And if you touch me with that finger again, I’m gonna snap it the fuck off.”
The short guy was a bomb about to go off. His face went flush red, his shoulders tensed, and even Stan, as fearless as he’d been a moment earlier, looked like he was getting ready to move sideways in a hurry if he had to.
But then Stan’s attacker began to notice that he was getting a lot of attention. People had stopped looking at cars and boats and motorcycles and turned their heads in the direction of the commotion, not sure whether to intercede, watch, or move on. The guy glanced around, his lips pressed firmly together, breathing in and out in short bursts through his flat, wide nose. He gave Stan a final shove up against the SUV and strode off in the direction of the paddock exit.
“You okay?” I said once I’d reached Stan.
He was unruffled, just checking his cameras for any damage. “Fucking little Nazi,” he said. “Thought I was at an Afghan checkpoint there for a minute.”
“He was crazy,” I said. “I thought he was going to explode there for a second.”
“A suicide bomber without the dynamite,” Stan said flippantly. “Anyway, good thing he decided to take a hike.” He smiled, nodding his head toward the crowd. “Too many witnesses around. I’ll have to watch myself in dark alleys for a while.”
Once I was sure Stan was fine, I rejoined Lawrence.
“Let’s bid on the Virtue,” I said. “But I don’t want to go over eight-five. Eight-six, maybe. But that’s it. Maybe eight-nine.” I’d started sweating again.
Lawrence said, “You’re grace under pressure, aren’t you?”
9
THE OLDER WOMAN who’d been eyeing the Virtue the same time I was bailed out at $8,800. And I managed to go through the bidding process without tugging my ear or nodding my head in such a way as to end up with a $100,000 yacht by mistake.
There was some paperwork to deal with, forms to fill out, and then the car was ours. And not just any car. But a fuel-conserving, environment-saving, socially responsible automobile. And yet, I had a feeling, once I got home with it, I was going to be made to feel like Charlie Brown after he came back with the spindly Christmas tree.
Actually, it wasn’t quite mine yet. Lawrence wrote the check, and once I’d repaid him by the end of the day, he’d transfer the ownership to me.
We split up outside the government auction headquarters. Lawrence left in his Jag, and I had the Virtue. I decided that its first adventure would be a drive down to the newspaper. The car’s mileage was relatively low, and it had cleaned up nicely. The ashtray didn’t even appear to have ever been used for anything but candy wrappers, and the coils on the lighter weren’t smudged with ash. What were the odds, a drug dealer who didn’t even smoke? Lawrence’s theory was that it had been a drug dealer’s wife’s or daughter’s car. How else to account for its pristine condition?
It was roughly the same size as our old Civic. Sleeker looking, too, but not necessarily peppier. I floored it as I got onto the highway and merged with traffic, and it felt a tad, well, anemic. But it hadn’t been my intention to buy a sports car. This vehicle was going to do just fine, and when you figured that I got it for about half the price of a new one, it was a hell of a good deal. There were times when I wasn’t even sure the car was still on. Sitting at red lights, when the electric motor took over to conserve fuel, the car was practically noiseless, like a golf cart. It wasn’t until the light changed, and I tapped the accelerator and moved, that I was certain the car was still in the game.
I found a metered spot on a side street around the corner from the
I set my paper cup down next to my “work station,” part of a cluster of four desks separated by chest-high partitions, and pressed a button on my computer to bring it to life. I dug my notebook out of my sports jacket and flipped it open as I slipped down into my chair. I was typing a possible first sentence for the auction feature when I sensed a presence over my left shoulder.
I whirled around in the chair, catching one of my fingers on the edge of my notebook. It was Sarah. “Hey,” I said, glancing at the side of my index finger where a slender red line was developing.
“Hey yourself. What the hell happened when I was talking to you on the phone? Why didn’t you call me back? If you’re trying to give me a heart attack, your plan’s working perfectly.”
For a moment, I couldn’t remember ending our conversation so abruptly. “Oh yeah. Some nutjob went ballistic on Stan. No biggie. He’s dealt with worse.”
“How am I supposed to know that if you don’t call me back?”
I didn’t see Sarah’s other staffers getting chewed out like this. “Could we just move on?” I asked.
She took a breath, let it out slowly. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m gonna knock off this auction feature, Metro can use it any time they want with the pics Stan took.” I sucked on the side of my index finger. It was stinging like hell.
“Okay. How long?”
“Twenty inches or so.”
“Let it run. There’s a lot of big holes in the section tomorrow.”
Welcome to the newspaper biz. No one cares what’s in your feature, just so long as it will fill the space.
“And this feature on Larry? Is it-”
“Lawrence.”
“Right. Lawrence. Is that thing going to be done soon, because I was telling the M.E. about it, that things got a bit hairy last night.”
“Did you really have to do that?”
“Zack, there was no way I could not tell the managing editor about that. If Magnuson finds out about it from someone else, then comes to me and asks why I didn’t let him know, I’m toast around here.”
“Okay, I get it. But you explained it, right? That it just happened? It wasn’t like I planned to be in a shootout.”
“Uh, pretty much. But he wants to see you.”
My stomach did a flip. “You’re not serious.”
“He said, ‘Would you be good enough to have Mr. Walker come by and see me?’ And I said of course. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea of you riding around in a car that’s taking shots at people. He also found it a bit hard to picture.”
“What does that mean?” I sucked on my finger again, winced.
“I don’t think he sees you as one of our more gung-ho staffers, risking his life to get a story.” She smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Of course, he doesn’t know you the way I do. What have you done to your finger?”
“Paper cut,” I said. “Hurts like the devil. You got any Band-Aids in your office?”
Sarah sighed. “It would help, what with you being summoned to see Magnuson, if we had something to show him, some sort of progress on the Lawrence feature.”
“We’re going out at least one more night, tonight. Things could easily come to a head, then I can wrap the whole thing up.”
“Couldn’t you write it up now? Surely you’ve got enough. I mean, you’ve got a major robbery, a guy left dead in the street, what more do you want? It’s not like you have to solve these clothing store robberies. That’s Lawrence’s job, and if it takes him another month, I can’t afford to lose you for that long.”
“You just don’t want me to go. That’s what this is about.”
“That’s not true. I’m speaking totally as your editor here.”
“You’re lying. I can tell. You’re getting that flushed look at the base of your neck there.”
