Science Teacher didn’t strike me as stupid. If he’d wanted to kill me, he would have put two in the back of my head when I’d been kneeling on the floor of the unfinished kitchen.
“Stay away from Helene McCready.” He squatted in front of me, the gun dangling between his thighs as he gazed up into my face. “You snoop around her or her kid, you ask any questions, I’ll bullet-fuck your entire life.”
“Gotcha,” I said with a nonchalance I didn’t feel.
“
He stood and stepped back as I made it to my feet. I walked into the kitchen and found the roll of paper towels on the floor. I pulled off a wad and pressed it to my face. He stood in the doorway, staring at me, the gun in his waistband. My own gun sat back in the desk at Duhamel-Standiford. Not that it would have done me any good after Tadeo hit me in the head with a pipe. Then they would have just taken the gun, and I’d be out a laptop, a laptop bag, and a gun.
I looked over at him. “I gotta go to an ER and get my face stitched up, but don’t worry, I don’t take it personally.”
“Gosh,” he said, “you promise?”
“You threatened my life, but I’m cool with that, too.”
“Darn white of you, too.” He blew a bubble and let it snap.
“But,” I said, “you stole my laptop and I really can’t afford to buy a new one. Don’t suppose you’d give that back to me?”
He shook his head. “Finders keepers.”
“I mean, that fucks me up, man, but I’m not going to turn it into something it ain’t. Because it’s just business. Right?”
“If it ain’t, ‘business’ will do until the right word shows up.”
I pulled the paper towels from my face. They were a mess. I folded them over and put the wad back to the side of my head for a minute, looked again at the redheaded science teacher standing in the doorway.
“So be it,” I said and dropped the red wad of paper towels on the floor, tore off a fresh batch, and let myself out of the house.
Chapter Six
When we sat down to eat, Angie looked across the table at me with the same controlled fury she’d been wearing since she got a good look at my face, heard about my trip to the health center, and ascertained that I was, in fact, not going to die tonight.
“So,” she said, “let’s start at the beginning.” She speared a few pieces of lettuce. “Beatrice McCready finds you at JFK Station.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And she tells you her smutty sister-in-law misplaced her daughter again.”
“Helene’s smutty?” I said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
My wife smiled. Not the nice smile. The other one.
“Daddy?”
I looked over at our daughter, Gabriella. “Yeah, honey?”
“What’s smutty?”
“It’s like kooky,” I said, “only it rhymes with slutty.”
“What’s slutty?”
“It’s like ooky,” I said, “except it doesn’t rhyme with kooky. Why aren’t you eating your carrots?”
“You look funny.”
“I wear big bandages on my face every Thursday.”
“No suh.” Gabriella’s eyes grew wide and solemn. She had her mother’s big brown eyes. She also had her olive skin and wide mouth and dark hair. From me she’d gotten curls, a thin nose, and a love of silliness and wordplay.
“Why aren’t you eating your carrots?” I asked again.
“I don’t like carrots.”
“You did last week.”
“No suh.”
“Uh-huh.”
Angie put her fork down. “Don’t start this, the both of you. Do not.”
“No suh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No suh.”
“Uh-huh. I got pictures.”
“No suh.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll get my camera.”
Angie reached for her wineglass. “Please?” She fixed me with eyes as huge as our daughter’s. “For me?”
I looked back at Gabriella. “Eat your carrots.”
“Okay.” Gabby dug a fork into one and plopped it in her mouth, chewed. Her face lit up around the chewing.
I raised my eyebrows at her.
“It’s good,” she said.
“Right?”
She speared another one and munched away.
Angie said, “I’ve been watching it for four years and I still don’t know how you do that.”
“Ancient Chinese secret.” Very slowly, I chewed a tiny chunk of chicken breast. “By the way, not sure what you’ve heard, but it’s kinda hard eating when you can’t use the left side of your mouth.”
“You know what’s funny?” Angie asked in a voice that suggested something wasn’t.
“I do not,” I assured her.
“Most private investigators don’t get kidnapped and assaulted.”
“The practice is rumored to be trending upward, however.”
She frowned and I could feel both of us trapped inside ourselves, not sure what to do with today’s violence. There was a time we would have been experts at it. She would have tossed me an ice pack on her way to the gym, expected me to be raring to get back to work by the time she got back. Those days were long gone, though, and today’s return to easy bloodshed drove us into our protective shells. Her shell is made of quiet fury and wary disconnection. Mine is made of humor and sarcasm. Together we resemble a comedian failing an anger- management class.
“It looks awful,” she said with a tenderness that surprised me.
“It only feels four or five times as bad as it looks. Really. I’m fine.”
“That’s the Percocet.”
“And the beer.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to mix the two.”
“I refuse to bow to conventional wisdom. I’m a decider. And I’ve decided I want to feel no pain.”
“How’s that working out?”
I toasted her with my beer. “ Mission accomplished.”
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“I like trees.”
“I like trees, too, honey.”
“They’re tall.”
