Officer Fromm asked Jamal, “You ever see him before?” And he asked it in the kind of way that told Adam that the cop was absolutely certain the boy and Lester had seen each other before.
“No, sir.”
An answer that, Adam was sure, Officer Fromm was absolutely certain he’d hear.
“Okay,” the cop said.
“I gotta get to my grandmother’s.”
“You go on. I’ll be in touch. But put ice on that hand.”
“Yessir.”
With a look of utter hatred at Adam, Lester was escorted to a squad car and deposited in the back seat.
Adam was mentally counting the remaining cash in his pocket, and the tally indicated a deficiency in the wine-purchasing department. Hell. He started back to his begging station.
“Rangers,” Officer Fromm said to him.
Adam turned, frowning.
The cop touched his own neck. “That tat of yours?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
The officer was silent for a moment. Then he said, “My grandson was deployed.”
Adam didn’t ask where. That was a question that he might have asked a long time ago. Now, no. He didn’t care.
Officer Fromm said, “Had a rough time, Derek did. Rough over there, well, obviously. But back here too. Was worse in some ways. Got divorced, lost his job. He’s good now. Was in kind of a group thing. Veterans. You’ve heard this all before. He heard it, too, and it took him a couple of years to take the step. He can put you in touch with somebody. You have a phone?”
Adam pulled it out. Officer Fromm blinked. It was a flip phone. He’d be thinking: They still make those?
The officer dictated the number and Adam put it in. Hit “Save.”
Without another word on that subject, Officer Fromm asked, “You have any money for breakfast?”
The enticing smell of the spilled wine was strong in the heavy, damp air. Officer Fromm did not glance the way of the stain.
“Not really.”
“I’ll stand you to twenty,” Fromm said.
“No, I—”
“You pay it back. We’ve got to meet anyway, before trial.” He was nodding toward where the squad car, containing Lester Banks, had been.
Adam nodded. He walked back into the convenience store and picked up another bottle of wine and two breakfast tacos. As the clerk rang him up, he glanced at the TV news again. Another story was on, about a youngster who’d gone missing in a big construction site. The boy, a five-year-old named Bobby, had just been located, unhurt. He hadn’t been abducted or fallen down a pit, as feared; he’d just wandered into a janitor’s closet and the door had locked behind him. A tearful reunion.
Adam stepped outside the franchise and walked toward the Larkin Street Bridge, eating the tacos fast, four, five bites. It was maybe the best meal he’d had in his life.
He walked halfway across the bridge, one of the older ones in town, stone, ornate. He stopped. He unscrewed the wine bottle and drank several mouthfuls. Then he leaned over the railing, looking down.
The river was wide here, moving steadily, if not fast. It was a rich gray. He enjoyed watching a tugboat and barge as they muscled past, upstream.
Another hit of wine.
Thinking about the scar on his leg. Thinking about the pirate ship floating in the ceiling above his saggy bed. Thinking about the P word his friend and fellow soldier Todd had been trying to say as he died in a flood of crimson.
This was the moment, Adam reflected, when he would climb the railing and swan dive into the chill water.
Or when he’d pitch the bottle into the river, feeling his heart tighten with vibrant resolution.
He chuckled to himself, not a mad laugh but a genuine one, and did neither. He took another sip, slipped the cabernet back into the paper bag and continued across the bridge, then turned onto the street that would take him home.