Bad Guys

by Linwood Barclay

  As I was approaching our house from the south, I saw a blue Jag coming from the north. I scooted into our driveway, pulling far enough ahead to allow Lawrence to pull in behind me.

  “Nice timing,” I said, walking up to his car as he got out.

  “I wants ma money,” he said. He was leaving the car running, which I took as a signal that he didn’t have a lot of time to chat.

  “Hang on,” I said, running up the porch steps to the front door. I noticed, sitting in one of the wicker chairs we keep on the porch, a backpack I didn’t recognize. I unlocked the door, ran upstairs to my study, where I keep the checks for our line-of-credit account, and went back outside.

  “How’s the car?” Lawrence asked as I used the hood of his Jag to write him out a check for $8,900.

  “So far so good,” I said.

  Lawrence was casting his eye across the house and garage. “Nice place. You’ve only been here a year or so, right?”

  “That’s right. We lived on this street once before, then flirted with a house in the suburbs for a couple of years, then moved back.We used to live up there.” I pointed up the street.

  As I handed him the check I noticed his eyes narrowing, focusing on something at the far end of the driveway.

  “You got a visitor,” he said.

  “What?” I said, whirling around.

  “Someone’s hiding out behind your garage. I just saw somebody sneak in there.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. We both began walking the length of the drive, past the Virtue, toward the single-door garage. Lawrence pointed for me to go down the right side of the garage while he went down the left. There were only a couple of feet between the back of the garage and a six-foot fence, so there wasn’t going to be anyplace for our mysterious stranger to go.

  Lawrence and I came around the end of the garage at the same time, and our eyes landed on a man—a young man, probably in his late teens, early twenties—about five-ten, slim, short-cropped dirty-blond hair, black lace-up boots, black jeans, long black jacket, dark sunglasses.

  He should have felt embarrassed, trapped and cornered as he was, but he stood there confidently, almost defiantly.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  I recognized the voice. “You must be Trevor,” I said.

  A slight nod of the head. “You must be Mr. Walker,” he said. He stepped forward, and as he did so, I noticed he tried to shove something between some tall weeds. He extended a hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to do but shake, so I did.

  “What’s that you stepped over?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” said Trevor.

  “Down there,” I pointed, just behind his feet. Trevor moved forward a bit, and we could all now see a six-pack of beer. Budweiser, in cans.

  “Someone’s stashed some beer back here,” Trevor said.

  “But not you.”

  “No, not me.”

  “Then if you’re not leaving beer behind my garage, what are you doing, Trevor?” I asked.

  He said, as if the answer were obvious and my question bordering on stupid, “Trying to find my dog.”

  “Really. You thought he might be trapped in here, between the garage and the fence?”

  He reached up, slowly took of his sunglasses, and looked at me with eyes like cold blue steel. “Yes.”

  “I don’t see any dog, Trevor.”

  “That’s because I haven’t found him yet.”

  Lawrence finally spoke. “Where do you live, Trevor?” He wasn’t just making conversation. This was his cop voice.

  Trevor slowly and warily turned his attention on Lawrence. “Around. I’ve got a room over on Ainslie, a block over. My dog wanders over here a lot when he gets loose. But I have this way of tracking him.”

  Lawrence again: “How might that be, Trevor?”

  He smiled. “Satellite.”

  Now it was my turn. “You keep track of your dog by satellite,” I said. Trevor’s head lazily turned my way. I had a feeling we were boring him.

  “Yeah, satellite. It’s a software program, like that thing they have in some of the new cars, you know, where you press the button and you get connected to these people who always know where you are. Your air bag goes off, they know instantly, send an ambulance to your exact location. Not that I would ever have a car like that. You really want General Motors to know where you are every second you’re out and about? You think they’d be above selling that kind of information? Who do you think gets loads of government contracts to build military technology? Companies like General Motors, that’s who. One hand washes the other, right?”

  The theme from The Twilight Zone started playing in my head.

  “So Trevor, you have this software program in your pocket or what?”

  He beckoned us with his finger, leading us around the front of the house and stepped up onto my porch. He grabbed the backpack I noticed in our wicker chair.

  He brought it back over by the cars, but when he went to set it, with its various straps and buckles everywhere, on the hood of Lawrence’s Jag, Lawrence said, “Just put it on the drive, pal.”

  Trevor complied. There was something about Lawrence’s voice that made you do what he asked, even if you were a kid who thought he was tough, like Trevor.

  Trevor glanced up at Lawrence as he opened the flap on the backpack. “Who are you, may I ask?”

  “My name is Mr. Jones,” he said.

  Trevor glanced at me. “Is he a friend of yours?” I stared, thinking this kid had a lot of attitude, standing here with two adults who’d just caught him trespassing. “What do you do, Mr. Jones? I’m betting you’re a cop.”

  “You know a lot of cops, do you, Trevor?”

  “No, but I know an authority figure when I see one. It’s in the way you carry yourself, your voice, like when you tell somebody to do something, you expect them to do it.”

  “I was,” Lawrence said. “Now I’m what you might call an independent.”

  “You mean, like a security guard?”

  Oh boy. I hoped, when Lawrence decided to kill him, he’d be quick.

  Amazingly, Lawrence kept his cool. “No,” he said icily. “I’m a private detective.”

  Trevor’s eyes were wide. “Ahhh. Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual private detective before. Do you have, like, a license or something? I’d love to see it.”

  “How’d you like to see your face planted on the sidewalk?”

  That didn’t seem to faze Trevor. But rather than try to up the attitude, he adopted a reasonable tone. “I’d merely like to know whether you have some authority to interrogate me like this. Mr. Walker here, this is his property, and he’s entitled to ask what I’m doing here, and I can understand why he might be troubled, but I’m afraid I don’t understand your role here.”

  He was good, I had to give him that.

  Lawrence eyed Trevor like he was a cobra waiting to strike. Slowly, Lawrence reached into his jacket and extracted a small white business card. “Here,” he said, handing it carefully to Lawrence. “You can shove this up your ass.”

  Trevor glanced at the card, smiled, and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Lawrence said coolly. “Someday, when you want someone to tail your wife because she’s having an affair, you can give me a call.”

  “Oh,” Trevor said, smiling, “I don’t think that will be necessary. There are so many other ways to find out what people are up to, folks like you will be out of business in a few years.”

  “Why don’t you just show us what’s in the bag,” I said.

  Trevor slipped a laptop from inside it, opened it up, where the screen was already up and running.

  “Wireless Internet connection,” he said, “so I can do this sort of thing from anyplace.”

  “Amazing,” I said. “Do what?”

  “You see this? This is a map of this quadrant o
f the city.”

  Lawrence and I looked. He was right. There was Crandall and a five-block radius around it. And what looked to be a moving dot that was pulsing.

  I pointed to it. “What’s that?”

  “That’s Morpheus.”

  “Morpheus?”

  “My dog. His name’s Morpheus. It looks like he’s moving back this way.” The dot appeared to be traveling from one side of the street to the other. “He’s probably on the trail of a squirrel. Or looking for a place to take a whiz.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How can you do this?”

  Trevor gave me a no-big-deal shrug. “There’s a tiny transmitter on his collar, and that sends the message to the satellite, and it shows up on here.” Looking at Lawrence, he said, “I’m sure you must have equipment like this for the kind of work you do.” Saying it like he knew Lawrence didn’t. Lawrence said nothing.

  I still wasn’t buying it, until Trevor, looking up the street, jumped up and shouted, “Morpheus! Here, boy!”

  And a black knee-high, scruffy-looking thing that was one part bulldog and at least five parts of something else came hurtling down the sidewalk, up our short drive, and threw itself at Trevor and into his arms.

  “Hey, Morpheus, I was watching you all the time.” He wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck and nuzzled his face into the mutt’s, unconcerned about the slobber that was dripping onto his coat. He pointed to a quarter-size disc-like item clipped to the dog’s collar.

  “That’s it there,” he said.

  “How do you get this kind of stuff?” I asked.

  Trevor stood up. “My dad. He’s in software. He’s rich. He puts stuff in the mail for me to play with.”

  “You don’t live with your parents anymore?” I asked.

  Trevor smiled. “My parents and I reached the conclusion that I was better off on my own.”

  “Trevor, why don’t you cut the shit,” Lawrence said. “You’re not here looking for your dog.”

  He cocked his head slightly to one side. “That’s quite true. I was hoping to run into Angie. I thought she might be interested in all this, and that she might like my dog, too.”

  “Angie’s not here,” I said, although I could not be certain of that. I’d run in and out of the house pretty quickly, and if she was home, and knew Trevor was outside, she was probably hiding someplace in the basement.

  “Well then, I’ll just give her a call later.” He slipped the sunglasses back over his eyes, slid the laptop back into the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, and said, “Come on, Morpheus, let’s go.”

  Neither Lawrence nor I said anything as he and Morpheus headed up Crandall, the dog walking obediently at his master’s side. He was almost to the corner when he stopped and got into an old black Chevy, Morpheus hopping into the backseat. He started the car, turned around in a driveway, and headed back down the street past us. The car was rusted, without hubcaps, and rumbled as it drove by. Trevor didn’t glance our way.

  Lawrence walked out into the street, studied the car as it trailed away, then walked back up the drive.

  “I am definitely running a check on that kid,” Lawrence said. “Whether you want me to or not.”

  I’d just had my first face-to-face encounter with Trevor, and I could honestly say I was not nuts about him. “I won’t try to stop you,” I said.

  Lawrence got back into his car. “I’ll give you a call later, set things up for tonight at Brentwood’s. I’ve already talked to the cops. The moment we see anything, if we see anything, I call them. No chases tonight.”

  “Good.”

  He gave me a little salute, backed out of the drive, and sped off.

  About the same time, Paul appeared, walking up the street from the south, no sunglasses, no trenchcoat, a pretty normal looking kid. He had his own backpack slung over his shoulder and was returning from his day at high school.

  “Hey,” he said to me, and then his eyes landed on the Virtue. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at it. There was no way I was going to let him drive it, not when he didn’t have his license yet. I prepared myself for an onslaught of argument.

  Instead, he said, “Tell me this isn’t our car.”

  I cocked my head. “Yeah, it is. I got it at the auction today. It’s a great car. Is there a problem?”

  “I hope you’re not expecting me to drive that when I get my license. It’s one of those enviro-friendly cars. I’m surprised you were able to get it up the driveway. There’s nothing under the hood but gerbils.”

  “It’s got a sunroof,” I said, but he was already walking past me into the house, snorting and shaking his head in disgust.

  It’s a terrible burden, being the only one who wants to save the planet.

  12

  I bounded into the house after Paul.

  “Angie!” I called out. I mounted the stairs to the second floor and rapped on her bedroom door. “Angie, you in there?” When there was no answer, I opened it tentatively. “Angie, you home?”

  The room was empty. I came back downstairs, passed Paul in the kitchen, and poked my head through the door to the basement. “Angie?”

  “She’s not home, Dad,” Paul said. I was inclined to agree with him. I put one hand on the kitchen counter, resting. My heart was pounding, and I felt a little winded from running around the house. I was relieved that Angie wasn’t home, that Trevor hadn’t had a chance to find her here, but then again, where was she?

  “What’s up?” Paul asked. “Did you get that car at the auction? Didn’t they have any cheap Beemers?”

  “Where’s your sister?” I asked him.

  “She’s at class, Dad,” Paul said, looking at me like I was an idiot. “She’s not going to be home now.”

  Of course. I was an idiot. “Right,” I said. “Where else would she be?” Pulling myself together, I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.

  “Can I have one?” Paul asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s not like I’ve never had a beer, you know,” he said. “And I think it would be a lot better, you know, if I had a beer in the open, with my dad, instead of, you know, trying to sneak around to have a beer.”

  My mind went back to that six-pack left between the back of the garage and the fence.

  “Is that what you do now, sneak booze?”

  Paul’s face flushed. “Of course not.”

  “Because if you are—”

  The phone rang. I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?” I said.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Angie!” I said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “Hey, we were just talking about you.”

  “Who?”

  “Paul and I. We were just saying you were probably in a class.”

  “That’s right, Dad. That’s what I do. I’m at college.” Still a bit frosty.

  “I know, I know. We were just thinking about you, that’s all.”

  “Is Mom there by any chance?”

  “No, hon, she’s at work. What can I do for you?”

  There was a hint of a sigh. She would have to deal with me. “Would I be able to have the car tonight? Because I’ve got a bunch of things to do, and I need to go to the mall, and then I have to do some research for this essay, and—”

  “Guess what. I bought a car today.”

  A hesitation. “Oh my God, are you serious? Like, not to replace the Camry, but a second car?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s so awesome! What did you get?”

  “Listen, why don’t I drive down and show it to you? I’ll give you a lift home.”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Now, I have to warn you, you may not like it. The car has not been unanimously endorsed by members of this household.” I glared at Paul, who had reached into the fridge, grabbed a beer bottle, and was miming the act of opening it, looking at me for approval. I shook my head.

  “Oh well, as long as it’s got wheels,” she said, and told me to pick her up
in front of Galloway Hall at 5:30 P.M., when her last tutorial of the day would be over.

  I hung up the phone and barely had time to tell Paul to put the beer back into the fridge when the phone rang again. It was Sarah.

  “This retreat thing starts early tomorrow morning,” Sarah said. “So the paper’s paying for a room at the conference center so we can go tonight, be ready to start fresh in the morning, instead of having to get up before dawn and driving an hour and a half.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “So I’m getting out of here now, gonna come home and throw some stuff in a bag, have a quick bite to eat, and then Bev, you know her? The foreign editor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bev’s being sent to this thing, too, so she’s going to pick me up around six and we’re going to head up.” It was already a little past four.

  “If you’re here by five,” I said, “I’ll see you, but I’ve promised Angie I’d pick her up at five-thirty. I’ll get some dinner started.”

  I had some pork tenderloin in a mushroom gravy going when Sarah got home at four forty-five. She dropped herself into one of the kitchen chairs.

  “I saw the car,” she said. “In the drive.”

  I waited.

  “It’s kind of cute,” she said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, it should do us. Although I looked all around it and couldn’t find the outlet where you plug it in.”

  “That joke’s really running out of gas.”

  “Hey, that’s a good one,” Sarah said. “I have to say, it’s perfect for Angie getting back and forth to school.”

  “Paul hates it,” I said.

  Sarah shrugged. You reach a point when you stop worrying about what your teenagers hate.

  I called Paul to dinner, setting out three plates, and making up a fourth and covering it with plastic wrap for Angie to eat later. I stood and ate by the sink, Paul grabbed his plate and went to the basement, leaving Sarah the only one to actually sit at the kitchen table to eat her meal. But because she had to be ready to leave in a little more than an hour, she shoveled it down like a teenager.

  “Guess who was prowling around the backyard when I got home,” I said.