off. Maybe it doesn’t matter and I should just do something before the night is over.
And you know what, Alex? This would be a really good time to have your gun with you. Too bad it’s in a shoe box in the bottom of your closet, five hours away in the Upper Peninsula.
Never mind. Let’s go.
I picked the passenger’s side. I inched my way around to the back window, took a peek. One man. He had earphones on, which was good. Less chance of hearing me. He was looking down at something. Maybe reading? Also good.
Is this door open? Yes. It was an older car, with the good old-fashioned metal lock sticking up a good two inches in the air. God bless old Cadillacs.
Here goes nothing.
I yanked the door open.
A gun. Right there on the passenger’s seat. I grabbed it, just before he could reach for it himself. The man screamed his way through a few syllables until he could finally put words together. “Oh my God, you son of a bitch, I’m dying, for the love of… What the hell are you doing? Who are you?”
“Good evening,” I said, sitting down next to him. “You must be Miles Whitley.”
“Oh goddamn it,” he said, holding onto the steering wheel. “I’m dying here.”
“Calm down,” I said. “Get a hold of yourself.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you son of a bitch. Oh my God.”
I looked him over. He was big, like Maria had said. A solid 250 pounds, easy. He was even bigger than Leon. His hair was thin, and he’d combed it over, in a losing battle to cover his head. His face was rounded and gray, the kind of face you see with a cigar in it down at the racetrack. The earphones had slipped off his ears and were now around his neck. As I looked down, I saw the stain all over his pants. In his left hand, he held a mason jar filled halfway with what could only be urine. I made every effort not to look at anything else.
“God, my back,” he said through gritted teeth. “My whole back is locked up now. Goddamn it all.”
“Looks like I caught you in the middle of something,” I said. “I do apologize.”
“Goddamn it all, who are you?” he said. He found the lid to the mason jar and screwed it on. Then he started waving his hands around like a man who desperately needs a paper towel.
“My name is Alex McKnight,” I said. “I left you a message today.”
“So what?” he said. He started to arch his back. “Goddamn it all.”
“You didn’t call me back,” I said. “I was worried about you.”
He looked at me, really looked at me in the eyes for the first time. “What, is that some kind of a joke?”
“I got a million of ’em,” I said. I looked down at all the stuff he had piled around him: newspapers, some candy bar wrappers, a bottle of Vernors ginger ale. I picked up one of the newspapers and saw the UHF receiver, which was plugged into the cigarette lighter. On the floor, there was a metal box with a lock, just as Leon had predicted. “You obviously get all the right catalogs,” I said. “Didn’t you see the special surveillance pants you can buy, with the little pissing tube in it? Just like the astronauts use in outer space?”
“Are you gonna tell me what the hell you want? Jesus, my back.”
“I want to know where Harwood is,” I said.
“Who’s that?”
“The man who’s paying you to sit here listening to a woman who’s scared half to death,” I said. “The man who paid you to break into her house.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I got an idea,” I said. I flipped open the revolver, saw the back ends of six bullets. “You should learn to clean your gun, Miles.”
“You should learn to blow it out your ass.”
“Here’s my idea,” I said. “The other day, somebody held a gun against my knee and asked me what it would feel like if he pulled the trigger. Sort of like this.” I put the barrel of the gun against his right knee.
He looked down at the gun. He didn’t say anything.
“Of course, this man had a shotgun,” I said. “So you can imagine what I was thinking. One blast and my knee would have been gone. Nothing but knee soup all over the walls.”
I saw him swallow.
“Now, a little revolver like this,” I said. “It’s not going to cause nearly as much damage. Of course, you’ve got six bullets in here.”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said.
“The first bullet would probably penetrate right under the kneecap. Do you think it would come out the other side?”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said again.
“How do you know that?” I said.
“Because you can’t.”
“The second bullet would probably shatter the kneecap itself,” I said. “I think you’d forget all about your bad back at least.”
“I’m just working here,” he said. “You know that. You’re a private dick yourself. You said so in your message.”
“Private dick? You actually call it that?”
“What do you want?” he said.
“Harwood, the man who hired you,” I said. “Do you know why he’s been looking for that woman all these years?”
He looked down at the gun. “I don’t need to know that.”
“Of course not. Not if he’s paying you enough.”
“I’m just keeping things together,” he said. “You know how it is. It’s a tough business.”
“Do you have a cell phone in here?”
“Under your seat.”
“I hope I don’t accidentally pull the trigger,” I said as I reached for it. “There it is.” I flipped it open and turned it on. It scanned for two seconds and then locked right in. “You’ve got a better phone than I do, I’ll say that much for you.”
“Who are you calling?”
“My client,” I said. “You know how it is. You’ve got to check in now and then, keep the customer happy.”
Maria picked up on the first ring.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Alex! My God! What happened? Where are you?”
“I’m right outside,” I said. “On the street. I’m hanging out with Mr. Whitley.”
“The man in the car? Alex, how did you… I mean, I was so worried when you hung up the phone before. I was afraid you-”
“Everything’s okay,” I said. “You can relax now. Mr. Whitley has a much better cell phone. He was kind enough to let me use it.”
I could hear her take a deep breath. “Thank God,” she said. “I didn’t know what to think.”
“It sounds like I missed a good story.”
“You did,” she said. “Too bad.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t even try.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “If you’re right outside, why are we talking on the phone? Do you want me to go out there?”
“No, that would be embarrassing for Mr. Whitley, I’m afraid.” I took the gun away from his knee and leaned back in the seat. Something brushed the top of my head. It was the fabric on the car’s ceiling, hanging down like some kind of harem tent. The smell of the car, a mixture of sweat and urine and God knows what else, was starting to get to me.
This was not going to be pleasant, but it was the only way. I had no idea how long it would take. Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe all night.
“You stay there,” I said. “We’ve got a little trip to make.”
