by Dan Webb
Outside, Crash used a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to cover his hand before he pulled the door shut. He stepped out into what appeared to be an abandoned junkyard. In the departing daylight, piles of debris and hunks of metal cast large, lumpy shadows that looked like misshapen beasts. Crash walked over them in a straight line toward the bulging orange sun.
20
“You can go, Mrs. Hubbard,” Alan Matthews said, but of course she stayed.
Brad wished she hadn’t. She wasn’t being sued, he was. Brad felt the eyes of everyone else in the conference room boring into his back.
Brad scanned the legal complaint that Alan had just served him with. Defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress—a grab-bag of tort claims. They stemmed from Brad’s statements to the television reporters that Luke was the father of Petra P’s son. Brad felt his face redden. His amateur press conference had come back to haunt him.
This new lawsuit would make it difficult for him to remain on the divorce case—he now had a potential conflict with Sheila’s interests. By suing Liberty and creating a potential conflict between Liberty and Luke, Brad had hoped to put pressure on Matthews. Matthews obviously knew that game, too, and now he had forced Brad into a similar dilemma: Brad could resign from representing Sheila and slink back to the criminal courts, away from the cameras forever, or else he could get Sheila’s blessing to continue and then try to prove something that none of them believed to be true—that Luke was the father of the child.
Fired. Disbarred. Bankrupt. Shunned. Brad envisioned a bleak future, one that was supposed to be for other people, for dumber people.
“What does it say?” Sheila asked.
Brad unfastened his briefcase with a quivering hand and dropped the summons into it. “Bullshit,” he said. “It’s bullshit.”
“An apt term,” Matthews said. “Because ‘bullshit’ is just the word I would choose to describe your wanton assertions that Mr. Hubbard is the father of his friend’s child.”
“His friend,” Sheila said disdainfully. “You mean his whore.”
Luke sputtered a profane objection, and Sheila egged him on. “Go ahead and deny it. I hear the rumors, too, that you found her in a brothel and had Crash beat up the Russian gangsters who were holding her there.”
The others gasped, but Luke actually laughed. Luke composed himself and stared at Sheila coldly. “And so I’m sitting here wasting a perfectly good workday because you slept with me for twenty years and now want some money for it. What’s the difference, Sheila?”
Brad swung his briefcase up and slammed it on the table. It landed flat and hard, and the sharp smack resounded through the room. “That’s enough,” he said quietly.
Everyone froze, waiting for Brad to say something more, to offer a strong and gallant response. But Brad just stared at the table.
“My associate will call you to schedule your deposition,” Matthews said finally.
Matthews was a prick. Brad knew that even if he quit the divorce case, Matthews and his gang would keep hounding him with this new suit out of spite. The suit would kill his career, less like a car crash than like pneumonia—if it stuck around long enough, it would do him in. Brad composed himself and looked up at Matthews. “Let me understand,” he said. “Is it your position that Mr. Hubbard is not the father of that darling little sprinkler-hopper?”
Matthews laughed merrily, as if he had caught a neighbor’s child in a charming lie. “How could he be? The child is five. He hasn’t even known her that long.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” It was Luke who spoke. He had remained sitting at the table.
“It’s simple enough, Luke,” Matthews said insistently. “Pitcher said something false about you, now he’ll pay for it. Just like we discussed.”
“Sit,” Luke said. “I’ll explain.”
They took their seats, looking nervous and confused, Matthews more so than anyone else.
“The truth is, I’ve known Petra for quite some time. Off and on, I mean. We first met over five years ago, when I took a trip to Prague.”
Sheila rose from her chair. “You bastard, that was when you took me to—”
“Maybe he’s mine, maybe he isn’t. That’s just it, y’see. I don’t know.” After a leisurely pause Luke continued. “There are virtues to not knowing. But now I suppose I’ll be finding out.” He didn’t seem to care. “Point is, I’m cool either way. I’m not the father, and I put your sorry ass on Skid Row,” he said, flicking an index finger in Brad’s direction. “If I am the father, then I’ve got the son I always wanted.”
“Luke, you’ve got to stop,” Matthews said.
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll adopt him.”
“Luke!” Matthews shouted.
“Maybe I will, Alan, maybe I will. Pitcher, you know what a poison pill is?”
Brad self-consciously cast a glance at the lawyers across the table. “Not by direct experience.”
Luke chuckled. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s a cute technique corporate lawyers use to help people like me get rid of pests who want to take over our companies. It’s a special kind of corporate stock that works so that if you start buying up a lot of shares in my company but don’t get my blessing, your investment gets diluted to hell. You end up worse off than if you’d never invested at all.”
“Charming. Now I know why Alan loves corporate law so much.”
“Well, I’m bringing a little of the boardroom home for you two,” Luke said to Sheila and Brad. “Think of this as my personal poison pill. If you push me too hard on the divorce settlement, I’ll find myself a son. You know what that means, Sheila—child support, support for my special friend Petra, all coming off the top. You may get a bigger slice in the end, but it’ll be from a smaller pie—much smaller.” Luke trained his stare on Brad. “OK for you, though, Pitcher. My acknowledging paternity makes Alan’s little defamation suit go away. So I guess you and I both get something.”
Sheila’s expression had grown morose. Brad wanted to reassure her but didn’t know what to say. Alan, for once, looked like he didn’t know what to say either, and his associates, as ever, didn’t dare say a thing. Only Luke had a smile on his face.
21
“Beto, stop playing games. I know that’s not a gun.” Alex knew Beto wouldn’t really roll around in a bed with a loaded gun.
Beto leaned forward to study Alex’s face, and his eyes widened with recognition. He cast an accusing glance at his lady friend.
“Don’t look at her,” Alex said. “She’s as surprised as you are.”
The woman had retreated to a corner, where she held a pillow tightly against her stomach and was crying softly. Alex felt bad about that. She seemed resigned, not shocked, as if she understood things like this were supposed to happen to bad girls.
Beto shrugged and pulled his hand out of the sheet to reveal an ashtray. He stubbed his cigarette out in it. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said venomously.
“I’m here for information. As soon as I get it, I’ll leave.”
“Why don’t you just leave now?”
Alex laughed, then turned toward the girl. “Don’t pick up that phone, miss. Stay right there, I’ll be done here soon.”
The woman froze against the wall. She replaced an old telephone on the nightstand from where she had removed it.
Alex leaned against a wide-screen television that rested on the floor across from the bed. He held the now-ridiculous pizza box in his lap with both hands. “Liberty Industries. You work there.”
“I’m on disability—my finger.” Beto raised a hand and showed Alex a splint on his pinky.
“Your old pal, Jorge Ramirez. He worked there, too.”
“Used to.”
“Up until he died. Help me understand something. Why is he dead while you’re still alive?”
“Jorge was never very smart.”
“Were you smart enough not to get in the van that day? Is that what you’re saying?”
>
“Did Crash send you? I don’t know nothing.”
Who was Crash? Alex knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with Beto by admitting ignorance. Better to push harder and scare some information out of him. “Did you know Liberty had an insurance policy on Jorge’s life?” Alex said. “They got paid when he died. I think you did, too.”
“It was all Jorge,” Beto said. His voice had turned high pitched and hoarse. “He didn’t tell me nothing, he set it all up.”
“And he’s dead! How did that happen, Beto?” Alex was standing over the bed now, his legs spread hip width as if for a fight, the frame of the pizza box crumpling in his clenched fists.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Beto shouted. “I told Lenny already,” he said.
“Who’s Le—?”
Alex didn’t finish the question. His eye caught the movement first—the woman’s arm arcing in an awkward but energetic overhand heave—and then the knife was hurtling toward him. Reflexively, helplessly, he held the pizza box out as a shield in front of him, and the first inch of the serrated blade of an old steak knife greeted him on his side of the box. The sound was like a rusty saw stalling in damp wood. Alex danced a jig as two more knives skidded past his feet from the miniature kitchen at the far corner of the room.
The woman’s aim was laughable, but too good to ignore. When she reached into a drawer for another knife, Alex took his turn. He hurled the pizza box end over end. A corner of the box hit the table, sending plastic cups and other kitchen gear flying. The woman fled with a curt shriek into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She was no longer a danger, but she had played the part of the loyal girlfriend well. Alex turned his head to see Beto leap headfirst like a circus clown through the open window, holding a sofa cushion in front of him in lieu of a helmet. The makeshift curtain tagged along, and Beto was gone.
Alex threw open the door and spotted him—could have had him—and ran out of the apartment only to collide with another man climbing the stairs. Alex pardoned himself and took the stairs three at a time, while Beto—barefoot and wearing only boxers—dashed out the back of the apartment complex into an alley.
Alex was in a frenzy. He got lost running through streets and alleys looking for Beto. Not good streets to get lost in, Alex told himself.
He came to a convenience store and stepped in to catch his breath and get directions. A single copy of that morning’s Chronicle lay askew in a rack by the counter. Alex placed it next to the register.
“They’re selling like crazy today,” the owner said with pleasure.
The front page headline was dynamite—The Dead Pool: Petro Company Bets Against Employees’ Lives.
The story itself was riveting. It started with the sensational claim that Liberty Industries had been “betting that its employees would die.” A sentence like that would never have left the editor’s desk when Alex was at The Chronicle, but these were different times—even a Twitter addict couldn’t put aside a newspaper article that began like that. Buried at the end of the article were several paragraphs of “balance,” quotes from prominent accountants and lawyers saying that corporate-owned life insurance is a well-established and innocent financing practice, but only a news zealot like Alex would ever read that far.
Zeke had used the information Alex had given him, and found some of his own. The five Liberty employees who died in the accident all worked in job categories classified as risky by the state occupational safety agency. Zeke played that up as a suspicious coincidence. Playing devil’s advocate, Alex noted that people in risky jobs would be more likely to die under any circumstances—not necessarily due to murder. But all the same, Alex knew the story would have an impact. And it raised enough open questions to put the rest of the city’s journalists on the hunt. Alex was eager to see what prey they flushed from the undergrowth.
* * *
The reporters had waited for Luke outside, for hours some of them, littering the planters with cigarette butts and staring each other down, and when Luke finally emerged into the night from the office building they took revenge on an afternoon of boredom. They sprang up, toted gear, hustled toward him from all directions as if with a tacit understanding—trap the quarry first, then every man for himself.
They surrounded Luke. The cameras snapping made a frenzied racket like speeding tires on a gravel road. Their flashes combined to make a strobe light that put Luke at their mercy—a TV camera suddenly loomed by his head, a microphone came at his teeth from nowhere. With the crowd of reporters now thick around him, Luke’s progress slowed.
Chin up. Smile.
They hurled questions like darts.
“Mr. Hubbard, how many insurance policies do you have on your employees?”
“Did the families get any of the money?”
The questions came too fast to respond to. Luke wouldn’t reward this behavior anyway.
You’ve done nothing wrong. Keep moving. You won big today.
From one side a hand shoved a copy of The Chronicle under Luke’s nose; from another side a hand snatched it away. He would be sure to read it tonight.
And tomorrow you’ll kick all these dogs in the ribs.
22
Alex admitted to himself that he would probably never find Beto Capablanca again. He considered his options while lying on a surfboard. It was a winter morning at the beach, and Alex was the only one in the water or on the sand. Low cloud cover seemed to magnify the noise of the ocean.
Admitting Beto was gone also meant also admitting to himself that he would not help Roberta Cummings or embarrass Chip Odom and Rampart Insurance with his brilliant deductions about the case. Alex would also never get an answer from Beto on who Crash and Lenny were. So he’d failed as an investigator. No sugarcoating that. And he still needed a job.
Surfing helped Alex work the frustration out of his system. A couple hours in the water stayed with him all day—and better to be relaxed when he called around after job openings.
The water was cold and choppy. Decent waves came rarely. When a promising swell finally rolled his way, Alex paddled and rose. He sprang into a crouch and lifted his arms for balance, but the board started to slow almost right away. He slid onto his belly as the board sank back into the water. Alex watched the wave rumble on toward shore without him, led by a ragged lip of foam. Story of my life, he thought.
Disgusted, Alex left the water and lugged his surfboard across the empty beach to the parking lot, where the truck he’d borrowed from his uncle waited for him. There was nobody in the parking lot either. The morning fog was still thick overhead, and he quickly began to feel a chill. With no one else around, he propped his surfboard against the side of the pickup truck and shielded himself behind the open driver’s side door, then began to undress.
He peeled the top half of his rubber bodysuit off his arms and torso and went to work drying himself with an ancient, threadbare towel whose once-blue dye had faded almost to pink. The empty rubber sleeves of his bodysuit hung away from his hips like vestigial limbs that shuddered when he moved. Once his top half was dry, he peeled the bodysuit down from his hips.
“Excuse me.”
The woman’s voice surprised him because it sounded so close and commanding. Alex reflexively took up the surfboard, and its sharp front tip hovered near the woman’s chest.
“Hey, I’m unarmed,” she said with a nervous laugh. Her gaze drifted below Alex’s waist for longer than it should have, then she looked up at Alex’s face again. She smiled, a little too familiarly, before making an exaggerated turn of her head to look away. Alex hiked the bodysuit back up over his hips.
She was dressed for the office rather than the beach, with unfastened blonde hair that she would have to brush again when she got inside. When, after an appropriate pause, she turned her head back toward Alex, the wind pulled a thin film of hair over her eyes. Her manicured fingers brushed away twenty strands out of a thousand. Then the breeze turned and, bit by bit, pulled back most of the others.
Alex remembered the repo men. “Are you a process server?”
“No.”
“Then yes,” he said. She was much better looking than the repo men, which was a good start.
“You’re very cautious,” she said. “I’m Sheila Holtz.”
Alex found her tone suspiciously self-assured, like she’d come to sell something, rather than to ask for something. “Should I know you?”
“My married name is Hubbard.”
Alex threw the towel around his shoulders. The cold had leached the color from the woman’s cheeks and turned her small, pointy nose red. Still, Alex could tell she was pretty.
“I called your lawyer,” Alex said, recognizing her name.
“That’s why I’m here. I’d like to talk.”
Each waited for the other to say something, and Sheila pulled her arms into her body for warmth.
“Not like this,” she said. “It’s cold.”
“You noticed. Where’s your lawyer’s office?”
Sheila wrinkled her nose. “There’s a public library down the street. Get dressed and meet me there.”
Alex paused, considering his response. He wasn’t used to being bossed around by women he’d just met.
“All right,” he said. “Funny place for a talk.”
“You’ll come?”
“I said ‘all right.’”
“I don’t like to wait.”
“So read a book,” he said flatly.
Alex turned his back and rubbed the damp towel fervently against his scalp. The motion made the rubber sleeves hanging out from his hips bounce like needles in a dial. He didn’t like being surprised with his pants down. He didn’t like being cajoled into an unscheduled meeting. But, then, he’d called her. He should be happy. He looked over his shoulder, but she’d already started walking away.