Winter and Night (18 page)

"Okay, you said it." I parked my cigarette in an ashtray, started the business with grinding the coffee, putting together the coffee press, because I thought it would be good to have something to do with my hands.

"You going to do it?" he said, raising his voice over the whine of the grinder, not yet moving from the spot he'd stopped at when he first came in.

I finished the grinding, dumped coffee into the press. "You find Gary yet?"

"Hey, you son of a—"

"Back off!" My voice was hard, and loud, and, I realized, as deliberately that way as Hamlin's had been, in his office, hours ago. "Who's Premador?"

He stared. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Premador's a comic book character who wants to blow the world up. Gary gets e-mail from someone calling himself that."

"So fucking what?"

"So maybe nothing. Or maybe Gary wants to blow the world up, too."

He stepped toward me. "What kind of bullshit—"

"No bullshit. No bullshit, Scott, not now." My hands gripped the edge of the wood counter between us. "You say stay away from your family. But they're my family, too, as much as you hate that. Helen doesn't like it, either. But you can't make it not true."

"Your family." He sneered. "You have no fucking idea what that means."

"You have no fucking idea," I said, my voice as slow, as flat and cold as ice on a deep winter river, "no fucking idea who I am. You don't know anything about me. I've kept away from your family for years because you wanted it that way. But Gary asked me for help."

"He must have been fucking desperate, to come to you!"

"I think he was."

That stopped him. Our eyes locked; in the color flaring in his face, the thrust of his shoulders, I could see how ready he was to explode. I clamped my jaw shut to keep from saying words to set him off, because part of me wanted that to happen, wanted him to rush me, wanted to fight Scott Russell right here, now, in my own place.

"You bastard," Scott said, his voice like gravel. "I'm telling you. I find you near them, you're dead."

I spoke as quietly as I could. "I'm not the bad guy here, Scott."

"What?"

"Whatever went wrong for Gary, it happened before he came to me. I'm sorry I couldn't hold on to him. But he needs help and I'm going to do whatever I have to, to find him. You can help or get out of the way. But you can't stop me."

Scott's eyes burned through me: blue eyes, like Gary's, though I couldn't see much else that was Gary, in him. Scott wanted what I wanted right then and I knew it. To hit, kick, beat someone down, exhaust yourself. To take the fear and helpless rage and turn them into something you can tell yourself you're proud of. To force someone to betray himself, to make him fail. To win. To prove you're really there.

Come on, Scott, I thought, come on, you son of a bitch, but Scott wasn't ready, not yet. With a violent turn, as though hefting a weight, he spun around, crossed the room, headed toward the door. He almost got there, and I almost let my breath out, but he had to kick aside the faxed pages I'd dropped when I fell asleep, and they caught his eye.

He stooped, picked up a few. "What the fuck is this?" He whipped through the papers in his hands, spun to look at me. "What the fuck is this? You're digging up this old shit again?"

I looked from the papers to him. "You know anything about it?"

"No! Goddammit, motherfucker! I didn't know anything about it then and I don't now. But I know Warrenstown doesn't need assholes like you digging through this old shit." He ripped the papers in half, threw them down. "My family," he said. "My town. Keep away, motherfucker."

I said nothing, didn't move. Just looked at my sister's husband as he stood in my room. Let him decide. I'd do it any way he wanted.

And then, the way things happen, the way so much of the time it's better if you don't get what you want, Scott turned, yanked open the door, and left.

Still not moving, I listened to the pounding of his feet on the stairs, heard the outside door open and slam shut. I walked slowly to the door up here, closed it, slowly again back to the kitchen. I lit a cigarette before I spotted the one I'd left in the ashtray, still smoldering. I ground it out, pulled on the new one. I poured the water in the press, stood while the coffee brewed, the full five minutes, not moving, looking at nothing. When it was ready I poured a cup. I took it to the couch, got the Scotch tape from the desk, put the papers back together, and began to read.

An hour later I'd been through it all twice, and the pot of coffee. I thought about calling Lydia, to tell her about it, talk it over; but it was late, and I'd gotten her up before six. And there was nothing in what I'd read that wouldn't keep. Some of it was interesting, showing me Warrenstown the way late sun breaking through heavy clouds can surprise you with something you thought you'd seen already. But I couldn't see how any of it mattered, to Gary, to the job I had.

I put on my jacket, left the apartment. I was going nowhere; I could do nothing. I'd run down my leads and hit dead ends. I'd been thrown out of Warrenstown, out of Plaindale, and I'd bet Bert Hagstrom wouldn't be happy if I turned up at Midtown South, either. I was a detective, looking for a kid; I'd had cases like this before and I'd failed before. Some people, some things, you never find.

But this one probably wouldn't end that way. Police in two states were also looking for Gary Russell, a clueless kid without a dime last seen on the streets of New York. He couldn't stay hidden; he wouldn't know how.

Is that a fact, Smith, I asked myself, turning my collar up as I walked into the cold wind near the river. When I was Gary's age and lived in Brooklyn with Dave, these blocks were sailor's bars, flophouses, warehouses and ship's chandleries. Now they'd all been converted for comfortable living; now there was a college here, a public one, where the sons and daughters of New York could come to prepare themselves for what was next.

I asked myself again, Is that a fact, that Gary won't know how to stay hidden? Because his mother did. For years. For as long as she wanted to, no matter what anyone tried.

Of course, though the police had searched for her, too, it was as a runaway, not a suspect. She wasn't the criminal. There was an arrest, and a trial, a conviction, a prison sentence; but though she knew about it all, she still didn't come home.

I crossed the highway, walked beside the river. They'd put a park here now, jogging paths, bike paths, trees. When it was warmer, hookers worked the park, bringing johns they'd picked up on the streets over the bridges to the shadows here: cheaper than a hotel, and easier to scramble away if a trick turned nasty. But on a cold night like this there was no one here but me. And though the waterfront was tame and pretty now and the windows of the new, prosperous buildings glowed behind me with their curtains drawn, the black water of the river still ran to the sea. You could smell the salt of the harbor, hear the water lapping against the wall you stood at. The river still carried things you didn't know were there, was still charged with currents that ran in unexpected ways. It was the same as it always had been.

I watched it for a while, watched barges and tugs whose workdays were not over, boats plowing through the cold river water late at night because they had to finish their jobs.

I lit a cigarette, smoked it through. I took out my cell phone, found the scrap of paper with the number Lydia had given me, dialed. When I got the voice mail I left a message. I was walking again, still headed north, away from home, when my phone rang.

"Smith."

"Hey, dude, Linus Kwong. You called?"

"Yeah, Linus. Sorry it's so late. I wanted to know if you found anything. This Premador guy."

"Is it late? Oh, shit, look at that. Man, no wonder I'm starving. This Premador dude, man. Been chasing his trail all day, found him once, but he's gone again. Captured some good shit, though."

Not 'good stuff,' anyway. "What does that mean?"

"I found, like, some sites where he goes, chat rooms, like that. I wrote a program, so if he was on it would tell me. He came on once and I, uh, I—"

"Hacked in?" I was guessing, but it seemed right.

"Yeah, okay, whatever." Linus went quickly past that. "But I got his passwords."

"That sounds useful."

"Well, yeah, if he's online. Otherwise not so much. See, I think he's not using his own computer. Like he's in a cybercafé or something? 'Cause, see, if it was his, I could like get his address book or something. But it wasn't there."

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I don't think he detected me, but he logged off and he hasn't been back. But I got his, like, history, too."

"History. That tells us something?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely. Dude hits some creepy sites. I don't think he likes anybody much."

"What do you mean?"

"You know. Skinheads, Vikings. The government wants to put a chip in your head. Get off the grid. Long live Waco. You know."

"I'm not sure I do, but it doesn't sound good."

"It's mightily bad, dude. Little guy's got no chance, government's gonna get you anyway, best you can do is take 'em with you when you go."

"Sounds like Oklahoma City."

"Sounds like all kinds of shit. I been holding my nose and posting to his boards, in case he comes back, but he's nowhere. But I'll find him. I do, you'll put him away?"

The question surprised me, coming from this confident voice, this kid with skills I would never match, couldn't even understand. But he was a kid, and kids look to adults to make it all right.

"Find him, Linus. I'll see what I can do."

With another, "Cool, dude," he was gone, and I was alone by the river again.

I turned, walked back south. A tug on the river, pulling a barge, was moving in the same direction I was, at the same speed. Old tires swayed from its sides and its cabin windows were lit. We shadowed each other until I came to the footbridge, and I turned away.

I was spent. My day was over. Scott and the coffee had jolted me awake, but that had worn off, and I was tired again, bone-tired and cold and played out. I'd done what I could. It wasn't enough, but I didn't have anything else. I headed back, to sleep.

The wind off the river pushed papers around as I walked. Sheets of newsprint, yesterday's stories, swirled toward me. I swatted at them and they fell away, a slow-motion receiver with empty hands eluding halfhearted tacklers.

I could talk to Lydia in the morning, I thought as I unlocked the street door, climbed the stairs. The idea warmed me. I took my jacket off, my shoes, headed for the bedroom shedding the rest of my clothes on the way.

Lydia, in the morning. That would be good. Lydia didn't look at things the same way I did. Sometimes, between us, we could see things neither of us had seen alone.

* * *

I went to bed and slept and if I dreamed I didn't know it. When I woke it was late, past eight, and I was sore, stiff, as though I'd had a hard workout the day before. I showered, shaved, made coffee, called Lydia.

"Hi," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Lousy. I need a vacation. Will you come with me to a South Sea island?"

"We went to one, and you felt worse when we were through."

"That wasn't the South Sea, that was the South China Sea. The islands are completely different."

"Oh. Then how about this: No."

"Just as I thought. Well, I can understand it. You're probably holding out for a football player."

"Oh, no, you found my secret. One of the really thick ones, too. Linebackers?"

"Linemen, they're even thicker. And it would serve you right. Will you come with me to breakfast?"

"In America?"

"You found me out, too. It was a trick question. I know this really great breakfast place on Tahiti."

In the end we settled on a diner on Varick Street, more or less halfway between us. I dressed, shrugged into my jacket, took the cigarettes and the cell phone, and headed that way.

The morning was gray, colder than the day before, one of those late fall mornings when you can smell winter in the metallic air, feel it in the weight of the clouds. Dead leaves and left-behind papers skidded along the sidewalk. The whispering sound they made was drowned out by the traffic, horns and brakes and the rush of tires, but I knew it was there.

Lydia was drinking tea in a booth by the window when I got to the diner. I unzipped my jacket in the sudden warmth. Lydia stood, touched my shoulder, kissed my cheek. I kissed her lips; they were warm and soft, but I kissed them lightly, as though this were just a greeting, nothing more.

"You smell good," I said as I slid into the booth across from her.

"I do?"

"Oh, wait, it's probably the waffles. Unless you use maple syrup perfume?"

A waitress, blond and bored, came to our table, said nothing, stood waiting. I ordered waffles, and coffee to go with Lydia's tea; she ordered poached eggs to go with my waffles.

"Scott came by last night," I said when the waitress had gone.

Lydia stopped, teacup in her hand. "To your place?"

I nodded.

"Why?"

"To tell me to keep away from his family."

She tilted her head, maybe to see me differently. "What is it between you and Scott?"

"He doesn't like me."

"As the kids say: Well, duh."

"I wouldn't know, I don't speak that language. But speaking of kids, I talked to your cousin again."

"Linus?"

"He's sort of obsessing on this Premador guy."

"Is it important?"

"I don't know. But it is to him."

I told Lydia what Linus had told me, from wherever he was, as I stood in the dark, by the river. "He wants me to put the guy away, if he finds him."

"For what?"

"Thinking bad thoughts."

"Did you tell him that's not a crime?"

"No," I said, as the waitress came back. "Let him learn that somewhere else." The waitress set my coffee down. Surprisingly, she'd brought Lydia not only more hot water, but another tea bag, too.

"So it'll be fresh," she said, not looking any less bored, taking the empty cup away.