The Survivors (28 page)

“You're too scared to even think about this stuff. Been running away from it all your life. Yeah, I know. I told you my mom followed what you were up to. Me too. You change your name, get a fresh start in life. You know, there's sign-in registry at the cemetery where they're all buried. I've been there a dozen times. You've never stopped by even once, Davie.” He sang my name, like part of a nursery rhyme.

I was so angry my hands were shaking, and I spilled some of the bourbon. I set the bottle down.

“I was there, Scottie. I was looking out the window. I saw her. I saw the gun. I saw her put it to her head, pull the trigger, and fall to the ground.”

“You might be remembering it wrong—”

“
I know what I saw, dammit!
”

He turned away with a hurt look on his face.

“Come on,” I said, pointing at the papers. “This is all interesting, but what does it prove? Russo knew more about my mother than he told us, but so what?”

“We haven't proved anything because you're too scared to help me.”

I scrubbed my hands over my face. Every time we were together we had an argument like this. I was fed up with it, but I didn't know how to stop it either.

When I looked up again, he was pouring Old Grand-Dad into his coffee cup. He glared at me, daring me to tell him to stop.

“How often do you drink like this?” I said.

He took a long sip and placed the mug precisely in front of him on the table. “Not much. No more than four or five times a week.”

“You know what it does to you. And I don't mean to your liver.”

“It makes me jumpy. That's a lot better than sitting around brooding, don't you think? Or turning my back on the whole world the way you do.”

“I haven't turned my back on anybody. I—”

He was suddenly shaking with rage. “We were the only ones who came out alive. Just us. All these years and I never heard from you once. What's so wrong with me that you'd do that?”

“We're different people. We handled it in a different way.” I sat back and looked at him. He took another gulp of coffee and started chewing his nails.

I said, “What do you want from me—really? Lay it out, and we'll talk it through.”

“I've been on my own all these years, reliving every second of what happened over and over. I want you—” He swallowed hard, trying to say it. “I want you to remember it the way I do. I don't want to be alone with it anymore.”

“I understand that.” I softened up, using my psychologist's voice. “But we're both going to have that feeling, always. It's what happens when you're only a kid and life goes haywire. Sometimes it comes back on you, and you feel like you're all alone and there's no sense in the world.”

He slammed his hand on the table. “There is sense. Your mom wasn't nuts, Davie. She didn't shoot anybody.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked quickly away. “Never mind. I'm sorry for yelling.”

I sat forward. “No, what did you mean by that?”

He paused, trying to be careful in spite of the booze. “Just that you don't know everything you think you do. Leave it at that.”

With as much dignity as he could, he got up and teetered into the bathroom. The lock clicked home so loudly it echoed.

I had some more coffee and got my things ready for work. I was sitting down to a breakfast of half a grapefruit when Scottie joined me in the kitchen. He took the news about the FBI looking for him again better than I thought he would.

“Maybe I should just give myself up. How bad can it be, anyway?”

“Bad,” I said. “Weston told me they were going to put real pros on you. They'll go after you with everything they've got. That kind of stress—you know what it could do.”

He found a box of cereal in the cupboard and dumped some in a bowl. He started eating it without milk.

“You mentioned a lawyer friend of yours. Do you think he can help?”

“Probably, yes. But he'll need time to prepare. You should lie low for now.”

“Back to Felix's you mean?”

“For a day or two. How's that sound?”

He crunched another spoonful of dry cereal. “Like I've got no other choice.”

“We do have one thing going for us. I'm supposed to see Ned Bowles tomorrow night. I might be able to find out what's got the people at Braeder so bothered. That could help my friend Tim in dealing with the FBI.”

Scottie shrugged as if he didn't really care.

“Hold on a little longer, that's all I'm asking. Patience is a virtue, right?”

“Right—too bad it's not one of mine.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

S
cottie wouldn't leave his bicycle behind, so we put it in the trunk of my car. He had his backpack, too. “You sure you need that?” I said.

“I want my computer and stuff.”

“I'd feel a lot better if you left that gun here.”

“And I'd feel a lot better if you'd stop telling me what to do. I've had it for years and never had any problems.”

I gave him a long look. “Don't let Felix see it. He'd throw you right out on the curb if he found it.”

Scottie shrugged bravely. “He'd like to try.”

During the drive across town, I asked if he was going to be all right at work, missing another shift. “Sure,” he grunted. “Personal day.” I left him alone after that.

I'd called Felix to let him know we were on our way, so he was in the front yard waiting for us. “Morning, Cal,” he said. “How you doing, Scottie?”

“Fine,” Scottie said. “Where's Coop?”

“Inside. He hasn't had—”

Scottie walked right past him into the house.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Felix said. Then he caught the smell. “Good God, he's stinking drunk.”

“He's starting to sober up. You might want to hide your scotch, though.”

“I'll do that. You want to tell me what's going on?”

“The folks at the FBI seem to have changed their minds. They're out looking for him again.”

“Wonderful. That's why he got drunk?”

“Not really. We had a disagreement about how to—” What to call it? “—handle the people we've been talking to. He doesn't deal with disagreement very well.”

“What
does
he deal well with?”

“To be determined, I guess. Try to have a quiet day with him. Play chess. Let him fool around with Coop. He needs some rest.”

“How about you?” Felix took my hand so he could look at my wrist. “Is everything with you just fine?”

I pulled away. “I'm doing great.”

“The hell you are. You look like you haven't slept in a week. I'll bet you've had an episode or two you haven't told me about.”

When I didn't answer, he said, “Uh-huh. Just like I thought. Cal, you need—”

“We've been through this Felix. I appreciate your concern. Scottie's been wrong about a lot of things, but he's been on to something, too. There were things going on with my parents before they died that I've never known about. I want to follow through on it.”

“And it won't change a damn thing. Do you even know what questions you're trying to get answered?”

“Not really.” I walked back to the car and took Scottie's bike out of the trunk. “I may get some of that figured out tomorrow. I've got a meeting set with the man my mother worked for. He fired her a few months before she killed herself. She kept it secret from everybody.”

“Fired her? That could explain a few things. But I'm not sure explanations are what you need.”

He saw the expression on my face and put his hands up. “Fine. Do what you've got to do, but understand me now, there's going to be a price to pay.”

He took the bicycle from me and was about to deliver a last dose of advice, but he was interrupted by a crash from inside.

“Dammit, Scottie!” he yelled. “You pay for anything you break!”

Scottie's voice drifted out: “It was Coop's fault!”

Felix looked at me and shook his head. “Go on, get out of here! The Martinez Day Care Center is open for business.”

I had an hour before I had to be at work, so I decided to stop by Pete Sorensen's office. He struck me as a workaholic, so the best time to talk to him would be before he settled into the trenches for the day.

The neighborhood reeked of beer, worse than the day before. Thursday must be a big drinking night for Georgetown students.

Sorensen answered the door carrying a stack of papers half a foot thick. “Hello Dr. Henderson.” He looked past me. “Mr. Glass didn't come with you?”

“I decided we might have a better conversation without him along.”

“Good decision. Come on in.” He lifted the papers. “I was about to start my day's reading.”

He led me to his office, where there was a heavy smell of coffee in the air. He had a mug on his desk next to the three computers. “Want a cup?” he said.

“If that's as strong as it smells, I think half a cup will do.”

“It's my own personal morning rocket fuel. If you read as much as I do, you need something to keep you going.”

He found a small cup and filled it from a carafe on a table in the corner. I took a sip and coughed. It was thick as motor oil and tasted about as good.

“What are you reading?” I said.

“We call them ‘the dailies.' We monitor over three thousand defense contractors worldwide. Every night, two of my interns troll the Internet, looking for new information. Shareholder reports, lawsuits, press releases, even whether any of the officers or directors have been picked up for drunk driving. It makes for a lot of reading.”

“All that just to put together a weekly newsletter?”

He shrugged and gave me a smile. “We do a little more than that here.”

“It's still a long way from working in the lab.”

“You're right about that. What was it Lee Iacocca said?”

There was that emotional tic again, trying to prove he was the smartest guy in the room—or at least the only one who knew who Lee Iacocca was. I wasn't going to let him get away with it today. “You mean the thing about ‘lead, follow, or get out of the way'?”

“Good!” he said, as if I were his prize pupil. “I used to lead. That's what good science is. Being at the head of the pack, cutting a trail for everyone else. Now I'm just a follower. Or maybe I'm more of a stalker. Sometimes I get to bring one of the big boys down.”

“Like Braeder?” I said.

He cleared his throat. “I may have left you with the wrong impression about Braeder last night. They pay a big chunk of the bills around here. It isn't perfect, but it's a comfortable life for me. I think I do some good along the way.”

“So you've got no complaints about them?”

“I didn't say that. They play rough, too rough sometimes. And they're too damned secretive. The industry benefits from open information. But Braeder isn't any worse than the other big defense companies.”

“I had a question I didn't get around to asking you last night.”

Something had popped up on his computers. He began fiddling with a couple of the touchpads, seeming to read both screens at the same time. It annoyed me that he was so easily distracted.

I said, “I heard Eric Russo and Ned Bowles had a falling out. Do you know what happened?”

“Hmm.” He frowned at the computers. “Not money.”

“What do you mean ‘not money'?” I tilted the screens forward on the two machines so he couldn't see them.

He glared at me, then threw back his head and laughed. “OK, you caught me. I get buried in this stuff and nothing else matters.” He closed all three screens.

“So Russo and Bowles had some kind of argument?” I said.

“I don't know exactly what it was, but Eric was the one who walked away. Bowles moved all his legal business to another law firm, one of the big Wall Street outfits. But he didn't hold a grudge against Eric. The word was Bowles gave Eric $200,000 of Braeder stock. Five years later it was worth over two million.”