You're Next

listened to Jimmy putter off in Mike’s old truck.

When Mike finally spoke, his voice was cracked. ‘PVC is the worst of all of it. The chemicals leak into the soil. The shit migrates. They find it in whale blubber. They find it in Inuit breast milk, for Christ’s sake.’

Andres leaned back, resting his head against the wall of the van.

‘How much would it cost?’ Mike asked.

‘You kidding, no?’

‘To make it right. To replace it with vitrified clay.’

‘It’s not just under the street. It’s under the slabs. Under the houses.’

‘I know where pipes go.’

Andres sucked his teeth and looked away.

Mike registered a dull ache at the hinge of his jaw and realized he was clenching. Tearing up the houses would be a nightmare. A lot of the families had already sold their old places. They were middle-income folks who wouldn’t have the money for a rent-back or a prolonged hotel stay. Hell, that had been a big part of this – to help families get into nice houses. Many of the properties he’d placed not with the highest bidders but with people who needed them – single mothers, working-class couples, families who needed a break.

Mike said, ‘How did you not notice this?’

‘Me? You choose the grading contractor. Vic Manhan. The guy roll in with thirty workers and do the whole thing over Christmas break. Remember – you were thrilled.’

Mike stared across at his Ford with resentment and enmity. A fifty-five-thousand-dollar pickup – what the hell was he thinking? Would the dealership take it back? His anger mounted, the fuse burning down. ‘You got Manhan’s number there?’ he asked.

Andres scrolled through his cell phone, hit ‘send,’ and handed it off to Mike.

As it rang, Mike ran a dirty hand through his sweaty hair, tried to slow his breathing. ‘This prick better carry a hefty insurance policy. Because I don’t care what it costs. I’m gonna hit him with as many lawsuits as I can-’

‘This number is no longer in service. If you believe you have reached this recording in error-’

Mike’s heart did something in his chest.

He hung up. Clicked around in Andres’s phone. Tried Manhan’s cell.

‘The Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is no longer-’

Mike hurled the phone against the side of the van. Andres looked at him, then leaned over slowly, retrieved his phone, eyed the screen to make sure it still worked.

Mike was breathing hard. ‘I checked his goddamned license myself.’

‘You better check again,’ Andres said.

His shirt sticking to his body, Mike made a chain of calls, jotting down each new number on the back of an envelope. The picture swiftly resolved. Vic Manhan’s license had expired five months ago, shortly after he’d finished the job for Mike. Manhan had let his general-liability insurance lapse before that, so it had not been in effect when he’d laid in the PVC pipes. The policy documents he’d produced for Mike had been fraudulent. Which meant – in all likelihood – no money to cover damages.

For the first time in a long time, Mike’s mind went to violence, the crush of knuckles meeting nose cartilage, and he thought, How quickly we regress. He lowered his head, made fists in his hair, squeezed until it stung. His breath floated up hot against his cheeks.

‘You can’t be that surprised,’ Andres said. ‘About finding the PVC.’

‘What the hell kind of thing is that to say? Of course I’m surprised.’

‘Come on. Vitrified clay is heavier than cast iron. More expensive to make, to truck, to install. So how you think Manhan’s quote come in thirty percent below everyone else’s?’ The brown skin at Andres’s temples crinkled. ‘Maybe you didn’t want to know.’

Mike looked down at his rough hands.

Andres said, ‘You got forty families moving in. This week. Even if you want to spend all the money to replace, what are you gonna do? Jackhammer through all their houses? Their streets?’

‘Yes.’

Andres lifted an eyebrow. ‘To switch one set of pipes with another?’

‘I signed,’ Mike said. ‘My name. Guaranteeing I used vitrified-clay pipes in place of PVC. My name.’

‘You didn’t do anything wrong. This guy screw us.’

Mike’s voice was hoarse: ‘Those houses are built on a lie.’

Andres shrugged wearily. He climbed out of the van with a groan, and a moment later, Mike followed, his muscles feeling tight and arthritic.

They faced each other in the middle of the street, blinking against the sudden brightness like newborns, the canyon laid out before them, beautiful and steep and crusted with sagebrush. The air, crisp and sharp, tasted of eucalyptus. The green of the roofs matched the green of the hillside sumac, and when Mike squinted, it all blended together and became one.

‘No one will know,’ Andres said. He nodded once, as if confirming something, then started for his car.

Mike said, ‘I will.’

Chapter 4

Mike sat on the hearth of their small bedroom fireplace, his back to the wall, staring at the cordless phone in his lap. Debating with himself. Finally he dialed the familiar number.

A strong voice, husky with age. ‘Hank Danville, Private Investigations.’

‘It’s Mike,’ he said. ‘Wingate.’

‘Mike, I don’t know what else to tell you. I said I’d call if I found anything, but I’ve got nowhere else to look.’

‘No, not that. Something new. I have a guy I need you to track down.’

‘I hope it’s something I can actually make headway with this time.’

‘He’s a contractor who screwed me.’ Mike gave him a brief rundown. He could hear the faint whistle of Hank’s breathing as he took notes. ‘I need to know where he is. To say it’s urgent is an understatement.’

‘How much you in for?’ Hank asked.

Mike told him.

Hank whistled. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, and hung up.

Mike was used to searching for information he probably didn’t want to know, but that didn’t make the waiting any easier. He got into the shower and leaned against the tile, blasting himself with steaming water, trying to pressure-wash away the stress. As he was drying off, the phone rang. Towel wrapped around his waist, he picked it up, sat on the bed, and braced for bad news.

‘Vic Manhan’s last-known puts him in St. Croix,’ Hank said. ‘A bounced check at a bar two months ago. God knows where he is now. His wife left him, he was staring at an expensive divorce, all that. Probably figured pulling a last job and splitting with his cash would be a better way to go. I’m not sure how he dummied the insurance papers and the databases, but there were no real policies backing him when he did your job.’

Mike closed his eyes. Breathed. ‘You can’t find where he is now?’

‘The guy’s on the run from the cops and his wife’s lawyers. He probably hightailed it to Haiti by now. He’s not findable.’

Bitterness rode the back of Mike’s tongue. ‘Come on. The guy’s hardly Jason Bourne.’

‘You’re welcome to have someone else try. I thought I did pretty good for fifteen minutes.’

‘It’s just another dead end, Hank. We seem to keep hitting them.’

Hank’s voice sharpened with indignation. ‘Oh, we’re back to that now? I told you when you first came in that what you were asking for would be next to impossible. I never promised you results.’

‘No, you sure didn’t.’