“Really? Can I see your badge?”
His tone tells me he’s not trying to verify my credentials, he just wants to see an FBI badge up close. I pull the trifold wallet from my back pocket and hold it out so he can get a good long look.
“That’s really cool,” he says at length. “So … if I wanted to be an FBI guy, what would I have to do? You have to have, like, college for that, right?”
“In most cases,” I reply shortly, while thinking, You haven’t got a prayer, buddy. “You also have to pass a background check, a psychological evaluation, and a polygraph before you’re even considered.”
“Of course,” he replies in a serious tone. “That sounds like the kind of change I need. Like, this is my fourth job in six months and they all pay minimum wage, which I can barely live on, even with food stamps. I bet you guys do pretty good, huh? Paywise, I mean?” He gives me an up-and-down look. “Yeah, you guys make bank. I can tell.” He lowers his voice a little and leans across the counter. “So, like, if you’ve used drugs, would that be a disqualifier?”
“What kind of drugs?”
“Marijuana.”
“You can sometimes get a waiver—”
“Well, and some Oxycontin, but my therapist says that’s not my fault ’cause it was prescribed to me after my gallbladder surgery.”
“If it was a prescribed medicine, that’s fine—”
“It was just the first fifteen that were prescribed. I kinda got hooked ’cause I was crushing them up and snorting them. After that I had to score them wherever I could, which was mostly forty-dollar pills from this guy I used to get my coke from.”
“Cocaine?”
“Yeah.” His face suddenly scrunches up. “That’s probably bad, right?”
I open my mouth to reply and nothing comes out. I close my mouth and then open it again. Still nothing. This guy is not much younger than I am and he probably spends a good amount of time complaining about how he never gets any breaks and how he’s always stuck with dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.
Even if I took the time and explained to him that all of this—this train wreck of a life he’s living—is his fault, he wouldn’t believe me. It would always be someone else’s fault: a high school teacher, his deadbeat father, his probation officer, his boss, the rich, his ex-girlfriend, global warming. The recipient of the blame would be meaningless because it would be ever-changing. The real culprit, the cause of this broken, dysfunctional life, watches him every morning from the other side of a mirror.
My father once told me that the easiest lie we tell is the one we tell ourselves, because we already know what we want to believe.
Just then Jimmy shuffles through the glass entry door, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets. I use the distraction to steer the conversation back on track.
“How about that security footage?”
*
Forty-five minutes later we finish reviewing the video from the last of the exterior cameras. Sad Face covered his tracks well. His parking spot was beyond the range of the cameras and his entrance to and egress from the back of the property went undetected. He was either incredibly lucky or he scouted the location carefully before making his move.
We have nothing.
Dex calls while we’re on the way back to the hotel to dry off and change clothes. “Jane and Pete have a luxury corner suite at the Chrysalis Inn, courtesy of your boss, Mr. Carlson,” he says. “They also have a security detail that will provide twenty-four-hour coverage. I think you can rest easy.”
“You made sure they weren’t followed?” Jimmy’s voice is more relaxed.
“We changed vehicles twice; once at Lynden PD, a second time at the sheriff’s office—inside the sally port where no one could see. We also had deputies running interference and blocking roads behind us. Unless this guy can fly without the benefit of an airplane and see through walls, there’s no way he followed us. They’re safe. They have room service and an incredible view of the water. Oh, and I think Jane’s going to want her own Jacuzzi tub when this is over.”
“Thanks, Dex,” Jimmy says. “Anything you need, you let me know. I owe you for this.”
“You owe me nothing. We take care of our own.”
*
The bag is a mound of supple leather the color of chocolate. It yawns open at the top to reveal a consuming mouth that devours anything placed inside: clothes, books, notebooks, cameras, dirty socks, shaving cream, and the other accoutrements that accompany frequent flights and unpredictable stays.
A sturdy leather flap folds over the bag’s top—a single massive lip to close the mouth. Three leather straps ending in brushed-nickel buckles serve to bind the mouth shut.
The mouth never speaks.
Though a thousand tales are folded into its creases and pressed into its chocolate, the bag remains silent. It bears the smell of leather that has too long marinated in adventure and misadventure, horror and joy. It’s the kind of smell that thrills and satisfies in great gulps so that you find your nose lingering near the open mouth, hoping to be breathed upon.
On each end of the mouth-bag are pockets small and large, each with its own zipper or strap, and of course there’s the main shoulder strap for lugging the beast around.
While the travel bag is only a replica of someone’s idea of a vintage early-1900s bag, it manages to capture a certain mix of Indiana Jones, John Wayne, and Allan Quatermain.
That’s not the reason I bought it, though.