‘I, um-’ A feedback squawk; his mouth was too close to the mike. The wet fabric from the spill felt cold against his thigh. He did his best to put the bizarre confrontation out of mind. ‘I don’t really deserve to be here,’ he said.
At the VIP table, Bill Garner looked up at him, head cocked, lips wearing a tense little smile.
‘I mean, to give me an award when I already feel so lucky for what I have and what I get to do. I wake up every day thinking I’ve won the lottery.’ Finally relaxing a bit, Mike glanced at his wife. She was looking back at him with adoration. ‘Because I have. I mean, my wife, my daughter, steady work that I love.’
Mike glanced down at the podium. ‘And it’s not like building Green Valley was all selfless. It was a paying job.’ Eager to break the tension, a few people laughed, thinking he was joking. ‘I’m no great environmentalist,’ he said. ‘I just don’t want my daughter and grandkids to look back at me decades from now and be angry that I didn’t do the right thing.’
Annabel’s new diamond ring glinted, the big rock seeming to sum up how full of shit he was. As if reading his thoughts, she slid her hands into her lap and looked away, trying to keep her composure. Seeing her upset completely threw him, and for a moment he lost track of where he was. The silence stretched out uncomfortably as he grasped for words. He almost just came clean, admitted the lie, and walked off to start shoveling his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself and forty families, but instead he heard himself say, ‘Thank you for this recognition. I’m honored.’ Annabel closed her eyes, and he saw her heartbeat fluttering the thin skin of her temple. To applause, he stepped out of the spotlight, touched her gently on her shoulder, and murmured, ‘Let’s go.’
The lights were up now in the dining room, the ceremony over. Mike scanned the space, but there was no sign of William or the big guy anywhere. He felt ill, his mind racing, his stomach churning from the altercation earlier, from the phony award, from the way Annabel had averted her gaze when he was up there, as if she couldn’t meet his eye. He wanted to get home, burn off the night with a scalding shower, and put all this behind them.
A photographer approached: ‘We need you for one more set of pictures-’
‘Sorry,’ Mike said. ‘We really have to be going.’
Nodding curtly at well-wishers, he grabbed Kat’s hand and led her and Annabel to the door, Andrés calling after him, ‘What the big hurry?’
Kat was beaming. ‘Dad said he built Green Valley for me.’
Annabel forced a smile. Mike rushed on, trying to leave Kat’s remark behind. A few guests had trickled outside, but for the most part the parking lot was empty of people. Gleaming foreign cars and a good number of hybrids. Mike hurried Kat and Annabel up and down the aisles, searching for that black Mercury Grand Marquis that he’d thought had followed him earlier in the week.
‘Mike’ – Annabel shifted the award plaque in her arms, nearly dropping it – ‘what’s going on?’
‘Just give me a minute.’
At the far edge of the lot, slant-parked across two spaces, a dingy white van stood out distinctly among the sleek vehicles. Wedged between windshield and dash was a torn-open bag of David’s sunflower seeds. Mike halted twenty or so feet from the van. The driver’s and passenger’s seats were empty, but beyond them the cabin was dark.
No front license plate.
Mike turned to his wife. ‘Take her, get into the truck, and lock the doors.’
Annabel’s forehead crinkled with concern, but she took Kat and hurried back toward the truck. Though a few more people were making their way to their cars, here in the farthest row it was dark and still.
Tentatively, Mike circled the van. An old Ford, late-seventies model. Checked drapes covered a high-set rear window, slid open to a dusty screen. With relief he saw there was a back plate, an old-fashioned California model with a blue background, the yellow numbers and letters so faded he had to crouch to read their raised outlines – 771 FJK.
The voice came at him, unnervingly close. ‘You let your wife go out dressed like that?’
Mike whipped upright. William’s face, leering out the van’s rear window, wore the checked drapes like falls of hair. The back door came ajar with a creak, Mike peddaling back, heart jerking in his chest. William unfolded painfully from the dark interior, the big man sliding out to loom behind him.
Mike’s breath fired hot in his lungs. ‘I don’t let her do anything.’
A car alarm chirped nearby, and Mike noted with relief more people heading to their cars, spreading out through the lot. Had the men been hiding in the van, waiting to follow him home?
With a little smirk, William lurched toward Mike in an odd, toein gait. ‘Why you harassing us?’ He swirled the wineglass, packed with half-chewed sunflower shells, for emphasis. ‘Following us out here, spying on our van.’ William spit a sunflower shell on the asphalt near Mike’s feet. He jerked his chin, a gesture he seemed to overuse. ‘Better get back to your family.’
Mike’s gaze moved uneasily from William to the big man, who stood silently, log arms crossed, his unreadable features half lost to shadow. ‘The hell does that mean?’
‘It means a family man like you’s got better things to do than stand out here jawing with a buncha lowlifes.’ He peered around Mike, and Mike turned.
From the passenger seat, Annabel peered anxiously through the windshield. The truck was two rows away, but Kat was visible in the rear, standing up, fussing with her backpack. Both of them right there in plain view, exposed. The night air, crisp in Mike’s lungs, tasted of mowed grass from the distant golf course. The faintest trace of cigar smoke laced the breeze. Annabel’s eyes implored him.
Mike wheeled back. ‘Is this about Green Valley?’
‘Green Valley?’ William looked genuinely confused.
‘You’ve been following me,’ Mike said.
William’s eyes jittered from side to side rapidly, an almost mechanical tic. ‘Sounds like you got people after you, Mr Wingate. Don’t take it out on me and Dodge here.’
Neither broke off his stare. Mike took a few backward steps, then turned and headed swiftly to the truck, Annabel watching him tensely. A few passersby offered their congratulations, and he nodded, his face still burning with anger. As he neared, Annabel threw open her door. Kat was facing away from the scene, pointing out the side window and laughing. ‘That lady has a cra-zy hat!’
Mike heard a pop behind him.
He turned. Pitifully, William clutched his trembling wrist, apologizing to the small cluster of folks who had gathered around, concerned. ‘I’m sorry. It just slipped.’ A man in a suit used a rolled magazine to sweep the broken glass away from his tires. Dodge crouched to help, his lips still sealed. Was he mute?
Annabel was out of the truck now. ‘Mike, what the hell is going on?’
He grasped her biceps, reversing her protectively into the passenger seat. ‘We’re going. I’ll explain in a second.’
‘That’s hurting my arm,’ she told him quietly.
He let go. His grip had turned her skin red. She climbed in, and he started around the hood to the driver’s seat.
But William and Dodge were on top of him already. He turned and caught Annabel’s eye. She read his expression, her face draining of color. She moved her arm, and he heard the click of the automatic locks. In the rear Kat reorganized her books in her backpack, distracted.
William stepped up on Mike, moving swiftly. His hips dipped a bit when he walked, but it was nothing like the pronounced gait he’d put on display earlier. Mike wondered how much he used the illness to his advantage, the way Shep had his bad hearing.
Mike squared off as William sidled into reach and said, ‘I see your CP cleared up some.’