“Are you being truthful?”
“I’ve been truthful at every point in this interview.” Tess couldn’t keep a little heat out of her voice. When the circumstances suited her, she was perfectly capable of lying, but she had been extremely precise today. True, she hadn’t been particularly helpful, but that wasn’t the same as lying. She had walked the line, as the old song had it.
And was hovering right above a ring of fire, to keep it in the Johnny Cash canon.
On the other side of the glass, Jenkins popped a Pepcid, although he kept his face impassive, unreadable. Sanctimonious bitch. Where did she get off?
No matter. He had been smart to heed his stomach’s queasy instincts and invite the AUSA last-minute. This eager beaver next to him was the key to finding out what he wanted to know. All he had to do was unleash Fido here and he would cheerfully, happily, and quite legally proceed to press this bitch until she was begging for mercy. Jenkins hoped she was smart, or at least pragmatic, the kind of person who would abandon a principle when things got rough. Let her play this half-assed game with him and he would own her. Sure, she could be all noble here, when the only thing she was risking was some penny-ante shit from county cops. But when it was her life versus someone else’s, those lofty principles would fall away. They always did.
The thing is, he sort of got where she was coming from. In a different context, he might have respected her. He knew what it was to believe in something and how hard it could be to give it up, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that those to whom you were loyal had no loyalty to you. She had been taken in by this kid, whoever he was, bought into the idea that he needed her protection. Couldn’t see the forest for the trees, a figure of speech that had long puzzled Jenkins, who had always been able to see everything all at once. She had placed herself at the center of the Youssef matter, losing sight of the fact that it wasn’t about her, that she was an insignificant player. This wasn’t her story, but he could see why she might think it was. To her credit, she was trying to do what she thought was right.
But she believed in the wrong thing, she had chosen the wrong side, and that was reason enough to dismantle her life.
THURSDAY
17
“Ocean’s hell on paint and wood,” Edward Keyes said, handing out scrapers and brushes to Crow and Lloyd. “Ocean’s hell on everything, corrosive as a sonuvabitch. I usually paint in the fall, but my Mexican crew up and quit on me.”
“Do you have to stereotype them by race?” Crow said automatically, then regretted it. They were dependent on this man’s generosity, after all.
“What I’d say? Just said they quit, and they did. Left me high and dry last fall, and now I’m way behind if I’m gonna open for Mother’s Day weekend. I should give up on shingles, go with something more mod-ren I know, but I like the old-timey look. It’s not as much work as it looks to be, not once you get a rhythm.”
Lloyd, who had glared at Edward Keyes throughout his overview of the seasonal preparation required by Frank’s FunWorld, spoke for the first time. “Why Frank?”
“What?”
“Your name ain’t Frank. So why this place called that?”
“Sounds better, don’t you think? Allitter-something.”
“Alliteration,” Crow put in, and the other two regarded him as if he were the nerdiest kid in the class.
“Had a cat named Frank once. Mean old tom. By the way, you’ll want to get as much painting done as you can in the morning. Wind kicks up in the afternoon something fierce. That’s why I usually do it in the fall.” And with that, Edward Keyes left them, whistling a happy tune.
Crow supposed that he would be cheerful, too, if he were dispensing the supplies for this backbreaking work, then retiring to the sheltered interior of the park to tinker with the rides and reassemble the Whac-A-Mole games, with a radio to provide some mental distraction. Crow and Lloyd remained outside on this bright, windswept day, with nothing but their own companionship. Which could have been pleasant, but the only conversation Lloyd seemed capable of was a litany of complaints.
“Why we got to paint? We’re paying our way, aren’t we? You givin’ him cash for our food and our rooms, which ain’t much. So why we got to work?”
“What else are we going to do with our time?”
“I don’t know. Watch TV and shit. Anything but this.”
“What would you be doing back home, a day like today?”
“Find some action. Hang.” Lloyd made a few desultory passes with the paintbrush. “Why can’t we use a roller at least? Go a lot faster.”
“Roller won’t cover shingles. We’ll be able to use it on the concrete, though, on the other side. And when we get to that part, it will seem so easy it won’t be like work at all.”
“Were you a teacher?”
Crow was flattered. “No, but it interests me. I think sometimes of going back to school, getting a certificate.” Only how would I explain to Tess that I could afford it?
“Yeah, that sounds like teacher shit.” Lloyd pitched his voice high and took on a bright, prissy tone. “‘Really, it’s not that hard, boys and girls, if you just try.’ That kind of thing. They was always saying shit like that.”
“Was there anything you liked about school?”
“It was warm,” Lloyd said pointedly. “They didn’t make us stand outside in the cold, painting shit.”
“Look, if we talk, pass the time, this will go a lot faster.”
“I got nothing to talk about with you. Seems to me talking is what got me here.”
“Here” was actually beautiful in its way, a short, old-fashioned stretch of boardwalk in the town of Fenwick, just above the state line and Maryland ’s far-busier resort, Ocean City. The early-spring light, the empty beach, the careworn buildings-they made Crow’s fingers itch with the desire to paint again, although not in this way, applying coats of latex to the battered surfaces of Frank’s FunWorld.
“World” was a little grandiose for this bunkerlike rectangle that contained one bank of Skee-Ball machines, several video machines, a single Whac-A-Mole, and a couple of booths for the hand-eye coordination games that spit out tickets good for schlocky items at the so-called Redemption Center. The rides were geared toward small fry for the most part-little motorcycles that went ’round and ’round, little boats that went ’round and ’round (although their basin was dry), and a ringless, currently horseless merry-go-round. The only concession to anyone above age ten was a bumper-car ride, with the obligatory You Must Be This Tall sign. They would have to paint that, too, Mr. Keyes had said. That and the clown’s face. Well, Crow had just complained to Kitty that he never got to paint anymore.
“No, I mean we could just talk talk. About life. Or movies and books. What do you like?”
“I like them dinosaur books and movies,” Lloyd said. “ Jurassic Park .”
“Michael Crichton. So you like futuristic plots, science fiction.”
Lloyd made a face, but Crow decided it was the word “science” that was putting him off.
“You liked Minority Report, right?”
“The one with the Top Gun dude?”
“Yeah, sure. Anyway, the guy who wrote that also wrote this one called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which they made into a Harrison Ford movie. Bladerunner.”
“Bladerunner’s a better title.”
“Maybe.” Crow began with bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his mood organ, his argument with his wife, Iran, whose name confused Lloyd no end. Crow’s memory was shaky at first, and he sometimes conflated film and book, but slowly the beloved story came back to him in detail, almost every sentence intact.