Hideaway

“Mr. Redlow, sir, can you hear me?”

More than anything else, the kid's politeness and the natural formality of his speech disconcerted Redlow.

“I apologize for having been so rough with you, sir, but you really didn't give me much choice.”

Nothing in the voice indicated that the kid was being snide or mocking. He was just a boy who had been raised to address his elders with consideration and respect, a habit he could not cast off even under circumstances such as these. The detective was gripped by a primitive, superstitious feeling that he was in the presence of am entity that could imitate humanity but had nothing whatsoever in common with the human species.

Speaking through split lips, his words somewhat slurred, Morton Redlow said, “Who are you, what the hell do you want?”

“You know who I am.”

“I haven't a fucking clue. You blindsided me. I haven't seen your face. What — are you a bat or something? Why don't you turn on a light?”

Still only a black form, the kid moved closer, to within a few feet of the chair. “You were hired to find me.”

“I was hired to run surveillance on a guy named Kirkaby. Leonard Kirkaby. Wife thinks he's cheating on her. And he is. Brings his secretary to the Blue Skies every Thursday for some in-and-out.”

“Well, sir, that's a little hard for me to believe, you know? The Blue Skies is for low-life guys and cheap whores, not business executives and their secretaries.”

“Maybe he gets off on the sleaziness of it, treating the girl like a whore. Who the hell knows, huh? Anyway, you sure aren't Kirkaby. I know his voice. He doesn't sound anything like you. Not as young as you, either. Besides, he's a piece of puff pastry. He couldn't have handled me the way you did,”

The kid was quiet for a while. Just staring down at Redlow. Then he began to pace. In the dark. Unhesitating, never bumping into furniture. Like a restless cat, except his eyes didn't glow.

Finally he said, “So what're you saying, sir? That this is all just a big mistake?”

Redlow knew his only chance of staying alive was to convince the kid of the lie — that a guy named Kirkaby had a letch for his secretary, and a bitter wife seeking evidence for a divorce. He just didn't know what tone to take to sell the story. With most people, Redlow had an unerring sense of which approach would beguile them and make them accept even the wildest proposition as the truth. But the kid was different; he didn't think or react like ordinary people.

Redlow decided to play it tough. “Listen, asshole, I wish I did know who you are or at least what the hell you look like, 'cause once this was finished, I'd come after you and bash your fuckin' head in.”

The kid was silent for a while, mulling it over.

Then he said, “All right, I believe you.”

Redlow sagged with relief, but sagging made all of his pains worse, so he tensed his muscles and sat up straight again.

“Too bad, but you just aren't right for my collection,” the kid said.

“Collection?”

“Not enough life in you.”

“What're you talking about?” Redlow asked.

“Burnt out.”

The conversation was taking a turn Redlow didn't understand, which made him uneasy.

“Excuse me, sir, no offense meant, but you're getting too old for this kind of work.”

Don't I know it, Redlow thought. He realized that, aside from one initial tug, he had not again tested the ropes that bound him. Only a few years ago, he would have quietly but steadily strained against them, trying to stretch the knots. Now he was passive.

“You're a muscular man, but you've gone a little soft, you've got a gut on you, and you're slow. From your driver's license, I see you're fifty-four, you're getting up there. Why do you still do it, keep hanging in there?”

“It's all I've got,” Redlow said, and he was alert enough to be surprised by his own answer. He had meant to say, It's all I know.

“Well, yessir, I can see that,” the kid said, looming over him in the darkness. “You've been divorced twice, no kids, and no woman lives with you right now. Probably hasn't been one living with you for years. Sorry, but I was snooping around the house while you were out cold, even though I knew it wasn't really right of me. Sorry. But I just wanted to get a handle on you, try to understand what you get out of this.”

Redlow said nothing because he couldn't understand where all of this was leading. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, and setting the kid off like a bottle rocket. The son of a bitch was insane. You never knew what might light the fuse on a nutcase like him. The kid had been through some analysis of his own over the years, and now he seemed to want to analyze Redlow, for reasons even he probably could not have explained. Maybe it was best to just let him rattle on, get it out of his system.

“Is it money, Mr. Redlow?”

“You mean, do I make any?”

“That's what I mean, sir.”

“I do okay.”

“You don't drive a great car or wear expensive clothes.”

“I'm not into flash,” Redlow said.

“No offense, sir, but this house isn't much.”

“Maybe not, but there's no mortgage on it.”

The kid was right over him, slowly leaning farther in with each question, as if he could see Redlow in the lightless room and was intently studying facial tics and twitches as he questioned him. Weird. Even in the dark, Redlow could sense the kid bending closer, closer, closer.

“No mortgage on it,” the kid said thoughtfully. “Is that your reason for working, for living? To be able to say you paid off a mortgage on a dump like this?”

Redlow wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but suddenly he was not so sure that playing tough was a good idea, after all.

“Is that what life's all about, sir? Is that all it's about? Is that why you find it so precious, why you're so eager to hold on to it? Is that why you life-lovers struggle to go on living — just to acquire a pitiful pile of belongings, so you can go out of the game a winner? I'm sorry, sir, but I just don't understand that. I don't understand at all.”

The detective's heart was pounding too hard. It slammed painfully against his bruised ribs. He hadn't treated his heart well over the years, too many hamburgers, too many cigarettes, too much beer and bourbon. What was the crazy kid trying to do — talk him to death, scare him to death?

“I'd imagine you have some clients who don't want it on record that they ever hired you, they pay in cash. Would that be a valid assumption, sir?”

Redlow cleared his throat and tried not to sound frightened. “Yeah. Sure. Some of them.”

“And part of winning the game would be to keep as much of that money as you could, avoiding taxes on it, which would mean never putting it in a bank.”

The kid was so close now that the detective could smell his breath. For some reason he had expected it to be sour, vile. But it smelled sweet, like chocolate, as if the kid had been eating candy in the dark.

“So I'd imagine you have a nice little stash here in the house somewhere. Is that right, sir?”

A warm quiver of hope caused a diminishment of the cold chills that had been chattering through Redlow for the past few minutes. If it was about money, he could deal with that. It made sense. He could understand the kid's motivation, and could see a way to get through the evening alive.

“Yeah,” the detective said. “There's money. Take it. Take it and go. In the kitchen, there's a waste can with a plastic bag for a liner. Lift out the bag of trash, there's a brown paper bag full of cash under it, in the bottom of the can.”

Something cold and rough touched the detective's right cheek, and he flinched from it.

“Pliers,” the kid said, and the detective felt the jaws take a grip on his flesh.

“What're you doing?”

The kid twisted the pliers.