“I suppose.”
“I mean, it’s not like some guy in Iraq or Afghanistan is going to come over here to settle some grudge.”
“Maybe it was someone closer to home,” I offered. Briefly, I told her about Stan’s fight with the guy at the car auction the day before, and how Sarah was supposed to pass on what I’d told her to Colby.
“She did, I think. Colby said he might be giving you a call later.” She shook her head. Her chin quivered. “A bunch of us are going across the street after the edition closes. Hoist a few to the memory of Stan. You want to come?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like to do that. Let me get a couple of other things out of the way.” I turned a bit in my chair, and it was then that Nancy noticed the side of my face. She reached out tentatively, like she was going to touch it, but stopped.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” I said.
I phoned Mercy General to see how Lawrence Jones was doing. Still critical, but he hadn’t lost any ground. Even managed to say a couple of words, the nurse told me unofficially. I asked her to tell him Zack was asking about him, and that I would come by and see him tomorrow if they had him out of intensive care.
My story on Lawrence was in the Metro section. They’d cut about a third out of it. While it seemed like a big deal to me, Lawrence Jones was no household name. Maybe if he’d still been a cop, and had been hurt while on duty, the story would have gotten better play. The thing was, at this point, I didn’t give a rat’s ass what they did with the story.
Eleven o’clock rolled around, and reporters and editors started slipping on their coats, moving almost in slow motion, as if they were off to Stan’s funeral and not just a booze-up to remember him.
Someone called over to me. “Zack, you joining us?”
I nodded, and was slipping my own jacket on when the cell phone in my pocket started ringing.
“Hey, Dad,” Angie said.
“Sweetheart,” I said. “You okay?”
“Well, yeah, I’m fine, but the car isn’t.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just dropped off my friend? We swung by the house, and I got this book, and then I had to go over to Eastland? To drop off my friend?”
“Okay, you said that.”
“And when I came back out to the car, it wouldn’t start. You said to call if I had a problem.”
“Why did you have to turn off the car, if you were just dropping your friend off?” I asked.
A short pause. “I just went up, just for a second, to my friend’s apartment. And when I came back, it wouldn’t start. It went kind of ning, ning but nothing happened after that.”
Nice going, Otto.
“Hang on a sec,” I said. I called over to Nancy, who was heading to the elevator, and told her I wouldn’t be able to make it, that my daughter had car trouble. I was on my feet now, still talking to Angie, but headed for the back stairs, which would get me out to the car faster since they opened out onto the parking lot.
“I might fade in and out a bit,” I said, going down the concrete stairwell.
“You what?” Static, Angie’s voice breaking up.
“Just hang on, I’ll be out in the parking lot in a second.”
“The what? I can’t hear you, Dad. You’re breaking up.”
I went down the steps two at a time, burst through the metal door at the bottom and out into the lot.
“Hear me better now?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
“So, where are you?”
“I’m on Eastland, a couple blocks up from that Dairy Queen? You know the one, where we’d stop sometimes after I had ballet lessons?”
I had an instant image of her, maybe ten years before, at one of her recitals, in pink tights and leotard, dancing across the stage. It had been a few years since Angie had taken ballet, but I knew the place where we would often stop for an ice cream or a chocolate shake on our way home.
“Okay, I think I know,” I said, getting out my keys and getting into the Camry. “So, how far up?”
“There’s a big apartment building, and some angled parking out front, and I’m pulled into one of those spots. On the right side, as you’re coming up?”
“Okay. It should take me ten minutes, maybe, tops. You okay there?”
“I guess.”
“You all alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Just sit tight then, lock the doors. I’ll be able to find you, and if I can’t, I’ll call you back. And if I can’t get the car started, we’ll call the auto club, get it towed to Otto’s so he can have another look at it.”
“Okay. Can you still talk to me, Dad? Can you keep talking to me while you drive up?”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
“This person, that I gave a lift to?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it was a guy.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “I don’t think I ever would have guessed.” I was out of the Metropolitan lot now, heading west. “Someone from class?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a couple lectures together.”
“He got a name?”