Too Close to Home

There were half a dozen people out at the Walcott getting things ready, and they tried to rope me into putting up streamers, but I begged off, saying the mayor wanted me downtown, ready to take him anywhere at a moment’s notice. Taping up streamers demanded a level of enthusiasm I could not bring to bear.

I took the Grand Marquis to the car wash, then headed back to city hall and parked out front. I read the paper till around five, when Randy got into the backseat so I could drive him to the Rotary event.

“So, Randy,” I said, “you nervous about tonight?”

“What do I have to be nervous about?” he asked. “They’re going to eat me up.”

As I was pulling up to the Holiday Inn, and Randy was waiting for me to run around and open the door for him, my cell rang. “I’ll see you in there in a minute,” I said, forcing him to open the door on his own. He could use the exercise, I figured.

“Hi,” Ellen said. “You heard from Derek?”

“No,” I said, glancing at the clock on the dash. It was 5:05 p.m. “Why would I hear from Derek?”

“No reason,” she said. “He’s just usually back here before five. I wondered if he was running late or anything. He didn’t leave a message, so I thought maybe he’d been in touch with you.”

“Nope,” I said, feeling only slightly uneasy. “Didn’t you call him?”

“I tried his cell but it went straight to message.”

“Maybe he’s in a bad area, or forgot to charge it up,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry. Look, we honored our side of the deal with Illeana’s people. I’m sure everything’s okay. I’ve gotta go into the Holiday Inn. Randy’s doing the Rotary before his other thing.”

“Okay, talk to you later.”

Randy wasn’t having dinner with the Rotarians, but offering some greetings before they sat down to theirs. It was a kind of pre-announcement announcement. A few jokes, a bit of electioneering, and when he took questions from the audience he dodged the ones about his political intentions with “I think you’ll have the answer to that question in a couple of hours.”

He got a nice round of applause. Not quite as enthusiastic as he was hoping for, though. “The fuck was their problem?” he said, walking down the hall with me back to the car. “I thought I killed in there.”

“Tough room,” I said, and this time, feeling generous, I opened the car door for him.

He was settling into the back when my cell rang again. “Still no sign of him,” Ellen said. I could hear the edge in her voice.

I looked at the clock again. It was six. “Still no luck with his cell?”

“Nothing.”

“You know what the job’s like,” I said, trying to be positive. “There’s any number of things that could hold them up. Tractor breaks down, they run out of gas, and if they’re running the machinery, Derek’s not going to be able to hear the phone anyway.”

“I know. I just, I don’t know. What if those people, what if they changed their mind? What if they still want revenge for what Drew did?”

“Have you got the phone book there?”

“Hang on. . Okay, I’ve got it.”

“Look up Lockus. That’s Drew’s last name. He hasn’t got a cell, but his mother must have a phone. Try the house, see if Derek’s already dropped him off.”

“Just a sec. . There’s no Lockus,” she said.

“The house is on Stonywood,” I said.

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, shit. So his mother’s name is either different from his, or she’s got an unlisted number.”

“Hey, Cutter,” the mayor said from the backseat. “We going to just sit here or what?”

I held up my hand, asking for silence. I was trying to think what day it was, then said, “Okay, I know the houses they’d be hitting today, the ones Derek and I would do in the afternoon. I’ll swing by them, see if they’re there, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks,” Ellen said.

I closed the phone, turned to Randy, and said, “What have you got between now and seven?”

“Jeez, Cutter, I was thinking maybe I’d find someone, get me a blowjob. What do you think I want to do? Let’s go back to the office, I’m gonna have a stiff drink, then we’ll head over to the Walcott around ten to seven, make my big entrance.”

“I’ve got to do a couple of things. Why don’t you just sit back and relax and I’ll give you a tour of Promise Falls.”

“What is this, Cutter? A joke?”

“Randy, just chill out. It’s important. My son hasn’t shown up.”

Randall Finley sighed. “So what? He’s probably jumping some teenage pussy. Isn’t that what happens when guys get released from jail?”

I already had the car in drive and was heading in the opposite direction of downtown. We tried to organize our clients by neighborhood, do the north side one day, the south another, and so forth, instead of crisscrossing Promise Falls every day. This particular day, we did properties mostly in the northeast.

“Cutter, honestly,” Finley said. But there was more resignation than anger in his voice, so it looked as though he was going to indulge me.