the pot that Linda had found in Sarah’s purse. Plus, if Slater was correct in assuming that the guy had used a fake identity when buying the plane, then he’d lied right to Martin’s face, pulled a fast one on him. And he didn’t like that. Martin lied all the time, of course, but that didn’t mean that he had to put up with it when someone did it to him.

  “Okay,” Slater said, nodding and jotting something in a small notebook he’d pulled out of his back pocket (again he’d produced something that Martin hadn’t noticed at first). “Okay,” he said again. “Great. This is great.”

  Martin sat there, his finger still pointing to the guy. “He’s got a kind of porno mustache,” he said, realizing even as he said it that it wasn’t the right comment. “Or that’s what we joked about, anyway. After he left, I mean.” He looked at Slater, and he felt his face turning red.

  Slater looked at Martin for a second, studying him. Then he reached down and picked up the photo sheet, sliding it out from under Martin’s finger. He looked at it for a second.

  “Ha,” he said. “You’re right. He does look like the kind of guy you’d see in a porno movie.” He smiled, looked at Martin, and then back down at the photo. “It’s that fucking mustache. Jesus, look at that thing. I’m gonna tell him that when we get him—that you thought he looked like a porn star.”

  “Hey!” Martin said, starting up from his chair. “Leave me out of this. I’m just the guy that sold a plane to him. Come on.”

  Slater laughed, and right away Martin knew that he’d overreacted.

  “Relax,” Slater said. “I’m joking. No one’s gonna mention you to this guy. I mean, we still need proof that you sold the plane to him and everything, but that’s it. Really . . . honest.”

  Martin was about to tell him that he was only pretending to get upset when the sliding door opened, and Sarah and Peter stepped inside. They were both wrapped in big towels, but neither of them had done a good job drying off, so they were creating puddles of water on the linoleum. They’d been talking about something as they opened the door and stepped into the house, but now they were silent as they stood looking at Martin and Slater. Or looking at Slater, that is—staring openly at the sudden presence of a stranger in their house on a Saturday afternoon. Though he wasn’t technically a stranger; he and Peter had actually had a conversation once.

  And it was this fact—the possibility that the kids might recognize Slater—that made Martin suddenly nervous. If one of them said something, then Slater would know that Martin’s family was part of the more general problem of drugs in the area. What would he make of that? Would it dovetail with his initial impression (or Martin’s sense of his initial impression) that something wasn’t quite right down at the southern end of Miwok Drive—that things were a little too cushy for a mere suburban existence? Is this what he’d been thinking when he was looking at the pictures of Martin and his racehorses? Who wouldn’t?

  “Hey, guys,” Slater said.

  “Hi,” Sarah said, pulling her towel up a little bit and covering her chest. It seemed like an unconscious move, but Martin approved.

  Peter didn’t say anything—just stood there, staring open-mouthed. Jesus, Martin thought. What am I gonna do with this kid?

  Martin cleared his throat. “Kids,” he said. “This is Jim Slater. It’s just work stuff. We’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  Sarah was already on the move. “Okay,” she said.

  Martin could tell that she was a little bit embarrassed to be standing there in front of a stranger—a handsome, thirty-something stranger—in her bathing suit. He watched her disappear out into the entry hallway and then listened to her pad down toward her bedroom. She was probably going to get on the phone and tell a friend about it.

  Peter kept standing there, looking at Slater and dripping onto the floor. Martin was about to say something to him—quit staring, quit dripping on the floor, be less strange—when Peter said, “You’re that police detective from the drug class. The one we had to go to at the high school. Are you here for that?”

  Martin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

  Slater looked at him for a second, squinting a little bit, but then he opened his eyes wider in an obvious expression of recognition.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I was there. And I remember you. I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re the A’s fan. And you had the baseball book. How’re you doing? It’s good to see you.”

  Martin watched as Slater took two steps forward and reached out to shake Peter’s hand. Peter had been holding his wet towel around his waist with both hands, but he reached forward and shook Slater’s hand. The towel slipped as he did this, revealing a roll of pale and cellulite-covered fat. But he didn’t seem to notice. He was smiling shyly, and Martin could tell he was pleased. And impressed. Pleased to be remembered, and impressed that Slater was a police detective (who’d been shot not once but twice).

  Martin knew he needed to say something, to make it clear that he hadn’t recognized Slater as the detective guy from the drug class (although of course he had recognized him). “Why was that guy pretending he didn’t recognize me?” Slater might ask as he drove away in his shiny Camaro. “I think he’s hiding something from me.”

  “Oh, okay—right,” Martin said as Peter and Slater turned to look at him. “Yes, absolutely. You gave the talk at the class. You’re the detective that got shot during a drug raid. Or in two different raids. Right?”

  Slater stared at Martin for a second, but then he nodded. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “That was me.”

  Martin was quiet, not sure what to say. He had assumed Slater would say more, but he just stood there looking back at him.

  “Wow,” Peter said. “Did it hurt?’

  Slater looked down at Peter and laughed, and Martin laughed, too. It was, he knew, a useful tension-reliever, and once again he was reminded that he really did love his son.

  Slater stepped back over to his stool and sat down, leaning on the stool more than actually sitting. He crossed his feet at the ankles and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked pretty relaxed, but he also looked serious all of a sudden.

  “You know,” he said, looking now at Peter. “Not like you’d think. Or not at first,
anyway. Later on it did. It hurt a lot. But not right away.”

  “Why not?” Peter asked. Martin thought about telling him to stop with the personal questions, but he could see that Peter was fascinated. What nine-year-old wouldn’t have been? He was standing in his own house, talking to a cop (a detective) about getting shot. This would go a long way on the playground. Not to mention around the house. Martin knew that Peter was going to be Jim Slater, the narco detective, in a lot of imaginary shoot-outs for the next few months.

  Slater shrugged. “I was in shock, I think. Your body just sort of shuts down when something like that happens.”

  “Did you think you were going to die?” Peter asked.

  At this question Slater took a deep breath, as if considering how to answer, when Martin broke in. “Okay, Peter,” he said. “That’s enough. That’s a little too much. It’s not a game, you know.”

  “But he did get shot,” Peter said. “And—”

  “Peter,” Martin said, his voice a little sharper now. “I said that’s enough.”

  Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation, and then plopped down angrily onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

  “It’s all right,” Slater said, looking over at Martin. “It’s fine. I don’t care—really.” Then he looked at Peter again. He uncrossed his legs and put his heels up on the rung of the bar stool. He folded his arms and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his thighs.

  “Yes,” he said, looking right into Peter’s eyes. It was almost as if there was a little cartoon-style laser beam connecting his gaze to Peter’s as they sat looking at each other from across the room. “Yes, I thought I might die. Not the first time I got shot; I knew it wasn’t too bad that time. But the second time, yes, I really did think I might not make it.”

  Peter was quiet now, and Martin knew he was surprised to have gotten the answer he was looking for.

  Martin cleared his throat—knew it was a little too theatrical, but didn’t care. “So you don’t work out in Oakland anymore?” he said. “Isn’t that what you said in the class? That you work out in the suburbs now?”

  Slater nodded. “I used to work for narcotics in Oakland,” he said. “But the second time I got shot, my wife said that I had to quit or she was going to take the kids and leave. And I could tell that she meant it. She was really freaked out. So was I, actually.”

  He stopped and looked back at Peter, who was still sitting there looking at him. Then he held up his thumb and forefinger, pointing it at Peter, and made a little shooting noise. It was the sort of sound that Peter made when he ran around the house pretending to fight as a soldier in some sort of imaginary war. It was just the right move to make at that moment, Martin knew. It took some of the tension out of the air, and made Peter smile.

  My son is smitten by this detective guy, Martin thought. Not that he was surprised. It was like the guy had just stepped right out of some cop show. The jeans and the T-shirt and the sneakers. What the fuck was that, anyway? It was a little much, Martin thought. The guy thinks he’s fucking Serpico. He was suddenly ready for Jim Slater to leave—to get the hell out of his house and go be a hero somewhere else.

  “So anyway,” Slater said, his tone indicating that he was done with his brief narrative. “I was just about to turn in my badge when a position opened up out here, in the suburbs, where it’s just a little bit safer than in Oakland.”

  He looked at Martin and raised his eyebrows, as if to say that he understood why Martin was living in the suburbs. “They were starting up a new narcotics bureau,” he said. “The drug trade has been booming out here for a while now. You know, suburban money—rich parents, kids with money. They buy drugs, and so people sell them. And so finally someone up in Sacramento decided to get serious about it, throw some cash at the problem, bring in some guys with some experience.” He smiled at Martin. “And so here I am, bugging you on a Saturday. But I gotta tell you,” he said. “It’s a lot better than kicking doors down in Oakland.”

  Martin gave a little laugh—forced it out. “Well,” he said. “I hope you’re not planning to kick down our door anytime soon.” He chuckled again, but he knew it sounded a little off. “Because of the class where we saw you and everything.” He tilted his head toward the door to the entry hallway, where Sarah had disappeared a few minutes earlier. “It was my daughter,” he said. “It was just a bag of pot. A few joints’ worth. My wife found it, and we decided to sit down hard on her. I don’t remember where we heard about the course, but it seemed like a good idea. And it was . . . it was great. I mean, you know—I think it was useful for her. For us too, actually. We learned a lot. And I think the problem’s solved. Or I hope it is, anyway.”

  Slater looked at Martin, thoughtful for a second. Martin wondered if he bought all of this bullshit. Probably not. Jesus. Could he have sounded any more like a nervous ass-kisser?

  “How old is your daughter?” Slater asked.

  “She’s thirteen,” Martin said. “She’s young. The problem is her friends. She’s got some friends who are a few years older, and I think they’re a bad influence. You know, older boyfriends, that sort of thing.”

  Slater nodded. “Listen, Mr. Anderson,” he said. “Like I said, there are a lot of drugs out here in the suburbs. And not just pot, either. So you can’t be too careful. I think you did the right thing, taking her to that class. She’s probably just experimenting with the stuff. But you’ve gotta let her know that it’s serious, and that you take it seriously.”

  Martin nodded. He’d never actually thought that the pot in his daughter’s purse was a big deal. And he thought that the whole drug class had been a fucking joke—in part because of the unrelenting earnestness of guys like Slater. He was about to say something more—something about searching Sarah’s room and curfews (both of which were lies)—when Peter spoke up.

  “Is my sister in trouble again?” he asked. He looked over at Martin, and then back at Slater.

  This whole scene was, Martin realized, a little too intense for Peter. He knew the signs: the slightly quavering voice, the hands fidgeting together, the eyes getting a little bit watery. It didn’t help that they’d dragged him to those stupid drug classes, or that he’d had to listen to the endless shouting matches between Sarah and Linda over the bag of pot. (Martin had opted for a vaguely neutral good cop posture: joking with her on the side, doing the occasional eye roll behind Linda’s back, as if to say he thought Mom was going a little overboard, too.)

  “Peter,” Martin said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your sister. Detective Slater is here about something totally different. It’s just about one of my planes at work.”

  “That’s right,” Slater said. “I’m just here about someone who bought a plane from your dad. And,” he said, standing up and stretching, “I’m on my way out the door.”

  Slater stretched his long, lean body and then sort of shook himself. Like a cat, Martin thought. No wonder he isn’t dead. He’s got the nine lives thing going for him.

  “Listen,” Slater said to Martin. “You’ve been a big help. I didn’t really expect to get an ID on this guy so quickly, so this is great. But I’ve gotta ask you for one more favor. Do you think I could stop by your office on Monday and get a copy of his sales records from you?”

  Martin’s first instinct was to say “no—not a chance.” The thought of having to go through more of the same out in Hayward made him want to weep. What was Slater going to think when he saw Martin’s planes? What self-respecting narcotics detective wouldn’t be able to connect the dots? But he knew he couldn’t say no—that he had to be amenable. And so he just nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Whenever you like. Not a problem.”

  After this Martin told himself to relax, and think like the version of himself he was a month ago. Like an innocent person, that is. That’s how you got away with things, he knew. You convinced yourself you were innocent, so that when the police stopped you, you believed you hadn’t done anything. But that was easier said than
done, especially with some fucking hero detective guy lingering in your house on a Saturday afternoon.

  Martin walked Slater out into the entry hallway, with Peter trailing close behind them.

  “So, Peter,” Slater said as Martin opened the front door. “It was nice to see you again. He reached out and patted him on his bare shoulder.

  “It was nice to see you, too,” Peter said. He stood there looking at Slater for a second, and then he said, “Have you been to any A’s games this year?”

  Slater smiled, looked at Martin, and then back at Peter. “No,” he said. “I haven’t. I went to a Giants game a while ago, but it was cold and foggy, and they lost. I had a lousy time. I hope I can get to an A’s game before the end of the year, though.”

  Peter struggled a bit to gather his towel and wrap it around his belly more effectively. “Well,” he said. “We’re going to see Gaylord Perry pitch against them in July. It’s going to be part of my birthday present. We don’t know what day he’s pitching yet, but when we find out, we’re going to get tickets.” He said this as if he was announcing the birth of a new child, and Martin felt a quick stab of anxiety at realizing that he’d forgotten about tracking down tickets for the game.

  “Really?” Slater said. “Wow. That’s pretty cool. I wish I could go to that game. I’d love to see him throw that spitter. You know that’s what he does, right? He does it right in front of everyone, and no one can catch him. The umpires, the TV guys—forget it. He’s just too good at it.”

  Peter was smiling now, ear to ear. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I don’t even know who to root for. I mean, I don’t want the A’s to lose, but I really want him to win.”

  “I hear you,” Slater said. “I always root for the bad guys—which is a problem, because I’m the guy that’s supposed to catch them.” He laughed, ruffled Peter’s hair with his hand, and then looked at Martin.

  “I’ll be by on Monday,” he said, and Martin nodded as Slater gave him a quick wave and walked toward his car. Martin wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have detected a change of expression when Slater looked at him this last time—as if his mention of bad guys extended to him. But Martin doubted that Slater meant he’d be rooting for him. That didn’t seem likely at all.

 

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