A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (19 page)

"Damn," I said. I'd hoped Kransky might've raked something up but, realistically, I wasn't surprised. Something cops like to keep secret is that it isn't that hard to fall off the map if you know what you're doing and are willing to put up with some inconveniences. Wheeler fit both descriptions. Granted, he never struck me as the sharpest tack in the barrel and his experience would've been from the mid-nineties but a lot of the rules were the same: use a fake name, never get finger-printed--so no federal jobs, don't commit a crime--and don't use your own social security number. That was about it. And, if he'd stayed current on some of the more elaborate identity theft scams, he could've been living a brand-new life for the last decade.

Kransky sensed my frustration. "The well hasn't dried up yet. My buddy in Records hasn't called back yet. Since this is off the books, it's going to take some time, but he's still a good source."

I racked my brain trying to think of something he hadn't, an angle or a new avenue to go down, but came up empty. "All right. Disappointing, but it's still good work. You know, another thirty years and you might make captain."

"Jesus Christ, I hope not," he said and hung up.

vi.

He stalked down the sidewalk, planting the heel of each boot hard on the ground, like he wanted to crack the cement under his feet. Electric worms moved under his skin, poked out of his eyes. In stir, this rage had helped keep him alive. It was a force field that communicated with others on the most primal level. It said: don't fuck with me. The vibe had been just enough to keep him in one piece on the inside, but out in the real world, it had an even better effect. People walking towards him kept their eyes on their shoes or found a reason to cross the street.

But anger was a dangerous luxury. He turned into a small park where he sat on a chewed up, graffiti-covered bench, forcing himself to get control. More than one group wanted to get their hands on him and lock him up for good. Stomping around in a blind fury was a great way to get picked up, plucked right off the street. He'd been on the move for days, living off whatever he could steal, trying to dodge the thugs he'd seen around the campus he knew were looking for him. So busy looking over his shoulder he'd had no time to search for Amanda. It didn't take a genius to guess she was with Singer, but finding them was going to have to take a back seat to staying free and alive. The thought that he could find her so easily, but couldn't actually do anything about it, made him furious. His hands curled into fists.

What he needed right now was discipline. Calm. He sat very still, emptying his mind and slowing his breathing. It wasn't easy. He couldn't stop the self-recrimination. The one break he'd been given he'd squandered, indulging himself with the stupid flowers again, unable to resist one more time when what he should've done is made his move right there. Then she'd disappeared, only to come back with Singer escorting her and handing her off to one of the clown cops, the campus police. Again, he should've struck, but he'd been spooked. Was he being set up? Were they baiting him with the rent-a-cops, daring him to go after her while a SWAT team was in the next room, ready to unload on him? He gave a moan and gritted his teeth, almost crazy with frustration. He sat like that for long minutes, waging an internal war with himself, until a girl at a nearby park bench caught his eye. Tired of trying to conquer his anger and his hunger, he gave up, letting his mind follow his emotions for once.

The girl was slender and tall, a sapling amongst a bunch of stumps. He hadn't noticed her when he'd first sat down, but he stared at her now, unable to look away, vibrating with impotent energy. She was leaving, tucking slab-thick chemistry and physics texts in a backpack. Slim hands smoothed her hair back and tied it into a pony tail. By the time she stood up to go, his leg was jogging up and down like a pump. He had to squeeze both hands bloodless to keep from reaching out as she walked by. He almost barked at the complete indifference she showed.

He got up and followed. It was stupid, but he was kidding himself if he thought he was in control anymore. He followed her for blocks, almost without blinking, focusing on her legs, her backpack, her hair. She saw him once at a red light, then again from a casual glance thrown over her shoulder. Her pace quickened.

She knew.

A tremor ran from his groin to the crown of his head, tightening the skin at the back of his skull. It's what he wanted, to have her know he was back there, coming for her.

That's when it all finally made sense to him. The flowers. The long, watchful nights outside the apartment. Trailing her through the streets. It was so obvious. It was the hunt as much as the result, the journey as much as the destination. He couldn't shortcut the approach any more than he could simply do away with the ending. Both were integral. He almost wept with the relief the realization brought to him.

The girl was almost running by the time she passed through the glass doors of her dorm, waving her electronic key fob at the security panel in panic. He saw her again out of the corner of his eye. She'd stopped in the lobby, fearful, gasping, waiting to see if the danger she'd sensed had been real or imagined, ready to be embarrassed at a moment of excessive and unnecessary caution.

But he had already forgotten her. He knew what he needed to do now. No more wooing or elaborate gestures; the drama was crying out for its end. He forgave himself his lapses and concentrated instead on the new feeling of purpose that ran through his soul. His pace was steady as he walked by the girl, his gaze straight ahead as he smiled beatifically to himself, as though he'd found the answer to the most difficult question in the world.

I put the dumbbells on the floor with a groan and collapsed on a workout bench that was in worse shape than I was. Foam padding erupted out of splits in the cover and there was more rust than steel in the frame. The dumbbells were filthy as well as rusted and my hands were covered in stains from the couple of sets I'd done. I'd made it home from chemo in one piece, but I was scared and frustrated with how weak I was. If this is how I was going to feel all the time, all I'd be able to do to Wheeler would be wave a fist at him.

"Work out," Nurse Leah had said, when I'd complained.

"Huh?"

"Go to the gym. Walk around the block. Anything."

"I would've thought you'd want me to rest."

"Look, we're blasting your red blood cells with drugs," she said. "That's why you feel tired. It's not the chemo that makes you feel like crap, it's the fact that we're destroying your source of energy. If you exercise, you'll replace some of the good cells that we're killing. Not to mention it's a great way to take your mind off things."

So, after I got home, I scratched Pierre on the head and clomped down to the basement to dig out my old weights. I managed to move some boxes out of the way before I had to take a break. Then I got the dumbbells lined up in order of their poundage, which required another sit-down. All told, I was able to knock out one set each of curls, presses, and squats before black spots swam in front of my eyes and I decided to call it a day. It wasn't really a workout, but--hell--it was something. I crawled back upstairs and stood in front of my sink, gulping water straight from the tap. I didn't stop until I could hear the water swilling around in my belly, at which point I tottered out to the living room, still sweaty, and crashed on the couch once again.

I lay there, making the furniture unsavory, until guilt and restlessness overcame fatigue. With a sigh, I got to my feet, clambered upstairs, and returned with Wheeler's folder. Every cop knows and hates the adage, when you don't know what else to do, you start over. I flopped onto the couch, opened the case file, and read the first page. Again.

Five hours later, the file wasn't done, but I was. Any sense of well-being and health I might've gotten from my abbreviated workout had drained away and now I felt dull and light-headed. And no closer to solving anything. I could've been reading the phone book for all the sense it was making. I got up and stretched, popping the vertebrae in my back, and let out a huge yawn. My chest was sore, and I realized I'd been fiddling with the skin around my mediport while I'd been reading. I was going to have to cover it with duct tape or I'd be scratching the thing right out of my body.

I went to the kitchen to pour a cup, then headed back out to the living room, when I heard a car door slam somewhere out front. I pulled back a curtain to peek out. A powder blue Toyota truck with tinted windows was parked out on the curb. As I watched, the truck's cab see-sawed as someone got out of the driver's side and came around the front. I tensed, ready to grab my gun, until I saw it was Kransky. He gave the street the once over then glanced at my front door. I opened it to show him I was there. He raised his chin once, then opened the passenger door and hustled Amanda inside. I shut the door behind them, but watched the street through the window while I talked.

"Any problems?"

"No," Amanda said. Her voice was short, clipping the ends of the words off like she was trimming them with a knife. I glanced away from the window and looked at her, then Kransky.

"Any problems?" I asked again.

Kransky shook his head. Amanda said, "I've got to get some work done. Marty, can I use your office?"

"Sure. Move the files--" I said to her back as she sprinted up the stairs"--out of your way."

Kransky watched her go. I turned to him and said, "What's going on?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "She doesn't want this thing to impact her life. She wants to teach class and grade papers and walk around campus like Wheeler is a guy who won't stop asking her out instead of a killer."

"And?"

"If I'm going to do this, I'm going to be careful. So I went up to her classroom when the schedule said she was supposed to be done and told some kids to clear off."

"She didn't like that?'

"I wasn't real diplomatic about it. She was mad the whole way home and I took an hour to drive back here. No sense in giving her an armed escort at GW, then leading Wheeler right back to your house."

I glanced up the steps. "I'll have a talk with her. She hasn't totally grasped the implications of keeping herself safe from him."

"That might help."

"What happened to the Corolla?" I asked, gesturing towards the street.

"I stopped by the Impound again, got the truck instead."

"They let you do that?"

"I can keep it up for a few days," he said. "It might mess Wheeler up if he's watching."

"Good move," I said. I lifted my cup. "You got time for some coffee?"

He shook his head. "No time. There's something else, though."

"What?"

"My friend over in Records called," he said.

"And?"

"Wheeler's file was expunged."

"Expunged? As in missing?"

"No, as in gone. Deleted. The whole thing. At least, that's what he assumed, since there's isn't even enough of a trail to tell that there
was
a record."

I stared at him. "This isn't good."

"No shit. There're cops that did some terrible things and you can still find their files. They might be eyes-only, but at least you know they're there. This one was rubbed out."

"No mistake?"

"None."

"How would that happen? Who's got the authority to do that?"

"Aside from accidents," he said, "which I don't believe in, maybe a dozen people could do it. No way peons like you or me could've ordered something like that. I don't know, maybe captains on up."

"Any idea on who had it done?"

"No, that's the thing," he said. "The file is totally gone, so there's not even a record of the record, if you know what I mean. He's going to keep looking, and maybe he'll unearth something, but in a year or two it'll be like Wheeler never existed."

"If only," I said. "Anyway, why would somebody do that?"

"To hide something."

"Hide what? What are we talking about here?"

"Maybe the why and the what aren't as important as the who. Someone that's in the, say, top ten movers and shakers in the force cared enough to have Wheeler's record disappear for good."

. . .

Kransky took off after that, promising to be back the next morning to chauffeur Amanda. I watched him go, then flopped on the couch and watched some travel show on TV about a place in South America I'd never go to. Unable to summon the energy to change the channel, I watched as it was followed by an inane half hour program promising to reveal the
Secrets of Las Vegas
that were probably already common knowledge to millions of people and would soon be revealed to millions more after the commercial break. That gem was chased off the air by a two-hour special on Mardi Gras. The run-up to the show touted scenes of blurred, topless women and people dancing in the street but the cop in me just saw a city full of assholes violating ordinances left and right and creating a week's worth of headaches for anyone in uniform.

Halfway through the show, Amanda came downstairs and dropped into a chair. We watched the on-screen chaos for a while, then I looked over at her." Frozen pizza sound good to you?"

She nodded, mesmerized by the scenes of floats and jazz musicians. I got up and went to the kitchen, where I fished out a pizza box using tongs from the drawer. The nurses at the clinic had told me that the chemo would make me cold sensitive and I'd learned the hard way they weren't lying. The day before I'd reached in for something and yelped when I felt like I'd grabbed a hold of the wrong end of a hot plate.

I was watching the thing burn in the oven through the glass window when Amanda came to the entrance to the kitchen and leaned against the doorway. "How are you feeling, Marty?"