A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (22 page)

"For bringing me in," Julie said.

"Yes."

"That's childish," Amanda said.

"Yes," I said. "Although it also shows how much faith he has in me to protect you."

Amanda shook her head. I steered the conversation back to the news about Wheeler and his sister. It was exciting to finally get our hands on a clue even halfway meaningful, but I was careful to rope in any excessive enthusiasm.

"Could it be this easy?" Amanda asked. "We get one name and just look it up in some police phone book?"

"No," I said. "It's not hard to stay off the grid if you want to and it sounds like this Layla Green wants to. But we've got a ton of tools at our disposal that we didn't then."

"There's the simple fact that Wheeler might not be with her, either," Julie said, trying to inject some extra caution into our debate. It was smart. The feeling around the table was approaching giddy. "She could be a law-abiding citizen who happens to be related to the guy and nothing more."

Amanda picked at the edge of her place mat. "So what now?"

"Status quo," I said. "Keep you safe, wait for Kransky to run down any information he can, then move on it."

"Move on it how, exactly?" Julie said. As she turned her head to talk to me, I could smell the lavender scent of her perfume. "You're not a cop anymore. There's no kicking down doors or shooting people."

"I never kicked doors down," I said, lying. "And almost never shot anybody. Assuming we find an address for this mysterious sister, I'm talking about casing the place, seeing if there's any evidence of Wheeler at all. There are plenty of ways to get information. Legally," I added quickly, seeing Julie open her mouth.

"What if he's there, with her?" Amanda asked, looking worried. "Do you…make a citizen's arrest or something?"

"No," I said. "With Kransky on our side, we start surveillance. Knowing where he is means we'll be two steps ahead of him. We can keep him away from you. Kransky gets a true investigation going, then we pin a raft of charges on him that will put him under for somewhere between a hundred and a thousand years."

"Marty, Michael is…unbalanced. Dangerous. What if he pulls a gun on you, tries to kill you? Or me, for that matter?"

I smiled, like Kransky had earlier, without humor. "Then I'll just have to defend myself."

Julie had earned her steak dinner, so we flagged our waiter down and ordered, then chatted about inconsequential things, jawing about nothing more dramatic than traffic, politics, and sports.

Then the food came.

When we'd first walked into Fitzroy's, I'd been able to control my nausea with a supreme effort of will. Then, once we'd sat down and I was distracted by the conversation, it was easier to ignore the little man in my gut that wanted me to empty its contents on the floor. But when Julie's Porterhouse was passed under my nose and set down on the table, sweat broke out on my forehead and my pulse started to hammer hard enough to make my vision bounce.

Julie glanced over. "What's wrong?"

I gritted my teeth. "Nothing."

I was prepared to tamp my stomach down with nothing but ice water and willpower, when I remembered the anti-nausea pill the nurses had given me. I fished it out of a pocket and swallowed it almost before I got it out of the wrapper, silently urging it to get to work. In a moment, relief washed over me and I gave the other two a shaky thumbs-up. We got through the rest of the meal without me making a scene, though both of the women were careful not to enjoy their food too much or too audibly. The waiter came by and cleared away the plates while the ladies made appreciative yummy noises.

As he moved away, I sensed motion at the edge of my vision that didn't fit in with the pattern of the rest of the diners. A guy--bookish twenty-something, thick-rimmed glasses, blonde hair sitting flat on his skull, complexion the color of skim milk--was walking towards us from the bar. His eyes were locked on Amanda from thirty feet away and an alarm clanged in my brain. The fact that this kid couldn't possibly be Michael Wheeler didn't matter. What did was the fact that Amanda appeared to be his goal and I needed to be between the two of them before he reached it. Four strides from our table, he was surprised to find me appear directly in front of him, like I'd sprouted there. My left hand rested on his chest, the fingers spread almost collarbone to collarbone. My right hung down and slightly back, near my hip, a few inches away from the butt of my gun.

"Hi," I said. "How are you doing this fine evening?"

The kid, startled, took a half step back, then his face screwed up, anger playing across his features. Before I could tell him to stay cool, Amanda had hopped up next to me and taken his arm.

"Jay," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey…Amanda," he said, glancing between her and me, confused. I relaxed and took my hand off his chest. "What's with GI Joe?"

"Oh, sorry. This is Marty. He's a friend. I had a, uh, problem with a guy once and Marty helped me out," she said, then turned to look at me. "Jay is another grad from GW."

I held out a hand. "Marty Singer. Sorry about that."

"No problem," he said, his handshake as slack as a moist towelette. He looked at Amanda. "I came out for a drink with Sandy and Al, but now they're obsessing on deconstruction and Derrida and some other crap. I got bored and started looking around when I saw you in the corner and thought Halle-fucking-lujah. You want to come over and save me?"

Amanda hesitated, then turned to me with a look that spoke volumes. She wanted to be with her friends, she wanted me to have a good time with Julie, and she probably wanted to get the hell away from me for a while. I sighed and closed my eyes for a second. The safe, anonymous, surgical strike for a quick meal and some good times had gotten complicated.

I opened my eyes. "You know the other two?"

"They're grads in the English department," she said, then smiled. "But I won't hold that against them."

"Fine," I said. "But come around to this side of the bar where I can see you."

Jay got a look on his face, as if to say,
what the hell is this?
But Amanda nodded, tugged at his arm, and went around the bar. Two girls in matching black jeans but different tops gave her hugs and the four of them moved to my side of the bar as requested, then dove deep into a discussion. I walked back to our booth and took the spot Amanda had vacated so I could sit across from Julie.

"What was that about?" Julie asked. I told her about giving Amanda the chance for a dip back into normal life. But I glanced back at the bar and away. Then back again.

Julie raised her eyebrows. "Problem?"

I sighed. "The chances of Wheeler finding Amanda at my house, tailing us over here without me noticing, then waiting an hour before launching a surprise attack in the back of an Irish pub are about the same as us getting hit by lightning. Twice."

Her mocha-brown eyes flicked back and forth, searching mine. "But you're worried."

"You don't play the odds if you want to keep someone safe. You go with absolutes, even if it means hiding under a blanket with the lights off and the doors locked."

"Why is tonight different?"

I shrugged. "She needed to get out. I needed to get out. She has to have a taste of freedom if I don't want her climbing the walls and maybe doing something stupid. And Lord knows I could use a good time. But now I have to roll the dice and be ready to react. With the result that I almost body-checked her friend Jay there and can't stop watching them at the bar. When I think I'd rather be watching you."

A blush appeared across Julie's nose and the tops of her cheeks, ending at her ears, which turned into two little scarlet candles. Her eyes dropped to the table, where the fake wood veneer was of sudden and immense interest to her. My smile faded. I'd expected a snappy comeback or a sarcastic putdown, either of which I could've handled. But she said nothing. Heat crept up my neck, climbed the sides of my face, prickled the skin around my hairline.

"I'm an ass," I said. "That was a stupid thing to say."

"No," she said. "No, it wasn't."

"It is. It's idiotic. We're supposed to be working to find a lunatic stalker who might want to kill Amanda. You and I are miles apart, romantically speaking. And--oh, I almost forgot--I'm fighting cancer. Talk about turn-offs."

"Singer, if I was going to be turned off, it would be the ex-cop thing."

"Really?"

She gave me a sour look. "Have you forgotten some of the things you said to me in the hall outside the Kaplan trial? Or on the way into court when I had to depose that scumbag in the Mark Aldridge case?"

I glanced away, looking for answers on the back of the malt vinegar bottle. "What did I, um, say, exactly?"

"Do you want it verbatim?"

"Not really. Maybe we can consider it all water under the bridge."

Her face broke into a predatory smirk that reminded me of a lioness I'd seen on a documentary, just before it sank its teeth into the butt of an antelope. "I don't think so."

And it took off from there. We circled each other verbally, wary but interested, dangling emotional pieces of ourselves at the end of a figurative ten-foot pole. She talked about being a defense attorney, the prejudice against women that still existed in the courtroom, living in fear of her own clients. I told jokes, or tried to, and I saw Julie Atwater laugh for maybe the first time. When she thought something was truly funny, she let out a heavy, snorting laugh that made me grin just hearing it. The furrow between her eyes that I'd thought was a permanent feature melted away.

"No deep secrets to divulge?" she asked after a while.

"You know all of them, already. Or could guess. Divorced, no kids, ex-cop, cancer."

"What about helping Amanda out?" she said. "That's something special. Different."

"Who wouldn't?"

"Lots of people. You did your job twelve years ago and it didn't pan out. That's life. You're doing her a monumental favor."

I turned my head to take in the bar and the grad school nerds. The four of them were perched on stools in a rough circle, laughing at a joke, engrossed in the conversation. They spoke quickly and passionately, gesturing to make a point one moment, then becoming completely still as one of them led the discussion in a new direction the next. A furious back-and-forth debate erupted between Amanda and Jay, which the other two girls watched closely, smiling. Amanda's face was animated, happy. I realized I wanted it to stay that way. Why? Was it feelings of guilt from a job poorly done more than a decade ago? I'd probably done worse things to more people over the years and I wasn't hustling to make amends with them. Was it paternal? Misplaced feelings for a kid I'd never had? Maybe. But the real reason was closer at hand. It didn't take much imagination to wonder what I'd be doing right now, how I would feel, if she hadn't had the guts to walk up to me outside that café in Clarendon and ask for help.

I shook my head. "She's the one doing me a favor."

My mother was shaking me, a hand on my shoulder, trying to get me up in time to make the bus. I'd stayed up too late the night before, watching an Ed Wood movie, and now it was almost impossible to break through the membrane of sleep and surface completely.

"Marty," she kept saying. "Marty, wake up. Jesus, would you please wake up?"

My eyes snapped open. My mother would never have said that.

I sucked in a deep breath and sat up. I was in the back seat and Amanda was leaning between the seats, a hand on my shoulder. I looked around. The car was off and we were stopped on Chilton Street, a block away from my place. It was dark out and a strong wind was making street lamps and porch lights sway, creating the illusion that the whole world was tilting from side to side.

I rubbed my eyes until I saw stars. "What's going on?"

Julie glanced at me in the rear view mirror. "You fell asleep and we didn't want to wake you, so we took the long way home. We drove past your place before we parked, trying to be cautious."

"Good work," I said, grimacing. "I'm glad somebody's on the ball."

"As we cruised past your house, we both saw it."

"Saw what?"

Amanda spoke. "A flash. Real muted. From the second floor."

I sat up straighter, no longer quite as tired. "Like the light being turned off and on real quick?"

They glanced at each other. "No," Julie said. "Smaller than that. You've got a couple windows in the front and only one was lit up by this…whatever it was. I think a light being turned on would've lit up both windows, even if it was only a second."

"So Julie kept on driving while I watched," Amanda said, "but it didn't happen again."

"Then we pulled over here and woke you up," Julie finished. "What do you want to do?"

"Amanda, do you have your cell?" I asked. I rattled off Kransky's phone number. "Save that and call him in twenty minutes if you haven't heard from me."

"You're not going over there," Julie said.

"I just want to check it out," I said. "We'll call in the Arlington PD if I see anything dangerous."

"You're not serious," Julie said, turning around in the seat to look at me. "Singer, you were passed out in the back seat the whole way home. You're not in any shape to go taking on some whack job with a gun. You're exhausted from the chemo and probably don't have half the reaction time you think you do."

"That's why I'm only going to check it out," I said. "I don't plan on making an arrest or anything. But if we call the cops right now, they're going to come with sirens blaring, no matter what I ask for. And, if this is Wheeler, we might have a chance to string him up if we go in quiet. I'll scope it out, then call Kransky."

Julie's mouth pinched shut, which took away from her cuteness.

"I promise," I said. Then, to Amanda, "Remember. Twenty minutes, then call Kransky."

"Got it," she said. "Be careful."

I grunted and got out of the car, throwing my jacket on the back seat as I got out; it was cold as hell out but the jacket would get in the way. That left just a stylish turtleneck between me and the chill. The door clicked shut quietly. I looked around, getting my bearings. Julie had circled the block, so I was on the opposite side of the block from my house. I could cut through a few backyards and sneak up on my place from the back. I trotted up a neighbor's brick sidewalk and into their backyard.