Good People

by Marcus Sakey

  “I suggested you think, Mr. Reed, and you’d better start. Because you have sheltered my enemies.” The intonations like a preacher reading scripture. “Now, it may be that you’re just what you look like. A perfectly normal man. But even so, you have sheltered my enemies, and for that alone, I could regain face by punishing you. So I ask again, whose side are you on?”

  Tom took a breath. Tried to think of an answer that would satisfy. All he could come up with was the truth. “I’m not – we’re not on anybody’s side. We’re just…” He spread his hands, palms up. “We rented our apartment, that’s all.”

  “You rented it to Will Tuttle.”

  “We only just found out that was his name. After he was dead, I mean. He told us his name was Bill Samuelson. We barely knew him. He paid his rent every month, lived quietly.”

  “Who else do you know?”

  “What?”

  “Jack Witkowski. Do you know him?”

  “No.”

  “Marshall Richards.”

  “No. We don’t know anyone.”

  “You don’t know anyone? In the whole world?”

  “I mean-”

  “You’re not convincing me, Mr. Reed.”

  The skin on the back of his hands itched, and his neck burned. “I swear to you, we didn’t know anything about this. We’re just… we’re trying to have a baby. I’m on my lunch hour, for God’s sake.” Tom stared, not sure how he got here or how to get out. If it were just him, he’d make a run for it, maybe start yelling. But they had mentioned Anna. “Listen, it’s been a bad couple of weeks. First there’s a fire, then our tenant dies, then we find out he’s a criminal. Now you show up and threaten my wife? I don’t know those people. I don’t know anything about anything. I’m just, just a guy.” He glanced at his watch. “Hell, I have a meeting in half an hour.”

  For a long moment, the man opposite just stared. Finally he gave the ghost of a smile. “A meeting, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “Work is killing me.”

  The man chuckled, shook his head. He folded his napkin, set it on top of his half-eaten sausage. Looked over his shoulder. “Work is killing him.”

  Andre smiled, wet lips parting to white teeth. Something in Tom went very cold.

  “Here’s the thing.” The man pushed his food aside, set his hands on the table. “Even if I believe you, that only gets you so far. Because if you’re not on a side, then you’re not on my side.”

  Tom swallowed hard. Stared across the table. Tried to force his mind to order. Finally he said, “What can I do for you?”

  “Now see, that’s a good question. I knew you were smart.” Fingers slow-tapping the wood like piano keys. “Without getting specific, I sell a product the police would prefer I didn’t. Will Tuttle had a sizable quantity of my merchandise. I’d like it back.”

  Merchandise. The tabloids had whispered the Star was buying drugs. It all came clear. This guy wasn’t one of the thieves. He wasn’t chasing the money – he was chasing the men. The men and the drugs they stole from him.

  “Now, if you were to find what I’ve lost, well…”

  “You’d know which side I was on.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tom nodded. The guy must believe the drugs were in Will’s apartment. Which meant that all he had to do was find them. For half a second he had hope. Then he remembered the break-in earlier that week. The place had been searched. The drugs were probably gone.

  On the other hand, he’d been given a possible out. The guy had made it clear he was willing to kill them even if they were innocent. If he rejected the one lifeline thrown his way…

  Besides, maybe whoever broke in had missed the drugs. There was no way to know how long they’d had to search. And Tom knew the building better. “I understand.”

  The man in the suit nodded. “Good. Andre?”

  Standing, Andre wasn’t as tall as Tom would have guessed, maybe just under six, but moved like a boxer, his sleeves tight with muscle, hands held ready. He reached into an inner pocket with two fingers and pulled out a slim business card, which he set on the table.

  Tom hardly noticed. Hardly saw the man opposite him stand, the two of them walk out. Because as Andre had opened his jacket, Tom had seen something inside. A shoulder holster and a big black gun.

  HE DIDN’T MAKE his meeting.

  With traffic, it took almost thirty minutes for the cab to deliver him home. Thirty minutes of staring out the window, fingering the business card. It was elegant in its simplicity: heavy stock, textured cream, with a phone number embossed. No name. Thirty minutes thinking of that gun. When he arrived, he didn’t bother going up to their place to drop his bag. Just opened the door to the bottom unit and went to work.

  He wanted to tear the place apart, yank boxes from cabinets and overturn them, throw books off the shelf, bang at the bottoms of drawers and the hollows of walls. But if the place looked like a tornado had hit, Anna would assume they’d been burglarized again. He’d have to explain about the bodyguard who looked like he was hoping Tom said the wrong thing, and the drug dealer who knew Anna’s name. The memory brought bile to the back of his throat. He wasn’t a violent guy, but if he’d had a gun, a weapon, even a baseball bat, he’d have-

  You’d have gotten yourself killed, is what you would have done. You work in Corporate America. They sell drugs. What do you think the odds on that one are?

  He turned and kicked the La-Z-Boy, the impact jarring up his leg, rocking the chair up a couple of inches to pause, hesitate, and then fall back down. He kicked it again, then again, then stepped forward and grabbed the back of it and threw it sideways, the heavy chair tipping, then crashing down.

  For a second, he imagined it breaking open to spill bales of cocaine across the floor. But all that happened was that it landed with a muscular whoomp, kicking up a cloud of dust and revealing cigarette butts and a patch of grimy hardwood. He sighed, sat down on the edge of the overturned chair. Rubbed his forehead, closed his eyes.

  Then he stood up and went to work.

  MARSHALL LEANED AGAINST THE TREE, hands in his pockets. A woman passed pushing a stroller, and they exchanged smiles. He checked her figure as she went by, then returned his attention to the brick two-flat. The angle of the sun off the windows made it hard to see any detail, but he could make out the man’s silhouette.

  Marshall took out his cigarettes, pulled one free. When he’d decided to quit, nine years ago now, he’d gone out of his way not to be around smokes or smokers. Shopped at the Whole Foods because they didn’t sell cigarettes, stopped going to bars. Then one night, it had hit him – he wasn’t beating the addiction. He was just avoiding it. The smokes were winning.

  After that, he started carrying a pack, always. Fuck them.

  He drew the cigarette under his nose, smelled the tobacco. Originally, he hadn’t planned to get out of the car. But after he saw Tom Reed not only come home in the middle of the day, but go into Will’s apartment instead of his own, it’d seemed worth a look. He was considering the risks of getting closer when he heard a heavy thudding sound from the house, like something dropped from a height.

  What the hell. He tucked the cigarette behind his ear and started forward. A path ran between the building and the one next door, and he started down, head facing forward but eyes on the window. The reflection kept him from making out detail, but he could see that the man had his back to the world.

  Careful to be quiet, Marshall leaned against the window, one hand shielding his face so he could see inside. The La-Z-Boy was on its side. Beyond it, Tom Reed squatted in front of a cabinet. He was going through it, hands moving fast. As Marshall watched, Tom closed one cabinet and moved to the next, and then the one after that. When he finished, he stood and started rifling the shelves. The guy was clearly oblivious to everything else, and Marshall felt safe watching for several minutes.

  Finally, he turned and stepped away, retraced his steps to the car. He sucked air through his teeth. Glanced aro
und the interior: the coffee cup in the holder, the stack of mail in the passenger seat, the cherry air freshener dangling from the mirror.

  Tom Reed hadn’t just been going through a former tenant’s belongings. He hadn’t been cleaning, or considering what was worth selling and what was trash. What he’d been doing was searching for something.

  Marshall fired up the car and pulled away.

  TOM CHECKED EVERY CABINET, every cupboard. Fingered the contents of every drawer, then pulled them out and looked behind. Flipped the mattress up, stripped it, checked for slits. Felt the pockets of every item of clothing. Opened and closed the freezer, then opened it again and checked each container.

  He took the lid off the toilet tank to see if anything was suspended within. Aimed a flashlight up the narrow chimney. Braced the extension ladder against the top of the rear stairs and climbed through the trapdoor to the roof. Fetched his toolkit and opened the back of the oven. Peered into the hollow behind the medicine cabinet.

  Think.

  If the drugs had been here, then whoever came earlier had found them.

  Think, man. Try and see the big picture.

  Okay, the corollary, then: If the drugs hadn’t been here, that meant Tuttle had hidden them somewhere else.

  That thought gave him a fresh burst of energy, and he returned to the unit, looking for clues, starting with the mailboxes. Their own was completely empty, kind of odd, but the other was crammed with catalogs and junk mail, all in the name Bill Samuelson. In the kitchen he found a grocery list (eggs, olive oil, smokes) and a week-old Tribune. Dog-eared delivery menus. A copy of Perfect 10 in the bathroom, the cover proudly proclaiming “The world’s most beautiful natural women!” Ten or twelve matchbooks from ten or twelve bars.

  What he didn’t find was the key to a safe-deposit box. A day planner, or a little black book full of phone numbers, one of them circled in red. A map with a spot marked X.

  No drugs, and no clue as to where Tuttle might have stashed them. After three and a half hours, the only thing he was certain of was that whatever the man in the suit wanted, it wasn’t in this house.

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING to do.

  Tom noticed dirt under his thumbnail, and picked at it with the nail of his middle finger. He smelled sour, his dress shirt marked with sweat stains. The clock on the bedside table read just after five. Anna would be home soon. Home from babysitting the Monkey. That was always a delicate time for her; she loved the kid with all her heart, but seeing what her sister had that she did not, it was tough. Tended to leave her jaggy, on the edge of tears.

  The man in the suit hadn’t given a deadline, hadn’t told him to have the “merchandise” in forty-eight hours. But why would he? He would have known Tom would rush right home and tear the place apart. Would have counted on it. He’d probably give him the night, maybe the next day. But there wouldn’t be any point in waiting longer. Either Tom could deliver or he couldn’t. Which meant that very soon, two dangerous men were going to come looking for something he did not have.

  He took a breath, held it, blew it out. Tried to steady his thoughts. He was scared, absolutely, but it was more than that. Or beyond that, maybe. This whole situation felt surreal, and he was struggling for context. Trying not to just give in and go with it, hope that things worked out for the best.

  He saw Andre’s smile again, wet lips and white teeth, and he stood up, walked into the hallway, rubbing at his neck.

  All right. Go through it again. One more spin round.

  The drugs weren’t here. And there was nothing that gave him an idea where to look. Worse, because he hadn’t mentioned the robbery, he’d painted himself into a corner. Been too clever. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now if he tried to tell the truth… Jesus: Our house was actually ransacked a couple of days ago. Sorry – didn’t I mention that?

  He didn’t even have anything to offer; matchbooks and last month’s cable bill wouldn’t save their lives. He had nothing to give the man in the suit.

  Wait. That wasn’t true. He had three hundred thousand dollars in a duffel bag. Tom stood in front of the bay window, looked out on the street. The money was a possibility.

  Except, what happened when you gave a sack of cash to a killer? Maybe he’d shoot them just to clear the last ties. Or maybe he’d smile, say thanks, and leave. How the hell should Tom know? This wasn’t his world.

  There was only one choice.

  Tom walked out, leaving behind the faint smell of fire.

  Climbed the steps, limbs heavy with the effort of the last hours. Unlocked his door, and was surprised to hear a short double beep. The new alarm system. Anna had left the code on his voice mail, and he keyed it in to the pad, thinking how it was funny that just yesterday this seemed like it would protect them. In the kitchen he poured a glass of ice water and drank it slow. Knew he was stalling, hoping that some other idea would occur to him.

  But nothing would. Over an Italian beef sandwich, his whole life had changed. He was an amateur in a game whose rules he didn’t understand. All he knew for certain was that if he waited too long, the man in the suit would come back, telling tales of Genghis Khan and threatening everything Tom loved.

  He set down the glass of water, took the business card from the drawer where he’d stowed it, picked up the phone, and dialed. After one ring, it went straight to voice mail. As he listened to the message, the tone deep and calm, he told himself that he was doing the right thing. Or at least the best thing he could see.

  When he heard the beep, he said, “Detective Halden? This is Tom Reed. I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day, as you were leaving. We need to talk. Please call me as soon as possible.” He left his cell number, then hung up and leaned his elbows on the counter, head in hands, trying to imagine how to tell his wife that in order to save her life he had to destroy her dreams.

  11

  THE INTERIOR OF KAZE was designed in a style Tom thought of as space-age Zen: white walls, white tables, white light, minimalist plates and glasses. They’d ordered a bottle of sake, which the waitress had poured into a funky decanter that was a cross between a vase and a bong. Personally, he could take or leave sushi, but Anna could be buried in the stuff and chew her way out smiling. Tonight he needed all the help he could get in the smile department.

  Or he would, anyway, once he manned up enough to say what needed saying. After he’d called the detective, Tom had stripped off his business clothes and hopped in the shower, made a plan as he sluiced grime off his body. After hanging out with Julian, Anna would come in tired and sad. So the first order of business was dinner, a good meal at a quiet corner table. A bottle of wine. Strike that. Two bottles. Then, when Anna was mellow with fresh yellowtail and bacon-wrapped scallops, soft with good booze, he would take her hand, and ask her to listen and not speak until he was done. Tell her that they’d been wrong about everything, that they were out of their depth. That they had made a very big mistake, and that now it was time to stop hoping to keep something that wasn’t theirs, and focus on surviving.

  But Anna had thrown him. She didn’t so much walk in as float. Her eyes were bright and clear, no sign that she’d stopped halfway to cry. Instead of the usual quick hug and peck, she’d wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him tight as her lips parted, her tongue dancing against his, the swell of her breasts against his chest. The kiss lasted thirty seconds, and he was hard by the end of it. She’d given him a knowing smile, said, “Hi,” with Marilyn Monroe breathiness, then pressed her pelvis against him. “Did you miss me?”

  “Always,” he’d said.

  She laughed, said, “Yeah, yeah,” and stepped away with a smile. “Prove it. Buy me dinner.”

  Her good mood had continued through the evening. She’d hummed while she changed from a T-shirt and jeans into a summer dress and flip-flops with silver bangles. She’d pulled her hair back into double ponytails, a style they joked was her Inga-the-Exchange-Student look. It had been a long time since
he’d seen her so happy, so unequivocally in the moment. Knowing he had to smash that was like knowing he had to strangle a puppy.

  The evening was warm, and they’d decided to walk the two miles to the restaurant. She was irrepressible, pointing at flowers and smiling at the smell of barbecue, talking about their nephew, describing how big he had gotten, how he giggled when she made funny faces. At one point, strolling down a row of well-tended bungalows, she’d looked at him sideways. “You okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re kind of quiet.”

  “I’m just… mellow,” he said. She accepted his explanation without comment, went on talking about Julian, and then about the summer night and their plans to get away for the Fourth of July, while he walked beside her, hating himself for the lie. He decided he would tell her right after they ordered.

  But they’d started with martinis. Then appetizers. A short bottle of sake, and a first round of sushi. Another bottle, another round. Tom splurging as if an extra half-dozen pieces of nigiri could somehow make up for the loss of the money and their plans.

  Now there was nothing but scraps of pink ginger on the bamboo plank, and he was trying to convince himself that they needed dessert. Some sorbet, or a cheese plate. She looked so lovely by the candle glow, features soft and eyes sparkling.

  Do it. You have to do it.

  He couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed how quiet he’d been, hadn’t dug deeper than the one question. In fact, she’d talked all night, not in a domineering way, but energetically. Like they’d been apart for a month instead of an afternoon.

  The waitress came by, picked up the decanter, and refilled their cups, first Anna’s, then his. “Interest you guys in dessert?”

  “No,” Anna said, at the same time he said, “Yes.”

  Both women laughed, and the waitress said, “How about I bring you the menu and you can take a glance?”

  “Fine.” He fiddled with his chopsticks, picking at single grains of rice strewn on the serving board.