“You hacked into Public Works already?”
“Didn’t have to. I found a pdf of their annual report on employee suspensions, which gave me the personnel codes I needed. From there, it was a hop, skip, and a jump into Norman’s office computer. It took a few minutes to break into his files, but once I got inside, it was like driving a go-cart, boss.”
“Were the reports there?”
“Yeah. John D’s place, the pig farm. The whole area tests clean as a whistle. Maybe I should move out there.”
“Hunh.”
“Then again, maybe not. Ever heard of neptunium-237? … Me neither. It’s a by-product of uranium tailings. Also comes from spent nuclear rods. Norman had a bunch of encrypted information on it.”
Acid started to pool in the back of my throat and I almost gagged. “Toxic?”
“Highly. And it’s got a half-life of two million years. They just found some buried in Utah.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“It means if you visit Utah four million years from now, some of the neptunium-237 might be gone.”
“But everything tested clean?”
“That’s what Norman wrote.”
I was inside my house, opening a can of tuna for Tank, when I got a follow-up text message: NM BOUGHT BOAT ON EBAY 2 MO AGO 88K CASH.
As a public servant, Norman took home about $5,000 a month, if he was lucky. Now he had the cash to buy new boats? Love or money: I picked door two. Norman was into some dirty money, and he didn’t seem too concerned about flaunting it. I thought about Mrs. Murphy, and wondered if she knew about Norman’s latest scam, or if his secret lay buried deep inside their marriage, slowly but surely poisoning the well.
My landline rang, and I recoiled a little inside. I was tired. My mind was starting to spin. I needed to sit on my meditation cushion with my eyes closed for at least half an hour. But I worked out of home now, so I had to check.
It was Julie. I pinged and I ponged, should I, shouldn’t I, but guilt won out and I answered.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“How are you doing?”
“Great,” I fibbed. Instead of making me feel better, it irritated the hell out of me. I started over.
“Actually, kind of tired. I’ve been beating the bushes out in Lancaster. How about you?”
She sighed.
“I’m rotten, Ten. I begged off work early today. The chef reamed out another busboy, just for breathing the same air as far as I could figure out, and I couldn’t take it. I may never go back.”
She paused. I knew she was waiting for me to invite her over. I ran through my options, and none of them felt good. But she was sounding needy, and I was sleeping with her, and I knew what that added up to. I suggested she come over in a few hours.
“Are you sure you’re not too tired?”
“I’m sure,” I fibbed for the second time. The pressure behind my eyes started to re-form into a headache.
“Okay. If you’re absolutely sure. What would you like to eat?”
“Julie,” I snapped, “my brain’s fogged over at the moment. Just food, okay?”
The line went silent.
Then, “You know what, Ten? Forget it.”
“Julie …”
“No, I mean it. This is called three strikes and you’re out. I’ll see you around, okay?”
I spent my entire meditation defending myself to myself, which did little to relieve the tiredness or the guilt. So I took a long, hot shower and changed into my last clean pair of jeans. Tank and I moved outside to the deck. A flat, gray bank of fog hung like a pall on the horizon. The sun was sinking behind the wall of vapor. Fingers of orange-yellow light reached downward, as if in supplication. Then the mist swallowed up the last of the sun, snuffing out the flames.
It doesn’t always have to be like that.
Yes, it does.
I shivered and walked inside, shutting the door hard on the dank night.
I couldn’t shake the heavy feeling of dread, nor could I identify its source, beyond disappointing yet another woman, that is. I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir and set it aside to breathe. My cell phone chirruped from the bedroom, and I ran for it. Maybe Julie was calling me back.
It was a Lancaster number, one I didn’t know. I answered.
“Mr. Norbu? This is Norman Murphy.” His voice was strained and tense.
“Norman,” I said. The silence stretched out a while. I wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Listen, I happen to be in your neck of the woods this evening. I wonder if we could meet for a cup of coffee?”
“A friend was planning to meet me here in an hour, so it needs to be quick,” I semi-lied. This was becoming a regular habit. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about my father.”
I didn’t much care for the tightness in Norman’s voice. I grabbed my Wilson to stash in the Mustang’s glove compartment.
I was halfway down the hill, hugging a steep curve, when my windshield was flooded with light. A black Cadillac Escalade had gobbled the turn just below me, and was charging like a bull. I yanked the Mustang hard to the right, skidding to a halt. The canyon dropped into darkness somewhere just beyond the shoulder. The Escalade slowed to a crawl, drew alongside me, and stopped. It loomed over me, a beast of chrome and metal. I craned my neck, but I couldn’t see inside the tinted windows. Every nerve jumped to the surface of my skin. Okay. Okay. Keep breathing. It may not be what you think.
I started to squeeze past, maybe two inches of space between cars, when the back door of the Escalade opened and a man stepped out. I couldn’t proceed without running him over, and I couldn’t reverse without driving blind. I was wedged in so tight I couldn’t even open my door.
I lunged across the seat for the glove compartment, but the door blew open, and I was face to face with the ruddy menace of Liam O’Flaherty-Brother Eldon, to his faithful flock.
“Hello, Ten m’boy,” he said.
He raised a.38 snubnose and aimed it at my sternum. A Smith amp; Wesson Airlite. He cocked it and smiled.
It looked like a cap gun in his big paw, but I knew better. A high-velocity.38 Special cartridge will drive a 110-grain bullet into its target at 1,000 feet per second. And it doesn’t have a safety.
Liam knew better, too.
“It’s a modest little weapon,” he said, “but it can make a right mess of you. Now get out.”
I slid across the front seat and ducked outside. Liam kept the gun trained on me until I was standing in front of him.
“We can do this hard, or real hard. Your choice,” he said.
Roach, aka Brother Nehemiah, stepped next to Liam, his expression feral. I glanced down. He was wearing the silver-tipped cowboy boots he’d used to kick John D.
“What’s the matter, boys,” I said, “Run out of old men to rumble?”
The blow whipped my head back. A streak of pain seared my jaw.
“Shut yer gob hole!” Liam thundered.
I did a quick risk-assessment. Three of them: Liam, Roach, plus the driver. All three were locked and loaded, I was sure. One of me: armed with a phone and a set of car keys. This was not going to be a fair fight, if in fact I got to fight at all.
Liam snapped his thick fingers at me.
“Cell phone,” he said.
As I reached into my pocket for it, my fingers felt the two-pronged cork opener, right where I’d left it. Now we’re talking. I maneuvered the opener so it lay fairly flat along the waistband of my jeans. I prayed it would stay put. I handed my phone to Liam, and Liam tossed it to Roach.
“Burn it,” he told Roach. Then he patted me down, and I could smell the sour sweat coming off him in waves. He must have been out of practice, because he found the keys, but nothing else.
He snapped his meaty fingers again, this time at the driver still inside the Escalade. “Brother Jacob!” he called.
The man who climbed out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear door was lean and muscled, and instantly recognizable as Sister Rose’s Lookout Man from the farmer’s market. I stared at Jacob, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.