AK was a sick bastard. Not everyone’s All-American.”
“Varsity practice is where you find the sickest bastards around, in my experience,” she said. “But if you thought it was a dead end, why are we here?” Davis peeked to see if she was smiling. She was.
He had hoped this lead would be the one, of course, but he realized now Jimmy Spears wasn’t the only reason he had come all this way. He realized now that it was for a moment with her like this – alone, in secret, a little bit illicit – in a strange bar, miles from home, an elevator ride from a pair of rented hotel rooms – no smoking, king-sized – one in his name, one in hers.
“You never know,” was all he said.
To Davis, Joan looked ready to confess, though to what, he could only guess. He had imagined the two of them intimately together – frequently, in fact – but allowed himself only glimpses before banishing the image and reproaching himself. His dreams brought to life other boys and men who must have had her: high school infatuations, college toys, med school flings. He envied them all. And he hated the monster that had taken Joan in Houston, hated it almost as much as the thing that had stolen his daughter from him.
“Speaking of sick bastards,” she said, “have you looked at Justin’s psych reports?”
The “bastard” crack stung. He understood Joan’s sense of humor, loved it even, but since she’d first confronted him with evidence of Justin’s unique sort of illegitimacy, he’d been defensive about flippant references to the secret they kept, and despite her willingness to come along on this trip, a little hurt at the degree to which Joan’s efforts as accomplice continued to be reluctant, and even sarcastic. Plus he felt responsible for Justin. Paternal, in a way.
And he asked himself again, Why is she here? He considered the question when she agreed to come along, then again on the plane after they had wordlessly negotiated a sharing agreement for the armrest, their forearms pressed together.
“What about it?”
“You’re not concerned?”
“He’s a kid. Kids get in trouble.”
“Some kids do, yes. That’s why we call them ‘troubled.’ ”
“What are you getting at?”
“Aren’t you at all concerned that Justin has the genes of a killer and, at seven years old, already exhibits many of the warning signs of being a violent person himself?”
“Are you trying to say we made a monster?”
“Well, first of all, knock off the ‘we’ shit, Kemosabe.” Joan gestured for another Cabernet. “Second of all, aren’t you worried about it? Christ, Davis. Look at what’s happening. This kid is messed up.”
“Feh. Nature. Nurture. There hasn’t been a single cloning study that shows a hereditary link for the kind of violence you’re talking about. Genetics have nothing to do with it, Joan. If there’s ever been a killer who had a killer for a son, it’s because the child learned the behavior from his pop. Or because their socioeconomic circumstances were similar. Not because he scored the evil gene.”
“Stealing. Fascination with fire. Cruelty toward animals. That’s three of a kind, Davis. Jackpot.”
“You won’t convince me with mixed gambling metaphors.” He pinched his eyes. “Cruelty to animals? What are you talking about?”
“The neighbor’s dog died.”
“And?”
“The mother thinks he might have had something to do with it.”
“What about Morrow?”
“He’s not so sure. Justin denies it. Morrow likes him. Thinks he’s just bored.”
“Well, there you go. Probably a coincidence.”
“How can you be so flip about this?”
“His own psychologist isn’t worried.”
“And how worried do you think Morrow would be if he knew the truth about Justin?”
Davis’s glass was still half full of whiskey but he had the bartender’s attention so he ordered another round. The drinks were sipped more or less in silence and without regard for the man with the mustache and the expensive suit and the tiny leather notebook sitting alone at the table farthest from the door but in a chair with a good view of the bar.
They walked to Joan’s room and stood outside it for a long moment, as if something might be decided there, as if either one of them could change the entire trajectory of their lives with a smile, a raised eyebrow, an embarrassed laugh.
“Who’s Judge Forak?” Joan asked, and their eyes became tethered long enough for both of them to be comfortable with it.
“I have no idea,” Davis said. He laughed with a nervous release.
“Hunh,” Joan said, turning a few degrees toward the door, but letting her eyes float in her head, locked to his face like a compass to north.
“Good night, Joan,” Davis said finally.
“Good night.”
– 30 -
“He’s not giving you the money?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Rick Weiss hurled himself into the back of a kitchen chair and its legs belched against the linoleum. “He’s an asshole. An asshole that’s trying to rip us off.” He slapped the underside of the table with his knees.
“But it’s him, right? Jimmy Spears? Jimmy’s the guy he’s looking for?”
“Of course it’s Jimmy,” Rick said. “A rich judge like him don’t come all this way just to say no thanks. He could’ve done that on the computer.” He pushed aside the mail in dull number 10 envelopes and opened up the September 20 Sports Illustrated, paging through it without glimpsing a single photo or headline. Peg, his wife, sat down across from him, her pale face lined and worried, but not yet betraying that she had already run up a six- thousand-dollar debt with Visa that she had planned on paying with the bounty on Jimmy Spears’s head.
“Then why won’t he pay?” Peg squealed.
“Asshole,” Rick said.
“Asshole!” Peg said.
“Fucking crooked judge!” Rick said.
Every Saturday night, Ricky and Peg watched a TV show that profiled bank robbers and murderers and molesters on the lam, and twice they phoned in tips that, privately, they knew to be thin as 20-weight oil. When Peg came across the composite Davis had created at a crime stoppers Web site, however, she was certain they were clutching a pot of gold with both hands.
“Who does this look like to you?” Peg had asked that day, handing him the printout.
“Hell,” Rick said, curious, having not yet read the vague paragraph Davis had written to accompany his query. “That’s Jimmy.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Sure as shit.”
Jimmy Spears had been in Rick’s class, two years ahead of Peg. Rick was in a different social circle than Jimmy – shop/wrestling/chewing, as opposed to AP English/football/smoking – but Rick always thought Jimmy was a good guy. Since Jimmy’s appearance in the Rose Bowl, every between-classes encounter Rick had once shared with Jimmy in the Brixton High School hallway had been embellished into a hilarious buddy story to entertain the Thursday night crew at Millie’s Tap Room on Pioneer Street.
When he saw Jimmy’s face on that piece of paper, however, Rick conjured a new fantasy, one that would pay him and Peg $25,000. After exchanging e-mails with tips@justiceforak. com, after the visit to Brixton had been arranged, Rick could imagine a five-figure balance on every ATM receipt.
