Plan B (34 page)

A few minutes after we’d arrived, Deputy Dan burst through the front door, stopping short when he saw us at the bar. He seemed very flustered, and unsure of what his next move should be. Lindsey smiled and waved to him and he reflexively waved back, which seemed to add to his confusion. Finally, he did an about-face and walked out of the pub. I walked over to the window and saw him double-parked across the street, smoking a cigarette and glowering at the reporters who clamored around the pub’s window trying to get a glimpse of us inside.

Chuck and his new friend hopped off their stools and went over to look at the jukebox. A skinny guy with cratered skin and a mustache stopped behind us at the bar and tapped me on the shoulder. “You’re the ones on television, huh?”

“That’s us,” I said.

“So, where is he?”

“Where is who?”

This seemed to confuse him. “You know who,” he said. “Jack Shaw is who.”

“You got me,” I said.

He frowned, clearly disappointed with the way the conversation was going. “I saw Alec Baldwin once,” he said. “Guy was real standoffish, you know?”

“I hear you,” I sympathized.

“You really his friend?” he asked.

“I’ve never met Alec Baldwin.”

“Nah. I mean Jack Shaw. He’s your buddy?”

“Uh huh.”

“How about that.” He considered this intelligence for a few moments before nodding politely and moving on.

“Boy,” Lindsey said as I turned back to the bar. “If being famous meant having scintillating conversations like that every time you went out, I’d be doing coke, too.”

“Come On Eileen” began playing on the jukebox. I looked up to see if it had been Chuck’s choice and saw him smiling at us as he led the girl back to the bar.

“This song always brings me back to high school,” Lindsey said, singing along quietly with the too ra loo ra yays.

“What else?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Men at Work, Pat Benatar, Simple Minds, you know, the theme from
The Breakfast Club”

“Human League,” I said. “You know, ‘Don’t You Want Me.’ And everything by Duran Duran.”

“Tainted Love,’ ” Chuck offered, leaning between us to grab some beer nuts off the bar. “ ‘Hurts So Good,’ ‘Safety Dance.’ ”

“Who sang that again?” Lindsey asked.

“Men Without Hats,” I said. “But as far as I know, they only sang it once.”

“Never heard of them,” said the girl with Chuck, and I wondered how old she’d been when the eighties one-hit-wonder bands had played. “Do you like any old bands?” I asked her.

She thought about it for a minute, licking her lips. I noticed that she had a barbell through her tongue. “Pearl Jam,” she said, after a little bit.

I gave Chuck a look. “What?” he asked with a grin, leading her away from the bar. “They’re pretty old.”

“You’re older,” I said to the back of his head, then looked over to Alison, who was sipping her beer thoughtfully. “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

“Three guesses.”

“Where do you think he is?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she said. “It really makes no sense.”

“We’ll find him.”

“We aren’t even looking.”

“I mean, he’ll turn up.”

“I hope so,” she said with a sigh. “I keep thinking that if we hadn’t tried this, he’d be back in California, and I’d be able to speak to him, the same as always, you know. Aside from all the worry about what might have happened to him, I just miss him, you know?”

I saw Lindsey looking over my shoulder, slightly alarmed, and I spun around on my stool to find myself face to chest with Paul Bunyan from the luncheonette. My heart skipped a beat, but I quashed the reflex to bolt from my chair. After all, I saw no sign of the Winchester, and the guy had served us some good soup. “How you doing?” he said.

“Good,” I said hesitantly.

“You and your friend get everything worked out?”

“What? Oh yeah, sure. Thanks.”

“I just wanted to tell you thanks,” he said, rubbing the bandanna on his skull.

“For what?”

“For them,” he said, pointing out the window at the reporters. “I did more business today then the last two weeks put together.”

“Really?”

“You bet. I’ve even got a Jack Shaw Special now. Any sandwich and a beverage for three bucks.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“They’re eating it up.” He put a huge paw on my shoulder. “No hard feelings about the other day?”

“Of course not.”

“I hope your friend turns up okay. I like his movies.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay then,” he said with a gap-toothed smile and lumbered out of the bar.

“What the hell was that about?” Lindsey asked.

Before I could answer we were approached by a man in a navy suit and a crew cut who pulled over a stool and said with a grin, “Hi. Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”

“So much for keeping out the reporters,” Lindsey said. “We have no comment.”

“I’m Agent Don Allender, with the FBI,” he said, his grin never faltering. It was certainly an effective conversation stopper.

“This day keeps getting better and better,” I muttered, but quietly since I was a little scared of him.

He studied me for a moment. “What’d the other guy look like?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Your face,” he explained, pointing to my eyes. I had forgotten for the moment that they were still fairly bruised. I told him about the deer and he nodded sympathetically.

“You’re here to find Jack?” Alison asked, turning fully around to face Allender.

“Not exactly,” he answered, unbuttoning his suit jacket to sit more comfortably. He looked like he was posing, and I wondered if the FBI actually had classes on how to sit and stand while on duty.

“What then?”

“Well, I’m here to ascertain whether or not there’s a reason for us to be involved.”

“And what would constitute a reason?” I asked.

“If you kidnapped him, that would pretty much do it for me,” he said pleasantly.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Lindsey said.

“Wait a minute,” Alison said. “If he hasn’t been kidnapped, then you don’t bother looking for him? Either way he’s missing, isn’t he?”

“Oh, we’re looking already,” Allender said.

“Really?” Alison asked skeptically.

“You bet,” he said, with just enough Midwestern twang to go with his ruddy complexion.

Chuck joined us, leaving his new acquaintance to consult excitedly with two other girls standing near the pool table. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“Don Allender,” said Don Allender.

“FBI,” I said.

“New York office,” Don added helpfully.

“No way,” Chuck said.

“Way,” Don smiled.

“I never met an FBI agent,” Chuck said. “What’s it like?”

“It’s all right,” Don smiled. “Beats working for a living.”

“I bet.”

“How old are you?” I asked Allender.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, mildly taken aback.

“Just curious.”

“Thirty.”

“Us too,” I said, indicating our group. There seemed to be something less intimidating about the FBI when you realized the agents were your age.

“It’s a weird age, isn’t it?” Don said, surprising us all with his conversational tone. “Leads to a lot of annoying introspection.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So,” Don said, almost apologetically. “Did you kidnap him?”

“Are we on the record?” Alison asked him.

“Would you like to first talk off the record?”

We looked around at each other. “Could we have a minute?” Alison asked.

“Sure,” Don said, getting up and grabbing a stool at the end of the bar. He asked the bartender for a Molson and turned around with his back to the bar, looking around the room with a wistful expression on his face.

“I think I want to level with him,” Alison said.

“We’d be incriminating ourselves,” Chuck objected.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, really,” Alison said. “He seems like a friendly guy, like a guy who would understand.”

“They all seem like that!” Chuck retorted. “It’s to catch you off guard.”

“And you’ve talked to how many FBI agents?” I asked. I agreed with Alison. Don seemed okay.

“I agree with Alison,” Lindsey said. “He’s not like Sullivan or Deputy Dan, who are looking to be heroes. He seems like a decent guy with no real agenda. I think we can trust him.”

“I never trust anyone over thirty,” Chuck grumbled.

“Which explains your taste in women,” Alison said.

“Oh, bite me.”

“I’m too old for you, Chuck,” she said with a giggle and then, inexplicably threw her arms around him. He still looked pissed, but he returned the hug. “Okay,” he said. “But if we wind up in jail over this, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

“Ben?” Alison turned to me. “Are we unanimous?”

I looked over at Don Allender, sipping at his beer thoughtfully. That didn’t seem like proper behavior for a federal agent. I reminded myself that he had entered high school the same time I did, listened to the same bands and watched the same television shows. It was probably a lonely job, running around wherever the FBI sent you. He certainly seemed eager enough for conversation.
The fact that he was drinking a beer while on duty made him seem even less threatening. “Okay,” I said. “If we’re going to make a new friend, he may as well work for the FBI.”

The rest of the night passed in an increasingly drunken haze. We told Don everything, and it turned out that he’d already pieced most of it together. When we asked him how all he would say is, “Hey, did I mention I work for the FBI?” After he’d agreed with Alison that it didn’t seem likely that we would face prosecution, we were so relieved that we started a tab and began celebrating with tequila shots. Don removed his jacket and joined in the celebration. “I’ve been on the road for the government for over three years,” he complained while licking the salt off his hand. “I turned thirty and suddenly I was alone in the world. No family, no friends. No real relationships of any kind.” He downed the tequila and squeezed a lemon rind into his mouth. “I mean, what are we living for?”

Later:

“Do you watch
ER?”
Don asked Chuck.

“Sometimes,” Chuck said.

“Do you, like, sit there and point out everything that isn’t realistic?”

“Nah. They’re pretty well researched, they’ve got doctors on staff. The only part that’s really bogus is the way they spew out all that technical jargon while they’re running around. If we really shouted out all those instructions so fast there would be a shitload of mistakes.”

“Really?”

“Also, that guy Carter. He’s an intern but he’s always on E.R. rotation. That’s not how it works. Hey,” Chuck said. “Do you watch
The X-Files?”

“Sure.”

“Do you sit there and point out all the FBI bullshit there?”

Don looked up from his beer chaser and, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve, said, “To whom?”

Later:

I made my way somewhat unsteadily toward the jukebox, a fistful of quarters in one hand, a Sam Adams in the other, with the aim of playing every song from high school that I could find. “Centerfold,” by the J. Giles Band, “Ninety-nine Red Balloons,” by Nina, Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself,” Howard Jones’s “No One Is to Blame,” and “Space Oddity,” not David Bowie’s but that other one, with the bouncy synthesizer, by Peter something or other. The jukebox was like an eighties time capsule. I noticed the “Theme from
St. Elmo’s Fire,”
but by then I was out of change. I’d surpassed my personal limit on tequila, but rather than feeling sick, I was suffused with a warm, expanding laziness. My mouth was still tart from the lemons and salt. Lindsey moved toward me with liquid grace, as if in slow motion, and asked me to dance. “I taste like lemons,” I said, sucking on the insides of my cheeks. “Umm,” she murmured, “let me taste,” and pressed herself hard up against me, her tongue slipping between my lips before her kiss even got there.

Later:

The girls went off to the bathroom. The television over the bar was showing a commercial with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, which prompted Don, Chuck, and me to have the obligatory sports conversation. Was Jordan really the best ever? Don’t look at his points, look at his shooting percentage. And what about our own pathetic Knicks? It’s too bad Ewing’s ego can’t play center instead of him. At least the Yankees look good for next year again. Don told us about how he played football in college. “I mean, I’m not saying I was the greatest, but I was good enough in high school to get a partial scholarship to Indiana. So I’m playing there freshman
year, doing all right, you know? Nothing to write home about, but I’m starting to develop some real ability. Anyway, we’re at practice one afternoon having a scrimmage, you know, white shirts and colors, and I’m running long for a pass, and my foot comes down on something funny, twists my ankle all out of whack, rips a bunch of ligaments.” He made a circular motion with one hand, a kind of italicized et cetera symbol while chugging on his beer with the other. “Turns out some guys had been drinking on the field the night before and someone left a beer can. That’s what I landed on.” He frowned and shook his head sadly, as if reliving the injury. “You just don’t expect, in a program like Indiana University, to have fucking beer cans on the field during practice. It’s not professional.” Chuck and I nodded in drunken agreement. “I mean Jesus, a beer can …”

Later:

McAvoy’s was packed. The song playing on the jukebox was Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” and everyone was on the floor for a slow dance. I wrapped myself around Lindsey, her right leg planted firmly against the inside of my thigh, her head bumping softly against my chin as we danced, like a boat tied up at the dock. A few couples away, Chuck was dancing with the girl who thought Pearl Jam was an old band. She nuzzled his neck while he whispered to her, running his hands provocatively up and down her sides. On the opposite side of the small dance floor, Alison was dancing companionably with Don, her back to us, her head resting on his shoulder in quiet meditation. Her hair hung down behind her, covering his hand which rested on her back. I saw him move his hand out, looking at the hair spilling over his fingers as if he couldn’t believe it was really there. He let it drop against her back and unconsciously brushed out the loose tangles with his fingers, a gentle gesture that seemed, for no apparent reason, to express a profound sadness within him. For a moment, it felt like
college again, and I closed my eyes, trying to submerge myself in deja vu. I inhaled softly, smelling the uniquely familiar combination of beer, smoke, sawdust, and shampoo and for a moment the illusion was complete. But then the song ended and Third Eye Blind came on, singing “Semi-Charmed Life,” as nineties as you could get, and Chuck’s date began churning and gyrating with delight, waving her hands and letting out a whoop as her decade reasserted itself, and the moment was gone.