by Jim Heskett
“I’ll be fine, baby. My parents are keeping me busy. I just want this to be over with, and if this is what it takes, then this is what it takes. You go do what you need to do, and I’ll see you when you get home.”
“But…”
“Text me when you know anything,” she said. “I’ll check in with you later. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said, then she ended the call. Grace did seem okay without me, which was a strange feeling. Maybe that was my need to be needed. Maybe that was me forgetting how independent she was.
I fiddled with the key. “Screw it.”
Slid the key into the lock on the box. Opened the lid. I discovered, in the whole of the box, there was only one object inside: a little red Matchbox car. A truck.
CHAPTER FIVE
I slid the toy truck into my pocket and took my laptop down to the hotel bar to hunt for dinner. A man in the elevator gave me a strange look, peeking at me out of the corners of his eyes a couple times. I didn’t think much of it.
For some reason, pork ribs dominated my thoughts. There’s something so deeply carnivorous about eating ribs… tearing animal flesh from the bone with your teeth, getting blood (barbecue sauce) all over your hands and face in the process. Maybe I unconsciously sought violence now, in this new landscape of my life.
When the ribs were all in my gut, I flipped open my laptop, put my feet up on the opposite bench in the restaurant booth, and connected to the hotel WiFi to prowl the internet for Omar and Susan.
She wasn’t easy to find. The phone number the attorney had given me was disconnected.
There was only one “S.Palenti” in Brownsville, although I couldn’t dig up a working phone number. So I knew she existed. Most of the websites I tried wanted all of my own personal information plus an obscenely high credit card deposit to allow me to see more. I wasn’t in the mood to open myself up to credit card fraud or tons of email spam.
And even if I could acquire her phone number, I still needed to meet her in person to deliver this little toy truck, for whatever reason my father had wanted her to have it.
Well, that wasn’t true. I could have mailed it. But part of me wanted to see this half-sister and look her in the eye. Maybe she knew why our dad was off the grid before he died. Maybe she knew how he and Kareem were connected.
I ordered a beer to wash the barbecue sauce down my gullet, and turned my attention to Omar Haddadi. There were zero instances of anyone with that name in Austin, so I searched for Omar Qureshi, the other surname Kareem had used. I found three. One was spelled Ohmar, so I ruled that guy out. Of the two remaining, one had a phone number listed in the white pages, so I dialed the number.
He picked up on the second ring. He claimed not to know anyone by the name of Kareem, and hastily ended the call. I had to put a checkmark in the strange column, but a little further research into this particular Omar revealed that he was a native of Kentucky, which didn’t seem likely for Kareem and Omar Qureshi. Kareem’s accent definitely said foreigner.
That left me with one Omar Qureshi in the Austin area to locate. I knew it had to be this one because there was no O. Qureshi or ambiguous Mr. Qureshi to be found in online white pages searches.
But this Omar Qureshi I did locate turned out to be something like a ghost. I could prove that he existed because there was a mention of him placing third in his age group at a 5K fun run a decade ago, but no address or phone number. No email.
I ordered a second beer and dug a little deeper. Looked at race photos of that fun run. Combining the name of the race with the name Omar, I found a picture of a smiling Middle Eastern man standing with a man and two women. Omar was wearing a t-shirt bearing the Cisco Systems company logo.
Searching Omar Qureshi and Cisco found one reference to an employee who worked there, terminated four years ago. Found a picture of him in an image search. Same guy. Now I was getting somewhere.
This all eventually led me to an address in south Austin, a former residence. My only lead.
I’d drained the second beer down to the dregs, and as I held it to the light to swirl the foamy bottom contents around the glass, my eyes landed on the hotel gift shop across the lobby. On a pair of dimmed eyes looking directly back at mine. Then, below that, a wrist encased in a soft cast. Glenning, the man whose wrist I’d broken only a couple weeks ago when he’d kidnapped me and taken me to the top of Eldorado Canyon.
He curled his lips into something like a smirk, and then he disappeared back into the gift shop.
I jumped up from my seat and raced across the lobby. By the time I’d reached the gift shop, Glenning was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
I packed up and prepared to leave the hotel as soon as I could. Zero desire to go through this whole scene again with these people. I’d told Grace I’d be home soon, and getting in the middle of their nonsense was not on the agenda.
If Glenning was here, that meant IntelliCraft knew exactly what I was doing. Or they at least knew exactly where I was. I could imagine that leading Glenning to Omar Qureshi would be the worst possible outcome of my time here in Texas.
So going to Austin seemed like a bad idea. Maybe going straight to the airport and returning home was the wisest option.
At the same time, not going to Austin also seemed like a bad idea. For all I knew, they were already onto Omar and were planning to make an imminent move on him. If they got to him first, could I live with myself? Could I walk away from a dead man’s last request and let IntelliCraft have Omar?
No, I couldn’t do that. I needed to find him.
But I couldn’t take a plane. I’d have to hand over my driver’s license to board one, and a company with IntelliCraft’s reach could find those flight records.
I could call the cops, but thoughts of Detective Stan Shelton blotted out that idea. The fake cop had blended in with the real ones the night of trainee Paul’s murder in my bathroom, so for all I knew, calling the law would end with the same result. I didn’t trust anyone in authority.
I couldn’t even rent a car, same driver’s license issue with air travel. I figured maybe buses allowed anonymous travel, but I looked up a few, and they all required ID.
Pacing around the hotel room with my sad luggage staring back at me from the bed, I was out of options. Was there no way to be anonymous anymore and travel without leaving a trail?
Then it came to me. Craigslist. I searched the site to find someone looking to ride-share south, and found a few options. Apparently, there was some big concert for a band named White Widow in Austin because I found a glut of hippies with vans seeking to add more riders to help pay for gas. I bypassed anything that indicated several other people were already going. I needed a lone driver, to ease my paranoia.
When I found one that fit my needs, it was some guy named Zeke, with an aging Honda Civic. Aside from the long hair, he looked about as normal as could be. He was my last option.
I called him.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Zeke?”
“That’s the name they gave me. What can I do you for?”
“I saw your ad on Craigslist about looking for someone to help pay for gas to go to Austin?”
“Oh yeah, man,” he said, “I could definitely still use a rider. Gas is so pricey, it’s like they want you to put down a deposit and show them a birth certificate at the gas station, right? You going to the White Widow show?”
“Something like that.”
My non-committal answer didn’t give him pause. “Oh, okay, cool. Just tell me where and when, and I’ll come get you. We’ll split gas down the middle, so I hope you don’t think it’s too douchey for me to ask to see if you’ve got funds before we go.”
“That’s no problem at all, Zeke.”
***
Zeke met me at the front of the hotel about an hour later. I’d checked every nook and cranny for Glenning, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Anyone who gave me a second look, I studied that person until I could be s
ure they weren’t going to pull a gun on me. All clear.
If IntelliCraft saw me getting into this car, then it was all for nothing.
Zeke had blond hair down to his shoulders, parts of which were matted enough they’d turned into chunky dreadlocks. His skin was deeply tanned for a white guy, and despite the strange teenagery clothes he wore, he looked at least my same age, maybe older.
“Sup?” he said as I rolled my suitcase to his car. The moist and chilly night air bit at the back of my neck.
“Hi, Zeke.”
“What’s your name?”
Candle almost spilled out of my mouth, but I caught myself. The less Zeke knew, the better. “Luther,” I said, because I didn’t think my dad’s attorney would mind too much. Or ever find out.
“Lex Luther,” Zeke said, bobbing his head and grinning. “Alright, Luther, I hate to do this but do you mind if I ask if you can prove you can help pay for gas? I’ve been burned, you know?”
I reached into my back pocket for my wallet just as a paranoid thought occurred to me. What if Zeke here was some kind of con artist? Get me out on the road, give me a contact high from weed smoke, then smack me in the head with a sock full of quarters. I wake up on the side of the road with no wallet.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Sure, sure,” I said, taking out my wallet. I had to stop being so suspicious. I opened the fold and showed him the two hundred in cash I’d withdrawn from the hotel ATM. I didn’t show him the extra thousand I’d stuffed in my shoe because I was worried about leaving a credit card trail across Texas for Glenning and those people to find.
“Alright, man, let’s get this show on the road.”
Zeke’s car smelled of fast food and sweat, and the floors were ruled by a collection of random junk. As he started the car, he scrolled through some music on his phone and then blasted it through the car’s speakers. “Just got this,” he shouted over the din. “It’s a bootleg of the Portland show from last month.”
As we left the parking lot, I realized it was White Widow we were listening to. Some kind of world-music hippie jam band stuff, warbling and dissonant and meandering. Not my scene. I’d take Josh Ritter or Iron & Wine over this junk any day.
The traffic on I-35 crawled like roaches across a carpet. Zeke had mercy on me and turned the volume down on the music an hour into the journey. I couldn’t even say how many White Widow songs I’d heard, because they all blended together like one long djembe drum solo.
My pocket started to buzz. As I fished my phone out, Zeke turned the music down a bit more.
“Hello?”
“Tucker Candle?” a voice on the other end said.
I tossed a glance at Zeke, wondering if he could hear the caller. Zeke eyed me.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Mr. Candle, this is Detective Cross. I’ve been going over your statement and I just have a couple questions for you. Was wondering if I could pop by around nine tomorrow morning and we could chat for a few minutes. No big deal.”
This was a problem. While I hadn’t been arrested for any of the events of the last two weeks, they’d told me I wasn’t supposed to leave Colorado without permission.
“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” I said.
A pause. “Why is that?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at home. I had to travel to Texas for…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. I was either going to lie to this detective or get caught in a lie to Zeke. I chose Zeke. “I had to fly to Texas to take care of my father’s estate. He passed away a couple weeks ago.”
“Sorry to hear that, Mr. Candle, but you were supposed to inform us if you were required to travel.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that.”
“You need to contact me immediately when you come home. We have some unresolved issues surrounding the events of last week. Your statement needs to be clarified.”
“Absolutely. I will do that.”
When the call ended, Zeke shook his head. “You lied to me, man.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your name isn’t Luther.”
I didn’t know what to say. I considered a few options, but I was red-handed no matter what I said.
“I saw your driver’s license when you showed me your cash.”
The way he said it sent a pulse of fear into my stomach. I had an urgent notion to somehow distract him, open the car door, and tumble out. I’d try to roll, maybe might only dislocate a shoulder. But that was crazy. We were doing seventy on the interstate.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
“Whatever, I don’t care. I just don’t want to have that kind of energy between us, you know? That’s not what I want to carry into the show.”
He looked at me, and I winced.
“Oh, you’re not even going to the show, are you?”
“I’m sorry, Zeke. I just need to get to Austin, and this was the only way I could think of to do it.”
He bit his lip, turned the music back up, and ignored me for a half hour.
Somewhere around Waco, Zeke started sniffling. I noticed a dribble of a tear on one cheek lit in orange light by the dashboard electronics. He caught himself and turned his head away. I wanted to ask him what was wrong but didn’t want to pry, given that he was probably still mad. I was surprised he hadn’t left me by the side of the road after I’d lied to him.
In a couple minutes, he broke the silence. “That phone call. You said your dad’s estate?”
“Yeah?”
“My dad passed away a couple months ago. Still hurts.”
A van with shoe polish messages about some sports event passed us, and a gaggle of teenagers bounced around in the back. Happy, clear faces, invincible until proven otherwise.
I didn’t know what to say to Zeke. “Bummer,” was all I could think to say.
“You and your dad close?”
“Not exactly. I barely knew him.”
He shook his head. “That's a shame. My old man could be a real son of a bitch, you know, but he was still my old man. I keep thinking about what I didn’t get to say to him.”
I considered this in silence for a couple minutes, and Zeke seemed satisfied to leave it at that. I hadn’t seen my father in so long, I didn’t even know if he was a son of a bitch. I hadn’t known him at all, come to think of it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I spent the night at a crappy motel in north Austin. The remote control for the television was anchored to the TV by a chain. I don’t know who would steal a remote control, but the motel had definitely found a way to keep me from doing it.
Checked in with Grace and still had her full support after I explained my progress so far. She said her sister was keeping her busy with home improvement projects like cleaning out the garage to make space for her car.
She told me that Dog had started sleeping on my side of the bed, which made sense. That was probably his plan all along, the conniving little interloper. I’d deal with that when I got home.
In the morning, I took a cab out to Elm Creek Drive, to the former residence of one Mr. Omar Qureshi. Trailer park neighborhood filled with double-wides and porches made of 2x4s. Despite the crisp December morning air, lots of kids were running about in shorts and t-shirts, spraying each other with colorful and futuristic-looking water guns. A few people sipping coffee on porches eyed me as I walked through the gravel lot, checking the address listed on my phone.
I located the trailer, a mobile home with bowed and faded blue siding. Rocking horse in the front yard next to a rusted car battery.
I knocked on the door, and after some shuffling inside, it cracked open. A pair of eyes materialized from the dark interior, then a face with a massive black beard.
“What do you want?” he said.
“This is going to sound weird, but I’m looking for Omar Qureshi. I understand he used to live here.”
The bearded man looked me up and down, whistling air through his nose. He reached
to his left, then inserted a toothpick in his mouth. “Who wants to know?”
“My name is Candle.”
“What kind of a name is Candle?”
“A last name. Look, I’m a friend of his, but I haven’t been able to find him lately and I know he used to live here. It’s important that I get in touch with him now, as soon as possible.”
The man grunted. Didn’t seem to buy my line. “If you’re a friend of Omar’s, seems mighty strange that you wouldn’t know what happened to him. He hasn’t been around here in a couple years.”
I paused, trying to figure a way I could get this guy on my side. Didn’t see that we had much in common I could use for leverage. “I know, but you see, it’s been a long time. I need to find him, so I’d really appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.”
He opened the door, revealing a naked belly billowing over a pair of grungy boxer shorts. From inside, a baby’s cries leaked out into the air.
He stepped out onto his porch, wearing only his skivvies, then flicked his toothpick at me. “You listen to me: the last thing in the world I need is to bring that mess into this house again. I don’t like that you’re coming around here, making trouble for me and my family. Omar ain’t here, and I got nothing else to say on the matter.”
I stammered. “I don’t want to make any trouble, sir, I just need to locate him. It’s urgent.”
“That two-bit liar has caused enough grief for me.”
He got in my face, the smell of cheap beer assaulting my nostrils. He sucked his teeth and fluttered his eyes over my face. Something was about to happen.
“Step off my property.”
Anger bubbled up from my toes. Maybe he didn’t want to tell me where Omar was, but this guy didn’t have to act like such a jerk. “No. Just tell me where he is.”
His hand shot out and grabbed me by the neck. For a big guy, he was quite lithe. His eyes lit up with fire as he applied pressure. Felt the pulse in my neck throb in my head as he blared the whites of his eyes at me.