Oscar and Devin had retired from the BPD several years ago, though, and bought a failing bar together in Greenwood, Mississippi, where Oscar’s people hailed from. The bar was just up the street from Robert Johnson’s purported grave site, so they’d turned it into a blues club. Last I heard, it was still failing, but Oscar and Devin were too drunk to care, and the Friday-afternoon barbecues they threw in their parking lot were already the stuff of local legend. They were never coming back.
So there went that outlet for me. Not that it was much of an outlet. What I really wanted was just to get back home. Hold my daughter, hold my wife. Shower off the smell of my fear. I was planning to do just that, taking the Arborway over toward Franklin Park so I could cut through to my side of town, when my cell rang and I saw Jeremy Dent’s name on the caller ID.
“Fuck me,” I said aloud. I had Sticky Fingers in my CD player, turned up loud, the way Sticky Fingers should always be played, and I was right at the point in “Dead Flowers” where I always sang along to Jagger getting goofy with the words “Kentucky Derby Day.”
I turned down the music and answered my phone.
“Merry Almost Christmas,” Jeremy Dent said.
“Merry Almost Festivus,” I said back.
“You got a minute to drop by the office?”
“Now?”
“Now. I got a yuletide present for you.”
“Really.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s called a permanent job. Like to discuss?”
Health insurance, I thought. Day care, I thought. Kindergarten. College fund. A new muffler.
“On my way.”
“See you soon.” He hung up.
I was halfway through Franklin Park. If I hit the lights on Columbia Road just right, I would reach home in about ten minutes. Instead, I banged a left onto Blue Hill Avenue and headed back downtown.
• • •
“Rita Bernardo took a job in Jakarta, of all places.” Jeremy Dent leaned back in his chair. “Booming security business there these days, all those wonderful jihadists—bad for the world but great for our bottom line.” He shrugged. “So, anyway, she’s off to keep Indonesian discos from blowing up and that opens up a slot we’d like to offer you.”
“What’s the catch?”
He poured himself a second scotch and tilted the bottle toward my glass. I waved it off. “No catch. Upon further evaluation, we came to the conclusion that your investigatory skills, not to mention your experience in the field, are assets too valuable to pass up. You can start right now.”
He pushed a folder across his desk and it cleared the edge and landed on my lap. I opened it. Clipped to the inside cover was a photo of a young guy, maybe thirty years old. He looked vaguely familiar. A slim guy with dark, tightly coiled hair, a nose that fell just a half-inch short of beakish, and a café-au-lait complexion. He wore a white shirt and a thin red tie and held a microphone.
“Ashraf Bitar,” Jeremy said. “Some call him Baby Barack.”
“Community organizer in Mattapan,” I said, recognizing him now. “Fought that stadium plan.”
“He’s fought a lot of things.”
“Loves the camera,” I said.
“He’s a politician,” Jeremy said. “By definition that makes him an Olympic-level narcissist. And don’t let the Mattapan roots and the Mattapan address fool you. He shops at Louis.”
“On what? Sixty K a year?”
Jeremy shrugged.
“So what do you need?”
“A microscope on his whole fucking life.”
“Who’s the client?”
He sipped his scotch. “Immaterial to your efforts.”
“Okay. When do you need me to start?”
“Now. Yesterday. But I told the client tomorrow.”
I took a sip from my own glass of scotch. “Can’t do it.”
“I just offered you a permanent position with this firm, and you’re already being difficult?”
“I had no idea this was in the wind. I had to take a case to put food on the table. I can’t walk away in the middle of it.”
He gave a slow, that-doesn’t-concern-me blink. “How long before you can divest yourself?”
“Couple more days.”
“That puts us at Christmas.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“So let’s say you free up by Christmas, can I tell our client you’ll close his case”—he pointed at the folder—“by New Year’s?”
“If I’m done with my current case by Christmas, sure.”
He sighed. “How much they paying you, your current client?”
I lied. “A fair wage.”
• • •
I came home with flowers I couldn’t afford and Chinese takeout I couldn’t afford, either. I took the shower I’d been fantasizing about all afternoon and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from Pela’s one and only concert tour, then joined my family for dinner.
After we ate, we played with Gabby. Then I read to her and put her to bed. I came back into the living room and told my wife about my day.
Once I’d finished, Angie went straight to the porch for an American Spirit Light. “So the Russian mob has your driver’s license.”
“Yes.”
“Which means they know our home address.”
“Said information usually appears on a driver’s license, yes.”
“And if we tell the police they kidnapped a young girl . . .”
“They would be perturbed with me,” I agreed. “Did I mention the part where Duhamel offered me a permanent position?”
“A thousand times,” she said. “So you’re going to walk away. As in, right now.”
“No.”
“Uh, yes.”
“No. They kidnapped a seventeen—”
“—year-old girl. Yes. I heard you. I also heard the part where they shot the shit out of a car you were driving and took your license so they could come here if they felt like it and kidnap our child. So, I’m sorry about the seventeen-year-old girl, but I’ve got a four-year-old girl right here who I’m going to protect.”
“Even at the cost of another life.”
“You’re damn right.”
“This is bullshit.”
“This is not.”
“Yes, it is. You asked me to take this case.”
“Lower your voice. Okay, yes, I asked you to—”
“Knowing what it did to me the last time I searched for Amanda. What it did to us. But you were all about the greater good. And now that the greater good is biting us in the ass and another kid is in danger, you want me to pack it in.”
“We’re talking about our daughter’s safety.”
“But that’s not all we’re talking about. We’re in this now. You want to take Gabby and go see your mom, I think that’s a great idea. They’re dying to see each other. But I’m going to find Amanda and I’m going to get Sophie back, too.”
“You’d choose this case over—”
“No. Don’t try that shit on me. Do not.”
“Volume control, please.”
“You know who I am. You knew the minute you convinced me to do what Beatrice asked that I would never stop until I found Amanda again. And now you want to tell me it’s over? Well, it’s not. Not until I find her.”
“Find who? Amanda? Or Sophie? You can’t even differentiate anymore.”
Both of us had reached one step below atomic and we knew it. And we knew how bad it would get if we took the next step. Marry an Irish temper to an Italian temper and you often get broken dishes. We’d done a little counseling just before our daughter was born, to help us keep our hands off the nuke button when the air in the silo got too tight, and most times, it helped.
I took a breath. My wife took a breath and then a drag off her cigarette. The air on the porch was cold, bracing even, but we were dressed for it and it felt good in my lungs. I let out a long breath. A twenty-year breath.
Angie stepped in close to my chest. I wra
pped my arms around her and she placed her head under my chin and kissed the hollow below my throat.
“I hate fighting with you,” she said.
“I hate fighting with you.”
“Yet we manage to disagree fairly often.”
“That’s because we like making up so much.”
“I love making up,” she said.
“You and me both, sister.”
• • •
“You think we woke her?”
I went to the door that separated our bedrooms and opened it, watched my daughter sleep. She didn’t sleep on her stomach so much as on her upper chest, head turned to the right, butt sticking up in the air. If I looked in two hours from now, she’d be on her side, but pre-midnight, she slept like a penitent.
I shut the door and came back to bed. “She’s out.”
“I’m going to send her.”
“What? Where?”
“To see my mom. If Bubba will take her.”
“Call him. You know exactly what he’ll say.”
She nodded. It was barely a question, really. Angie could tell Bubba she needed him yesterday in Katmandu and he’d remind her that he was already there. “How’s he going to get weapons on a plane?”
“It’s Savannah. I’m quite sure he has connections there.”
“Gabby’ll love to see her nonnie, that’s for sure. She’s been talking about it nonstop since the summer. Well, that and trees.” She looked over at me. “You good with that?”
I looked at her. “These are bad fucking people I’m going to take on. And, like you said, they know where we live. I’d put her on a plane tonight, if I could. But what about you? You’re going to put the spurs on again, join me on the wagon trail?”
“Yeah. Might speed the process up.”
“Sure. But what’s the longest you’ve been away from Gabby since we had her?”
“Three days.”
“Right. When we went to Maine and you whined about missing her the whole friggin’ time.”
“I didn’t whine. I stated the obvious a few times.”
“And then restated it. That’s called whining.”
She slapped my head with a pillow. “Whatever. Anyway, that was last year. I’ve matured. And she’s going to love this—going on an adventure to see her nonnie with Uncle Bubba? If we told her tonight, she’d never have fallen asleep.” She rolled on top of me. “So what’s your immediate plan?”
“Find Amanda.”
“Again.”
“Again. Trade the cross she stole for Sophie. Everyone goes home.”
“Who says Amanda’s going to give it up?”
“Sophie’s her friend.”
“The way I’ve heard it, Sophie’s her Robert Ford.”
“I don’t know if it’s that bad.” I scratched my head. “I don’t know a lot, though. Which is why I’ve gotta find her.”
“How, though?”
“Question of the month.”
She reached across my body and grabbed my laptop bag off the floor. She opened it, pulled out the file marked A. MCCREADY and opened it on the pillow to the right of my head. “These are the shots you took of her room?”
“Yeah. No, not those—those are of Sophie’s room. Keep going. Those there.”
“Looks like a hotel room.”
“Pretty impersonal, yeah.”
“Except for the Sox jersey.”
I nodded. “Know what’s weird? She isn’t a fan. She never talked about the team or went to Fenway or wondered aloud what Theo was thinking when he made the Julio Lugo deal or traded Kason Gabbard for Going Going Gagne.”
“Maybe it’s just Beckett.”
“Huh?”
“Maybe she’s just got a crush on Josh Beckett.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, that’s his jersey, right? Number 19. Why are you whiter than usual suddenly?”
“Ange.”
“What?”
“It’s not the Red Sox she’s obsessed with.”
“No?”
“And she doesn’t have a crush on Josh Beckett.”
“Yeah, he’s not my type either. So why the jersey?”
“Twelve years ago, where’d we find her?”
“At Jack Doyle’s house.”
“And where was that?”
“Some little Podunk town in the Berkshires. What was it, like, fifteen miles from the New York border? Twenty? They didn’t even have a coffee shop.”
“What was the name?”
“Of the town?”
I nodded.
She shrugged. “You tell me.”
“Becket.”
• • •
“Give Daddy a hug.”
“No.”
“Sweetie, please.”
“No, I said.”
We were in tantrum mode. Standing in the C Terminal of Logan, Bubba and Gabby with their tickets in hand, a surprisingly light security check-in line awaiting them, and Gabby pissed off at me like only a four-year-old can get pissed off. The arm-folding, the foot-stomping, the whole deal.
I knelt by her and she turned her head. “Sweetie, we talked about this. Throwing a tantrum in the house is what?”
“Our problem,” she said eventually.
“And what’s throwing a tantrum outside our house?”
She shook her head.
“Gabriella,” I said.
“Our embarrassment,” she said.
“Exactly. So give your old man a hug. You can be mad at me, but you still have to give me a hug. That’s our rule. Right?”
She dropped Mr. Lubble and jumped on me. She held on so tight her thumb knuckles dug into my spine and her chin dug into the side of my neck.
“We’ll see you real soon,” I said.
“Tonight?”
I looked at Angie. Christ.
“Not tonight. But real soon.”
“You’re always going away.”
“No suh.”
“Yes suh. You go away at night and you’re gone when I get up in the morning times, too. And you’re taking Mommy away, too.”
“Daddy works.”
“Too much.” She had a catch in her voice that suggested another meltdown was imminent.
I propped her in front of me. She looked in my eyes, a tiny-doll version of her mother. “This is the last time, honey. Okay? Last time I go away. Last time I send you away.”
She stared at me, eyes and lips bubbling. “Swear.”
I held up my right hand. “I swear.”
Angie knelt beside us and kissed our daughter. I stepped back and let them have their own moment, which was even more emotionally fraught than mine.
Bubba stepped in close. “She going to cry on the plane, make a scene, shit like that?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “But if she does and anyone gives you a dirty look, you have my permission to bite them. Or at least growl at them. And if you see any Russians giving her funny looks—”
“Man,” he said, “anyone gives that kid a funny look? Their eyes will end up on the ground looking back up at their head as I cut it off their fucking neck.”
• • •
On the other side of security, they looked back at us, Bubba holding Gabby up by his shoulder as he lifted their bags off the conveyor belt. They waved.
We waved back, and then they were gone.
PART III
The Belarus Cross
Chapter Eighteen
The clouds hung low under a pale sky as we exited the Mass Pike and followed the line on the map toward Becket. The town lay twenty-five miles south of the New York border in the heart of the Berkshires. This time of year, the hills were sprinkled with snow and the damp roads were black and slick. Becket had a main road but no Main Street. It had no town center we could find, no one-block strip containing a general store, a hairdresser, a Laundromat, and the local Realtor. Neither, as Angie had noted, did it have a coffee shop. For any of that, you had to go to Stockbridge or Lenox. Bec
ket had houses and hills and trees and more trees. An amoeba-shaped pond the color of cream soda. More trees, the tops of some half-hidden in the low clouds.
We drove around Becket and West Becket all morning—up, down, all four points of the compass, and back again. Most of the roads in the hills dead-ended, so we got several curious or hostile looks as we pulled up to someone’s property and then had to back out the way we’d come, wheels crunching gravel. But none of those curious or hostile faces belonged to Amanda.
After three hours of this, we broke for lunch. We found a diner a few miles away in Chester. I ordered a turkey club, no mayo. Angie ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke. I sipped my bottled water and pretended I didn’t really want her meal. Angie rarely watches what she eats and has the cholesterol issues of a newborn. I eat fish and chicken ninety percent of the time and have the high LDL levels of a retired sumo wrestler. Life, it’s so fair that way. There were eight other patrons in the place. We were the only people not wearing boots. Or plaid. The men all wore ball caps and jeans. A couple of the women wore the kind of sweaters you get at Christmas from elderly aunts. Parka vests were popular.
“How else to get the lay of the land?” I asked Angie.
“Local newspaper.”
I looked around for a newspaper but didn’t spy one, so I did my best to catch the counter girl’s attention.
She was about nineteen. A pretty face had been damaged by acne scars and she wore an extra forty pounds on her frame like a threat. Her eyes were dull with anger disguised as apathy. If she kept on her current path, she’d grow into the type of person who fed her kids Doritos for breakfast and purchased angry bumper stickers with lots of exclamation points. But right now, she was just another in a long line of pissed-off small-town girls with a shitty outlook. When I finally flagged her down and asked if there was a newspaper behind the counter, she said, “A what?”
“A newspaper.”
Blank stare.
“A newspaper,” I said. “It’s like a home page without a scroll button?”
Stone face.
“The front page usually has pictures on it and, you know, words below those pictures. And sometimes? Pie charts in the lower left corner.”
“We’re a restaurant,” she said, as if that explained everything. Then she went over and leaned against the counter by the coffeemaker and began texting on her cell.