There was a small galley kitchen and then two bedrooms separated by what Jeff presumed was the bathroom. He could hear a shower coming from the general vicinity. There was no evidence of any children.
“So,” Jeff said, “you’re Matthew’s. . wife?”
“Yuck, no,” Nina said. She plopped herself down on the leather sofa and picked up the Western Civilizations book. “I’m his sister.”
“Right,” Jeff said. “Where do you go to school?”
“UIC,” she said. “I just started, and it’s kicking my ass.”
“It gets easier,” Jeff said.
“You went there?”
“Graduate school,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, it’s totally different undergrad,” she said. “Everyone says the first two years are cake, that it’s just basic retard stuff — history, math, comp — and that when you get into your major, that’s when people jump out of buildings from the pressure and all that. So. Yeah. Not looking forward to that if I’m already underwater.”
A small bookshelf by the sofa was filled with books on criminology, forensic investigation, and counterinsurgency methods, and it also held framed photos of Matthew and Nina with their parents from a cruise, everyone posed in front of the ship’s bow. There were also photos of both kids playing lacrosse.
“So, you guys share this place?”
“Yeah, it’s cheaper that way,” she said. “Or, I guess it was. I don’t know what we’re going to do now. I don’t think Matt has anything saved up. His loans are insane.”
Shit.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got some news for Matthew that will help alleviate that,” Jeff said, not even knowing what the hell he meant as he said the words.
“Cool,” Nina said. She got up off the couch then, like she’d forgotten something, and headed into the tiny kitchen. “I’m being totally rude. Do you want some turkey or string bean casserole or something? Our mother sent us this huge care package, and we’ve been gorging on it since last night. We’ve got, like, three different pies, too.”
Before Jeff could answer — he would have liked some string bean casserole — Matthew came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of sweatpants and no shirt, a damp towel in his right hand. No wedding ring on his left.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He didn’t seem all that surprised, just mildly annoyed.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Jeff said.
“I got fired, did you know that?”
“I had some idea, yeah,” Jeff said.
“You knew ahead of time?”
“No,” Jeff said, “they put me on leave today, so I figured that you got the axe. It’s how I would have done it.” Matthew rubbed at his head with the towel and let out a grunt of exasperation. “Look, I want to apologize. I dragged you into something stupid.”
“You know they didn’t even give me a severance?” Matthew said. “Two weeks short. Can you believe that? Apparently the twenty weeks I spent at Quantico didn’t count.”
“I know,” Jeff said. He’d fired plenty of people like Matthew during his time in the FBI, their positions were at will during their probationary period, and though he always felt bad about it in the abstract, his feeling was that the best severance for these people was that they could put FBI on their resume and land a nice corporate security job. “Look, I have a proposition for you. Something temporary so at least you can pay your bills.” He pointed to the ceiling and then to his ear, let him know people were probably listening, though he doubted the bureau bothered to bug Matthew’s place, since he wasn’t even really an agent yet. Still, it gave the proceedings a bit more weight. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee somewhere we can talk about it.”
Nina came out then holding two plates full of food and handed one of them to Jeff. “Hey,” she said to her brother, and then she went and sat back down on the sofa. “He thought I was your wife.”
Matthew didn’t say anything for a moment, so Jeff took his plate and sat down beside Nina on the sofa and got to work on some casserole. “Give me a couple minutes to get dressed,” Matthew said.
“Take your time,” Jeff said. He was suddenly starving.
The White Palace Grill was one of those places Jeff used to go to all the time when he didn’t have any money. They’d let you sit in a booth all night long for the price of a cup of coffee, particularly if you came in with textbooks, and they’d keep refilling your mug without ever getting snooty about it. It was up on Canal Street, so it had a crowd that was equally mixed with college students, hookers, cops, and the occasional wiseguy.
It had been almost a decade since Jeff had stopped inside, and yet, as he sat across the booth from Matthew, he recognized everyone in the joint. The waitress with the tattoos on her neck; the two detectives sitting by the door, a mountain of paperwork spread between them; the hipsters wearing their sunglasses inside; the young woman in horn-rim glasses sitting at the counter next to another young woman, also in horn-rim glasses, though it didn’t look like they were there together. And then the solitary old folks eating chicken salad and drinking tea. He wondered if they recognized him, too, curious about where he’d been all these years.
The waitress with the tattoos on her neck came by and dropped off their food and drinks — Matthew had ordered a strawberry shake and french fries, figuring, he said, that he didn’t need to worry too much about staying in shape now, which sounded like fairly wise, if shortsighted, counsel, so Jeff ordered chili-cheese fries and a chocolate malt.
Jeff had spent the better part of the previous twenty minutes explaining to Matthew his plan. . a plan he’d developed mostly on the fly, as he spoke, but the nut was simple: He was going to find Sal Cupertine. Wherever he was, he was going to track him down. And if Matthew wanted in, he was willing to pay him for his services.
“So, you’re gonna pick up my whole salary?” Matthew asked after the waitress left.
“No,” Jeff said. He wasn’t sure how much GS-10s made these days, but whatever it was, Jeff couldn’t afford it.
“So, I’m hourly?”
“I haven’t really worked it all out yet,” Jeff said. “But don’t you worry, if your wife and kid need a place to stay, I’ve got a guest room at my place.”
“That’s funny,” Matthew said.
“Not as funny as you telling me you had a wife and kid,” Jeff said.
“I never told you that,” he said. “I told Jennifer Cupertine. You just assumed I was telling the truth.”
“The ring was pretty convincing.”
Matthew leaned forward. “All my life, I worked toward getting a job at the FBI. When I got there, I didn’t want a bunch of guys like you calling me kid-this and kid-that, asking me if I was too pussy to go out drinking with them after work. So I bought myself a simple gold band, and all of a sudden, I’m a guy with a bit more going on than just the job. And you know something? Maybe it worked too well, since now I’m sitting here with you and you’re not trying to provide me with teachable moments.”
“I said I was sorry,” Jeff said.
“No you didn’t,” Matthew said. “You said, ‘I want to apologize.’ That’s not actually saying you’re sorry. Let’s just agree that you went out there and did exactly what you wanted to do with Mrs. Cupertine and didn’t take into consideration that maybe I’d lose my fucking job because I was I dumb enough to go with you.”
“Fine,” Jeff said. “We’re in agreement.”
“Great,” Matthew said, and then he sat back in the booth and spread his arms across the top of the banquette and seemed to notice the restaurant for the first time. “How did you find this place?”
“I used to come here,” Jeff said.