Birk looked hurt. “Unless we sell some of the farm equipment. It’ll take time, but I could raise more.”
Underfunded and on a clock—things were getting off on stellar footing. Still, Gibson told him to hold off; he didn’t like the idea of crippling the Birks’ farm on a hunch. He gave Birk instructions on setting up an offshore bank account. If they got lucky and Merrick really did have money they could find, then they’d need somewhere to move it.
Swonger had sat silently stewing, but couldn’t hold his peace any longer. “Ain’t no way I’m riding the bench while you take our money.”
That wasn’t exactly a surprise to Gibson. A thought occurred to him. A horrible one, but it might be a solution. Take Swonger with him to West Virginia. Christ, were there really no alternatives? He glanced over at Swonger, who was eying him suspiciously. Well, at least this way he’d see him coming. Keep his enemy closer, isn’t that how it went?
“If we go together . . . you think you can behave yourself? Let me handle things?”
“Long as you do like you say you will. I’ll let you do your thing.”
“All right, then,” Gibson said.
“What about me?” Birk asked.
“I’ll take you as far as Union Station. After that, you’re riding the rails.”
Birk began feebly to protest.
“Or the bus, I don’t really give a damn. Look, this isn’t a package deal. One of you can tag along. The other one goes back to the farm and looks after the judge.”
“What? I’m supposed to go babysit the old man?” Birk said.
“Yeah. Between now and when I find that money, Hammond Birk better be living like a damn king. You know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means every day is bath day.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Scion pulled into the parking lot of Gibson’s building in the late afternoon. Gibson didn’t plan on staying long; he needed to make arrangements to be gone for a few weeks. He wanted to get down to Niobe, West Virginia, and take the lay of the land. Merrick had twenty-three days left on his sentence, and Gibson would need every minute of every day if he were to have a chance of pulling this off.
“Make yourself at home,” Gibson said, flipping on a light switch.
Swonger looked around. “Damn. How you living?”
Gibson shrugged, realizing that Swonger was the first person that he’d let see his place. A depressing thought all on its own. He knew his apartment was bare bones. He’d moved in after the separation and never expected to stay this long, buying used or broken furniture on Craigslist and refurbishing it. Nothing hung on the walls. No decorations or plants. It kept him dry when it rained. That was the best you could say for it.
“Did Goodwill charge you for any of this stuff?” Swonger shook his head. “They got more comfortable chairs in the joint.”
“Take it easy.”
“No, man. Respect. Take a special kinda guy to live like a bum but still act like a condescending prick all the time.” Swonger opened the nearly empty refrigerator. “I think someone broke in and robbed your icebox.”
Gibson handed him a spare set of keys.
“There’s a grocery store a couple blocks north if you’re hungry. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
“Where you going?”
“See my kid. That okay with you?”
“Yeah, it’s cool. Wait . . .” Swonger was looking around with mounting panic. “You don’t have no TV.”
“You want a book?”
“You killing me, man.”
“Well, if you get bored, you can follow me around some.”
“Nah, I’ll give you the night off. Good faith, right?”
Right.
Gibson picked Ellie up from her after-school program and took her to a movie. A revival house in Ashburn was showing Finding Nemo. It was Ellie’s all-time number-one movie. A bold statement for a seven-year-old, but she’d watched it until she’d worn a hole in the DVD. She was too young to have seen it on the big screen, and Gibson figured it was a safe bet after the baseball-game fiasco. Dory was her favorite character—a fitting role model for his easily distracted daughter. “I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy!” she screamed happily at the screen. Ellie was still mastering the concept that you had to sit quietly at the movies. Fortunately, it was a quote-along, so audience participation was encouraged. Pretty soon Gibson was laughing and calling out lines right along with her.
After the movie, he drove them to the Nighthawk, where they split a deluxe banana split—one scoop each of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry; banana; whipped cream; chocolate syrup; nuts; pineapple; strawberries; and three cherries. Toby Kalpar delivered the towering pièce de résistance personally. Ellie was going to be in a sugar coma for a week. Gibson gestured for Toby to sit and watched his friend fold his tall, thin frame into the booth beside Ellie. Toby and Sana treated Ellie as if she were their own grandchild, and she was starting to think she owned the place. Ellie bounced up and down in her seat in anticipation.
“Where’s Ellie?” Toby asked, looking back and forth blankly. “I brought ice cream.”
Ellie giggled and made an exasperated face. “I’m right here!”
“It’s too bad. I guess we’ll have to eat it ourselves.” Toby pulled the banana split toward him and aimed a marauding spoon at it.
“Guess so,” Gibson agreed, reaching for the other spoon.
Ellie shrieked.
Toby clutched his chest in shock. “Where did you come from?”
“I was right here!” she said. “Dad! Tell him.”
Toby smiled and presented Ellie with a spoon, which she snatched like she’d just negotiated the end of a hunger strike. No one was ever going to mistake his daughter for shy.
“What do you say, El?” Gibson said.
Ellie managed a muffled “Thank you” a millisecond before she wedged a fist-size spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, tipping her head back to keep it from running down her chin.
“El . . . No Bruce the Shark, okay? Regular bites.”
“Yeash, Dahbd,” she managed.
After a few bites, Ellie stopped and offered Toby her spoon.
He smiled and tousled her hair. “I’ve already had mine today.”
“You are so lucky,” she told him. “I want a diner like this one when I grow up.”
Toby beamed at that. “Doesn’t fall far from the tree, this one.”