The First 48

by Tim Green

  Tom docked his boat and drove up to the house. Windows down. The summer breeze rustling through his hair. A buzzing in his head. He called the Post.

  When Jane didn’t answer at her office, Tom asked for Don Herman.

  He was being crazy. Maybe he should call Mike. When he had these instincts that were always wrong, he should call Mike. Yeah, Mike could bring him down. He wasn’t psychic. He wasn’t a superhero. He was paranoid and fat and tired. Maybe he and Mike could get some coffee. He didn’t need to drink more. But he wanted the Knob Creek, he wanted Ellen there.

  From the cove in the kitchen, he closed the drapes over his old rust-stained farm sink.

  He was about to hang up when Don Herman came on the line.

  “Mr. Redmon, we’ve been trying to reach you at your office.”

  “I’m not in my office. It’s a beautiful day. Where I live, only a criminal would waste a day like this.”

  “A police captain should be contacting you shortly,” Herman said. “Where can he find you?”

  “Jesus God,” Tom said. He felt the hair prickle on his neck.

  He turned around and walked backward with the cordless phone into the parlor.

  Ellen stood in the corner, spinning in fading daylight and dust motes, nodding at him. He looked away. He could not see her eyes.

  “Jane didn’t show up for work this morning,” Herman said. “A newspaper isn’t like Wal-Mart. People don’t just not show up. And to be more specific, people like Jane don’t just not come to work. We sent another reporter to check on her. She found her apartment ripped apart. Papers torn up. Her mattress ripped open. I want to assure you, Mr. Redmon, that the police are doing everything they can.”

  “Stop.”

  “Sir.”

  As Tom walked backward, he heard the clatter of thin metal sounds all around him. His beer can castle toppled inward, and he stumbled and fell to a knee.

  “Mr. Redmon?”

  He caught his breath and looked at the door. Ellen was gone.

  He kicked the cans out of the way and stood.

  “I had a call last night,” Tom said. “She called me last night. I was asleep. Why was I sleeping? I knew.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m coming to Washington.”

  “I can have someone meet you.”

  “I’ll call when I get there.”

  Tom looked at his watch. Five-seventeen. The phantom phone call came in around midnight. Seventeen hours. Gone.

  “We have thirty hours.”

  “Mr. Redmon, I’m sorry?”

  “Tell the police it’s Gleason. Everyone knows it’s Gleason. I’m coming for him.”

  “The police are working as hard as they can. Please.”

  “Thirty hours,” Tom said, again.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Look, every cop knows that if someone isn’t found in the first forty-eight hours they aren’t coming back,” Tom said, swallowing hard. “No one will tell you this, but after the first forty-eight, we quit trying. People vanish.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Mike Tubbs was awakened by the sudden blast of his own snore. He lifted his massive bulk upright in the bed and stared around him. Where it showed amid the tangle of sheets, his pale skin glistened with a film of sweat. A large slab of his belly heaved. He blinked his eyes two times distinctly at the brassy late afternoon sunlight glaring at him through the window, then scratched his head.

  The computer on his desk emitted a quiet chirrup. Mike looked at himself in the mirror, silly with his short tousled thatch of thin red hair, a neck as big as his head. His dark eyes stared back, set like raisins in a vast sheet of dough. He narrowed them in a predatory scowl and stroked his goatee, imagining his opponent, a grand master in Hong Kong.

  He stared up at his Jackie Chan poster and struck the same pose with his fists.

  Tacked to the wall above the computer hung a haphazard series of colorful certificates. Mementos of his past victories. Other masters on other continents. Mike swung his massive legs over the edge of the bed. His feet were wide and flat, his calves like two powder kegs. He rose with a wheeze. The wooden floor complained under his weight, creaking as he crossed the small room, duck-footed, to bring his computer screen to life. No, he hadn’t imagined the small noise. The black knight was now poised to strike either his king’s rook or his queen’s bishop. His Asian opponent had been unable to resist the bait.

  Mike smiled. Nine more moves and checkmate. Mike looked up at his certificates. He could remember the game behind each one of them. Every move.

  Mike pulled on a pair of olive green cargo pants along with a black T-shirt from the White Stripes concert. He took a large pack of Big Red gum from a drawer in the kitchen and stuffed it into his side pocket along with his fat money roll.

  Quietly, he closed the door to his apartment and stepped softly down the stairs and outside into the light. Even the waning heat was too much for Mike and he crossed the street quickly, stopping only to pull a newspaper out of the box before ducking into the Lost Dog.

  The hostess led him to his usual table in the corner of the colorful dining room, by the window.

  Mike sat down and hid behind the paper. A small girl pointed her finger his way, looked at her mother, and puffed out her cheeks. The girl’s mother gave her hand a gentle slap and Mike retreated a bit more.

  “Hi, Mike,” said the waitress, Jeannie, an elfish little girl with twenty body piercings and a T-shirt that read A LESBIAN TRAPPED IN A MAN’S BODY. “You working nights?”

  “Yeah,” he said, lowering the paper just enough to avoid being rude. “How about a double order of the French toast?”

  The house specialty. Doused in bananas. Walnuts. Real maple syrup. Available on the menu all day long. Eggs were a different story.

  “And you think I can get Max to whip up a skillet of eggs with cheese, onions, and potatoes?” he asked. “I’ve got to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner in all at once.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said with a mischievous smile, holding forth a tiny clenched fist, “but I can.”

  After a few mouthfuls, he looked at his watch. He had time, but he couldn’t dawdle. This was a big job. Working nights to keep tabs on the little redheaded wife of a stockbroker. She’d told her husband that after she dropped him at the airport for his trip to Chicago tonight, she was going to drive up to Skaneateles with a girlfriend to spend a couple days at Mirabeau, a fancy spa.

  When Tom Redmon appeared in a pair of khaki work pants, Mike jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair.

  “Tom,” he said, waving his arms, “over here.”

  Tom crossed the room, swinging his thick bowed legs with their purposeful arc. His stubby graying hair, like his shape, seemed cut at right angles. His chest was thick, like a small refrigerator. The short sleeves of his navy blue 2X polo shirt escaped up the slabs of his upper arm.

  “Mike,” Tom said. “Man, I’m glad I found you.”

  Mike pulled back a chair. Tom’s face looked drawn, as if he’d had a stroke. Mike was reminded of Ellen’s funeral. Tom’s hands shook.

  He was sober.

  “Sit down, please,” Mike said. “I’m sorry about the other day . . .”

  Tom waved his hand as if it didn’t matter.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Here . . .”

  “What’s this?”

  “A check for five large. I still owe you a grand, but I want you to have this.”

  “Tom,” Mike said, his face growing warm, “I can’t take this. I don’t want your money.”

  “I owe you.”

  “I owe you for everything I have,” Mike said. He tore up the check and dropped the pieces into his syrup.

  “Mike,” Tom said, his words choked, “something happened to Jane.”

  Mike swallowed hard.

  “She’s working on a story about that Senator Gleason and she didn’t show up for work,” he said. “Someone trashed her apartment. And I got a call last
night and I think it was her. I didn’t know it then, no one said anything, but . . . I’m going to Washington.”

  Mike slurped down his coffee and flicked a twenty onto the table.

  “What are you doing?” Tom said.

  “Going with you.”

  “Mike, I can’t ask—”

  “You didn’t ask,” Mike said, grabbing his friend’s shaking hand. “But we ride together.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Tom’s big white F-350 diesel sat rumbling in front of the fire hydrant. The big commercial camper top covering the bed was white, too, but had faded to a different hue. The banged-up rear quarter panel bled rust.

  “Give me two minutes,” Mike said, touching Tom on the arm.

  “Hurry,” Tom said.

  As Mike crossed the street, Tom looked at his watch and said, “I need to set this thing to go off forty-eight hours from when she called me last night.”

  “When did she call?” Mike asked, turning his head, but still jogging for his apartment door.

  “Twelve twenty-three A.M.”

  “What time is it now?” Mike shouted, pulling open the door.

  “Six oh-six.”

  “That’s thirty hours and seventeen minutes,” Mike said as he disappeared inside.

  Tom nodded and punched 30:17:00 into his Ironman watch. Mike was better than a calculator when it came to numbers.

  He climbed into the truck. The light went on in Mike’s apartment. Tom tapped his foot, then revved the engine.

  Mike came out and almost got hit crossing the street. He tossed a big duffel bag in the back with a clank and threw himself into the front seat, clutching a soft leather briefcase to his chest.

  “Go,” he said.

  Tom slapped his foot on the accelerator. The big truck lurched away from the curb and grumbled down the street. The engine whined and groaned at the same time.

  “What’s in that?” Tom said, angling his head toward the backseat.

  “Some guns and stuff,” Mike said. He patted the briefcase. “Got my computer in here.”

  Tom nodded. He reached down and patted the snub-nosed .38 strapped to his ankle. Standard issue back in his day. They both leaned into the turn as he whipped around the on-ramp to the highway. Mike braced himself on the dash. Tom looked at his watch. 30:10:22. It was a seven-hour drive to D.C. Tom planned on doing it in six.

  “We missed the last commercial flight,” he said to Mike, “otherwise we could have flown. I even called Randy Kapp for his plane. He’s in Vegas.”

  He looked over at Mike to see him nod.

  Everyone around Downstate New York knew who Randy Kapp was. You could see the Kapp trademark sky blue equipment at construction sites from Buffalo to New York City. Two years ago Kapp was accused of beating his wife’s boyfriend with a bedroom lamp. Mike helped Tom on the case. They won. Tom used the money from that one to pay his back taxes and he still had enough left over to buy Rockin’ Auntie. But he’d won more than just the case. If Kapp’s jet had been available, it would have been at Tom’s disposal.

  Tom zipped past an eighteen-wheeler. He looked at the speedometer. Eighty-three and feeling good.

  “What was the math problem all about?” Mike asked.

  “The first forty-eight,” Tom said.

  “Forty-eight hours to find a missing person,” Mike said, pursing his lips. After that, the odds said you’d never find them, but neither of them needed to say it out loud.

  “I’m going to make a call, okay?” Mike said, taking out his cell phone.

  “Help yourself.”

  Tom watched the hood vacuum up the white stripes on the road. He wasn’t listening, but he couldn’t help but hear.

  “Mr. Talbot?” Mike said. “I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry, but something’s come up and I won’t be able to keep an eye on her tonight.”

  The screaming from the phone was so loud that Mike held it away from his ear. His cheeks grew flushed. When the noise died down, Mike put the phone back up to his mouth.

  “Mr. Talbot, I understand completely,” he said in a hushed voice, “and I wouldn’t expect you to pay me. I’m sorry.”

  The screaming began again. Mike snapped the phone shut.

  “Everything okay?” Tom asked, glancing over.

  “Yeah, fine,” Mike said.

  They drove for a time in silence. The road over a bridge thumped past. Tom looked over at his friend. The ghostly green reflection from the mile markers flickered across Mike’s face. Tom looked at his watch. 28:17:55.

  “I appreciate your coming,” Tom said, turning his eyes back to the road.

  “Don’t even say that,” Mike said.

  “Not the first time you’ve been the knight in shining armor, huh?” Tom said, glancing at him.

  Mike smiled grimly.

  “Let’s see,” Tom said, removing his hand from the wheel and ticking off fingers. “There was the time she took Ellen’s car out joyriding and ran out of gas. Then when she broke up with that jackass with the bald head in college and you had to pay him a visit. The money when she wrecked her friend’s car. And Chicago. And that’s just the things I know.”

  “You knew about Chicago?”

  “Not until after you brought her back, I didn’t,” Tom said. “Are you kidding?”

  Mike smiled and shook his head. Looking straight ahead and speaking in a quiet voice, he said, “I’d do anything for you, Tom. I’d do anything for her.”

  Tom twisted his lips and nodded that he knew.

  “I’d probably be dead now,” Mike said. “Or at least in jail.”

  “No,” Tom said, “that was self-defense. Any halfway decent lawyer could have beaten that rap.”

  “Yeah, but that wouldn’t have been the end of it for me,” Mike said. “I saw it all around me. First you’re just a gang member riding around with a leather vest. Then you run contraband. Next you get in on some action somewhere and you either start dealing or you’re a soldier.”

  “You were a soldier, weren’t you?” Tom said.

  “Yeah,” Mike said, “and that’s how I ended up shooting that guy. Believe me, he wouldn’t have been the last.”

  “Remember the first time we met?” Mike asked.

  “That orange jumpsuit,” Tom said, shaking his head. “God.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t even button up the front, and you walked in there with your nice suit on and you still called me Mike.”

  Tom glanced over at him.

  “So?”

  “Didn’t you ever know?”

  “What?”

  “What that meant to me?”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “My whole life, people called me Tubbs.”

  “Well, that’s your name, Mike,” Tom said.

  “Not to you. Not to Ellen. The first time I met her too,” Mike said. He was massaging his right forearm with his left hand. “It was Mike this and Mike that and if she ever got mad at me, she called me Michael. Sometimes I’d do stuff to bug her just to hear her call me that . . .

  “Man, I was Tub-o’-Lard or Tub-o’-Guts or Tub Ass or Tubby my whole damn life until you guys. Hell. A fat guy named Tubbs.”

  “You’re not fat, Mike,” Tom said. “You’re just big. I am too.”

  “You’re in shape, though, man. Like a block of concrete.”

  “You’re getting there.”

  Mike angled his head away. He kept talking, keeping it all light.

  Tom stopped listening. He could think of little else but his daughter.

  Tom glanced into his rearview mirror. He’d seen Ellen there once, in the back of the truck’s cab. But tonight it was only the blur of taillights heading the other way.

  He checked the speedometer. Eighty-seven and still smooth. 27:51:02 on his watch. He massaged the inside corners of his eyes and squinted them hard. His stomach was empty and tight. He looked at the speedometer again and pressed harder on the gas.

  Mike shook his arm.

  “Yea
h?”

  “I said, ‘It’s gonna be all right.’”

  CHAPTER 16

  The F-350 was rattling and wheezing and when Tom crashed up over the curb, the frame shuddered. He cut the engine with both front wheels resting at angles on the sidewalk. The radiator emitted a steady steam that leaked out through the seams of the hood and the motor continued to knock for nearly twenty seconds.

  He crawled out of the cab and jiggled his legs, flexing his toes against the leather of his Wolverine boots. Mike bounced on the toes of his sneakers and twisted his torso back and forth. The night air was still warm. A crescent moon shone through the haze. Trees lining the street whispered softly. Leaning against the stone railing of the steps that led up to the brownstone where Jane lived was a young man in a black and white herringbone blazer with a white dress shirt open at the collar.

  During the drive, Tom had received a call from the lieutenant in charge of the case saying that a Detective Peters would be meeting him at the apartment. Tom saw the bulge of a gun under the man’s arm and the glint of a badge on his belt. Peters’ hair was slicked back. His entire face, especially his big round nose, was red and glazed with sweat. Spots of acne lurked beneath his jawline. He was talking on the phone.

  Tom walked over to him, offered his right hand, and with his left pulled the cell phone away from the man’s ear and pushed the off button.

  “I’m Tom Redmon,” he said. “This is my partner, Mike Tubbs. We’re here to find my daughter.”

  “Sir, could you please step back for a moment?” Peters said. Tom saw he was red-faced and sweating. “And can I have my phone back?”

  “Have you spoken to the senator?”

  “Sir?”

  “Gleason,” Tom said. “The senator. What did he say?”

  “Mr. Redmon,” the young cop said. “I don’t know. I was asked to meet you here so you could see your daughter’s apartment, sir. I do know that I’m supposed to tell you that so far, nothing has turned up that makes any of us think your daughter’s been hurt. This may just be a burglary.”