Bobby looked like he was teetering between outrage and terror. I gave him a shove.
“No,” I said, “yours. As soon as I throw you to those cops you hold in such contempt.”
He stared at me, scraping together his meager shreds of courage.
“This’s got nothing to do with me,” he said.
“Give me the computer and I won’t tell Joe Sullivan you were withholding evidence. I’ll say I found it in the woods.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only computer I have is over there.” He nodded toward an overflowing desk. “And you won’t find it very interesting, unless you love financial analyses. I should let you take it home with you as punishment.”
The computer was the only thing in the apartment that looked new, which was made more apparent by its disheveled surroundings.
“So, no theories,” I said.
“About what?” said Bobby.
“The computer. Where it went.”
“The killer took it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
“Really? So the killer cared about what was on it. Is that what you think?”
Bobby didn’t like that.
“That’s not what I’m saying. Maybe he just wanted it.”
“Pretty selective thief. Did you report anything else stolen?”
“We didn’t report anything,” said Elaine. “They won’t let us back in the house.”
Bobby liked that more. He looked proud of his girlfriend. He jumped to his feet. “Listen, we gotta get ready for work,” he said, and walked out of the room.
Elaine stood up and said, “Well?”
I shrugged and got up to follow her, but on the way to the door she turned and used her shoulder to wedge me against the wall. The maneuver caused more revealing disruption to her bathrobe, which by now was getting to be old hat.
“What makes you think we won’t have you arrested? Or worse?” she asked in a low voice.
“You would have done it by now if you thought you could,” I said.
“Don’t be so sure, Mr. Samuel,” she said, in an even lower voice. She gripped my forearm below my rolled up cuffs and squeezed.
“Mr. Sam. My mother thought ‘Samuel’ was too formal. Putting on airs.”
I pushed the rest of the way past her and got out of the apartment, down the elevator and out to the street where I’d left Eddie to guard Amanda’s pickup. He was barking out the window at a passing Pomeranian, who could have cared less.
I was eager to get away from that unsettling apartment but I needed to give Eddie a chance to sniff the crazy City smells and pee on interesting new things. A few blocks down the street I spotted another parking space and stopped.
It was still early, so after Eddie did his thing we were through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and halfway down the Island before the sun got above the smoky horizon. It was good to be driving counter to the commute, though I felt a little guilty as I watched opposing traffic creeping toward another day of boredom and triumph and everything in between. I knew for sure that would never again be me.
As I drove along the Long Island Expressway, most of my mind was wondering around the life and death of Iku Kinjo and all the people who might have aided in one or the other. One little part of me was keeping track of the other cars on the highway until the persistent presence of a large black SUV in the rearview mirror made itself abundantly clear.
I instantly regretted leaving the Grand Prix at home. It wasn’t much of a car by modern standards, until you wanted sudden excessive acceleration on the open highway. Something the little red pickup could only do in its microprocessor-driven mechanical dreams.
So I took the opposite tack. I waited until I was approaching an exit ramp. Then I slipped up into the far left lane, with the SUV following me, and let off the accelerator, slowing the pickup to about forty-five miles an hour. This being the Long Island Expressway, where hurtling speed was the norm, order quickly deteriorated. Cars piled up behind the SUV, tail gating and beeping and otherwise expressing outrage, finally forcing the SUV to shift over to the right lane and pass.
I watched it race ahead, followed by the pent-up demand. As everyone roared by, I took the exit.
I drove the garish strip streets of Nassau County in a roughly westerly direction until I saw a sign for an on- ramp for the LIE. As further insurance, I stopped to get a cup of coffee and gave Eddie a chance to explore the native terrain. He never understood the point of a leash, and he looked at me disapprovingly whenever I pulled him back from a possible hazard, as if to say, “What do you think, I’m stupid?”
I just couldn’t take the chance he’d spot some exotic Nassau County creature, like a house cat or raccoon, and then we’d be off to the races.
When I got back to where I’d parked the pickup, Honest Boy Ackerman was sitting in the driver’s seat. The engine was running and the doors were locked. He opened the window a crack.
“What do you think,” he said, “I’m stupid?”
“Not entirely. You going to take my truck?”
“Only if you start hitting me.”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“How do I know that?” he asked.
“I can’t punch through safety glass.”
That alarmed him.
“I’m not getting out if you’re going to hit me.”
I pulled out my cell phone, which Fate had directed me to put in my pocket before I got out of the truck. The same Fate who forgot to tell me not to leave my keys on the floor mat.
“Does 9-1-1 work on cell phones?” I asked as I poked at the keypad.
“Aw, Christ, don’t do that.”
I studied him through the window.
“What’s the deal, Honest Boy?”
“I just want to talk.”
I held up the cell phone.
“That’s what these are for,” I said. “In polite society we don’t stalk or steal the trucks of people we want to talk to.”
He huffed.
“Polite? Coming from you?”
“Actually, I can punch through safety glass.”
“You can?”
“It’s my girlfriend’s truck. It’d be hard to explain. But I’ll do it if you don’t get out of there in the next ten seconds.”
I gripped the door handle with my right hand, pulled back my left fist with the index finger in the air and said,
“One.”
“Don’t, don’t,” he said, ducking down his head and opening the door.
I let him out. Eddie jumped up and down, wagging his tail with the joy every new encounter brought. I still wanted to pop Ackerman one, as a matter of principle. Instead I leaned across and felt around the ignition for the keys. There were none.
I grabbed him by the jacket.
“Switch it off.”
Self-satisfaction galloped across his face.
“You don’t know how, Big-Time Engineer?”
I shook him.
“Switch it off.”
