“Yeah-hah, we admitted a dislocated knee last night… Oh-oh, says it was a motor vehicle accident.”
“Says it was a motor vehicle accident?” Behr wondered aloud. That’s probably what one would say, he figured. “Is there a police report?”
Heath clicked some keys and started nodding. “Yep. There is. Other driver was admitted too-steering wheel busted his sternum. Oh well.”
“That it?”
“Sorry, bro. Baby with a fever, heart attack, yada-yada-ya…”
“See you later,” Behr said.
“Yeah, funny papers,” Heath said to his back.
Behr spent the day having similar versions of the same conversation at the most likely half dozen other emergency rooms in the vicinity, from Community Hospital Anderson to Methodist, all the way up to St. Vincent. His wallet was $160 lighter for it, thanks to the fact that one sharpie behind a desk held out for a $40 “tip.”
Behr sat in the Steak ’N’ Shake on Arlington chowing down a steak burger, his late lunch/early dinner. Aurelio’s assailants either weren’t hurt, they were smart enough not to go for medical help in the area, or they were from somewhere else and had gone back there. Whatever the case, running around cloud-seeding for information was not something Behr was in a position to afford for very long, he realized. Especially with zero paying clients currently on the roster. He had wanted his mind to be clean and free to pursue this, but giving back Shipman’s retainer might have been a fiscal mistake. He pushed his basket plate away before he was done, leaving an edge of hunger, the way he did when he was on a case, when his cell phone rang and he checked the incoming number. It was Susan, calling from her home. She must’ve gone straight there after work. Behr took a pull of his soda and answered.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey, Frank,” her voice came across the line.
“Hey back.”
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine. You?”
“That’s funny, you sound kind of effed up.”
“Do I? Must be the connection.” There was a staticky silence. “Look, I’m sorry about before,” he said.
“Yeah, same,” she said back. It was easy enough to say, but the words changed absolutely nothing between them.
“So we’d talked about dinner and sleeping at my place,” she said, sounding hesitant. “We were gonna leave earlyish for Lake Monroe, remember? We still on for that?” she wondered.
“Yeah, no, I don’t think so…,” he began.
“No to all of it?” she asked, her back already starting to get up.
“Just the dinner and sleeping over part. I’ve got some stuff I’ve gotta run down tonight, and a quick thing early morning.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice tight.
“I could come by late night if-”
“No, thanks… I mean, just do what you need to do. I’ll go to sleep early and…” Her voice wavered between stiff and kind.
“But tomorrow we’ll go. You promised your office, right?”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, we’ll go.”
“I’m worried about you-”
“Don’t be. Look, I got another call coming in,” he said. “Just call me in the morning when-”
“Will do,” he said, and clicked off. He put the phone down and sat in silence. There was no other call.
Behr drove around burning some gas and thinking. He had zero interest in picnicking on a lake with people from Susan’s work tomorrow, but he’d said he would and that was that. He dialed the “D” and the “P” from Aurelio’s book. The first number yielded a recording that told him the number was not in service. The second wouldn’t go through, and as the number was missing an area code, Behr suspected it wasn’t local. He tried some Illinois and Michigan prefixes, but it wasn’t working. He dialed the number listed “F.” A voice mail picked up after four rings and pop music he didn’t recognize played for a few seconds as an outgoing message, then there was a beep.
“My name is Frank Behr, and I’m calling about Aurelio Santos. Please call me back…” He left his number and hung up. “CC” was Commerce Credit, a bank. The other two turned out to be jiu-jitsu students he hadn’t met. One mentioned the memorial service at noon on Sunday at the academy.
“I’ll be there,” Frank said and hung up, and then drove around until the streets began to glitter under the streetlights in the coming dark.
At about 7:45 he placed a call to his friend Jean Gannon at the coroner’s office.
“Jean? Frank Behr.”
“The bad news blues,” she sighed.
“How are ya-”
“What? Which? How much is it gonna cost me?”
“Santos, Aurelio. Late thirties, Brazilian. GSW to-”
“To what’s left of the face,” Jean jumped in. “I heard about it. Didn’t catch it though.”
“Damn. Any way for me to get a look?”
Breathing was all that came back across the line.
“C’mon, I’ll be your best friend.”
“Position’s not open.”
“I’ll buy you a year’s subscription to Cat Fancy-”
“Screw off, Behr. I’m divorced, not a dyke.”
“Ah, what’s the difference?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you know when I do.” There was a beat of silence. “Come around nine o’clock, night guys will be out at dinner.”
“I’ll bring you the usual-” But she’d hung up the phone.
TEN
Terry Schlegel warmed up with one eighty-five on the bench while T. Rex played in the back office of Rubber House. The clang of a socket wrench hitting the cement floor out in the garage bay of the tire change and alignment shop reached him from time to time. After a dozen reps, he re-racked the bar, took a swig of water, and popped a creatine lozenge into his mouth. The shit tasted rancid, like sour orange chemicals, but he was all out of the flavorless powder version. He’d been drinking protein shakes for years to keep the muscle on his light-heavy’s frame, but when he’d passed forty-five he started to feel the need for some extra oomph. He’d never considered juicing though-nothing that would shrink his liver or his ’nads. No thank you. He’d never do anything to mess with his dick. That was an absolute rule. No Viagra, no Cialis, no MaxiDerm-none of that crap. So far there’d been no need, and he planned on keeping it that way. Maybe he was just being superstitious.
Terry added twenty-five-pound plates to the bar and thought about blood and business. It had been a busy time, and it was soon to be busier still. Then Marc Bolan’s voice slid in low and sly over crushed-down guitars.
“Well you’re dirty and sweet, clad in black don’t look back and I love you. You’re dirty and sweet, oh yeah…”
His mind naturally went to Vicky. It was a big song for them back when they started going out twenty-three years ago. An oldie already at the time, but big all the same. She was nineteen, only a few years younger than he was, but it seemed like a lot. She had a little slip of a body back then. The straps of her bra and panties cut white lines against her taut, flat skin, out in his car at what they all called “Penetration Park.” She was a bit more of a cruiser these days, but she still looked good, and after all the shit they’d been through and had beat-getting married and raising the boys and all-he felt a stirring even now. See, he thought, some things you just don’t mess with…
