As the minutes ticked
away, Thomas’s absence heightened my unease. My skin itched in fifty different
places all at once, like it does whenever I get nervous, which is as rare as a
coelacanth sighting, given the Pendragon ability to remain calm under
pressure. Shins, back, scalp, that little place between the scrotum and your
exit door where you have to make some effort to reach inside your pants and
dig, and, oddly enough, my left pinky finger. I scratched here, I scratched
there. I felt like millions of tiny bugs jumped from spot to spot to spot and
wiggled their tiny bug legs, forcing me to relieve the itch.
I paced. I checked
my watch.
Beneath my feet,
beneath the dock, I could hear the slow, rhythmic lapping of lake water against
the pylons.
If you’ll allow me to
really
wax poetic here, it sounded like Death himself had climbed out of
a community pool and his wet feet were plopping along the concrete after a
lifeguard told him to slow down. But do bare skeletal feet make plopping
sounds? Perhaps he wore swim shoes. Regardless, it was an ominous noise.
At a quarter past
midnight, I was ready to surrender to my fleeing desires. Fifteen minutes was
enough, wasn’t it? Was giving up after fifteen minutes enough to resign my
future to a life on the lam? I had five hundred bucks—if I left right then, if
I ran back to Win and whisked her away, how far would we make it?
And if it were
necessary, could I really go off the grid with her and become one of The Nameless?
We could disappear into the bowels of societal machinery and nobody would ever
find us. We could go to somewhere in southern California where it was warm all
the time. We could get tans while we collected glass bottles and slept on the
beach in a different place every night.
Or maybe Dave
Berringer of Ocala, Florida could find a job that paid under the table. I
could grow my hair and beard long. I’d lose weight. I’d be unrecognizable.
Eventually I’d become a cold case file. People would forget about me. Berger
wouldn’t, though; he’d always wonder how I’d slipped away. Maybe he’d make it
his life’s mission to find me.
In truth, I liked the
idea of disappearing, of falling off the map and freeing myself—and Win, too—of
the normal obligations of daily minutiae. Have you ever thought about how
monotonous our existence is, those weird little things we do that make up our
routine of survival? How strange is it that we make a special trip to a giant
store with hundreds of thousands of items just to spend money on stuff like lip
balm? Lip balm! We waste our time composing messages in a hundred and forty
characters or less. Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you?
How did we get here?
How? What drove humanity to the point that tweeting is important? That lip
balm is a necessity? Weren’t we happier before? Food, water, shelter. Needs.
Life—as it stands—has become a system of satisfying wants and paying for convenience.
I splurged on a Dyson vacuum cleaner recently. Six months ago, I wanted
cleaner floors. But why in the hell do I
need
a colorfully packaged,
terrifically marketed device that sucks with ten thousand times the force of
gravity? You could eat off my carpet, but is that essential to my survival?
No. Food, water, shelter. Eat, sleep, sex. That’s all we need.
And don’t even get me
started on bottled water.
Could I do it? Could
I give up the internet for the rest of my life? Would it feel foreign to stop
paying a power bill? What would it be like, never having to decide which
scented pine tree air freshener best suited the interior of my car? When did
it become normal to wonder which cat tree your beloved Whiskers would enjoy the
most?
I thought about it.
I seriously considered running. I could do it. I could leave everything
behind, even Smoke and Shade, and I would never pay for a bottle of hand
sanitizer again. I stood there and listened to Death sloshing across the
concrete in his swim shoes—an image that should’ve made me chuckle but only
succeeded in creeping me out instead—and then I remembered: I’d told Win that
normal was overrated, but that’s exactly what she wanted.
No, not wanted. Needed.
It wasn’t just about me
anymore. There was
us
to think about. If I were to keep my promises,
then every move I made over the coming days would be for her. I would do
whatever necessary to give her the normalcy that she desired.
And it occurred to me
that I’d spent so much time living on Planet Pendragon that I’d forgotten there
were other worlds out there. But right then, all I wanted to do was pack my
metaphorical bags, lock the door behind me, and announce my arrival on Planet
Win, where I would stay.
In doing so, there was
no doubt in my mind that I would “Be the victor.”
I had made up my
mind. I would wait on life to give me instructions, and then I’d punch that
bastard Fate right in the mouth, just like I’d done to Harry DeShazo. I’d do
it for myself, I’d do it for Win, and yes, I’d do it for Kerry, because her
time had ended too quickly and she deserved more. She had been eating french
fries right before The End.
The not knowing,
that’s what bothers me. Those final seconds before the lights are
extinguished. Talking on the phone, changing a radio station, driving to pick
up a tube of lip balm—what’s going through someone’s head in the seconds before
they’re launched unceremoniously into the afterlife?
When Thomas walked
into the boathouse thirty seconds later, followed by Detective Schott, I
thought I’d learned.
Officer Planck
“Answer the question,
Planck. Were you aware that Mr. Pendragon suffers from some mental health
issues?”
“Not until we spoke
to his parents.”
“Why didn’t you
include it in your report?”
“Because it was
personal.”
“And what did you
learn?”
“That it’s minor, but
it set all the wheels in motion.”
“Explain. Please.”
“Nah, I’m done with
this. You can ask him yourself.”
“Sit down, Planck.
Sit down. Hey! Get back here! You walk out that door and you’ll
never—goddamn it. Strike that profanity from the record. Make a note that
Thomas Planck was uncooperative.”
Thomas, with
Detective Schott.
Once again, my mind
went to dark thoughts of betrayal.
I backed up to the
end of the dock, quickly, and nearly jumped into the lake before Thomas said,
“Steve, wait! It’s okay!”
With my knees bent,
muscles coiled, ready to spring into a perfectly executed dive (because really,
how else would a Pendragon do it?), the sincerity in his voice stopped me.
But not soon enough.
I fought to control
my balance, stumbled, and fell face first into knee-deep water. It tasted how
I imagine wet leaves would taste. When I surfaced, gasping for air and soaking
wet, I looked up to see Thomas’s extended hand.
“Here, let me help
you up,” he said. Smiling, he added, “But so help me, if you try to pull me
down there with you, I’ll shoot you where you stand, bro.”
I coughed up dirty
lake water, and I’m fairly certain I spat out a small twig along with it.
“That sucked.” Standing below him, feet sinking into a thick layer of mud, I
nodded toward Schott. “What’s he doing here?”
“C’mon. Get out of
the damn lake.”
“I’m not going
anywhere,
bro
, not until you tell me—”
Schott stepped
forward, hands in his pockets, moonlight bouncing off the water and reflecting
off of his bald head. Cool, calm, effortless—and regal, I should add—he spoke
calmly. “I’m not here to arrest you, Mr. Pendragon. I need your help.”
“My help?”
“I’d rather not talk
down to a man. Up now. Come on. Up.”
I declined his offer
to help, and Thomas’s, then pulled myself onto the dock. My shoes squished
when I stood. “You know I didn’t kill Kerry, right?”
Instead of answering
my question, he offered his hand to shake and waited until I took it. Firm
grip, rough palm, two quick pumps. It reminded me of shaking hands with my
grandfather after another successful day walking his mail route.
Schott said, “I
suppose some introductions are in order, but first, what I’m about to tell you
is strictly confidential. This information never leaves this—this, what is
this thing? A boathouse? You are sworn to secrecy, and if this ever comes up
in a court of law or a federal investigation, the government will deny any
involvement.”
He probably could’ve
whacked me in the face using a bar of soap inside a tube sock and I wouldn’t
have been hit as hard. “Federal investigation?” The only thing I could think
of was Harry DeShazo and whatever Ponzi schemes he’d perpetrated against his
clients. “You mean the money? A guy named Edward Strout took it. Tell him,
Thomas. And that hundred grand in my basement, that was—”
Thomas shook his head
and squeezed my upper arm. “Not the money, Steve. Just listen.”
Schott crossed his
arms and stared, studying me. Finally, he nodded and made a clicking noise
with his tongue. “I’m Agent Jonas Ackerman, Mr. Pendragon, and I’m with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. For the past three years I have been
undercover, closely monitoring the activities of Detective Berger, who’s been
suspected of—well, that’s not important to your situation. The fact that I’m
telling you
any
of this breaks more rules than I can count, but Officer
Planck here assures me that you’re a stand-up guy.
Are
you a stand-up
guy, Mr. Pendragon?”
The fact that Thomas
had insisted I was a stand-up guy to a federal agent—the second person in a
single day to confirm I wasn’t a wretch—was enough to warrant a tremendous bear
hug, but I managed to contain myself. I thought it’d make a perfect anecdote in
my newsletter,
The Year of Steve
—if I ever had another chance to send
it.
“Yeah, I am.
Definitely. Definitely stand-up.”
“Excellent.” He
clicked his tongue again, returned his hands to his pockets, and took a step
closer to me. Cocking his head back and enabling me to see up into his
cavernous nostrils, he examined my face, long enough to make me uncomfortable.
“Okay, Mr. Pendragon. I don’t know why, but I’m willing to trust you.
Remember, though, that we’ll deny any involvement. Detective Berger has been
tampering with evidence for years. He’s intelligent, he’s a sneaky bastard,
and somehow he’s managed to ruin a number of federal cases we’ve built against
some of the more…
undesirable
residents of your fair city. Dirty cop on
the take, you know the cliché. Then you came along, you and your infatuation
with January Oliver and your indirect involvement with Detective Berger before
you even knew it existed.”
“Indirect
involvement? What does
that
mean?”
“I can’t tell you.
Not yet, anyway, because it’ll ruin the plan.”
“What plan?”
Thomas said, “Just
listen, bro. We’ve got it all worked out. I promise.”
Agent Ackerman added,
“When all is said and done, you’ll owe Officer Planck here a great deal,
because he’s the one that kept you out of jail.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t
do anything.”
Ackerman loosened his
tie and his top shirt button. “I’ll be honest, Mr. Pendragon, I was ready to
let you go to prison. Your particular case wasn’t—how do I put this?—it wasn’t
important enough to the FBI for me to do anything about it. I’ve had to
overlook a number of cases just like yours, playing along, staying undercover,
and it’s done a number on my conscience.”
I couldn’t hide my
irritation. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“I understand the
sarcasm, but that’s how it is. You’re lucky he thinks so highly of you,” he
said, pointing at Thomas, and again, I had to resist the hugging urge.
“Officer Planck approached me yesterday evening, accusing me of accepting
blackmail and impeding an investigation, threatened to turn me in, all sorts of
things. He took a huge risk, and you owe him.”
“I really let him
have it,” Thomas said.
“That he did. And I
couldn’t risk having my cover blown, so here we are. With you and Planck in
the loop, that’s too many loose ends. Your case isn’t how I wanted to go out,
but I ran it by my superiors and we have the evidence we need against Berger.”
“So what, you’ll
arrest him and I’m done? I’m free?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“There are a couple
of things we haven’t figured out yet. One: why he’s trying to frame you,
specifically. Two: we still don’t know who killed January Oliver for certain,
and I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t him. I knew he’d been following her for
some unknown reason, because I’d been trailing
him
, but I sort of
connected the dots when he practically begged for us to be assigned to her
case. I couldn’t find any connection she might’ve had to the people he’d been
working with. Of course there was the money issue with DeShazo, but there was
no evidence of a correlation between he and Berger.”
“So you think he
killed her and then got himself assigned to the case so he could call it a
suicide?”
“It’s possible. He
tried to skirt the process—you know, like matching the ballistics and whatnot.
When that fell through, I suppose his backup plan was to frame somebody.”
“But why me?”
“You found her body,
so you were a convenient target. It wasn’t just that, though.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. I didn’t press
it to find out why, but he seemed absolutely determined to blame
you
. You
and nobody else.”
I enunciated,
syllable by clear syllable. “
But why me?
”
“This is a hunch—”
“A hunch? You’re the
FBI and you’re going on a hunch? Thomas warned me not to piss him off—was that
it? Was that enough? I mean, good God, is that enough to ruin somebody’s
life? What kind of wretch does that?”
“Purely hypothetical,
but I’m thinking it had something to do with a phone call he received.”
Ackerman reiterated the scant, seemingly meaningless details of an overheard
conversation. A conversation that consisted of things like, “You did what?
Fuck me, I knew it. I knew it was you. I’ll take care of it. I said, I’ll
take care of it.”
“He disappeared, said
he had some things to take care of and then a couple hours later, he came back
and told me he had a suspect for January Oliver’s murder.”
“Me, right? He was
in my house—the son of a bitch
snuck into my house
. Did you know that,
Mr. FBI?”
“Officer Planck
informed me, yes.”
“So who was he
talking to? Can’t you check phone records or something?”
“The call came from
an office building downtown, and as far as we know, Berger doesn’t have any
association with anyone there. Somebody could’ve walked in off the street and
asked the receptionist to use the phone, but nobody remembers anything
suspicious.”
“Do you have
any
idea who he was talking to?”
“There are options.”
“What the fuck does
that mean?”
Thomas, close friend
and non-betrayer that he was, stepped in. “Hey dude, take a breather. I told
you we’ve got it under—”
“Under control?” I
interrupted. “Huh? Under control, Thomas? You heard him. Even the FBI is
clueless.”
“Well, that’s not
entirely true.”
And yes, I caught the
cautious ‘tread lightly’ glance that passed between them.
But I chose not to
ask what it meant, because I realized that whatever they were up to, whatever
scheme they were concocting, they weren’t going to give me the details.
“What now?” I asked.
“What’s your plan?”
I know this seems
like a recurring theme, this involuntary bodily reaction, but when Ackerman told
me, I turned and emptied my guts over the side of the dock. Apple Hullabaloo, Banana
Bonanza, and the few gulps of dirty lake water I’d managed to swallow
splattered and rippled the surface.
Physically, I was
empty, but if I could’ve vomited out the fear, I would’ve.
***
I spent the night at
Thomas’s house.
Not
in
his
house, mind you, because “at
”
is the proper word to use. I was
at
his house for the night, but I slept in the backseat of his car because he
couldn’t risk having his wife find the wanted murderer. “She wouldn’t
understand, Steve, I can promise you that.”
The next morning, we
sat in his car, two blocks away from my destination on the south side, while
Ackerman was supposedly parked two blocks to the north.
I sipped at coffee so
horrible that I hesitated to pour it down the storm drain for fear of killing
off the local fish population.
Also, I ate a
doughnut.
For the first time in
roughly fifteen years, I allowed that unhealthy, unholiest of unholies, sugary
sweetened, carb-filled monstrosity to pass my lips.
I’d forgotten how
good they were.
Yet, it was a minor
treat that didn’t hold the necessary weight to counterbalance what I was about
to do.
“I can’t believe I
have to wear a wire,” I said. “What’s it for? What’s she gonna say that’ll
make any difference?”
“Ackerman says it’s
because you never know.”
“And why does
Ackerman want him to arrest me first?”
“To make it look more
official, I guess. One step further in the process. He’s got enough to grab
him now if he wants to.”
“Then why do I have
to go through all this?”
“Part of his hunch.
You’re the icing on that doughnut.”
“I still don’t
understand why it has to be here,” I said around a mouthful.
“How many times do we
have to go over this, bro? Schott—shit, I mean
Ackerman
said that
Berger told him you’d show up here. He was positive, so we’re giving Berger
what he wants. Come on, what’re you worried about? The freakin’ FBI’s got
your back.”
“I’m not worried
about Berger—I trust you guys.”
“Then what’s the
problem?”
“I’m worried about
her
.
The last time I was here, she threatened to shoot me if I ever set foot on her
doorstep again.”
Thomas tried to hide
a laugh with the back of his hand. It didn’t work. “I’ll be honest, I thought
about it, too.”
“It’s not funny,
Thomas. You don’t know her like I do. Shayna’s got a temper. If she sees me
coming, she might shoot me before I get to the front door. You’ve got a vest I
can use, right? Please?”
He slapped my
shoulder. “Yeah, in the back. Along with the rest of your uniform.”
“What uniform?”
“It’ll help you get
closer. Take a look.”
I almost clapped.
(Do men ever get giddy?)
“What do you think,
bro? Think that’ll work?”
“Oh it’ll work, all
right. But just one question.”