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But joy? Actual parental ecstasy? I couldn’t recall any.
If I was truly honest with myself, which is not as easy as it sounds, I had to admit that I didn’t really enjoy fatherhood. I simply endured it, because it was part of the disguise that hid Dexter the Wolf from the world of sheep I lived in. And as far as I could tell, the kids merely endured me, too. I was not a good father. I tried, but it was strictly pro forma. My heart was never in it, and I was just no good at it.
So if I didn’t really want to be Dear Old Dad, and if the kids were truly better off without me—why was I waffling?
No real reason. I signed.
TWELVE
I called Deborah to tell her I had signed the custody papers. She was at work, of course, and may have had a very good reason for declining to answer my call. Perhaps she was busy shooting someone, or maybe wading through viscera at a crime scene. Whatever the truth, she did not answer, and I could not help thinking that she just didn’t want to taint her righteous ears with the dreadful pollution of my voice. I left a message, and headed for my lunch appointment with Vince Masuoka.
Lunar Sushi was a newish place in North Bay Village. It sat in a strip mall, in between a grocery store and a sports bar. It really should have been a little bit tacky, considering this less than ideal location. But they’d put quite a bit of money into the decor, making it look like the kind of chic, upscale place where you expect to see movie stars drop in for some kajiki and a Kirin.
At this time of day, in midweek, there was no problem finding a good parking spot, and I was tucked in at the bar with a pot of very hot green tea when Vince came stumbling in at twelve minutes past noon. He stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking away the effects of the bright sunlight outside and goggling around the cool dark of the interior. It was kind of fun to watch him stand there and gawp, but it was just a little cruel, too—perhaps that was part of what made it fun in the first place. Still, he was here, after all, to do me a good turn, so I took pity on him and waved.
“Over here, Vince,” I called.
He actually flinched when I said his name, and raised his hands to make a shushing gesture. But he apparently realized that was a bit much, and he dropped his hands again and came wobble-stepping rapidly across the floor. “Dexter,” he said in the same hushed tone he’d used on the phone. He put his hands on my shoulders and, to my complete astonishment, he leaned forward, putting his head down on my chest and giving me a hug. “Oh, my God, I’m so glad you’re okay.” He took his head off my chest and looked at me. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
“Too soon to tell,” I said, wondering how I could pry myself out of his strange and uncharacteristic embrace. Vince was no more a touchy-feely-huggy guy than I was. In fact, one of the reasons I liked him was that I could tell he was faking most of his Human Behavior, too, just like I was. I was merely a little better at it. But as far as I could remember, we’d never even shaken hands—and here he was locking me in a stifling and very awkward clinch.
But happily for me, he gave me one last quick squeeze and then stepped back. “Well, you’re out of jail,” he said. “That’s the important thing.” He stood only about two feet away and looked at me with a weird expression, kind of a yearning, searching gaze, as if he was trying to find some hidden pain in my face, and he might cry when he found it.
“I am out,” I said. “At least for now.”
Vince blinked. “Is there some—I mean, they can’t just…uh…” he said, stumbling to a halt and looking over my shoulder.
I turned. The sushi chef had appeared noiselessly on the far side of the bar and stood there regarding us with solemn expectation. I looked back at Vince. “Let’s put in an order and move to a booth,” I said. “So we can talk.”
Vince nodded and stepped up to the bar. And then, to my utter astonishment, he began to make a series of harsh and sibilant sounds in the direction of the chef. Even more surprisingly, the chef stood a little straighter, smiled, and made some very similar sounds back at Vince. They both laughed—and then actually bowed at each other—and the chef scurried away, a wicked-looking blade already raised in his hand. He began slapping great chunks of raw fish onto his chopping block and attacking them with his knife.
I looked at Vince, and it occurred to me again that I really didn’t know anything at all about him. “W
as that Japanese?” I asked him.
He turned and looked at me as if I was the one speaking a foreign language. “Huh?” he said.
“Those noises you just made,” I said. “You were speaking Japanese with the sushi chef?”
He looked a little puzzled. “You did know that Masuoka is a Japanese name, right?” He shrugged. “What did you expect?”
I might have pointed out that Morgan is a Welsh name and I didn’t speak a word of that language, but it seemed like a rather low-priority observation. “Let’s get a booth,” I said.
“Oh, right,” he said, looking startled and furtive again, and I led him to a booth in the back, sliding in so I faced the front door. Vince climbed in across from me, and glanced all around the restaurant with a wide-eyed, paranoid glare. If anyone actually was looking for suspicious behavior, they would definitely know that they should start with Vince. But maybe he had a real reason, other than a fevered imagination.
“Vince,” I said, “you weren’t followed, were you?”
He snapped his head back around and looked at me. “What?” he said. “Why would you—Did you see somebody?”
“No, no,” I said, trying to sound confident and soothing at the same time. “You’re just acting like you expect to be shot at any moment.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know,” he said. “I mean, the things that have been going on since you—” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Dexter, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s gotten so—Anderson is completely off the reservation. He’s gone rogue, and nobody seems to—It’s like they all want him to do it, because they want you to be convicted!”
“What was Anderson doing?”
Vince looked around again. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and began to roll slowly down his face. “He’s falsifying records,” he said in a strangled whisper. “Putting in fake evidence and forging the signatures and—” He fluttered his hands in dismay. They looked like two spastic birds who’d forgotten how to fly. “Dexter, Jesus, it’s illegal. Like a felony, and he’s just doing it and nobody does anything about it. It’s like—”
He stopped abruptly as a young Japanese girl in tight black pants and a loose white shirt came smiling out of the kitchen, put two glasses of cold water and a pot of tea on our table, and then vanished again. Vince watched her go, swallowed, and then picked up his glass and gulped down about half of it.
