“What, this is work?”
Manny smiled without looking away from the speck in the air. “I’m a high-tech motherfucker, mano. This thing does a programmed run over the house, the software takes all the measurements. Square footage, hips and valleys, all the flashing. The clients fucking love it. I send them the video with my proposal, they think, shit, that’s how you do estimates? Imagine how you’d do my roof.”
Manny Martinez wasn’t tall, but he had broad sloping shoulders and legs like tree trunks. He’d been one of Peter’s platoon sergeants in Iraq. Once during a firefight, Peter had seen Manny throw another sergeant, Big Jimmy Johnson, shot in the leg and bleeding out, over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry him to the MRAP a half-mile away. Big Jimmy had outweighed Manny by sixty pounds at least.
Jimmy was dead now, but it wasn’t because of Manny.
A lot of them were dead.
But Manny was clearly alive and well. He wore clean Carhartts and a crisp white button-down shirt with a fresh shave and a high fade sharp enough to cut. He had a dozen employees and drove a nearly new pickup. He had a wife and two little kids.
The tablet beeped and the video stopped moving. Manny touched the screen and the little quadcopter drone homed in like the world’s largest mosquito. When it touched down on the driveway, his grin made him look like he was eight years old.
His friend had made a life here. He was thriving. Peter couldn’t get him involved.
Manny picked up the drone and headed back toward his truck. “So what’s up? Stella said you had something serious.”
Peter said, “It’s not like that. I’m back in Seattle for a few days, and I wanted to say hey. Maybe we can grab dinner before I head out?”
Manny looked at him. It was the same solid, steady stare that could see through walls and around corners, that could find ambushes before they happened. The eight-year-old boy was gone.
“Don’t bullshit me, Ashes. What are you into?”
Peter shook his head. “Forget it, Manny. You’re doing great. You’ve got a family, people depending on you. I have no business asking you for anything.”
The muscles flexed in Manny’s jaw. “Listen, Ashes? What would really piss me off? You end up dead and I’m not there to stop it. Because if it weren’t for you, I’d have been dead years ago. Same goes for half the guys working for me. You did what had to be done, what nobody else had the balls to do. You called down the fire and you took the heat for it. So you name the time and place, we’ll be there. That’s how this works.”
Peter sighed. “This shows every sign of getting ugly,” he said. “You set up for that?”
Manny snorted. “You forget who the fuck you’re talking to?”
“No,” said Peter. “I didn’t forget. It’s why I’m here.”
“Goddamn right,” said Manny. “When and where?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you in a day or two.”
Manny told him the number.
“By the way,” he said. “Stella’s single again. If I was you, I’d watch your ass.”
“I was never here,” said Peter. “We never talked.”
26
Four hours later, Peter rolled back down June’s driveway and parked the minivan beside a big black BMW 7 series with a dented rear fender and a long scrape along the driver’s side.
He’d continued north on I-5, waiting for the laptop to run out of power. As the battery got very low, the computer kept shutting itself down, and he had to keep turning it back on until the battery was fully exhausted and it would no longer restart. He was past Edmonds before he finally shut the lid and used the next exit to head south again.
With the navigational help of his phone, he made a quick stop at Dunn Lumber in Wallingford, then limped through REI’s enormous flagship store. It turned out you could carry a lot in a minivan.
His last stop on the way back to June’s apartment was a big QFC grocery store. He forced himself to walk slowly down the aisles, breathing through the rising static as he filled the cart. Gradual desensitization. It wasn’t easy.
The reward was getting to cook a real meal in a real kitchen.
For June, who was the most vivid woman he’d ever met.
He was planning to ask about her dad after dinner. He’d have to tell her he’d asked Lewis to look into her mother. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
But when he opened her door, juggling four full bags of groceries, he saw her sitting on the couch beside a round-shouldered young man hunched over a laptop computer.
“Knock knock,” said Peter.
June looked up. Her fat lip was still purple but the swelling was down even more. She’d clearly showered and changed her clothes. He wondered how she would smell now.