Winter and Night (13 page)

"What?"

"Are you sure the answer matters? Or are you just mad and you want to hit something?"

I looked at her, small and still, outlined by the day's final sunlight. She looked back at me. She didn't say anything else.

"Shit." I crushed my cigarette against the bottom of my shoe, dropped it in the cellophane off the pack. Leaving a cigarette butt on Hamlin's track probably would be a deadly sin. "Don't you have something else to do? A shower to take or something?"

"Yeah," she said. After a moment she smiled again. "Come on."

We turned, walked off the field together, not holding hands, not touching, but together.

Eight

back around the buildings Lydia and I headed along the driveway and in through Hamlin's front doors, a steel-and-wire-glass pair that looked like the doors to any gym at any high school in the world. The lighting inside was fluorescent, a little grim, and the smells of disinfectant, sweat, and liniment punched me right back to Brooklyn.

A bored-looking guy, not much older than the kids on the field, sat at a cheap metal desk just inside. Behind him, above a second set of doors, hung a sign: THIS IS HAMLIN'S-NO ONE LEAVES THE SAME AS HE CAME IN. I guessed that was supposed to be a good thing.

The bored guy wore a security guard's uniform straining over huge, cut muscles. Like security guards the world over, he was leaning over the sports pages of the local tabloid. Also like security guards the world over, he glanced up at us with an annoyed, suspicious look, as though the one thing experience had taught him was that no one trying to get past his station was ever up to any good. The name tag above his pocket read BARBONI, and I got the feeling that that was more than he wanted you to know.

"Hi again." Lydia smiled.

Barboni smirked. "Hey, you still around? Like I said before, I'm off at seven. Anything you want to know about this place, I could tell you."

"Sorry," she said. She tilted her head, indicating me. "This is my partner, Bill Smith." Barboni leaned back elaborately in his chair.

"Can I help you?" he asked, addressing me, and I had to stop myself from saying, Probably, but if you do I'm sure you'll be as surprised as I will.

"We'd like to see Mr. Hamlin," I said. I gave him my card. He picked up Lydia's card, already lying on his desk, flicked their edges against each other. He lifted the receiver of the phone next to him, punched a button, threw a glance down the vinyl-tiled corridor toward a door that said OFFICE before bringing his eyes back to me, fixing me with a sharp look to make sure I didn't try anything.

"Yeah, hi, Coach?" he said into the phone. "There's a guy here wants to see you. Smith. A private investigator, his card says." Pause. "Yeah, she's here, too." Pause. "Okay, sure." He hung up the phone, looked at me. "Coach says go away." He turned to Lydia, brought the smirk back. "He says he already told you to go away."

Persuasion, reasoning, a convincing story— screw it, I wasn't in the mood. I reached across the desk, grabbed up the phone and punched the same button he had. He started to get up. Lydia leaned over, dropped her hands on his shoulders and shoved him back in his chair. She moved her jacket aside so her gun would show, smiled at him and put her finger to her lips. Barboni's eyes widened, snapped back and forth from Lydia to me. He made no move, confusion and anger throwing him into temporary gridlock.

"Yeah, what now?" snarled the voice of Coach Hamlin in my ear.

"It's Bill Smith, Coach," I said. "I'm not leaving and I want to talk to you, so you might as well come out."

"Who the hell— what, the detective?"

"Investigator. Yes."

"What the— where's Barboni?"

"He's here. I just thought this would be faster."

"Faster than what? What the hell is your problem?"

"Come on out and I'll tell you. Or just stay there, I'll come in."

I hung up the phone. Lydia snapped her jacket shut and we moved around the security desk.

Barboni jumped up, face crimson, traffic jam over. "Oh, no!" He grabbed my wrist. I threw my arm in a wide circle to break his hold, shoved him away. I turned, but when I felt his hand on my shoulder I spun in tight, socked him in the stomach, then on the jaw when he doubled over. I was reaching for him again when Lydia pulled my arm back.

"Stop it!" she commanded.

Barboni looked up at her, I looked down, and, glaring at me, she swept past him down the corridor.

"Fuck!" Barboni coughed, straightening up. By the time he started to come after us I had caught up with Lydia at the office door. She pushed it open. In the outer office the secretary's desk was empty, but the door to the inner office was open and the two men in there were on their feet. The one who wasn't Hamlin had about six inches on him, was dark-haired and broad-shouldered, was dressed in a suit and tie, and wore an equally angry glare.

They came out, we came in, and Barboni came from behind. Lydia smoothly stepped between him and me, weight balanced, prepared for whatever she had to do. Barboni was probably as pissed at her as he was at me, but he obviously wasn't sure whether it was okay to hit a woman, even one who'd manhandled him. My guess was he'd have come down on the side of pulverizing her to get at me after a few seconds' thought. I was tempted to let him try it, because it would have served him right, but I said, looking at the other two men, "If this guy touches either of us I'll kill him. I just want to talk, Coach, but I'm in a bad mood, so call him off."

It was the other man, not Hamlin, who said, "Who the hell are you?"

"Back off, Barboni," Hamlin ordered at the same time.

"Coach, they—"

"I said back off!"

Barboni, after a moment's hesitation, took an angry, grumbling step back but didn't leave.

"I'm Bill Smith," I said. "This is Lydia Chin. We're investigating a homicide and a runaway and we need to talk to some of these kids."

"Fuck you," Hamlin said with icy calm. "Get out. And you, too, Macpherson," he said to the other man. "Nobody talks to these kids while they're here."

Lydia's too good to give anything away, but I knew she felt the same small jolt I did, hearing the other man's name.

"The police are on their way," I said to Hamlin. "They'll be—"

"I already talked to Detective— what the fuck was his name— Sullivan," Hamlin cut me off. "I told him what I'm telling you. They come here with warrants, they can arrest any kid they want. Some kid's parents want to take him home, I don't give a shit who he talks to but he doesn't come back. You aren't cops, you're not parents, get the hell out of my camp."

The other man spoke. "Hamlin, I don't know who these people are and I don't give a damn what they want, but I'm going to talk to my son."

"Then you're taking him home, Macpherson. You know the rules."

"Christ, Hamlin," I said. "This petty tyrant bullshit may play to the parents, but you can't—"

"Shut the fuck up," Macpherson ordered me. My fists clenched and I felt the heat in my face; but as I started to move Lydia touched my hand. I stopped: she was right. I was bluffing. I had nothing to offer and nothing, really, to threaten with. But Macpherson was a parent. He was much more likely to be able to breach Hamlin's wall than we were; and once it was breached, maybe we could slip through the gap.

Macpherson kept his eyes on me just a second longer. His expensive suit, his silk tie, his Italian shoes would have told me, if his derisive half-smile hadn't, that he was used to people getting out of his way. Sure I was no more trouble because he'd told me not to be, he turned back to Hamlin. "Warrenstown raised fifty thousand dollars to send these boys here," he said in a voice like a ton of concrete. "A significant part of that money was mine. You're supposed to be improving my son's game, not holding him prisoner."

"He's not a prisoner, Macpherson. You can take him home any time. You signed a contract and you knew what was in it."

"We have a situation here that's different—"

"Different?" Hamlin shouted, startling us all. I looked at his eyes. They were as calm and cold as his voice was loud and raw. I thought, for effect; he did that for effect, planned and deliberate, not out of control at all. "I'm not coaching football here, Macpherson. I'm building men." He waved his hand around his office, showing us the citations, the awards, the photos of boys in uniform, alone and in teams, posed and in action. On his desk was a photo of two skinny kids with glasses, in tee shirts and shorts, laughing. I couldn't imagine they were his sons; no sons of Tom Hamlin would be scrawny, loose, like that. Whoever they were, they were probably there to remind him what his raw material was like, how hard he had to work to mold this unlikely clay.

Hamlin dropped his arm, looked at Macpherson. "You think this situation is different?" he said quietly. "Let me tell you something, Macpherson: every situation is always different. There are a million goddamn excuses. An excuse, Macpherson, that's like an asshole: everybody has one and it's full of shit. Either you do what you need to do, or you don't. At Hamlin's we teach boys to give everything they have. All the time. Every time. Not except when the situation is fucking different!"

He rested his eyes on each of us, one by one, and I thought again how cold they were, how unmatched to the heat of his words. A corner of his mouth turned up like a knife blade. "You can take him home," he said to Macpherson, "or you can let him stay. And you two" —he threw Lydia a glance, dismissed her, turned to me— "you can get the hell off my property before I call the cops myself." Hamlin reached for the phone. "You want him, Macpherson? You want to take him home?"

Macpherson, in his classy suit, was beet-red, the tendons in his neck bulging above his collar. He stared at Hamlin. "Fuck you." His voice was throaty, low. He turned and pushed past me to get out.

I looked at Hamlin, at Lydia. I lifted my hands, said to Barboni, "I'm leaving. No hard feelings. See you around." I walked past him, no sudden moves, followed Macpherson down the corridor. Barboni threw a glance at Hamlin. If he'd been given the signal he'd have charged, tackled me, probably with his nightstick already out. I half expected it, was ready for it. But I made it out the doors without hearing a sound behind me. After all, I was leaving, which is what they'd told me to do. What Hamlin and Barboni had to figure out was why Lydia was still there.

I wasn't sure, either, unless it was just to keep them off-balance, get me clear. I'd find out later; now, coming out into the chill twilight, I broke into a run, covered the yards to Macpherson's Mercedes SUV. I reached it as he was closing his door.

Yanking it back open, I said, "I need to talk to your son."

He hit the ignition. The big engine growled, as ready to leave as he was. His mouth was twisted around a cigarette. "Yeah, well, good fucking luck. Who the fuck are you anyway?"

"I told you. I'm an investigator."

"What the hell do you want with Randy? If this is about that girl, just forget about it, he doesn't know anything."

"I don't give a shit about that."

Which wasn't true, but it got his attention.

"What the fuck do you mean?"

"I'm looking for Gary Russell."

"Who the hell's that?"

"A new kid at Warrenstown. He's a friend of Randy's."

"Oh, fuck, yeah," said Macpherson, looking through his windshield to the lights of the roadway. "Scott Russell's boy. That's his name, Gary? I heard: he ran away."

"That's right. He's been gone since Monday."

"Scott's an asshole. His kid's probably an asshole. Maybe he killed that girl, that's why he ran away. But my boy doesn't know anything about it and if I catch you near him I'll break your neck."

"How do you know what Randy knows?"

Macpherson made a move, as though he was going to climb down out of the car and break my neck right there. Then he dropped back on the seat, threw the car into gear. I let go of the door and jumped back. His tires spat gravel as he took off. It was clear he wouldn't have minded dragging me along, or rolling right over me.

I watched his taillights speed down Hamlin's long driveway, pull sharply into traffic when he reached the road. I couldn't argue with Macpherson's assessment of Scott. But I wondered whether it came from the last few months, or was something he'd remembered over the decades, from the days when they were boys together, in Warrenstown.

I sat in the passenger seat of my car and smoked, waited for Lydia to come out. I checked for messages but I had none; I thought of calling Helen but I didn't. Twilight dropped into night, quickly the way it does as the year winds down. Lights in the windows of the buildings in front of me went off, came on, in a pattern that seemed random to me but had reasons, meanings, though anyone who knew them wouldn't be out here watching and anyone seeing it, like me, would be too much on the outside to understand.

Finally Hamlin's double doors opened, and Lydia walked down the drive, not looking back at the figure of Barboni looming in the doorway behind her. If we had to come back here, Lydia and I, we might have to find a way to do it on someone else's shift.

I didn't get out, hoping Barboni wasn't counting parked cars, would think I'd gone already. Lydia walked past her own rented Taurus and up to the driver's side of my car. She opened the door and got in.

"You think we're fooling him?" I asked while she pulled the door shut.

She shrugged, nodded toward the entrance. "He's gone."

I looked; he was. I'd have been willing to bet the doors were locked, too.

"You didn't have to hit him," Lydia said.

"I know."

"You're twice his size, he's not armed, and there were two of us."

I nodded, said nothing. For a while she said nothing more, either. After a few minutes she shifted to look at me. "Where's the music?" she asked.

"What?"

"You usually have music on while you're in the car." She pointed to the box of CDs between the seats.

I shook my head. "I've been wanting to listen to the Bach since morning, but every time I put it on it gets on my nerves."

She gave me a strange look, or maybe it was just the way the light fell from the high poles around Hamlin's entrance, casting odd, multiple shadows. She picked up the Bach CD, looked at it, sifted through the disks under it. She asked, "Did you try something else?"