“No money here,” said Lewis. “Sad story. All gone. Blew it at the track.”
“Uh-huh.” Lewis was a career criminal who had put his profits into real estate and the stock market. If Lewis had grown up in Palo Alto instead of a rust belt ghetto, Peter figured he’d be piloting some venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. He’d helped Peter with a problem in Milwaukee the year before. The way it had turned out, there was quite a bit of cash in the end. In an uncharacteristic move, Lewis had refused to take most of his share. He’d gotten a windfall of other intangible benefits: reconnecting with Dinah, his childhood sweetheart, and her two boys.
“Listen,” said Peter, “I can’t talk right now. Let me give you an account number.” He read the number that Al had written on a piece of notepaper, then told him the amount he’d agreed on for the Mustang.
“Gimme a sec,” said Lewis. Peter could hear the clicking of a keyboard. He imagined Lewis sitting at the long walnut table in his office, laptop at one end, 10-gauge shotgun broken down for cleaning at the other. “Done. Where the hell are you? You need a hand with anything?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know. Everybody okay on your end?”
“We’re good. Boys are growin’ like weeds. I’m over there every day, bein’ all domestic, but Dinah don’t want me to move in just yet.”
“She’s doing the right thing, you’re a bad influence. Hey, I need some walking-around money, too. Can you set up an account for me, put a few bucks in?”
“Jarhead.” Lewis said it the way someone else might say dumbass or dipshit. “We got more than twenty accounts. Switzerland, Caymans, Bank of fuckin’ America. You just need to log on.”
“A bear ate my ATM card.”
“Excuses, hell. Don’t be embarrassed, just say you lost it. Where are you?”
“North of San Francisco.”
“Let me know where you go to ground. Any half-ass city will do. I’ll hook you up.”
They said their good-byes and Peter turned away from the window. June was staring at him like he’d stepped out of a flying saucer.
Al had turned on his computer and was peering at the screen through his glasses, occasionally hitting a key or clicking the mouse. “Okay,” he said. “Money’s there.” He picked up his office phone and punched in a number. “Ma? Do me a favor and drive your van over here. I got a surprise for you. Ma, c’mon. You’re gonna like it, I promise.”
“Tell her to meet us in the back,” Peter said, still mindful of the black Ford Explorers and capable men with expensive guns.
In the back, they’d be out of sight from the road.
? ? ?
PETER LIMPED OUT of the shop’s rear door into low gray clouds like a ceiling overhead. It wasn’t standing on a mountaintop under clear blue skies, but it was better than being inside. The rain had started again, soft and cool, and his chest started to open up a little.
Although June had stopped looking at him.
Al’s mom was a round, smiling woman in a designer tracksuit with purple eye shadow and glossy black hair under an orange paisley scarf. When Al handed her the keys to the Mustang, she jumped up and down, smiling so wide they could see the lipstick on her teeth.
The Honda van was pale green and showroom-clean, with a pine-tree air freshener hung over the rearview mirror. “She’ll do a hundred,” said Al’s mom. She stood on the gravel talking to June, who’d climbed into the driver’s seat. “Rock solid at speed on a good road. And she’s like invisible to radar, the cops don’t even see her. Either that or they think you got screaming kids inside and they don’t want to deal with it.”
June revved the quiet engine, nodding to Al’s mom. Definitely not a muscle car, thought Peter. When Al’s mom hurried off to her new ride, Peter stepped over to the van’s open window. Was he waiting for an invitation? Maybe he was.
“So,” he said. “What do you think?”
She looked in the rearview mirror, at her hands on the wheel, anyplace but at Peter’s face. Her voice was ragged. “I don’t know who you are.”
He resisted the urge to touch her. “I’m just a guy,” he said. “I went to war and came home. Like a lot of people.”
“You’re not like other people.”
“Maybe not,” he admitted.
“I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“I was a lieutenant in the Marines. Of course you can trust me. I’m like a Boy Scout, with muscles.”
She turned to look him full in the face. “No,” she said. “You aren’t.”
God, she was tough. “June, you don’t owe me anything,” he said. “But I can protect you. Keep you safe.”
“Give me the gun,” she said.