The Fives Run North-South (26 page)

Then he walked through the door.

“Jesus, Fred, what…?”

“Look,” he said. “Leave me the fuck alone for a few minutes. Can’t you for once leave me the fuck alone?”

His suit coat wasn’t on him (she would later find it in a pile on the floor behind his driver’s seat), his untucked shirt was soaked in sweat, and he had a bloody scrape on his forehead. In his eyes was that wide, distant stare like the night a few weeks ago when he’d been in that road rage incident. Although this time it was somehow more feral. Maybe it was the scrape.

“But, you…” Cary said.

He spun around, nearly ramming into her as she’d been walking toward him. “No!” he said. “Just. Fucking. No.”

Cary froze. For the first time in her life she was afraid of him. And the slim possibility that she might hit him. Something that had never occurred to her to even consider with Fred. Without a look of shame or regret, he spun around and plowed into their bedroom, shutting the door firmly, nearly slamming it behind him. Cary stood in shocked silence.

After a while, she heard the shower running in their bathroom. She went to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. With her hand shaking, she poured a glass and took a sip. Then another. Time grew swampy as the dinner spoiled and her ideas about the
evening
—
and
any future for their
marriage
—
drained
away.

Eventually, the door to their bedroom opened and Fred came out. He was in a sweat suit and calmly walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of beer.

“Can we talk now?” she said, proud that her voice was firm, without a shake, and demanding.

He shrugged. “It was nothing. Bad scene at work.”

“Right,” she said. “Just what I was thinking.”

“No need for sarcasm.”

“Okay. Why don’t you tell me the appropriate response? Hey, Fred? What do you think I ought to do after seeing you come home like that?”

He looked at her with a mixture of surprise, resentment, and anger. “Look, I don’t need you piling on. It’s been bad enough…”

“What has been bad enough? Or should I just guess?”

“Take it down a notch,” he said. “Now.”

That was it. She moved in quickly, threw her palms into his chest, and shoved as hard as she could. He stumbled but caught himself. She readied for a response, physical or otherwise. He simply froze. She did, too, and for a second that seemed like an hour, they stared at each other like strangers. Then he snapped out of it, shook his head, and walked away. Leaving her alone.

“I slept in the guest room that night,” she told Ben. “Or tried to sleep. Vacillating between wanting to puke, drink vodka, run away, or jump out the window. Finally, to his credit, he came to the room. He knocked on the door, lightly enough so that if I’d been asleep I’d have never heard him. Instead, I answered. He came into the room and apologized. He told me that a recently fired associate had confronted him in the parking lot after work. That it’d gotten a bit physical until a couple of coworkers had seen them and had grabbed the guy, holding him until the police came.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Didn’t matter. I accepted his apology but told him I wanted to stay in the guest room that night. Then the next night. Then a few weeks. Then it was over. And he didn’t put up much of a fight to stop the end. I saw a lawyer a month or so later, and he agreed to move out.”

“And now…”

“Now it fits a different story. One like Adam and Suze’s. I don’t love him anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did. But after all those years, I feel I need to know.”

“I understand.”

The path opened up to a peninsula. Trees disappeared behind them, and they were out in the open, nearly surrounded by the small lake. There was a gazebo at the end of the peninsula. They walked to it and entered, taking a seat on a bench facing the water and the fields beyond.

“Look,” she said. “Believe it or not, I’m tired of talking about this. About me. About Fred. It’s really not the reason I invited you out here.”

“Oh?”

“Well,” she smiled. “It’s a part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Company.”

“Company’s good,” Ben said.

“And really, even though I snuck into your father’s funeral to try and figure out where Fred is, or perhaps what happened to him, I’m a bit sick of stewing in my situation. I’d really like to hear a bit more about you. Tell me a story.”

A breeze picked up, blowing from the water toward them. Ben smelled the lake and sank deeper into the bench, feeling relaxed.

“You were right,” he said. “This is nice.”

“The first time we talked, you said you had a son,” Cary said. “Tell me about him.”

Ben stiffened.

“Oh, shit,” Cary said, slumping as she realized she’d likely brought up a difficult subject. “Did I just screw up?”

He looked at her and forced a smile. “No. Well, yes. But it’s okay.”

“Doesn’t feel okay. Should we start back?”

“No. I like it here. If telling you about Edward is the price of admission, I’m willing to.”

Cary reached down and covered his hand, which had been resting on the front edge of the bench. “Really,” she said. “Forget I asked. Let’s talk sports.”

“You like sports?”

“Not really, but…”

“Edward didn’t.”

“Oh, boy.”

Ben turned to her. “You’re right. I did bring it up. Only natural for you to ask. So I’ll give you the quick version. Boy meets girl. Boy impregnates girl. Girl has
maternal
-
instinct
-
deficit
disorder, so abandons them both shortly after the delivery. Boy raises son and has the time of his life doing it. Son hits teenage years and hits those typical teenage
speed
-
bumps
. But then some circuit breaker flips in the son’s
mind
—
probably
the only thing he inherited from his mother. Those typical teenage speed bumps take on a gamma radiation surge.”

“How so?”

“To the point where I hardly recognized him, and he fell away. Before I knew it, he was gone. Barely sixteen years old and gone,” Ben said, leaning forward on the bench. “He ran away. Like in those
after
-
school
specials, he hit the streets. We looked for him, Dad and me. Cops helped, or made it appear that way. Mostly they quoted statistics, as if informing me of how common this was would make it a bit better. Perhaps they even hoped I’d give up and leave them alone.“

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

“Neither can I. That’s half the problem: fighting your own disbelief. In the first year, there were signs. Friends who finally confessed they’d seen him in the weeks following his disappearance. Disturbing stories about drugs, ugly street living. Then one night, a few weeks later, our house was broken into. There was a lot of stuff stolen. I know he did it, so I never reported the crime. After that, he was gone. That was almost eleven years ago.“

Ben put his head in his hands; Cary lifted her arm and gently laid it on his back.

“I’ve said it a few times,” Ben continued. “I don’t mind that he stole stuff from the house. Hell, I’d have given him more if he’d asked. That didn’t upset me a bit. The thing that broke me was that he didn’t think to simply leave a note, or some sort of message for me. No explanation necessary, just a word to let me know he’d be okay. Or that he was going to…shit, I don’t know.”

She put her head down, looking away. She knew that he’d be embarrased if she witnessed his emotion.

“Shit,” he said. “You’d think that after eleven years I could…”

“No,” Cary said after letting the silence swallow his statement. “No, you wouldn’t.”

They both sat back and let their gaze spread out over the water. Moments passed in silence. After a while, Ben breathed in and turned his head to her. “Well, we’re just full of Shakespearean tragedy today, aren’t we?”

She smiled.

“You ready to start back?” Ben asked.

Cary nodded.

In silence, they stepped off the gazebo and strolled back into the woods.

“Want some lunch?” Cary asked.

“Sounds good.”

After a few minutes, she reached over and took his hand. A cloud dimmed the sun for a moment, and the air beneath the trees grew chilly.

28

I
t took Ben a while to find a parking spot. And the man behind him in the Mercedes didn’t make it any easier. The guy liked to flash his lights to show his displeasure. The first time was when Ben had decelerated, turned on his blinker, and prepared to slip into a spot, only to see the fire hydrant, so he quickly resumed his forward motion. The Mercedes guy had already started to maneuver around Ben’s car, so he had to back
off
—
and
flash the lights. Ben tried the “sorry” wave, but it seemed to have little impact. Then Ben saw another possible spot: one of those Honda passenger
vans
—
never
driven by drivers of the
fast
-
moving
category
—
was
sitting in a space with the engine running and the left blinker going, making it obvious they wanted to leave their space and join traffic. Ben stopped behind it, opening up the lane so it could leave and he could take the spot. He waited. Mercedes flashed. He waited. The Honda sat. Blinking. Another Mercedes flash, with the horn for good measure. Taking the lead from the Merc guy, Ben flashed his own lights to let the Honda driver know he could leave the spot. The Honda sat. Mercedes flash with longer horn.

Dammit.

Ben flashed again, but then the Honda’s engine shut down, as did the left blinker. The
driver
-
side
door opened, and a housewife stepped out onto the street, talking obliviously into her cell phone. Another beep from the Mercedes for good measure, so Ben moved forward. No apology wave this time.

After circling the block again, he finally found a spot. He grabbed the envelope and the large folder and got out of his car. He was a bit disoriented, so he checked the street sign to find the address he’d marked in pen on the back of his hand. He was certain he’d taken the long way
around
—
and
equally certain he’d probably not easily find his car when he was
finished
—
but
eventually he made it to the brownstone offices of Roger Glass, Investigative Services. He walked up the stairs and saw a listing of businesses by the door, with buttons to push for entry. He saw the button for Glass’s offices and pushed it. The door clicked, he swung it open and went into the main building. There was a tiny elevator door that opened seconds after he pushed the up button. He rode to the third floor, got out, and saw the door with Roger Glass Investigative Services etched on it. He opened the door and walked into a small room. There was an empty, though cluttered, desk and three chairs packed in front of it so tightly that he would be surprised if all three could be used at the same time. On the far side of the room was another door with frosted glass behind which he could see light and some movement. After a few seconds, from behind the door he heard a man yell: “Glory?”

Ben stood there.

“Glory!”

“Ummm,” he said, in the direction of the door.

“Glory. I just buzzed someone up!”

“Ummm,” Ben said. This time a bit louder. “Hello?”

“Glory?”

He heard movement from the inner office. The door opened and a thin man looked out, first at the empty desk, then up at Ben. “You Rob Keaton’s son?”

Ben nodded.

“Secretary’s on a smoke break. Again. Or maybe she quit.” He opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

Ben maneuvered through the tight space and joined Glass in his office. Glass had two chairs in front of his desk, presumably for close couples. Where the outer office had been cluttered, this office was
showroom
-
neat
. Other than the desk and chairs, there was a single file cabinet with nothing on top. A single picture hung on the wall next to a certificate. Glass’s desk had a computer monitor, a notepad (sitting perfectly perpendicular to the desk’s edge) and two pens, evenly spaced and parallel to the pad.

“Coffee?” Glass offered.

“I’m good.”

Glass sat back, his leg bouncing on his chair. “My condolences on your father. He was a good man. From my limited experiences with him.”

“I appreciate that.”

“And I appreciate you offering to settle his outstanding balance. That’s a rare thing these days, don’t you know.”

“That’s surprising.”

“Not from my chair.” His left leg stopped bouncing, but an instant later his right leg began. Ben tried his hardest not to be bothered by it. Would have helped if there was something else to look at in the room.

“And,” Glass continued, “I appreciate you making the trip, but you could have sent it in the mail.”

Ben nodded, thinking that he’d rarely met someone who looked as sharp as Roger Glass.
Sharp as Glass. Good.
He imagined that it helped in any efforts Glass made to interview someone. Ben imagined one couldn’t help but be reminded of the sternest of grammar school principals while in his presence.

“Actually,” Ben said. “I was kind of hoping that we could visit for a second.”

“Oh?”

Now the left leg again.

Then Ben remembered his father’s description of Curtis Viniteri, the PI Adam Mann hired in
Dented
.
How his leg never stopped bouncing. Ben smiled.

“I wondered if you could fill me in on what my father asked you to look into.”

Legs went still. For just a second. Glass looked to be thinking hard. “Oh. Not sure how comfortable I am with that. Habits formed through adherence to client privilege.”

Ben pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and held it up. “Which I’m thinking I become when you take this check from me.”

“Good point. And this is a unique situation,” Glass nodded.

“I’m assuming it has to do with his final work, the novel
Dented
.
I’m in the process of completing that story, so you can see it’s a bit more than just nosiness.”

“I understand.”

Ben heard the door to the outer office open. Glass heard it, too.

“Glory!” he shouted, making Ben jump.

“Yaaaaah!” came the grating response.

“Worthless,” Glass said to Ben in a hushed tone.

Ben did his best to nod in an understanding manner.

“So,” Glass said. “Where were we?”

“I was asking…”

“If I was doing some work for your father’s book. Yeah. Well. I don’t know, really. Maybe I was, but it was…what’s the word…
made
-
up
, right?”

“You mean fiction?”

“Fiction. Yeah. It was fiction. His book.”

Ben nodded.

“So I can’t see how running down a license plate has anything to do with fiction. But that’s what he had me do.”

“A license plate?”

“From a traffic altercation,” Glass said.

Ben tried not to look too eager.

“Gloria!”

Instead, he just looked startled.

“Sorry,” Glass said. “She only gets it when it’s loud.”

“Yaaaah?”

“Bring me the Keaton file. From last month.”

“Yaaaah.”

Glass held out his hand. “Let me take that check now, Mr. Keaton. Because, as you say, I need to have a discussion with a client right now. If you know what I mean.”

Did he just wink?

Ben nodded, tightening his lips to demonstrate that he grasped the significance of it all. The door from the outer office opened and a long, thin arm holding a folder reached in. With a slight grumble, Glass stood up and grabbed the file. Before sitting, he also took the envelope from Ben. “Hey,” he said to the door. He handed her the envelope. “For today’s deposit,” he said.

After the door shut, Glass put the folder on his desk and started shuffling through it. “Your father needed information on a person who drove a….”

“Red SUV?”

Glass looked up and squinted, looking confused. He looked back at the file, up to Ben, and to the file again. “Well, no. Not an SUV. Luxury car. Some rich fellow.”

“Fred Spencer?”

Glass furrowed his brow and returned his gaze to the file. Without looking up, he said: “You seem to know a bit more than I’d thought, Mr. Keaton.”

“Like I said, I’m working on Dad’s book. And believe it or not, this had a little something to do with it.”

Glass closed the file. “Well then, I’m glad I could confirm it for you. Like I said, pretty simple. There’d been a traffic incident, and I’m supposing your father was involved. He said something like he wanted to help out the victim. Apparently this Fred Spencer. Wanted to know how to contact him. I got him the info. Pretty simple deal, really.”

“Like I thought,” Ben said.

They nodded silently at each other for a few moments. Ben started to get up then stopped. Glass was bouncing both legs now.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Glass asked.

“Well…” Ben seemed to be weighing some options.

Glass held his stare without any sign of discomfort from the pregnant pause. Also a good quality for an investigator, Ben supposed.

“I’m hesitant…” Ben said.

Glass nodded. Used to hesitant, likely.

“I did this before. Long ago. It didn’t work out, so I have to think it’s less likely to work out now….but…” He thought of yesterday. At the lake with Cary, and the stirrings that came. Less frequently, but still sharp and strong. “Years ago, my son. He ran away.”

Glass’s mouth formed an “O,” but otherwise he looked calm.

“We tried to find him. Often. More often early on. Eventually…”

“More common than you’d think.”

“And I sometimes wonder…well, with advances in computers. The Internet…”

Glass nodded. “You’re right to think so.”

“So…”

“So you’d like to hire me to see if I can track down your son,” Glass said.

Ben nodded. He felt his shoulders grow tight, and his heart skipped in time with Glass’s legs. He felt as if he’d jumped off a building, and the pavement was promising a sudden pain that he could easily have avoided by backing away from the ledge. “I know it’s unlikely you’d…”

“Nothing’s impossible, Mr. Keaton. And as you said, there’s a whole lot more information floating around, making it
easier
—
in
some
respects
—
to
do the kinds of things I do. Like I said: runaways are common. And a universal aspect to runaways is that quite often they run away because they don’t want to be found.”

Ben nodded, moving his eyes to the floor. Part of him regretted bringing this up. No. Most of him regretted it. But a small
sliver
—
a
hope
-
charged
particle
—
nudged
him forward. “I understand. But I’d like you to try.”

“Gladly. Let me get you a copy of my fee structure.” Glass nodded at the folder that had been in Ben’s lap. “I’m guessing that’s information on your son.”

“Yes,” Ben said. “Photos. Stuff from the police report they gave us. And notes and info from previous…guys like you.”

“Okay,” Glass said. “Let me give it to Gloria. She’ll make copies. Meanwhile, let’s go through some details together. Will that work?”

Ben considered changing his mind. Grabbing the file and bolting out the door. Too much gravity, he was thinking. Glass sat patiently until finally Ben nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

Two hours later, Ben left (he still never saw Gloria, other than her arm when she handed back his file and the copy to Glass through the door. She was likely on another smoke break when Ben left). Ben had thanked Glass, and had looked hopeful after their interview. Glass had seen that look before. He’d also seen disappointment. Particularly in runaway cases.

Glass leaned back in his desk chair looking at the file and the notes he’d taken. Glass had liked Rob Keaton. But the son? Well, that was different. Glass knew from the moment he saw him that he was a
silver
-
spooner
. A fortunate son. Got his way all the time and without struggle. And now he was going to finish his father’s book? Glass wasn’t a reader. Hadn’t touched a Rob Keaton book, but hell, he sure did know all about the author. Built himself a following. Now the
son
—
who’
d never got a speck of dirt under his
nails
—
was
going to jump in and
finish
the book? Glass knew the type, knew the symptoms. He flipped through the papers Ben had left. Photographs of a kid. Bad hair (no mom to fix it right for those school pictures…typical), pretty good teeth, fair complexion. Did look a bit like the dad. Glass could only imagine the upbringing. A single, selfish parent. He’d seen it before. And then they have the stones to be surprised when the kid bails? He looked over at the retainer check. Almost felt sorry taking it from the bastard. He sat back and studied the ceiling. No, he’d not really liked that Ben Keaton.