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CHAPTER TWO

September 13, 1996

Later that night

C indy’s sister came over to take our order. I couldn’t remember her name because I mostly came to the diner for their excellent breakfast. She was shorter and wider than her sister but just as nice. I ordered my salad and an iced tea, then she turned to Cass.

He shook his head. “I don’t want anything.”

“He’ll have a bacon burger, curly fries with ranch dressing, and a Coke.”

“You got it,” Cindy’s sister said and then walked away.

“I told you I don’t want anything.”

“You don’t have to eat it. I won’t make you pay for it.” That made me wonder, “How’d you get here?”

“You brought me.”

“No. How’d you get from Detroit to Long Beach?”

“Airplane.”

Since I doubted he’d been keeping an eye out for cheap flights, I suspected that had been spontaneous and had cost a bundle.

“How’d you pay for it?”

“Credit card.”

“You steal your mother’s card?”

He was saved by Cindy’s sister delivering our drinks. She said, “I forgot to ask. How did you want that burger?”

“Medium rare.”

“Well,” Cass corrected me.

When she left, I waited for Cass to answer my question. He didn’t. “Does your mother know where you are?”

“She’s in Sault Sainte Marie.”

I’d heard of it but couldn’t tell you where it was. “What’s she doing there?”

“Casino.”

His answers were not exactly explanatory. My guess was he hadn’t told her where he was. And that she didn’t exactly care. I was also getting the impression she wasn’t exactly careful with money.

Those were his problems though. I needed to figure out mine. “So are you going to give me trouble?”

“What do you mean?”

“I like being Dom Reilly. I’d like to keep being Dom Reilly.”

“What you’re doing’s illegal, isn’t it?”

“Probably. I haven’t bothered to check, but I’d guess there are at least half dozen laws I’m breaking.”

I had a feeling about where this was going. I was about to be asked for child support of some sort. Also known as blackmail.

“I overheard people talking at the party. Are you some kind of cop?”

“I’m an investigator for a lawyer. I was a cop, a long time ago, but no one knows that.”

“Who do you think killed my dad?”

“No idea.”

We sat there for a bit not saying anything. Mostly I think we were figuring out what we wanted from each other. Our meal came. He took a bite of the burger right away. I ate some salad.

He swallowed, and said, “If you find out who killed my dad then you can keep being him.”

“There’s a little problem with that. If we find who killed your dad and you turn them in to the police, I can’t be Dom Reilly anymore.”

“I’m not going to turn them in. I’m going to kill them.” Then he took a bigger bite of his burger, pushed in a couple of French fries after it, and guzzled some Coke. The idea of murdering a murderer seemed to have improved his appetite.

I should not do this. That was my first thought. But if I didn’t the kid could, and probably would, throw a grenade into my life and that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to be Dom Reilly. And I couldn’t go back to being Nick Nowak. I’d be nobody. I’d lose the life I probably shouldn’t have built in the first place. The life I loved. I wondered if it was too late to lie to the kid and tell him I really was his dad. Maybe I could make that work.

No. I couldn’t.

“Okay, sure. I’ll help you find out who killed your dad.”

He’d over-filled his mouth and was chewing hard. Still, he managed to smile.

“You go back home. I’ll go to Reno in a week or so and try to find the guy who sold me your dad’s papers. Get him to tell me who he bought them from and we’ll go from there.”

He swallowed hard. “No. We need to do it now.”

“What’s the hurry?”

He’d taken another bite though and I had to wait. “I don’t trust you,” he said with his mouth still half full. Teenagers were meant to be innocent and a little gullible. I wondered what happened to this one to make him so cagey.

“Okay, we’ll go to Reno tomorrow. First thing.”

He shook his head. “Can we drive there?”

“It’s an eight- or nine-hour trip. We wouldn’t get there until tomorrow morning.”

“Let’s go to the airport.”

I didn’t like that. I dug into my salad so I could think it through. He wanted to go to the airport now . While there was a party going on at my apartment. Going back to grab a few things wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, it was going to be impossible. Ronnie would flip out that I was leaving. Rightfully so. I’d have to explain who the kid was, truthfully or not, and why we had to leave right this minute—again, truthfully or not. All of that was challenging. Too challenging.

“You didn’t bring anything with you? Luggage?” I asked.

“I have a backpack. I put it in the bushes in front of your place.”

This was definitely sounding very fly-by-night on his part. Like he’d run the credit report, and then the first chance he got, stole his mother’s credit card, and ran to the airport. And it didn’t seem like he was going to slow down any time soon.

I’d finished the chicken part of my chicken Caesar. They did it differently at the Pantry, they breaded and deep fried a chicken breast, sliced it, and plunked it on top of the salad. Their idea of health food, I guess.

Once I was done with the chicken I wasn’t much interested in the lettuce below. Cass was finished with his burger and most of the way through his fries.

“Is it just Cass or is that short for something?”

“Cassidy. My mother loved David Cassidy.”

David wouldn’t have been a bad choice if you were naming a kid after the teen idol. Which made me wonder, “How old was your mom when you were born?”

“Seventeen.”

“That’s young.”

He shrugged. He’d probably heard that before. But it was true. He was seventeen and I didn’t think he could be trusted with a credit card, no less a baby. Cindy’s sister came over and asked if we wanted anything else. I asked for the check.

“What were you expecting?” I asked, once she was gone. “Did you think you’d just show up at your dad’s place and he’d be all excited to see you?”

“Maybe.”

Not very clear. It suddenly occurred to me that he might have wanted money from his dad. Love, revenge, money. The big motivators.

“Do you need money?”

“Not really. My mom does okay. And I’m gonna get a full-time job. When I graduate high school.”

That left love and revenge.

“Were you mad at your dad? Did you want to tell him that?”

“A little, maybe. I think I just wanted to know, like, why did he leave?”

So it was love. He wanted to know why he didn’t get the love he deserved. That’s why he was so fast to switch to killing the person who murdered his dad. They’d taken that away from him.

Cindy’s sister brought the check. I left a generous tip on the table and we went up to the register to pay. As we were walking across the park on the way back to my apartment, the kid asked, “So the guy who sold you my dad’s stuff. You don’t have his phone number?”

“I don’t have his last name. He was called Gavin. That’s all I know. Basically the guy’s a forger. You don’t put people like that in your address book.”

“How are we going to find him?”

“I know a place to ask for him.” I explained, “I was working in this bar under the table a couple days a week. Some kids came in who looked way too young to drink. I asked for ID and they showed it to me. It was good, very good—but I still didn’t believe they were in their twenties. I offered them free drinks if they told me who made their IDs. That’s how I heard about Gavin. They said he kept ‘business hours’ at a casino called Hobart’s in North Valley. I went to see him a couple of days later. Couple days after that I went to his place and picked everything up.”

“So you do know where he lives?”

“I’m not sure I can find it again.”

We were nearly in front of my building, El Matador, stopping right by the sign. I could hear the party going on above. Cass went to get his backpack. It was still before nine so I shouldn’t have been surprised when John Gallagher walked up with this guy, Melvin, who he’d been dating for a few weeks.

Like Junior, John had been our roommate and was now our tenant. He was tall and thin with tightly curled blond hair. Melvin was shaped like a fire hydrant. John wore short jean cut-offs, a mesh shirt and roller skates. Melvin looked like the leather guy in The Village People and held a casserole in his hands.

“What are you doing out here?” John asked.

“I’ve had kind of an emergency. Don’t tell Ronnie you saw me.”

“Are you some kind of doctor?” Melvin asked.

“It’s a personal emergency,” I said. “You know the party isn’t seventies themed?”

“I’m going to kill Junior.”

“I’m scared to ask what that is,” I said, indicating the casserole.

“Velveeta surprise,” John said. Then to Melvin, “Maybe we should put it in the car.”

“You drove?” I asked. The house we rented to him and Junior was within walking distance.

“We were at Melvin’s.”

And then Cass was back with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Immediately, John was curious. “And who is this?”

“We have to go,” I said. “Enjoy the party. And if Ronnie seems upset, tell him I’m going to call him in a couple hours. Thanks.”

And then I pushed Cass down the street toward my Jeep. My 1994 Wrangler was half a block down 1st Street. Most of the Jeep was Forest Green. I’d been sideswiped, so pretty much everything on the left side had been repainted. It had looked perfect when I picked it up, but a month later it had settled into a darker green than the rest of the vehicle. Ronnie kept telling me to take it back and complain.

Of course, I didn’t have my keys. They were sitting in a bowl on the bedroom dresser upstairs. I walked around to the passenger side and reached under, directly below the word JEEP. I felt around until I found the magnetic key box. Most people keep them in a wheel well. I felt like this was the kind of thing that required a bit of originality. I popped it open and there was my spare key. We were set to go.

Once inside, I said, “You realize this is somewhere between blackmail and kidnapping.”

“Do you want to call the cops?”

I did not.