A Firing Offense (19 page)

“I’ve got a couple of grand in my retirement account. That will get me through the bills for a while. In the meantime, I was hired by this old guy to find his missing grandson.”

“That why you got beaten up?”

“Yeah.”

“A detective now,” she stated flatly, though she might as well have told me just to grow up. I must have looked pathetic, sitting on the floor wearing my little adhesive nose mask. She rubbed her hands dry with a paper towel. Looking down at her feet, she said, “I’m sorry, Nick. But I’ve got an awful lot to do today, with moving and all.”

“Sure, Karen,” I said, laboring to my feet. “I should get going too.”

As she walked me to the door, I felt unsteady, as if another piece of my youth was being torn away. She faced me. The edge in her eyes, the dark side of her that had attracted me, was gone.

“Take care of yourself, Nicky,” she said. “I’ll write from Philly when I get settled.”

“So long,” I said, and kissed her mouth. I felt her warm exhale on my face when she withdrew.

I stepped out and down the walkway. The sound of her door closing behind me was final, like that of a vault.

*     *     *

I CROSSED THE RIVER
via Chain Bridge and took Nebraska Avenue through to Connecticut, where I turned right and headed south a few blocks to Pence’s building. One look at my battered face convinced him that I was indeed “on the case”; he stroked me an expense check without flinching.

“Good luck, son!” he shouted, as I bolted out the door.

I spent the remainder of my day doing laundry, listening to music, and taking codeine siestas. By evening I had spoken to my landlord as to the location of the cat food and litter box, and packed my knapsack and overnight bag. When I was done, I phoned McGinnes at his apartment.

“What’s going on, Johnny?”

“I’m on vacation till the weekend.”

“Brandon give you a few days off to think about things?”

“Yeah,” he said, “but the little prick wants me back on the floor by Saturday, so he can make his numbers. How’s your early retirement going?”

“Keeping busy. Some guys tried to warn me off the Broda thing yesterday. One of them put a boot to my face to make his point.”

“What now?”

“I’m leaving town for a couple of days to check out a lead. I could use some company.”

He thought it over. “It beats sucking down draughts in the Zebra Room.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up at eight, tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll pack the cooler,” he said.

“Fine. And bring a swimsuit.”

“Now you’re talkin’. Where we headed?”

“Elizabeth City,” I said. “North Carolina.”

B
Y THE TIME
we neared Richmond, traveling south on 95, we had listened to Green on Red’s
Gas, Food, Lodging,
and on the other side of the tape, Lou Reed’s
Coney Island Baby.
I slid in a fresh cassette, an instrumental mix from the Raybeats, Love Tractor, and the Monochrome Set, and turned off onto 64, heading east towards Norfolk.

“Jesus Christ, man,” McGinnes pleaded, “pull over! I gotta pee like a racehorse.”

“I’ll pull over when your bladder’s ready to burst.”

“It’s ready now. Anyway, I didn’t know we were being timed on this trip. What is this, the fucking Cannonball Run?”

I found a Stuckey’s on one of the turnoffs. He was out of the car before I stopped, running through the pounding rain across the parking lot to the store and rest area. I pumped gas into my Dodge under the sheltering overhang.

“Nice weather,” I said to the attendant, an old guy who
stood expressionless in his uniform, shoulders hunched up, hands in his pockets.

“For ducks,” he said.

McGinnes trotted back to the car, a paper bag in his hand, and got in the passenger side. I pulled back onto the highway, turning up the volume on my deck to cover the scraping of my wipers.

“Man, that felt good,” McGinnes said. “I’m ready now.” He was pulling assorted candies and pecan logs from the bag.

“Careful. You might have bought something healthy. By mistake, I mean.”

“I doubt it,” he said. “You want a beer?”

“No.”

But an hour later there was a cold can of Bud between my legs and McGinnes was working on his third one.

As we approached the Tidewater area, traffic increased and we crossed several small bridges. McGinnes rolled a joint, which we smoked while driving over and through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. We had been on the road for just under four hours.

At Route 17 I headed south along the Dismal Swamp Canal. The leaves on the trees had not yet begun to turn here. The rain had stopped and steam rose off the asphalt up ahead. We rolled our windows down. Jonathan Richman was on the stereo, telling his girl to “drop out of BU.”

I looked over at McGinnes, who was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt with three pens in the breast pocket, a pair of twills, and Chucks. I had never seen him in sneakers.

“I like the shirt,” I said.

“I’m on a holiday,” he said with a Brit accent, holding the shirttail out and pointing it in my direction. “Do you fancy it?”

“Yeah, I fancy it. But what are the pens for? You plan on writing some business while we’re down here?” We crossed the state line into North Carolina, and McGinnes tapped my can with his.

“Just a habit,” he said.

“Hey, maybe you
could
get some work. Nathan Plavin’s got a brother in the business down here, has a few retail stores of his own.”

“Yeah, I know. Ned Plavin. Ned’s World, it’s called. Jerry Rosen worked for him before he worked for Nathan. But his stores are in
South
Carolina, smartass.”

“Nutty Nathan’s and Ned’s World. Their parents must be proud.”

“Anyway,” he said,
“you’re
the one out on his ear. I’ve still got a job.”

“Thanks.”

“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “I talked to Andre, told him the whole deal. Let’s just say he’s more familiar with the types of people you’re dealing with now. He says the guys who worked you over aren’t going to let that shit lie.”

“What else did Andre say?”

“He said the next time you’re in the way, your Korean buddy won’t be around to protect you. And then they’ll take you down, man.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, and pinched his cheek. “I’ve got you.”

WE REACHED THE ELIZABETH
City area before two in the afternoon. McGinnes suggested we drive around to get a feel for the place. In certain residential areas of the city were large Victorians, some with wraparound porches on more than one level. Cypress trees stood handsomely on wide green lawns.

We drove by the waterfront, which seemed to be rundown to the point of decay in several sections. There was little commercial activity on the Pasquotank River that day, though there were a few pleasure boats heading out to the sound.

“This used to be quite a port,” McGinnes said.

“It doesn’t look like it was in our lifetime.”

“Not in our lifetime. I’m talking about in the nineteenth
century. Some serious Civil War shit went down in these parts. Naval battles. The Union ended up taking this place early in the war.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I grew up in this state.”

“Come on, man,” I said. “You’re not talking to one of your customers now.”

“No, I’m serious. My old man was stationed at Lejeune. So we spent some time on the Carolina coast.”

“Then maybe you can steer us to a motel.”

“Is that an order?” he said, and wiggled his eyebrows.

We found a place off the bypass, a row of cottages that looked like toolsheds with stoops. The sign said Gates Motel. McGinnes kept calling it the “Bates Motel” as we approached it, and insisted we stay there.

The woman in the office had probably seen a few things. But she couldn’t help staring when we walked in, announced by the sleigh bells that hung on the inside of the door. McGinnes had on his Hawaiian retailer outfit and a beer in his hand, and I my crisscross adhesive nose mask.

“We’d like a room, please,” McGinnes said.

“Sure,” she wheezed, her slit of a mouth barely moving on her swollen face. “Eighteen a night, checkout at eleven. How many nights you fellas plan on stayin’?”

“Just tonight for now,” I said. I signed the book and paid her as she suspiciously eyed a smiling McGinnes.

“Anything else?”

“Is there a phone?” I asked. “I’ll be needing to make some local calls.”

She went into a back room and returned with a dial phone and directory, placing them both on the counter in front of me.

“There’s a jack in the room. Number nine.”

I took the key and handed her a ten. “This should cover the phone.”

“That’ll do.”

“Any bars around here?” McGinnes asked sheepishly.

“Sure is, son,” she said with a nasty grin. “But if you was to go into any of ’em, I wouldn’t wear that shirt.”

AFTER A SHOWER I
sat on one of the twin beds in the room, with the phone in my lap and the white pages spread in front of me. McGinnes was out walking.

There were four Lazarus listings in the directory for the entire region. I began dialing.

My third call was to a T. J. Lazarus. The man who answered sounded old and either drunk or tired.

“’Lo,” he said.

“Mr. Lazarus?”

“Yes?”

“Kim’s father?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Nick Stefanos,” I said quickly. “I’m a friend of your daughter’s.”

“Kim’s away,” he said.

“I know. But I was heading south on business and stopped in town for the night. Thought I might meet Kim’s folks.”

“Kim’s mother passed on last year.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t bother yourself,” he said. “But you just missed Kim. She was in town last week.”

“I’d like to drop by and meet you anyway, sir.”

“I don’t know what the hell it is you want,” he said bluntly. “But if you want to come by, come by. And stop and pick up some beer on your way out, will you?”

“Yessir.” I took his directions, thanked him, and hung up.

I shaved and removed my bandages, deciding I looked more vulnerable and less intimidating that way. McGinnes entered the room.

“There’s a train runs behind here,” he said excitedly. “I
walked into the woods out back and down a hill to some tracks.” I didn’t answer him. He looked at the keys in my hand. “Where you headed?”

“I found the Lazarus girl’s father,” I said. “I’m going to talk to him.”

McGinnes drew a beer from the cooler at the foot of the bed. “Check you later,” he said.

T. J. LAZARUS LIVED
on a street of old bungalows set on large pieces of land. His, a gray and white-shuttered affair, badly needed paint.

I crossed the walkway onto a wide wooden porch, where a black Lab rose clumsily to greet me. He sniffed at my jeans, then my hand, and gave me one perfunctory lick. Then he stood next to me and slowly wagged his tail as I knocked on the door.

The man who opened up and stood before me was well into his seventies. He was tall and thin and rawboned, and wore blue chinos with a faded yellow T-shirt. There was a gardening glove on one of his hands. His eyes were alert and a fluid blue.

“Well, come on in,” he said, taking a good look at me before he shook my hand. “We’ll walk through the house and out back.”

His house was clean and furnished with worn, cushiony armchairs and sofas. A stereo television and VCR were set in the bookshelf, new models that made everything else in the place seem archaic. The dog stayed next to me as I followed Lazarus through the dining room to a back door that led to a screened porch.

“Been in a scuffle?” he said, his back to me.

“Yes,” I said. “Like my grandfather used to say, I zigged when I should have zagged.”

“Well,” he chuckled, “no shame in taking a punch now and again.”

We walked back deep into the yard to a garden that ran the
width of his property. I pulled two cans of beer off the six I was cradling, holding the remaining four with a finger hooked through the plastic ring. He took them both and opened them, handing one back to me. Sipping the beer, he kept one eye in my direction.

“What was the name again?”

“Nick Stefanos.”

“Okay, Nick. Mine would be T. J.”

“I’ve been anxious to meet you,” I said.

“You have?” he said almost mockingly. “Let’s step into the garden. We can talk while I do a little work.”

I followed him to a row of tomato plants, where he bent down and untied a stake, tossing it out of the garden.