Something for Nothing

by David Anthony

  Martin looked at him for a second, assessing. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice, of course. If Slater said he wanted to talk inside, then they were going to talk inside. But he was still trying to gauge things. Was this situation out of control, or was it salvageable, somehow? Was Slater here to arrest him? Or was he just someone who enjoyed keeping people off balance even if he wasn’t planning to arrest them? He’d referred to himself as a narcotics detective, and he’d said something about Martin clearing out of his house. So, clearly he was on to Martin. But how much did he really know?

  Martin shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He held his left arm out for Slater to go in ahead of him. “After you,” he said.

  But Slater smiled, stood his ground, and then extended his right arm and gave a slight, almost indiscernible mock bow.

  “After you,” he said to Martin—more sarcasm.

  Martin reached out to open the little doors that led down into the cabin. They weren’t strong, just louvered panels, but they were made of the same teak that was on the rest of the paneling. They were nice doors.

  Martin pushed the doors open and started down the short staircase to the cabin. It was darker down there, especially when first stepping in out of the late-afternoon sun. Plus, there weren’t any lights on, and the curtains were drawn on the narrow windows that were about chest high on both sides of the room. But he knew his way around, and so he moved easily down the four steps, and then stepped across the room to the wall switch that turned on the overhead light. He reached out, flicked it, and turned around as the light buzzed into full wattage.

  He saw right away that the cabin was in disarray. Cabinets opened, pillows overturned, kitchen drawers dumped onto the floor. Shit everywhere. What the fuck? The first thing he thought of was Val’s house. It wasn’t as bad as at Val’s house, but it was the same general feeling. It was the feel of silent loudness—as if the noise of everything falling and crashing had only stopped the second that Martin opened up the louvered cabin doors, and all the scattered objects agreed to hit the floor and stop moving and clattering. And Martin was about to say something to this effect—say a sentence that contained the word ransacked—when Slater stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. Hard. Incredibly hard. So hard that Martin felt in his confusion as if he’d run full tilt into a protruding pole of some sort, one that someone had mistakenly inserted into a wall at a dangerous perpendicular angle. And it was the twin notion of a “mistake” and of “someone” that floated somewhere in the front of his consciousness as he fell to the floor and gasped for breath . . . retched, saw green and red and yellow. Someone made a mistake and hurt me. Someone needs to help me.

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay there on the cabin floor, balled up and panting, his hands opening and closing in some kind of embarrassing, primal effort to control—or to at least deal with—his pain. He had no idea it could hurt so much to be hit in the stomach. Fucking hell. He didn’t feel nauseous, though, and even lying there he was thankful for that. But he was definitely lying down, and so he knew that there had been an accident of some sort, and that he’d been hurt. As his vision started to focus (and as he opened his eyes, finally—he must have had them closed for a minute), he saw the orange shag of the boat’s rug, and he saw Slater’s feet and shins. He was wearing his black high tops.

  Martin rolled over a little bit, felt a surge of pain, and laid back, resting on one elbow. He had thought Slater was standing and looking down at him, but he was actually squatting. He was up on the balls of his feet, and his elbows were on his knees. Had Slater punched him? He’d been about to tell Slater that he’d had a break-in, and that he was glad that a cop was on hand to see it. But then Slater had punched him . . . right?

  “Martin,” he said, with the same edge of sarcasm. “Are you okay?”

  Martin looked up at Slater. He was still confused, but he was glad to hear the question. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. I don’t know what happened. Did you just punch me?”

  Slater was quiet for a long second. He looked down at Martin and shook his head, still smiling his mysterious little smile.

  “Martin,” Slater said. “You’ve been a naughty boy, and we need to talk.”

  There was something in the quality of Slater’s voice that made Martin snap back into fuller awareness: awareness of what Slater had just said (that he was a naughty boy) and that yes, Slater had just punched him in the stomach. Laid him out—boom, just like that. And then Martin saw that Slater was holding a small stack of bills in his hand. Or rather, a stack of bundles of bills. Bundles that looked a lot—exactly—like the bundles that Martin had put into his tool box. When he saw that Martin had finally spotted them, he started to flick the end of them with his thumb.

  Jesus Christ, Martin thought. The money. He’s got it, and he’s flicking it with his thumb just like I did.

  Martin sat up a little more—pulled himself up onto his ass, pulled his knees up toward his chest, and wrapped his arms around his shins. He put his head down onto his knees, then looked up at Slater. Fuck, he thought. I’m going to jail.

  “Okay,” he said to Slater. He could tell that his voice was a little bit hoarse. “Fine. Let’s talk. Jesus. You didn’t have to hit me like that. That’s fucking police brutality, you know.” He looked up at Slater as he said this, and made eye contact with him.

  Slater nodded, but didn’t move. Just sat there, squatting and smirking at Martin.

  “I’m going to ask you a question, Martin,” he said. He was looking right back at Martin, his green cat eyes a lot more serious than Martin had seen them before. “Okay? And just so you know, I’m going to use it as a gauge for how much I can trust you right now. Okay? All right? How does that sound?”

  Martin nodded. He moved his head slowly, and didn’t look away. Didn’t blink, even. He knew that a lot was hanging in the balance right now. Was he going to jail?

  “Good,” Slater said. “Good. All right. So tell me—where did you get this money?”

  Martin paused, trying to think quickly.

  “Where did I get it?” he asked. He was stalling. It was the sort of question he’d asked in high school, when the teacher called on him and he didn’t know the answer. Maybe someone will pass me a note with the correct answer. Or maybe the bell will ring. There was always a chance. Here, though, Martin actually did know the answer—he just didn’t want to tell Slater. Slater had obviously found the money that he’d stashed in his tool box, under the sink. But the question was whether or not Slater knew that it was part of Val’s larger stash. At this point, Martin wasn’t thinking about hanging onto the money so much as avoiding any connection to Val—or to Val and Angela’s murder, for that matter. If he told Slater he had Val’s money, what would stop Slater from assuming that he’d killed Val and Angela?

  “That’s right, Martin,” Slater said, nodding his head and smiling just a little bit. “Where did you get it? Did you rob a bank? Did you buy it at a store? Are you a male prostitute? Do you turn tricks for perverted rich guys down here in the fucking cabin of your boat? Where did you get it?” By the time Slater got to his last question, his voice had risen to a near shout. And it was a scary kind of almost-shout—sudden and frightening, with an edge. One minute he was smiling and calm, the next his voice was cutting into Martin, angry and threatening.

  Martin took a deep breath. He was going to go for it. He didn’t want to go to jail—didn’t want to take a chance on trusting Slater.

  “That money?” he asked. “That’s just—that’s money from a plane sale. I—we. Well, we didn’t want to declare the money on the books, because we didn’t want to pay taxes on it. So . . . you know . . . it’s money I’m hiding from the IRS.”

  Slater cocked his head to the side a little bit. He didn’t look pleased—he looked like he was wincing, in fact. “The IRS?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Martin said. “Actually, it’s from a couple of planes we’ve sold this year. But, yeah, it’s money from my business. Why?
What do you think it is?”

  Instead of answering, Slater stood up, yawned, stretched, then put his hands on his hips.

  “Martin,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You’re wearing me out. I think I need a nap. Waiting around for you out here made me tired, and now you’re testing my patience with your answers to my questions.”

  He started to walk around to the side of Martin. Martin started to adjust himself to try to keep him in his line of vision, but just as he did he felt a blow to his side, just under his ribs. He fell over with a half-yell, half-groan, knowing even as he did that Slater must have kicked him. And hard—just as hard as the punch in the stomach. Harder, maybe.

  And so again he lay there panting and writhing on the ugly orange carpet, trying to control the pain. Now he did feel nauseous. He remembered a blow like this once when he was playing football as a kid with some friends, and someone had plowed into his side—into his kidney. He’d puked right there on the grass. He felt the same urge to throw up now, but he wanted to preserve at least a little dignity. He found himself thinking about his kids. There weren’t any cogent thoughts, just images. Their faces, the sound of laughter and crying. The sound of fear—times he’d told them not to worry, that there was nothing to be afraid of. Climbing into bed with them after they’d woken from a bad nightmare.

  EVENTUALLY HE PULLED HIMSELF up onto his knees. He was hunched over, elbows on the rug. He looked sideways at Slater, who was sitting now on the little coffee table that was anchored to the floor in front of the couch. He was hunched over, elbows on his knees, just like when he’d been squatting in front of him. Martin wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed. Probably not much, two or three minutes, maybe.

  “How’re you feeling, Martin?” Slater asked. “Are you all right?”

  Forehead on the floor, Martin turned his head to look at him. Slater looked distorted from the upside-down angle—distorted and more frightening. But in spite of himself, Martin felt a little bit reassured to hear Slater ask if he was all right. It must mean that he didn’t really want to hurt me—that he won’t do that again.

  “I’m all right,” Martin said.

  “Good,” Slater said. He paused, looking down at Martin. “Are you ready to have a real discussion now? Yes? Okay? Ready?” He nodded, acting like he was talking to a little kid, or a dog, maybe. That was how Linda talked to Arrow sometimes.

  Martin pushed himself off the floor and sat up, butt on his ankles. He sighed and looked at Slater. His side was killing him. Jesus. Then he shifted over onto his ass again, put his feet out in front of him and pulled his knees up.

  “Sure,” he said to Slater. “Yeah. Let’s keep talking.”

  Okay, he thought. Here it comes. Have you been flying drugs up from Mexico for Val Desmond? You have? Okay then. Martin Anderson, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law. And so on. He knew the lines from watching Dragnet—where Slater would never get a part. And rightly so—Joe Friday never punched and kicked his suspects. Neither did Serpico, for that matter. Apparently, Slater was more of a Popeye Doyle type—the rogue cop. Broke some rules, pushed the envelope. But unlike Gene Hackman, who seemed neither strong nor scary, Jim Slater was the real thing.

  “Okay,” Slater said. “Excellent.” He leaned forward and patted Martin on the shoulder. “I knew you were all right when I first came to your house with the thing about the plane up in Humboldt. Oh, and we nailed that guy, by the way. Did I ever tell you that? That guy was a real clown. Really stupid. And I should tell you, we had a good laugh at the station over what you said about his mustache and how he looked like a porn star. One of my buddies even told him about it when we busted him. Not about you saying that, I mean. But he told him that we were referring to him as the porn-star drug dealer.”

  He shook his head, chuckling to himself. Martin tried to picture the guy, but couldn’t. He was too confused. And what was his name? Or what had he said his name was? He couldn’t remember.

  “Huh,” Martin said, not sure if he was actually supposed to respond. “No. I don’t think you did call me about that. But good. I’m glad you got him.”

  “Well,” Slater said, raising his hands and then bringing them down hard onto his thighs, slapping himself. It was a kind of punctuation to his comment. “I should have called you. You were a big help. Flying me out over Livermore and everything. And yeah, I don’t know, I just had the feeling that you were an all-right guy. You were honest about your daughter’s drug bust. And you brought her to that class, which shows something. Or I think it does, anyway. And your son with the baseball thing. Really cute.”

  He nodded, looked at Martin, raised his eyebrows. I approve, his expression said. Which was baffling to Martin, because the guy had just punched him in the stomach and kicked him in the kidney.

  “So listen, Martin,” Slater said. “You’re not stupid, are you? I mean, like that guy up in Humboldt? Look at you—this boat, your nice house, your business. Please tell me you’re not stupid.”

  “No,” Martin said, shaking his head. “I’m not stupid.” (Yes, he thought, I’m stupid. I’m a fucking idiot—I’m the very definition of a stupid person.)

  “No,” Slater said. “It doesn’t seem like it. And that’s why I was so surprised to see all those pictures of you and Val Desmond together. You know, up on the wall in your living room—the horses and everything. I mean, Val Desmond is—or was, I should say—a pretty nasty guy. We’ve been looking at him for a while now. I’ll bet you didn’t know that, did you? But anyway, when I saw the pictures of you guys together . . . well, I was surprised. You know? I just think a smart person would steer pretty wide of a guy like that.”

  Martin looked at him for a second, not sure what he meant about the pictures. But then he remembered. When he’d been sitting there at the counter in his living room, looking at the mug shots that Slater had brought for him to look at, Slater had walked around the room, looking at pictures, books, and so on. And, Martin remembered now, he’d even muttered to himself a couple of times as he looked at the pictures of Martin and Val and various other people standing in the Winner’s Circle after some races. “Huh,” he’d said. And, “Mmm.”

  “Well,” Martin said, trying again to think, to maintain his composure (even if his dignity was gone—look at me, sitting on the fucking floor of my own boat). “I don’t know, he’s just my horse trainer. Or he was, I mean. That’s not exactly illegal, is it?”

  Slater shook his head, and then raised his hand and wagged his forefinger at Martin. It was an admonishing gesture, one Martin had always found incredibly irritating, but one that here was very unsettling.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Martin,” he said. His voice had become sharp again. “I hate it when people do that. The last person that bullshitted with me was Val Desmond. And look what happened to him.”

  There was a silence in the room after Slater said that. Martin could hear it—it was the sound of a menacing quiet right there in the cabin of By a Nose. It blocked out the sounds of the marina outside, on the docks and in the water. Boat engines, horns, the occasional voice. Here in the cabin, there was only the empty vacuum of nonsound that followed in the wake of what Jim Slater had just said.

  And then the thoughts started to flood in. The fact that the boat had been ransacked, just like Val’s house was torn apart. The fact that Slater seemed to know a lot about Val. The fact that Slater’s questions seemed to have less to do with Val’s murder, or with drugs, than with Val’s money.

  And then he was hit by the realization that it might not have been Hano who’d broken into Val’s house after all. No, in fact, it might have been—probably had been—Slater. Just as it had probably been—must have been—Slater who’d killed Val and Angela. And cut off Val’s finger.

  But that didn’t seem possible. He felt a wave of nausea. He pulled his knees up to his chest again and took a couple of deep breaths.

  “Martin,
” Slater said. His voice was flat. No more irony. Just flat words. “Where’s the rest of the money?”

  Martin had to pull himself back into the now of the moment. He’d been starting to fade. He took one more deep breath, then raised his head and looked at Slater.

  “The money?” he asked. He wasn’t trying to be evasive. The problem was that he was having trouble with words, suddenly. They were like spoken blobs, and he had to concentrate to make them cohere into meaning.

  “Listen, Martin,” Slater said. He sounded patient now, like he didn’t mind being expansive for a minute. “When I came back to Val’s house—the second time, after I got the call from the precinct and drove out there again, to the murder scene, acting like I didn’t know what the fuck had happened—I saw that you’d broken into the dog’s shed. I couldn’t fucking believe it. The broken window, the hole in the ground. I almost said it right out loud. I mean, I tore that whole fucking house apart looking for the money, and it was in the dog’s kennel the whole time.”

  He shook his head, and then he pointed at Martin, smiling his cat smile. “That was smart,” he said, looking at Martin and nodding. “Though maybe you knew that that was where Val kept it, so it wasn’t really so brilliant. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. But it was still ballsy—that dog is fucking scary. I would have just shot it. But that doesn’t matter, because you got the money, and I didn’t.”

  Slater sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he stood up, a move that made Martin fold up and cringe. He was certain he was about to get another kick in the side.

  “It’s all right, Martin,” Slater said. More baby talk. “I’m not gonna kick you again. Because I don’t need to, right?” He reached over and patted Martin on the head.