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I looked at her, and then at Blanton, her partner. They certainly looked forthright and upstanding. Of course, so did I, and we all know how much that means. But every now and then, you run out of logical and reasonable options, and you just have to swallow hard, cross your fingers, and tell the truth.
So I did. I told the whole sad story of deceit, treachery, malice, and heinous ineptitude. Believe it or not, I actually told it pretty much as it happened, with only one or two minor changes in emphasis, and a couple of well-timed pauses, mostly when I was talking about Rita’s death, in which I cleared my throat. I had learned from watching daytime TV that throat clearing is something Manly Guys do to show that they are fighting back emotions. I thought it was a wonderful shortcut, since clearing my throat was a great deal easier than making all those tragic faces.
Revis and Blanton just watched me, apparently listening intently. When I finished, they looked at each other, and held the stare for an embarrassingly long time. Neither of them said a word, but they apparently had a whole conversation, because eventually she turned back to me and said, “We will probably want to ask you a few more questions later on. Where will you be staying?”
Believe it or not, this was the first time it had occurred to me that I had no place to go. That wasn’t entirely a bad thing, since I also had no way to get there. “Um,” I said. “I don’t know. Can I call you when I find another hotel?”
Revis handed me her business card. It was very nice, embossed with an FBI logo and everything. She wrote down my cell phone number, had one more quick silent chat with Blanton, and then nodded at me. “You’re free to go.”
SIXTEEN
For several minutes after the two FBI agents left, I just sat on the moldering old sofa in the hotel’s lobby, too bone-weary to do anything more demanding than blink my eyes. Only a few hours ago I had felt battered and exhausted because so much had happened—and since that time, I had found out what “so much happening” really meant. But with the bomb blast and the consequent utter destruction of my transportation, and then the savage slapping and cuffing from Anderson, I thought I could safely say, Now “so much” has really happened.
And all of it aimed at my nearly innocent head. It was almost enough to make me believe in a god—since it would have to be a petty, vengeful, mean-spirited god who spent so much time and effort picking on someone who really didn’t deserve it. That kind of god I could believe in. At least it would explain the recent history of Dexter, which was starting to seem supernaturally unpleasant.
I thought about this latest blatantly unfair incident. A bomb. In spite of what I had told the feds about coincidence, of course I was sure it wasn’t. I had too many real enemies to give coincidence a chance to break into the lineup. Which one was it this time? It was not terribly mysterious. I ruled out Debs right away; she was much too fussy about the little things, like legality and collateral damage. Anderson would certainly have done it if he could figure out which end of the bomb to hold, but I didn’t believe for a second that he had. He was having too much fun whipping me with his custom-modified legal system. And after eliminating him, there really wasn’t any doubt that it was Brian’s former playmates, Raul and associates, who had put the bomb in my car. The only question was how they’d found me.
The more I thought about that, the more important it seemed. I really and truly didn’t want them to find me again. They would almost certainly do a more thorough job next time.
More immediately, though, I had to let Brian know what had happened. It was quite possible that they would find him, too, and I thought it would be best if he knew about the possibility. After all, he was the last person who still seemed to be on my side—unless I counted Officer Poux, which was probably a little bit of a stretch.
So I reached into my pocket for my phone—and of course I didn’t have it. Somehow it had been magically replaced by a small piece of cardboard with vermilion ink on it—Kraunauer’s card, and his personal cell number, of which I could avail myself twenty-four/seven. A bomb in my car and subsequent police brutality certainly seemed like something he would want to know about, and I knew I should call him—except that I didn’t have a phone.
Come to think of it, I still didn’t even have a shirt. Both items could be had in abundant quantity if I could somehow manage to travel all those weary feet from the lobby to my room. It seemed like much farther away than it had been before, but there really wasn’t much choice.
So I dragged my exhausted, battered, punctured, and slapped self up off the ancient couch and staggered manfully out the lobby door and down the walk toward what had recently been my room. Alas, it was mine no longer. A different uniformed officer informed me politely but firmly that I could not enter until after forensics had finished, not even to retrieve my phone. I was too tired to do more than blink at him resentfully a few times, and that seemed to have no effect. You just can’t put good, hard-edged resentment into a blink.
And now what? I could think of nowhere else to go, unless I returned to the backseat of Anderson’s car, or to the dreadful little sofa in the lobby. Believe it or not, the sofa was so uncomfortable, old and repellent, that I had to think about it for a minute. But no matter how far beyond the established norms of civilized furniture it might be, at least the couch was not in any way connected to Anderson. I trudged back to it.
As I trudged, I tried to think of a way to call Brian without my phone. It seems stupid in retrospect, but it must be admitted that the cell phone, that personal ubiquitous all-encompassing nearly everything device, has become so important to every one of us that we cannot imagine life without it, and most of us cannot complete the simplest tasks unless we are holding our techno BFF in our hand. Without it we can’t write anyone, check the weather or stocks, find out where we are and how not to be there, pay bills, keep an appointment, make a flight—nothing at all. It has taken over nearly every aspect of our lives. And every now and then, when we actually want to make a phone call, our phones can even do that. They have replaced an entire suitcase full of other devices, and it is no longer possible even to think of life without one.
And so it was not until I walked all the way into the lobby and sat, allowing the ancient couch cushions to suck me down into their vile grasp, that I thought of a novel and ingenious way to get in touch with Brian. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I did not actually think of it; the truth is, the ancient, battered landline telephone on the hotel’s front desk rang. I turned to follow the sound, saw the archaic device, and thought, Aha. I remember what those things are for.
The ancient phone rang for nearly a minute and no one answered it. The old man had disappeared, and the old woman was just visible in the back room moving back and forth much too energetically in a rocking chair. She made no move to get the phone, and so when the thing had stopped ringing, I got up and went to it.
My memory is a wonderful thing, and I was quite sure that I knew Brian’s number, so I dialed with calm confidence. It rang several times, and then a soft and husky voice I did not recognize said, “Yes?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, thinking as quickly as I could in my current state of collapse. “Is this Atwater Brothers Carpet?”
After only a slight hesitation, the answer came—but in a completely different voice. “Brother,” Brian said. “I didn’t recognize the number. Where are you calling from?”
“Hotel lobby,” I said. “My phone is being examined by forensics at the moment.”
“Really,” he said. “May one ask why?”
I told him in short and simple terms. He hissed out a long breath. “I was afraid of this,” he said.
For a moment I was speechless. Afraid of it? Meaning he thought it might happen and had decided not to warn me? “Were you?” I said at last.
“Remember I called?” he said, and of course there was not even a tiny trace of guilt in his voice. “I meant to tell you, but you pleaded fatigue.”
It was just barely true, but even so I was so upset that I didn’t even correct him for saying pleaded instead of pled. “All right,” I said wearily. “What did you mean to tell me?”
“I received a warning,” he said, “that a certain associate of Raul’s had arrived in town.”
“An associate,” I said. I thought back on what Brian had told me of the epic struggle between Raul and his rival, Santo. “Would this perhaps be the associate who blew up the Red Saint?”
“The very same,” he said, sounding quite happy that I had remembered.
