Moonlight Mile (15 page)

I folded the paper. “So it’s not the fact that he’s a killer that should bother me, it’s that he’s a killer having some kind of psychological meltdown?”

“For starters.” He placed an index finger to his nose. “I hear he’s dipping into his own supply.”

I shrugged. Man, was I sick of this shit.

“Patrick, no offense, but you ever think of doing something else?”

“You’re the second person to ask me that today.”

“Well, I could be in the market for a new manager after this lunch, and you did work in trucking all through college, if I remember.”

I shook it off. “I’m good. Thanks, Mike.”

“Never say never,” he said. “All I’m saying.”

“I appreciate that. Let’s talk about your case.”

He folded his hands together and leaned into the table.

“Who do you think is embezzling from you?”

“My night manager, Skip Feeney.”

“It’s not him.”

His eyebrows went up.

“I thought it was him, too. And I’m not saying he’s a hundred percent trustworthy. My guess is he takes a box off a truck every now and then. If you went to his house you’d probably find stereo equipment that matched missing shipments, that kind of thing. But he’s only able to fuck with the shipping manifests. He’s not able to get to invoices. And, Mike, the invoices are the key. In some cases, you’re being double- and triple-billed for shipments that don’t originate with you and don’t arrive at their destinations because they don’t exist.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“Someone ordering five pallets of Flowmaster mufflers. That sound right to you?”

“Yeah, that’s about right. We’ll sell them all by July, but if we waited until April to order them, the price would be another six, seven percent higher. It’s a smart risk, even if it eats a little space.”

“But you’ve only got four pallets in the warehouse. And the invoice reads ‘four.’ But the payment was for five. And I checked—they shipped five.” I pulled a notepad from my laptop bag and flipped it open. “What can you tell me about Michelle McCabe?”

He sat back in his chair, his face drawn.

“She’s my accounts-receivable manager. She’s the wife of a buddy of mine. A good buddy.”

“I’m sorry, man. I am.”

“You’re sure?”

I reached back into the laptop bag, came out with my case file. I slid it across the table to him. “Go through the top twenty invoices. Those are the dirty ones. I attached the invoices the companies received so you can compare.”

“Twenty?”

“Could be more,” I said, “but those are the ones would hold up in any court if she ever sued you. Or if she files a grievance with the Labor Board, throws any sort of wrongful termination shit at you. If you want to have her arrested—”

“Oh, no.”

Of course that would be his reaction.

“I know, I know. But
if
you did, all the proof you need is right there. At the very least, Mike, you should consider making her pay restitution.”

“How much?”

“This past fiscal year alone? She took you for twenty thousand minimum.”

“Jesus.”

“And that’s just the stuff I found. A true auditor, knowing where to look, who knows what he’d find?”

“This economy, and you’re telling me I got to shitcan my accounts-receivable manager
and
my floor manager?”

“For different reasons, but yeah.”

“Christ.”

We ordered two more beers. The place began to fill up; the traffic outside thickened on Centre Street. Across the street, people pulled up in front of the Continental Shoppe to pick up their dogs from a day’s grooming. While we sat there, I counted two poodles, one beagle, one collie, and three mutts. I thought of Amanda and her thing for dogs, the only trait I’d heard ascribed to her that sounded soft, humanizing.

“Twenty thousand.” Mike looked like someone had swung a bat into his stomach, then slapped him in the face while he was doubled over. “I ate dinner at their house last week. We went to the Sox a couple times last summer. Christ, two years ago, she’d just started for me? I gave her an extra thousand as a Christmas bonus because I knew they were about to get their car repo’d. I just . . .” He raised his hands above his head and brought them back down helplessly behind his skull. “I’m forty-four years old and I don’t understand anything about people. I just don’t get them.” He brought his hands back to the table. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.

I hated my job.

Chapter Seventeen

I
t had been a few hours since my encounter with Yefim and I still couldn’t shake it. Back in the day, I would have manned up with a drink or six, maybe called Oscar and Devin so we could meet at some dive to out-understate one another when it came to violent encounters.

Oscar and Devin had retired from the BPD several years ago, though, and bought a failing bar together in Greenwood, Mississippi, where Oscar’s people hailed from. The bar was just up the street from Robert Johnson’s purported grave site, so they’d turned it into a blues club. Last I heard, it was still failing, but Oscar and Devin were too drunk to care, and the Friday-afternoon barbecues they threw in their parking lot were already the stuff of local legend. They were never coming back.

So there went that outlet for me. Not that it was much of an outlet. What I really wanted was just to get back home. Hold my daughter, hold my wife. Shower off the smell of my fear. I was planning to do just that, taking the Arborway over toward Franklin Park so I could cut through to my side of town, when my cell rang and I saw Jeremy Dent’s name on the caller ID.

“Fuck me,” I said aloud. I had
Sticky Fingers
in my CD player, turned up loud, the way
Sticky Fingers
should always be played, and I was right at the point in “Dead Flowers” where I always sang along to Jagger getting goofy with the words “Kentucky Derby Day.”

I turned down the music and answered my phone.

“Merry Almost Christmas,” Jeremy Dent said.

“Merry Almost Festivus,” I said back.

“You got a minute to drop by the office?”

“Now?”

“Now. I got a yuletide present for you.”

“Really.”

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s called a permanent job. Like to discuss?”

Health insurance, I thought. Day care, I thought. Kindergarten. College fund. A new muffler.

“On my way.”

“See you soon.” He hung up.

I was halfway through Franklin Park. If I hit the lights on Columbia Road just right, I would reach home in about ten minutes. Instead, I banged a left onto Blue Hill Avenue and headed back downtown.

• • •

“Rita Bernardo took a job in Jakarta, of all places.” Jeremy Dent leaned back in his chair. “Booming security business there these days, all those wonderful jihadists—bad for the world but great for our bottom line.” He shrugged. “So, anyway, she’s off to keep Indonesian discos from blowing up and that opens up a slot we’d like to offer you.”

“What’s the catch?”

He poured himself a second scotch and tilted the bottle toward my glass. I waved it off. “No catch. Upon further evaluation, we came to the conclusion that your investigatory skills, not to mention your experience in the field, are assets too valuable to pass up. You can start right now.”

He pushed a folder across his desk and it cleared the edge and landed on my lap. I opened it. Clipped to the inside cover was a photo of a young guy, maybe thirty years old. He looked vaguely familiar. A slim guy with dark, tightly coiled hair, a nose that fell just a half-inch short of beakish, and a café-au-lait complexion. He wore a white shirt and a thin red tie and held a microphone.

“Ashraf Bitar,” Jeremy said. “Some call him Baby Barack.”

“Community organizer in Mattapan,” I said, recognizing him now. “Fought that stadium plan.”

“He’s fought a lot of things.”

“Loves the camera,” I said.

“He’s a politician,” Jeremy said. “By definition that makes him an Olympic-level narcissist. And don’t let the Mattapan roots and the Mattapan address fool you. He shops at Louis.”

“On what? Sixty K a year?”

Jeremy shrugged.

“So what do you need?”

“A microscope on his whole fucking life.”

“Who’s the client?”

He sipped his scotch. “Immaterial to your efforts.”

“Okay. When do you need me to start?”

“Now. Yesterday. But I told the client tomorrow.”

I took a sip from my own glass of scotch. “Can’t do it.”

“I just offered you a permanent position with this firm, and you’re already being difficult?”

“I had no idea this was in the wind. I had to take a case to put food on the table. I can’t walk away in the middle of it.”

He gave a slow, that-doesn’t-concern-me blink. “How long before you can divest yourself?”

“Couple more days.”

“That puts us at Christmas.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“So let’s say you free up by Christmas, can I tell our client you’ll close his case”—he pointed at the folder—“by New Year’s?”

“
If
I’m done with my current case by Christmas, sure.”

He sighed. “How much they paying you, your current client?”

I lied. “A fair wage.”

• • •

I came home with flowers I couldn’t afford and Chinese takeout I couldn’t afford, either. I took the shower I’d been fantasizing about all afternoon and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from Pela’s one and only concert tour, then joined my family for dinner.

After we ate, we played with Gabby. Then I read to her and put her to bed. I came back into the living room and told my wife about my day.

Once I’d finished, Angie went straight to the porch for an American Spirit Light. “So the Russian mob has your driver’s license.”

“Yes.”

“Which means they know our home address.”

“Said information usually appears on a driver’s license, yes.”

“And if we tell the police they kidnapped a young girl . . .”

“They would be perturbed with me,” I agreed. “Did I mention the part where Duhamel offered me a permanent position?”

“A thousand times,” she said. “So you’re going to walk away. As in, right now.”

“No.”

“Uh, yes.”

“No. They kidnapped a seventeen—”

“—year-old girl. Yes. I heard you. I also heard the part where they shot the shit out of a car you were driving and took your license so they could come here if they felt like it and kidnap
our
child. So, I’m sorry about the seventeen-year-old girl, but I’ve got a four-year-old girl right here who I’m going to protect.”

“Even at the cost of another life.”

“You’re damn right.”

“This is bullshit.”

“This is not.”

“Yes, it is.
You
asked me to take this case.”

“Lower your voice. Okay, yes, I asked you to—”

“Knowing what it did to me the last time I searched for Amanda. What it did to us. But you were all about the greater good. And now that the greater good is biting us in the ass and another kid is in danger, you want me to pack it in.”

“We’re talking about our daughter’s safety.”

“But that’s not
all
we’re talking about. We’re in this now. You want to take Gabby and go see your mom, I think that’s a great idea. They’re dying to see each other. But I’m going to find Amanda and I’m going to get Sophie back, too.”

“You’d choose this case over—”

“No. Don’t try that shit on me. Do not.”

“Volume control, please.”

“You know who I am. You knew the minute you convinced me to do what Beatrice asked that I would never stop until I found Amanda again. And now you want to tell me it’s over? Well, it’s not. Not until I find her.”

“Find who? Amanda? Or Sophie? You can’t even differentiate anymore.”

Both of us had reached one step below atomic and we knew it. And we knew how bad it would get if we took the next step. Marry an Irish temper to an Italian temper and you often get broken dishes. We’d done a little counseling just before our daughter was born, to help us keep our hands off the nuke button when the air in the silo got too tight, and most times, it helped.

I took a breath. My wife took a breath and then a drag off her cigarette. The air on the porch was cold, bracing even, but we were dressed for it and it felt good in my lungs. I let out a long breath. A twenty-year breath.

Angie stepped in close to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and she placed her head under my chin and kissed the hollow below my throat.

“I hate fighting with you,” she said.

“I hate fighting with you.”

“Yet we manage to disagree fairly often.”

“That’s because we like making up so much.”

“I
love
making up,” she said.

“You and me both, sister.”

• • •

“You think we woke her?”

I went to the door that separated our bedrooms and opened it, watched my daughter sleep. She didn’t sleep on her stomach so much as on her upper chest, head turned to the right, butt sticking up in the air. If I looked in two hours from now, she’d be on her side, but pre-midnight, she slept like a penitent.

I shut the door and came back to bed. “She’s out.”

“I’m going to send her.”

“What? Where?”

“To see my mom. If Bubba will take her.”

“Call him. You know exactly what he’ll say.”

She nodded. It was barely a question, really. Angie could tell Bubba she needed him yesterday in Katmandu and he’d remind her that he was already there. “How’s he going to get weapons on a plane?”

“It’s Savannah. I’m quite sure he has connections there.”

“Gabby’ll love to see her nonnie, that’s for sure. She’s been talking about it nonstop since the summer. Well, that and trees.” She looked over at me. “You good with that?”

I looked at her. “These are bad fucking people I’m going to take on. And, like you said, they know where we live. I’d put her on a plane tonight, if I could. But what about you? You’re going to put the spurs on again, join me on the wagon trail?”

“Yeah. Might speed the process up.”

“Sure. But what’s the longest you’ve been away from Gabby since we had her?”

“Three days.”

“Right. When we went to Maine and you whined about missing her the whole friggin’ time.”

“I didn’t
whine
. I stated the obvious a few times.”

“And then restated it. That’s called whining.”

She slapped my head with a pillow. “Whatever. Anyway, that was last year. I’ve matured. And she’s going to love this—going on an adventure to see her nonnie with Uncle Bubba? If we told her tonight, she’d never have fallen asleep.” She rolled on top of me. “So what’s your immediate plan?”

“Find Amanda.”

“Again.”

“Again. Trade the cross she stole for Sophie. Everyone goes home.”

“Who says Amanda’s going to give it up?”

“Sophie’s her friend.”

“The way I’ve heard it, Sophie’s her Robert Ford.”

“I don’t know if it’s that bad.” I scratched my head. “I don’t know a lot, though. Which is why I’ve gotta find her.”

“How, though?”

“Question of the month.”

She reached across my body and grabbed my laptop bag off the floor. She opened it, pulled out the file marked A. M
C
C
READY
and opened it on the pillow to the right of my head. “These are the shots you took of her room?”

“Yeah. No, not those—those are of Sophie’s room. Keep going. Those there.”

“Looks like a hotel room.”

“Pretty impersonal, yeah.”

“Except for the Sox jersey.”

I nodded. “Know what’s weird? She isn’t a fan. She never talked about the team or went to Fenway or wondered aloud what Theo was thinking when he made the Julio Lugo deal or traded Kason Gabbard for Going Going Gagne.”

“Maybe it’s just Beckett.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe she’s just got a crush on Josh Beckett.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, that’s his jersey, right? Number 19. Why are you whiter than usual suddenly?”

“Ange.”

“What?”

“It’s not the Red Sox she’s obsessed with.”

“No?”

“And she doesn’t have a crush on Josh Beckett.”

“Yeah, he’s not my type either. So why the jersey?”

“Twelve years ago, where’d we find her?”

“At Jack Doyle’s house.”

“And where was that?”

“Some little Podunk town in the Berkshires. What was it, like, fifteen miles from the New York border? Twenty? They didn’t even have a coffee shop.”

“What was the name?”

“Of the town?”

I nodded.

She shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Becket.”

• • •

“Give Daddy a hug.”

“No.”

“Sweetie, please.”