The Silent Hour

for him. If I didn’t like a case, I didn’t have to take it. If for any reason I didn’t feel like working, well, I didn’t have to. For a while, anyway. That eighty grand kept me at least a few steps ahead of the thresher.

I spent the rest of the day at my desk writing a case report. A local insurance company had hired me to conduct background investigations on candidates vying for a management job, and by the time I’d summarized the findings on all seven of them it was midafternoon and I was sick of being in the office. I locked up and left, thinking that I’d have an early workout. My energy felt wrong, though, and by the time I got to my building I’d talked myself out of exercise. I got into my truck instead and drove toward Clark Avenue in search of a drink. If you give up on the healthy decision, why not go all out in the opposite direction?

I was headed for the Hideaway, which had reopened in April after being closed for nearly a year from fire damage. I’d found myself down there often in the past few weeks, maybe trying to recapture something that was already gone, maybe just enjoying the place. I didn’t want to overthink it. The owner, Scott Draper, had been a good friend once, and maybe could be again. With Joe gone, I’d become more aware of just how many friendships had wandered off or watered down over the years. A lot of that was my fault—I’d retreated from the world for a while after losing Karen and my job. Hell, if Amy hadn’t come around back then, when a kid who’d spent a lot of time at my gym was murdered and she was asked to write about it, I’d be pretty damn pathetic by now. Funny how having just one woman around is enough to make you look like a functioning member of society.

A week or even a few days earlier, I might have noticed the car behind me while I was on the highway. When I was riding the peak of my paranoia, I’d done a good job of watching the mirrors. That was past, though, and I didn’t pay attention to the cars behind me as I burned up I-71 toward downtown, didn’t register any of them until I pulled onto the Fulton Road exit ramp. Even then, it was a cursory thing, just an awareness that I’d been one of two cars leaving the highway.

When I turned off Fulton and onto Clark and the car stayed with me, I finally gave it a few seconds of study, memories of Dominic Sanabria’s visit not completely purged yet. It was a Honda Pilot, newer model, red. Not the sort of thing you’d expect a mob enforcer to drive. I put my eyes back on the road and pulled into a parking space on the street a half block from the Hideaway. The Pilot kept going. Nothing to worry about.

By the time I was out of the car, though, I saw that the Pilot’s driver had just pulled into a spot across the street, not far away. I stood on the sidewalk and watched as the door opened and a tall guy with blond hair stepped out and walked in my direction.

He came across the street and up the sidewalk without missing a step, even when he realized I was standing there watching him. Walked right up to me, lifted a hand as if he needed to catch my attention, and said, “Lincoln Perry?”

He didn’t match the mob-enforcer mold any better than his car. Tall, maybe six three or four, with broad, knobby shoulders under his starched blue shirt. Something about him made me think of a baseball pitcher. He moved well but without any sense of speed or agility, seemed like the sort of guy who’d be good at most sports despite not being particularly athletic. There was a shadow of beard along his jaw, darker than his sandy hair. Light blue eyes.

“Why were you following me?” I said.

“You’re Lincoln?”

“You know I am. You were following me.”

He held up his hands, palms spread. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to freak you out. I’d just stopped by the gym and was going down to your office when I saw you get into your truck. I was already in my car, so I just pulled out after you.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” I said. “So how did you know that was me, and that it was my truck?”

He smiled. “The lady who was in the gym office looked out at your truck to see if it was still there before she sent me up to your office.”

“And your natural inclination was to follow me?”

“Actually, yeah. I’m a PI. You should know how that goes.”

“A PI?”

“Name’s Ken Merriman. You the sort that likes to see ID?” He reached for his wallet, but I waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it, Ken. I’m a little on edge lately. Not your fault.”

“No problem—and, hey, give me some credit. If I’d been tailing you I could have done a better job than that.” He laughed and nodded in the direction of the Hideaway. “You working or grabbing a beer?”

“The latter.”

“Well, why don’t you let me buy a round, and I’ll try to talk you into doing the former.”

“That kind of visit, huh?”

“That kind of visit,” he said, starting toward the bar.

“Where are you from?” I asked, falling in step beside him. I knew most of the private investigators in the area, by name if not by face, but neither Ken Merriman’s name or face was familiar.

“Pittsburgh,” he said.

“Keep your voice down, man. People in this neighborhood hear Pittsburgh, they turn violent. It’s the home of the Steelers, you know.”

“The proud home,” he agreed as we reached the front steps.

“I also haven’t worked on anything that involved Pittsburgh in a long time,” I said, reaching for the door handle. “So whatever brings you up here must have a local tie.”

“It did once, at least.”

“Did?”

“About twelve years ago.”

I was holding the door open for him, but he stopped on the top step, looking at my face.

“Twelve years?” My voice was hollow.

He nodded.

“There’s a name I don’t want to hear you say,” I said.

“Which one? Cantrell or Sanabria?” He winked at me and walked into the bar.

8

__________

Draper wasn’t behind the bar, but I didn’t care anymore—Ken Merriman had just obliterated my plan for a relaxed evening. I followed him as he walked to the back of the narrow dining room and slid into a booth.

“What do you want to drink?” I said.

“No waitress?”

“Not till five. What do you want?”

“Guinness would be good.”

He handed me a ten, and I walked back to the bar and got his Guinness and a Moosehead for myself, then came back and sat down across from him. There’d been a few guys at the bar, but we were the only people in the dining room.

I lifted my beer and nodded at him. “Here’s to unwanted visitors from Pittsburgh.”

“Come on, don’t say that. Here’s to fellow PIs, wouldn’t that be friendlier?” He grinned and lifted his glass. “To Sam Spade.”

“To Sam Spade,” I agreed, then touched my bottle off his glass and took a drink. He was a damned likable guy, easygoing and good-humored, but that didn’t make the purpose of his visit appealing.

“I wish you’d just made a phone call so I could’ve told you not to waste your time,” I said, “but as long as you made the drive, I’ll tell you what I can—nothing. Somebody asked me to look into the property, see where the owners had gone. I was dangerously uninformed and had no idea that what was left of one owner was in a coroner’s lab somewhere and that the other owner was related to Lenny Strollo’s best pal.”