CHAPTER 24

WHEN HE’D BEEN A FRESHMAN at the University of Michigan with his whole life ahead of him, Alex had an intense friendship with two girls on his hall. It had started out the way college friendships did: easy. He’d met Tara doing laundry, Stacy in the TV lounge at the end of the hall. Throughout the halcyon days of a Midwestern autumn they’d chatted and laughed and shared bottles of tequila in his cramped dorm room. It hadn’t been a sexual thing. They’d been so young, and free for the first time, and their friendship had revolved around conversation and mutually murdered hours. Back then it had seemed like the whole world was made up of time; hours and hours spent bullshitting in the glow of Christmas lights, playing euchre for cigarettes, sneaking into Scorekeepers with fake IDs. And for a while, it had been great. His first experience with a constructed family.

Around March it started getting weird.

The first thing was Stacy beginning to crush on him a little. It wasn’t a big deal, flattering actually, but he didn’t want to blow their friendship. Of course, after too much to drink one night, he and Tara had ended up in bed instead. They both enjoyed it, but also decided that it wasn’t something they could continue. They agreed not to tell Stacy, but she found out, said she was fine with it. These things happened.

Then money went missing from Tara’s purse. When Tara asked Stacy about it, she got offended, which led to a screaming fight on the Diag. Things got tense on the hall. Someone drew a picture on Tara’s door that showed her doing inappropriate things to a horse. Stacy’s colored laundry ended up bleached. Tara opened Alex’s always-unlocked dorm room door late one night and crawled in with him, and when he refused her-he’d just started seeing Trish-she left in a self-righteous huff that woke the whole hall.

By April it had become a three-front war, and Alex, young and newly in love, opted out. He started spending most nights in Trish’s room, avoiding both girls. Summer came, and then the following year he and Trish moved into an apartment together, and that was that.

But he’d never forgotten the way things had gotten out of hand, that claustrophobic feeling as each turned on the others. The way their erstwhile intimacy had become the fuel for rage. He’d never before realized that the best friends could turn out to be the worst enemies. And now, standing in an overcooled conference room in a hotel where he couldn’t have afforded breakfast, he had a stab of that old feeling.

For a moment after Victor left, the four of them stared at one another in silence. His muscles had the shaky tension of near violence. Like things hadn’t been bad enough before, when his little girl was being stolen from him and his ex-wife was hiring lawyers and the closest thing he had to a girlfriend had taken up with a friend of his.

“Why didn’t you tell us you found something in the car?” He looked from Mitch to Jenn. “And don’t say there wasn’t time.”

Silence.

“Goddamn it.” He gripped the back of the nearest chair and rocked it hard on its casters. “We’re supposed to be in this together.”

“That’s rich,” Mitch said.

“Hey, fuck you. He was after my daughter.”

“And my brother, and Ian’s dad, and Jenn’s parents.”

“I don’t give a shit about them.” The words came before he could think.

Mitch made a sound of disgust. “Yeah. You don’t give a shit about anybody, do you?”

“Like you’re better.” He turned to Jenn. “What exactly did you find?”

“What I said. Four plastic bottles. Some kind of dark liquid. We opened one and smelled it.” She shuddered. “Got a headache you wouldn’t believe, and it made my muscles ache like I’d worked out way too hard.”

“You didn’t think that made it worth discussing with us?”

“Things have gotten complicated. So we just hid them-”

“At the bank,” Mitch cut in. Jenn cocked her head, the two of them staring. Alex couldn’t tell what it was about, didn’t much care at that moment, their lovers’ quarrels not his problem.

“What do you think it is?” Ian asked.

Alex turned savagely. “Who cares? The man wants it back. That’s all that matters.”

“I was just asking.” Like a whipped dog.

“Yeah, well, I’m not too interested in you asking anything right now.” The anger in him turned like a hurricane, a spinning buzz saw that cut everything in its path. “What were you thinking?”

Ian pulled out a chair, slumped in it. “Will you let me explain?”

There was a long moment, and then Mitch sat down across the table, and Jenn followed suit. Finally Alex took out a chair. The four of them sat around the polished conference table like junior executives. Under any other circumstances the thought would have made him laugh.

“I… I might have a wee bit of a gambling problem.” Ian tried a wry smile that withered as the faces of the others told him charm wasn’t going to cut it. “Long and short, I owed this guy Katz some money. About thirty grand.”

“Jesus,” Jenn said. “How? Aren’t you rich?”

He laughed through his nose. “Two years ago, maybe. I made a killing on this one deal, a biotech company. That’s when I bought the condo, the suits, the car.” He shrugged. “And around then I discovered high-stakes poker.”

“So, the eye,” Mitch said, tapping at his own.

“Yeah. I fell behind, and that was Katz letting me know that the bill was due. So when the plan of taking down Johnny came around…” He shrugged.

“Gee, Ian,” Alex said. “That’s a real hard-luck story, what with you blowing a fortune while the rest of us were working hourly. But I’m still missing the part where you told your bookie what we were doing.”

“I know. And I’m sorry, believe me. I didn’t plan to. But after I talked to him about needing guns, he had his bodyguard hold me while he”-Ian looked down-“It doesn’t matter. Point is, he thought I was working for the police, and I had to convince him otherwise. But I didn’t say anything about who we were robbing, nothing. I swear.”

Mitch said, “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Ian nodded. “He said that since you were helping me, you were all responsible too.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“That’s why I paid him. If it was just me, I would have risked it.” The man’s face was scrunched like a baby’s, his voice coming fast and earnest. “Don’t you see? I did it for you.”

Alex snorted. “You haven’t done any of this for us.”

“Look, I had a cigar held to my nuts, OK? Besides,” anger coming into his voice, “what about you? You just tried to dump everything on us.”

“That’s because I wasn’t fucking there.”

“No,” Mitch said. “You were just the one who pushed us into it.”

“Bullshit. Everybody was in equally.”

“Yeah? That how you remember it?” Mitch met his gaze unblinking. Something had shifted between them. A week ago, he could have stared Mitch down in a second. Now, he found himself wanting to look away. His friend had become a dangerous man.

“Enough.” Jenn’s voice broke the moment. “We’re missing the point. What are we going to do about Victor?”

“What we promised,” Mitch said.

“You believe he won’t kill us?”

“We’re white taxpayers. If he kills us, the police, they’re going to start digging. There’s no reason he would want the hassle.” Mitch reached out, laid his hand on top of Jenn’s. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t pull away. “Monday morning, we give him what he wants.”

It was too much. The robbery, the dead man, Trish, Jenn, Victor, all of it. Alex felt that narrowing tension he’d had back in college, the sense that everything that had seemed safe and fun had become sour and hurtful. Only now there were men with guns involved.

No. No way. He had one responsibility, and that was to Cassie. “Not me. I told Victor, and I meant it. I had nothing to do with this. You guys did the killing. You found this stuff. You hid it. You’re on your own, the three of you.”