eighteenth-century British novel at Sangamon State University was taking on the president of the United States, solemnly doing his part to condemn and execute the president for everything from how he liked his eggs prepared to what he was or wasn’t doing to stop the three-hundred-year-old battle between two small tribes in Gabon. The professor, with a reedy, excited voice, seemed to have memorized or was reading a list of offenses about which the professor had strong opinions. Lew listened through oil drilling in Alaska (the professor was against it), housing for the homeless (he was for it), saying Jesus in school or Wal-Mart (he was against it), abortion (he thought it was a good idea), intelligent design (he didn’t see much evidence for it).
There was a call-in number. If he had a phone, Lew would have called in and asked if the man had any jokes he could share.
Lew turned off the radio when Lee stopped at a gas station to refuel and pick up a cup of coffee and a prepackaged box of half-a-dozen glazed chocolate donuts. Lew hurried to the men’s room, past the urinal and into the stall that had a door that closed but didn’t lock.
Lew finished and started to get up. The outside door to the men’s room opened. Under the partition Lew could see Victor Lee’s legs as he moved to the urinal.
“You’re driving the white Cutlas?” Lee asked flatly.
“Yes.”
“You’re following me.”
“You?”
“The SUV,” Lee said.
“I’m driving down to Urbana,” Lew said. “Class reunion. I think I did see you on the road but…”
“Forget it. Sorry,” said Lee, flushing the urinal.
Lew waited till he heard the door close. Lee was going out the front door with his coffee and donuts when Lew moved to the refrigerator case, pulled out a sandwich wrapped tight in see-through plastic, grabbed a bottle of vanilla Diet Coke and pulled out his wallet to pay the skinny sullen girl behind the bulletproof glass window. Lee was just pulling out of the lot. Lew thought he could see the man holding up a donut.
“No protein,” Lew said.
“Fresh out,” the girl said, brushing back her stringy straw-colored hair. “Had some last week I think.”
“Some…?”
“Protein.”
She handed him his change.
“I was talking about the man who just left,” Lew said.
“Your friend, the Jap guy?”
“He’s not my friend and he’s Chinese.”
“Same difference,” she said, sliding the change to Lew through the two-inch gap at the bottom of the glass plate. “All gonna get our jobs. Indians, Japs, Chinks. We’re fuckin’ obsolete.”
She looked at him, arms folded, waiting to see if he would agree.
Lew shrugged. Lee’s car was out of sight and he was probably two donuts to the wind.
“Got nothing against them,” the girl said, brushing her hair back again. “Sister’s husband is one of ’em. Good guy. Works in a tire shop in Chester. Oh, shit, almost forgot. Chink guy with the donuts and no protein told me to give you this.”
She picked up a small lined sheet that had been torn from a notebook and slid it to him. It had been written quickly, was hard to read: Boneyard Tavern tonight.
There was no signature.
There was no need to hurry.
“You’re from Chicago, right?” the girl asked.
“Right.”
“Been there,” she said, looking over her thin shoulder in the general direction of Chicago. “Too big. Been to St. Louis too. Too big in a different way. Know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
Lew looked down at the sandwich. It was tuna salad on white. He unwrapped it.
“How old are you?” he asked.
She turned to face him.
“Young, mostly. Seventeen. You?”
“Forty-two.”
“You hitting on me?” the girl said with a smile. “Wouldn’t be the first.”
“No,” Lew said. “The man who left this note…”
“The chink,” she said.
“Did he say anything?”
“To me? Just ‘Give this to the guy in the washroom.’ He did say something to himself though, come to think on it. He said, I think he said, “‘No more.’”
Ames McKinney waited for two hours. The sun was going down and a quartet of teens who said fuck a lot were laughing in the DQ parking lot beyond Lew’s office window.
He picked up the phone and punched in the number Earl Borg had left. It took Borg one ring to answer.
“Yes.”
“Name’s McKinney. I work with Lewis Fonesca. He’s out of town.”
“And you can help me?”
“I can try,” said Ames. “Till he gets back.”
Silence.
“I have an thirteen-year-old daughter,” Borg said. “She’s missing.”
“Called the police?”
“No. If I told them what happened, they wouldn’t believe me. I have a… let’s call it reputation and history with the police that make me less than reputable. The problem is that my daughter does not have my name. Neither does her mother. We were never married. I have no evidence, except the word of the girl’s mother that she is mine. And I doubt if the girl’s mother would vouch for my paternity to the police.”
“You think she was kidnapped?”
“I’m certain.”
“Know where she might be?”
“Yes, and who took her. There is a reason I can’t look for her myself.”
“Tell me what I need to know,” Ames said.
“Don’t do anything till you talk to Fonesca,” Borg said.
“Won’t.”
“Okay,” said Borg, who told his story.
When Ames hung up the phone, it began to ring immediately.
Inevitable. He had put it off. He didn’t want to do it, but he had, he was sure, very few options. From the alley on the South Side, he had fired a single bullet in the hope that it would get Lew Fonesca to back off, let his wife’s memory rest, go back to Florida. It was a hope he had no faith in even when he fired, the shot coming closer to Fonesca’s head than he had planned.
Okay, so he could simply shoot himself, which he had no intention of doing for many reasons. It would cancel any insurance payments. He could kill Lew Fonesca. That he did not want to do. It wasn’t that he was against killing. He had done it before, twice in the last two days. No, he truly liked Fonesca. Fonesca, sad as he was, didn’t deserve to be murdered.
Fonesca wanted to know who had killed his wife and why. Not unreasonable, but if he kept looking, Fonesca would find out what he had done. It would end the shooter’s life, his reputation, his family, his freedom.
Fonesca had to die.
