I slowly walked over and stood next to Tony.
“Whaddya want to do with them?” he asked me.
“Let ’em go,” I said.
“What? Are you fucking kidding me?” Tony looked like he’d shoot them if I asked.
“Let ’em go,” I said again.
“Hold on. I lose my job over a few steaks and these guys nearly kill you and they walk?”
I nodded wearily. “Yeah.”
“I don’t get it,” Tony said.
“I know.”
I walked up close to Tapscott and Eggleton. They each took a step back.
“It ends here,” I said.
They nodded so quickly they looked like bobbleheads.
“We’re real sorry,” Tapscott said.
“Yeah,” said Eggleton. “Like we said, we never—”
“Get the hell out of here,” I said.
Together, they ran to the car. Tapscott got behind the wheel, started the Civic, and sprayed gravel with the front tires as they took off.
I walked back to Tony, who now had the gun pointed at the ground.
“I could use a ride,” I said. “And I’d be much obliged if you’d let me buy you a drink.”
I got in on the passenger side of his silver Hyundai. “You’ve been following me for what, a day and half?”
“’Bout that,” he said. “You need to go to a hospital or anything?”
I hurt. I’d been hit in the gut and the head, and I’d cramped up pretty bad during my time in the trunk. But I didn’t have time to spend the night waiting to be looked at in an emergency room. I’d just down a handful of Advils when I had the chance.
“I’m okay,” I said.
We drove out of the woods. Once we were back on a main road, I spotted a place where we could get a drink. A small bar, neon and signs fuzzily glowing in the window.
We slid into a booth, didn’t say anything to each other until after we had our drinks in front of us.
“I know you weren’t following me around waiting for the chance to save my life,” I said.
“No,” Tony said.
“What was the plan?”
He took a long swig of his beer. “I’m not sure. I was mad.”
“Sure,” I said. “You lost your job. If you’re expecting me to apologize for that, I’m not going to. I was hired to find out who was stealing from Fritz and I did.” I paused. “You took a chance and you lost.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the table.
“But you blamed me.”
Tony looked up and faced me. “Fritz is a prick. A lousy, miserable prick.”
“That may be.”
“What I did, it was to pay myself back. For when he docked me because my kid was sick. It wasn’t fair, my getting fired for that. You made that happen.”
I said nothing.
“I was so pissed. My wife, she’s hardly making anything at all. Without me bringing money in, we’re totally fucked. All I could think about was I wanted someone to pay for what had happened to me.”
“So you decided to start with me, not Fritz.”
Tony Fisk shrugged. “I thought maybe you were still watching Fritz’s place, maybe watching his back. So it made more sense to make you the priority.”
“You brought a gun.”
“That was just... I don’t know. You pulled one on me in his office. I needed to be ready for anything that happened.”
“You found out who I was, where I lived.”
Another swig, another nod. “Yeah. Followed you around here and there. Kind of lost track of you this afternoon. Where’d you go?”
“Drove out almost to Rochester.”
“So I was down the street, waiting for you to come home, and I noticed there was this other car with those two kids in it, and soon as you pulled in, they got out. I wondered, what the fuck? What are they gonna do? I saw them put you in the trunk, and decided to see what was going on.”
I sipped. “You were worried they were going to get to do what you wanted to do.”
He grimaced. “The thing is, I’d had a lot of time to think while I was following you around. At first, yeah, I wanted to get even with you. Not kill you, exactly, but something, you know? And the whole time I was following you, I was wondering what it’d be. And then the more I followed you, I wondered what the fuck I was doing.”
I listened.
“I mean, what was the point? Suppose I beat the shit out of you? I’d still be out of work. If the cops figured out who did it, then I’d end up in jail. And that’d make things only a thousand times worse for my wife and kid. By the time I was down the street from your house tonight, I was thinking maybe it was time to do something more useful with my time.”
I smiled. “Yeah, well, I’m grateful you didn’t come to that conclusion yesterday.”
“When they shoved you in the trunk I thought about what I wanted to do, and what I should do. Part of me thought, fuck it, it’s not my business. But then I thought, maybe I was there for a reason, you know?”
“Go on.”
“Do you believe in that kind of stuff? That things happen for a reason?”
It was a good question. Any other time I’d been asked something like that, I’d always said no. I didn’t believe in fate. I didn’t believe in destiny. Things just happened in this world for no rhyme, no reason. But I was undergoing a subtle shift in attitude. If Fritz Brott hadn’t hired me to find out who was ripping him off, Tony Fisk wouldn’t have been parked down the street from my house tonight.
If Fritz Brott hadn’t hired me, I might very well be dead.
“I’m reassessing my position on that,” I said.
“I thought, maybe I’m here because I’m supposed to save your sorry ass.”
I leaned my glass forward and clinked it against his. “You might be right.”
“’Cause you know, they might never even have found you.”
“What do you mean? Those two guys?”
“No, no,” Tony said. “After they did it, and you went over the falls, they might never have found you. I’ve read a lot about this, about people who’ve gone over. Some on purpose, some by accident. You think the body will wash up somewhere, right? But some have gone over, and they’ve never ever recovered them. Your wife, nobody, would ever have known what happened to you.”
I thought about Harry Pearce. Taking his boat out one night seven years ago. Did they ever find him? Would I have ended up wherever he had?
Tony wiped the moisture from the outside of his glass with his thumb. I could tell he still had something on his mind.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I was wondering, you know, if you’d talk to him.”
“Sorry?”
“Would you talk to Fritz? Would you tell him I’m sorry, and that I’ll pay him back for the meat I took? Or work a week for free or something like that?” He swallowed hard. I was guessing this wasn’t easy for him. “I need the work. I need the job.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Seriously.”
“Yeah. I don’t think he’ll change his mind. But I’ll do it.”
“Thanks, man,” Tony said. “Let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Why’d you let those kids go?”
I paused. “If I press charges, I’m going to have to testify. And that means I’m going to have to come clean on stuff I’ve done.”
His eyes narrowed. “So you ain’t so lily white neither.”
“No,” I said.
Tony’s head went up and down slowly, and he smiled. “You know, another reason, and I’m not saying this was the only one, I didn’t try anything with you is, you’ve got someone watching your back. Although I think I’d have a word with him. He shoulda been watching you tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The guy in the black pickup. He was keeping an eye on you today. But he’s good. He was able to stay way back where you’d never, ever see him. What’d you do? You tell him where you were going to be?”