Taking the Highway (5 page)

Andre wanted to thump the desk again, but settled for striking the palm of his left hand with the heel of his right. “Nobody else would connect these dead men. Nobody else would even look.”

“You looked. You found. Gold star for the day. Then you tried to screw over a colleague so you could work on something that sounds a little more interesting than your other cases.”

“That’s not—”

“Shut up and let me do the thinking.” The captain fiddled with the buttons on her holostage. “I will kick your request upstairs, through proper channels. Package what you have. Maybe the word of a real fourth will make it more compelling.” The backhanded compliment was matched with an ironic glint in her eye. “Don’t think for one minute I’m going to reassign your other cases.”

“No. Of course not.” Andre threaded his fingers together.

The captain readjusted her potted plant, moving it the same few centimeters. She considered him over the top of it.

Andre shifted in his chair.
Now what?

“Sergeant, when was the last time you were on the target range?”

“We’re required to shoot once a week.”

“Uh-huh. I didn’t ask you about the requirement. I asked you when you last showed your sorry face there.” She clicked through menus on her holo.

Andre felt fresh dampness on his neck and underarms.
Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

“It says here you last logged into the range fifteen days ago.”

“I can shoot, Captain.”

“Prove it. Range. This week.” The potted plant took another two-centimeter journey. “You do good work when you’re on the job. Just make sure that you’re
on
the job you’re given. Dismissed.”

B
ella Trattoria, the latest
place to power lunch, felt exactly like the last few places Andre’s older brother had dragged him to. Soft music, high ceilings, everything white and black and chrome. The cuisine changed, but the flavor remained the same. Georgio’s, Café Merlot, Hatashi—once
the
places to be—had been replaced by Bella Trattoria, just as surely as Bella Trattoria would be replaced as soon as someone more alpha was seen there. Oliver, and the rest of the city council, would scent it on the wind, and the herd would move.

The hostess matched the décor—white blouse, black suit, and chrome earrings. Her eyes flicked over him, obviously liking what she saw. She apologized for the rain outside and offered to take his drip-hat. “How many will be dining today?”

“Two.” His implant chirped for attention and with a grimace of apology to the hostess he held up his datapad so he wouldn’t look like he was talking to himself. He moved aside and fielded the call from Jordan Elway, his contact in the technical services division.

“Hey, Elway.”

“I heard Captain Evans nailed you.”

“You heard wrong, my techno-philanthropist. You heard wrong. Things are coming up ro—”

“How much trouble am I in?”

“Elway, Elway! Do you think I’d give you up?”

Elway snorted. “Then how did you explain getting those files?”

“I told her I used an Illudium Q36 and created a new passcode with her name on it.”

Silence from the other end.

“Elway? You still there, buddy?”

“I thought you never listened to a thing I say.”

“I listen. I just don’t understand you half the time.”

“Now you want me to—”

“Okay! Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” He folded away the pad. “Sorry about that.”

The earlier warmth he’d seen from the hostess was gone. She pulled two menus of embossed silver on cream paper. “Our non-tech section is full, but if you’d care for a table in the tech section, I can seat you as soon as the rest of your party arrives.”

Andre peered around the hostess into the restaurant and saw several empty tables, most of them set for single diners. Nobody had to eat alone when they could bring their virtual friends with them. But was it truly worse than the tables of two and four and six? The bigger the group, the more blips, egrams and phone calls it took to pick a restaurant. Then they used GPS to find the place, and when they finally sat down, they reveled in the incredible tangibility of it all, patting themselves on the back for keeping it real.

He focused on the hostess. “We’ll wait for non-tech.”

Then he heard it. Through the closed windows, over the sound of the rain, came the unmistakable roar of an internal combustion engine. He snatched up his drip hat and ducked back outside. He ran into the lot, where his brother was nosing the Dodge Challenger into a double-wide parking spot near the front door. Andre rapped on the driver’s side. “What the hell are you doing?”

Oliver cracked the window. “Parking.”

“You drove it? In the rain?”

“Easiest way to transport a car is to drive it, kid.”

Andre’s hand dove into his pocket and closed into a fist over the key he kept there. He watched beads of water trail over the Challenger’s hand-rubbed finish, pooling in the lines of the creased hood. Mud and other road grime covered the tires and had splashed onto the rims. “You could have brought it to me tomorrow. My date isn’t until—”

“I’m bringing it to Greenfield Village. The classic car show?” Oliver straightened his arms and put on an announcer’s voice. “‘The September Spectacular: Steel and Speed.’ I told you about this.” He eased himself out of the driver’s seat, tested the rain with his palm, and put on his drip hat.

Andre gripped the top edge of the car door, preventing Oliver from closing it. “What about Brittany?”

“Brittany? Is that the seventy-nine? I thought her name was Emma.”

“No, Emma is the seventy-nine. You gave Brittany a solid ninety-three percent.”

Oliver lifted his palms. “I can’t keep them all straight.”

“The point is, you know I have a date.” Or would, if he had the car.

Oliver shrugged. “Believe it or not, my little brother’s romantic conquests aren’t my first consideration when I schedule car shows.”

“You just don’t want me driving it. I’m surprised I get to sit in it.”

“Want to get in?” Oliver gestured to the passenger side. “Be my guest. I’ll drive you around the block. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

He shouldered Oliver out of the way and climbed into the driver’s seat, which was already pre-warmed from Oliver’s backside. Andre shut the door behind him, silencing his brother and the rest of the world.

He ran his hands over the steering wheel, feeling the ridges on its underside. His Raven and the Challenger were both made by Dodge, but the Raven was all rolling soft surfaces, the comm system a series of dancing lights, a modern look that added up to exactly nothing. The Challenger, however, oozed style. The analog speedometer showed speed in miles, the fuel gauge was simply a single hand that dipped lower as gasoline was consumed, and everything from the windshield wipers to the navigation system had its own button, most of them with cunning pictures showing their function. There were no optimizers, no stabilizers, and certainly no Overdrive sensors. You didn’t ride in a machine like this, you
drove
it. His one year old Raven, with its smooth suspension and dashboard lights, felt ethereal, as if it were floating above the road. Not this car. The Challenger met the pavement with the physicality of a rampaging bull.

The rain was coming down heavier now, and Andre looked up through the moon roof. No, not rain. Oliver was drumming his fingers on top of the car. “Are we going to eat or not?” he called through the window.

Andre opened the door. “I don’t like leaving the Challenger here.”

“Outside of a restaurant with a cop in it?” Oliver flung his arm toward Bella Trattoria. “We’ll get a table up front. You can keep an eye on it the whole time.”

Andre closed his hand over the key in his pocket, running his thumb over the alarm buttons, staring at the matching buttons on the dash. Oliver had installed two alarms and a tracker. They could abandon it in the oh-zone at midnight and nothing would happen to it. He knew the Challenger was safe, but that didn’t mean he wanted to walk away and leave it.

Several people had gathered at Bella Trattoria’s window, staring and pointing. Why shouldn’t they? It wasn’t every day that you saw a screaming red 2008 Dodge Challenger in perfect condition. Oliver played to the crowd, throwing a smile over his shoulder, then using overly-expansive gestures to coax Andre out.

And that was the problem, right there. Oliver wanted everyone in the restaurant to know whose car this was. The longer Andre sat in it, the more people might assume that the brothers shared the Challenger, or even worse, that it belonged to the younger LaCroix.

He got out of the car and slammed the door. “I hope you and your mechanical date enjoy your lunch.” He turned and walked away.

“What? Come on. Don’t.” A pause while Oliver locked the car, then footsteps behind him. “Andre, you’re being an asshole. Come back.”

Across the street was an Aqua Taco franchise. Andre stormed through the door without holding it for Oliver and shed his hat. Unlike Bella Trattoria, Aqua Taco had bright lights, upbeat music, and video monitors in the corners. The monitors showed the noon news shows, local feed—weather, sports, puppy stories—a comfortable background hum. More importantly, it had windows into the parking lot. He could still see the Challenger across the street.

He marched to the counter and ordered a halibut taco plate, extra spicy, and iced tea.

“I’ll have the same.” Oliver reached from behind and slid his multicard through the cashier slot before Andre could stop him. They waited in silence for their order, which Oliver took possession of and carried toward a table. Andre would have preferred a booth near the window, but Oliver marched to a four-top right in the center of the room. He planted the tray in the middle of the table and used an empty chair for his drip hat. “You’re welcome for the tacos.”

“Big spender.” Andre sat in the chair opposite and put his hat on top of Oliver’s. He added lemon to his tea and bit into a taco. The mild fish mellowed the sting from the hot sauce. The second bite was just as satisfying as the first.

“Nice suit,” Oliver said. “Brooks Brothers?”

“Markson.”

Oliver picked at his coleslaw with a plastic fork. “Maybe if you spent less on clothes and books and girlfriends—”

“Maybe if you spent more on clothes and books, you’d actually keep a girlfriend.”
Or a wife.

Oliver put his elbows on the table, claiming territory. “It takes more than clothes to keep a girlfriend.”

Andre brought his eyes above Oliver’s head, looking at the video monitor in the corner, but only for a moment. Just enough to piss Oliver off. “You’re right. It takes a lot more than clothes. It might even take a classic car.”

“Why do you have to be like that?” Oliver asked. “Every time I even think about driving the Challenger—”

“You didn’t even ask me.”

“So now I’m asking. Do you mind if I show Dad’s car?”

Andre raised his eyebrows. “You mean
our
car?”

“I’m showing the Challenger in the September Spectacular at Greenfield Village. Is that all right with you?”

“A whole month?”

“More like two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“It’s under a pavilion. There is security. It will be fine. You can check on the car when you come to my fundraiser at the Village this weekend.”

“Oh, hell no,” Andre said. “The last fundraiser I attended for you was a disaster.”

“The one at my house? I raised half a million bucks at that dinner.”

“Good for you.”

“Everyone thought you planned that plunge into the pool.”

“I ruined my leather jacket.”

“So show up in a bathing suit this time, I’ll raise even more.”

“Isn’t that sinking fairly low? Even for you?”

“I’m kidding,” Oliver said. “You’ll be safe at Greenfield Village. There’s no pool there. People barely bathed back then, much less went swimming.”

The video in the corner showed local weather. Rain for the rest of the day and into the night. Andre bit into his second taco while waiting for the weekend forecast.

Oliver snapped his fingers in front of Andre’s face. He blinked.

“I’m over here, kid.”

“I heard every word you said. Greenfield Village. Probably cost you a fortune. And stop calling me ‘kid.’“

“I only rented part of it. We get the central green for six hours.”

Andre grunted and took a bite of taco.
We
get the central green, as if he’d already agreed to come. He was never sure if Oliver wanted him to show up at these things as a brother, a cop, or a fourth. Maybe all three. And what was the new fascination with Greenfield Village? Every politician claimed to love the place, as if the fastest path to authenticity was to turn back the clock to 1890. They were even holding pre-parties there for all the bigwigs coming in for the economic summit.

Andre put down his taco and wiped his hands. He stared at Oliver across the table. “Wait a minute. I get it. You’re trying to bask in the glow from the summit. You want to look like the candidate who brought businesses to Detroit.”