I pat his shoulder. “Thanks for your cooperation.” I should leave it there and go, but I get the urge to pass along some wisdom. “You know something? The one thing you can’t control in life is the outcome. You do what seems right at the moment, and if it turns out wrong… well, that’s out of your hands.”
“It’s in God’s hands,” he says.
“The point is, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over this. And you shouldn’t get in the way of the investigation, either. Leave Fontaine to us, okay? Put up all the flyers you want. Spend time with those students of yours – they probably need it right now. But let us take care of the rest.”
“I have to do something,” he says, running a palm along his leg. “I can’t do nothing.”
Sure, I can sympathize. I respect his urge. And I don’t exactly agree with the platitudes I’ve just uttered, the boilerplate about letting the police handle everything. People expect too much from us sometimes. I’m not endorsing vigilantes or anything, but a little vigilance wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In his position, I’d want to do something, too. But in my position, I’m expected to toe the line. And really, what can he do apart from posting his flyers and leading yet another fruitless search? I open the door and slip to the curb, turning to speak before slamming it shut.
“I’ll tell you what you can do,” I tell him. “Say a prayer.”
The door snaps shut before he can get out a reply.
CHAPTER 9
Public is where you go to be alone. After my shift, instead of heading home to Charlotte for a reprise of our lunchtime grapple, the Paragon beckons with its promise of anonymity and thumping music. Though it’s earlier than usual and a weekday to boot, the parking lot is filling up already. As the door flaps shut behind me, an icehouse chill descends, along with the soothing darkness. My eyes take forever to adjust.
When they do, I see Tommy threading his way between the tables, holding a longneck beer at shoulder level to avoid clipping the heads of any seated patrons.
“Hey, Mr. March, how’s it going, man? Why don’t you come join us at our table?”
He’s filled a table with what I assume are students from one of the undergraduate courses he teaches while toiling away on his dissertation. A couple of guys in thick-rimmed glasses wearing fitted Western shirts, a girl in a long, crinkly skirt and engineer boots.
“You and me,” I say, “we need to have a little talk. My wife told me about this girl who was up at your place, seemed kind of messed up. I didn’t like hearing that.”
“It was a one-time thing. You sure you won’t join us?”
“No, thanks.”
Instead of my usual table in back, which would put me in sight of Tommy’s group, I slip around the front of the bar into a side room added in the most recent renovation to accommodate the Paragon’s growing clientele. The ratio of speakers to square footage means the music is that much louder, but given a choice between deafness and another run-in with my tenant, I’ll take the hearing loss.
The new location has an added advantage. No Marta. After the scene I made in the parking lot last time, I’d just as soon not run into the one person likely to remember me, thanks to that overgenerous tip. An unfamiliar plaid-skirted waitress comes by, taking my order without a glimmer of recognition.
So I’ve had my talk with Tommy. Maybe that brief exchange will suffice for Charlotte, if I can spin it right. But she’ll want details, of course, which will mean explaining why I’m at the Paragon when the two of us have long since agreed I won’t come here anymore. It’s no good dwelling on things, she told me, back when she still had sympathy for my morbid obsession with the place.
When the waitress returns with my whiskey sour – I always order the same thing, and always do the same thing with it – I dig for my wallet, planning to settle up right away. With Tommy on the scene, I won’t be nursing this one all night.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, pointing across the bar to the main room. “A guy in there took care of it.”
“You sure?”
She nods.
“All right then.”
That idiot Tommy. Thanks to his father’s deep pockets, he’s never learned the value of money. I don’t know if he’s trying to impress me, or the kids at his table. Either way, it takes the shine off my evening. I push the drink away.
He’s about the same age as Carter Robb. On the surface, they might not have much in common, but they both have kids looking to them for guidance. The burden seems to weigh more heavily on Robb than Tommy, though. It would be interesting to get the two of them in the same room. I imagine the tenant bending over backwards to deliver veiled insults, while the youth pastor, recognizing them for what they are, does his best to seem unruffled.
Staring into my drink, I recall Robb’s wife. With her mannered wardrobe, Gina Robb wouldn’t look out of place over at Tommy’s table. I wonder what she would make of the guilt her husband’s carrying. Maybe she feels it, too, the shipwreck of their shared idealism. What would have to happen for Tommy to feel that kind of guilt? Not a girl leaving his garage apartment the morning after, not very certain of what had happened to her. I’m not sure whether anything would.
I drop a couple of dollars on the table, about to get up.
Coming toward me, the man from the other night, the cop I couldn’t quite place. The horn-like projection of black hair crowning his forehead, a more youthful style than his lined face will support. We make eye contact and he nods without smiling, pulling out a chair right across from me. He glances at my untouched drink.
“You don’t remember me,” he says.
“Should I?” I don’t like the way he’s drilling me with those eyes. I don’t like that I can’t see his hands under the table.
“We have some friends in common,” he says, putting enough spin on the word that I know not to take it at face value.
Instead of facing me head-on, he cocks his chair, sitting sideways with his back to the wall so nobody can come up behind him. Keeping track of the other patrons from the corner of his eye. I was right the other night. This guy’s one of us. A cop.
“You got a name?” I ask.
He nods. “Maybe it’ll come to you.”
My right hand leaves the table, resting on my thigh. Between the staring contest and his tight-lipped way of speaking, this is starting to feel like a high-noon standoff. Maybe that’s what it is. He’s got an advantage, thanks to the angle, since my gun side is facing him. In a draw I’d need to be quick.
The thing is, I am.
“If you’re not going to introduce yourself, then I was just getting ready to go.”
“You’re not gonna say thanks?” he asks, nodding toward the drink. “Looks like you hardly touched it. Knowing your story, I think I can guess why.”
“Knock yourself out. I’m going.”
I rise quickly, giving the table a tap with my hip, the same way you’d finesse a pinball machine. The drink shakes, ice clinking on the glass, and the man grabs the table with both hands to steady it. He looks at me, then at his hands.
“Oh, I get it.” He flattens them out. “You can sit back down. I don’t have a problem with you, March. I’m here to do you a favor if you’d only let me.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Have a seat,” he says, tilting his chin. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
I turn my chair, sitting with my right hip away from him, my hand still resting on my thigh. “You can start with your name.”
“Fine, fine.” He reaches across the table. “Joe Thomson.” I ignore the outstretched hand, so he pulls it back. “If you’re not gonna drink this, mind if I do? You kind of stopped my heart for a minute there.”
“Help yourself.”
He sips the drink and makes a face. Down in the basement of my mental archive, I’m looking for a folder with Joe Thomson’s name on it, coming up empty. The face is so familiar. He’s one of those guys who was handsome once, but didn’t age so well. Jet-black hair, blue eyes, and a kind of pucker to his mouth, like he’s sucking an invisible cigar. The parchment lines on his skin look premature, due more to hard living than age.