“You see,” I said, swallowing, “what happened last night was kind of an unusual set of circumstances because-”
“Mr. Walker,” Magnuson said, leaning closer to me and pointing his finger, “we write the news. We try not to create it. It’s nice when we can be there as it’s happening, but as a rule we don’t hold the steering wheel so that others can fire wildly into the night. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Because if you do, maybe I won’t have to rewrite this manual.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Excellent.” He leaned back in his chair. “Good day, Mr. Walker.”
I understood what that meant, too, so I got up and walked out of the office, and as I headed for the elevator, thought I’d rather take my chances with those guys in the Annihilator than have another run-in with Bertrand Magnuson. The guys in the Annihilator didn’t have control over my paycheck, and with a new car and a daughter in college, it was the Magnusons of the world who could really put the screws to you.
11
I’D PICKED A BAD TIME to leave the office. It was rush hour, and it took me the better part of half an hour to get uptown to our place on Crandall.
As I was approaching our house from the south, I saw a blue Jag coming from the north. I scooted into our driveway, pulling far enough ahead to allow Lawrence to pull in behind me.
“Nice timing,” I said, walking up to his car as he got out.
“I wants ma money,” he said. He was leaving the car running, which I took as a signal that he didn’t have a lot of time to chat.
“Hang on,” I said, running up the porch steps to the front door. I noticed, sitting in one of the wicker chairs we keep on the porch, a backpack I didn’t recognize. I unlocked the door, ran upstairs to my study, where I keep the checks for our line-of-credit account, and went back outside.
“How’s the car?” Lawrence asked as I used the hood of his Jag to write him out a check for $8,900.
“So far so good,” I said.
Lawrence was casting his eye across the house and garage. “Nice place. You’ve only been here a year or so, right?”
“That’s right. We lived on this street once before, then flirted with a house in the suburbs for a couple of years, then moved back.We used to live up there.” I pointed up the street.
As I handed him the check I noticed his eyes narrowing, focusing on something at the far end of the driveway.
“You got a visitor,” he said.
“What?” I said, whirling around.
“Someone’s hiding out behind your garage. I just saw somebody sneak in there.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. We both began walking the length of the drive, past the Virtue, toward the single-door garage. Lawrence pointed for me to go down the right side of the garage while he went down the left. There were only a couple of feet between the back of the garage and a six-foot fence, so there wasn’t going to be anyplace for our mysterious stranger to go.
Lawrence and I came around the end of the garage at the same time, and our eyes landed on a man-a young man, probably in his late teens, early twenties-about five-ten, slim, short-cropped dirty-blond hair, black lace-up boots, black jeans, long black jacket, dark sunglasses.
He should have felt embarrassed, trapped and cornered as he was, but he stood there confidently, almost defiantly.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
I recognized the voice. “You must be Trevor,” I said.
A slight nod of the head. “You must be Mr. Walker,” he said. He stepped forward, and as he did so, I noticed he tried to shove something between some tall weeds. He extended a hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”
I couldn’t think of anything to do but shake, so I did.
“What’s that you stepped over?” I asked.
“Hmm?” said Trevor.
“Down there,” I pointed, just behind his feet. Trevor moved forward a bit, and we could all now see a six-pack of beer. Budweiser, in cans.
“Someone’s stashed some beer back here,” Trevor said.
“But not you.”
“No, not me.”
“Then if you’re not leaving beer behind my garage, what are you doing, Trevor?” I asked.
He said, as if the answer were obvious and my question bordering on stupid, “Trying to find my dog.”
“Really. You thought he might be trapped in here, between the garage and the fence?”
He reached up, slowly took of his sunglasses, and looked at me with eyes like cold blue steel. “Yes.”
“I don’t see any dog, Trevor.”
“That’s because I haven’t found him yet.”
Lawrence finally spoke. “Where do you live, Trevor?” He wasn’t just making conversation. This was his cop voice.
Trevor slowly and warily turned his attention on Lawrence. “Around. I’ve got a room over on Ainslie, a block over. My dog wanders over here a lot when he gets loose. But I have this way of tracking him.”
Lawrence again: “How might that be, Trevor?”
He smiled. “Satellite.”
Now it was my turn. “You keep track of your dog by satellite,” I said. Trevor’s head lazily turned my way. I had a feeling we were boring him.
“Yeah, satellite. It’s a software program, like that thing they have in some of the new cars, you know, where you press the button and you get connected to these people who always know where you are. Your air bag goes off, they know instantly, send an ambulance to your exact location. Not that I would ever have a car like that. You really want General Motors to know where you are every second you’re out and about? You think they’d be above selling that kind of information? Who do you think gets loads of government contracts to build military technology? Companies like General Motors, that’s who. One hand washes the other, right?”
The theme from The Twilight Zone started playing in my head.
“So Trevor, you have this software program in your pocket or what?”
He beckoned us with his finger, leading us around the front of the house and stepped up onto my porch. He grabbed the backpack I noticed in our wicker chair.
He brought it back over by the cars, but when he went to set it, with its various straps and buckles everywhere, on the hood of Lawrence’s Jag, Lawrence said, “Just put it on the drive, pal.”
Trevor complied. There was something about Lawrence’s voice that made you do what he asked, even if you were a kid who thought he was tough, like Trevor.
Trevor glanced up at Lawrence as he opened the flap on the backpack. “Who are you, may I ask?”
“My name is Mr. Jones,” he said.
Trevor glanced at me. “Is he a friend of yours?” I stared, thinking this kid had a lot of attitude, standing here with two adults who’d just caught him trespassing. “What do you do, Mr. Jones? I’m betting you’re a cop.”
“You know a lot of cops, do you, Trevor?”
“No, but I know an authority figure when I see one. It’s in the way you carry yourself, your voice, like when you tell somebody to do something, you expect them to do it.”
“I was,” Lawrence said. “Now I’m what you might call an independent.”
“You mean, like a security guard?”
Oh boy. I hoped, when Lawrence decided to kill him, he’d be quick.
Amazingly, Lawrence kept his cool. “No,” he said icily. “I’m a private detective.”
Trevor’s eyes were wide. “Ahhh. Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual private detective before. Do you have, like, a license or something? I’d love to see it.”
“How’d you like to see your face planted on the sidewalk?”
That didn’t seem to faze Trevor. But rather than try to up the attitude, he adopted a reasonable tone. “I’d merely like to know whether you have some authority to interrogate me like this. Mr. Walker here, this is his property, and he’s entitled to ask what I’m doing here, and I can understand why he might be troubled, but I’m afraid I don’t understand your role here.”