The young man carefully reached into his back pocket and came back with the wallet. Caldwell took it in his left hand and held it up to catch a little light from a distant streetlamp. The driver’s license had the same name. Caldwell noted that it said he was eighteen. He put a finger into the fold and saw there were twelve dollars, a ten and two ones. This wasn’t an operative or a hired killer searching for him. He was a delinquent teenager trying to rob an old man. “Is this a gang thing?”
“I needed money.”
“This is a stupid way to get it.” The shock, the adrenaline, and the exertion were adding heat to his anger, but he fought it down.
Caldwell took a step back. He tossed the wallet on the young man’s chest. “I’m going to let you go, but I’ll have to keep the gun.”
The young man looked relieved.
“But if I ever see you again, I won’t be able to let you go. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said the young man.
“Okay, then. Get the hell out of here.”
The young man sat up, put his wallet away, and got to his feet. Then he began to hurry in the direction he had come from.
“Stop.”
The young man froze. His hands were up at shoulder height and he didn’t try to look back at him. Caldwell walked up behind him and stuffed the five twenty-dollar bills he was carrying into the boy’s jacket pocket. “Take this money and don’t try to rob anybody else.”
“All right.” The young man started to walk. He called out, “Thank you.” Then he walked a little faster, and soon he had gained enough distance to break into a run.
Caldwell waited for about two minutes after the kid was out of sight. Then he turned a corner and moved off too. From time to time he turned down an alley where he would have seen a follower appear if there had been one, and a few times he stopped and crouched beside a porch or stood in a closed store’s entrance and watched until he was sure he was alone.
Just before he reached the neighborhood where he lived, he unloaded the revolver, dropped the bullets in a storm sewer, the frame in a second sewer a distance away, and the cylinder in a big dumpster behind a restaurant. He was shaken by the experience. He had come very close to firing a round into a teenager’s head because he had thought he was a professional killer. He had spent lots of time many years ago acquiring the skills to protect himself. Now he had to learn to reassess the nature of a threat.
When he reached the apartment it was after midnight. He could hear Zoe and Sarah talking while they watched something on television. He slipped past the living room into the hallway and into his bedroom. Sometime later, he heard Sarah walk past his room, go into the guest room, and close the door. Before he went to bed, he climbed up in the closet again and checked to be sure the guns, money, and identification he’d left were still undiscovered. Everything was intact and undisturbed for now.
9
In the morning he woke to the sight of both dogs’ big brown eyes, full of sincerity, staring into his from a few inches away. When he lifted his head, they lifted theirs and rolled to sit up, their tails drumming on the mattress in a syncopated beat.
“Good morning, Carol. Good morning, Dave.” He sat up too, went into his bathroom, and then came back to the bedroom, drying himself from his shower. It was early, so he decided to take the dogs to the park. He would buy coffee and a pastry at the place where he and Zoe had gone a couple of days ago.
When he was dressed he went down the front stairs with the dogs to give them a chance to relieve themselves, and then brought them back up the kitchen stairs to have their breakfast.
He found Sarah sitting at the table beside a plate painted with the bright yellow of an egg yolk and a cup of tea with the bag’s string hanging out of it. In front of her was a laptop computer.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning. I see you’re an early riser,” she said.
“So are you.”
“I’m in school, so I have to study whenever nothing more interesting is going on.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I just have to feed these two, and they eat fast. Then we’ll be off to the park.”
“You sure walk your dogs a lot.”
“They like it and it’s good for them. It’s also good for me.”
She looked at him with an appraising stare. “I suppose it would be, at your age. You’re retired, right? Do you do anything else?”
He measured the cups of dry food into the two dog bowls, set them down, and then refilled the water bowl. As the dogs began to crunch their food he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been in town long. I’m still exploring the Chicago area and getting used to it. I don’t really feel in a hurry to do more than that right now.”
“Do I seem nosy?”
“It’s okay. Curiosity is a sign of a lively mind. That’s the only kind worth having.”
She said, “I spent some time last night online trying to find out about you. I didn’t find much.”
He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. “I’m not famous.”
“No,” she said. “Never dated Marilyn Monroe or anybody like that, either.”
“I’m not that old. She died when I was in elementary school. Why did you decide I was worth the investigation?”
“Because you’re fucking my mother.”