Title Page

Dedication

For my family: Neetha, Spencer, and Paige

Chapter 1

1

“So, what are you asking me?” Harley said. “Are you asking me for drugs? If you want drugs, there are drugs. There’s alprazolam—that’s your Xanax generic—or lorazepam; you’ve got your diazepam and—”

“Diaza-what?”

“Diazepam. It’s not a cooking spray. It’s Valium. There’s a huge list of antianxiety prescriptions out there, some better than others, some downright dangerous. We don’t use barbiturates anymore, too addictive, sometimes fatal. There’s various herbal remedies, if you’re into that sort of thing. Or, I don’t know whether you’ve considered something like this before, but you could just lighten the fuck up.”

Harley’s not your average doctor. He’s more of a friend, with a medical degree, and a successful practice, and an examining room, which I happened to be sitting in at this moment, somewhat under duress. Harley and I were buddies back in high school, then lost touch a bit while I went to college for an English degree and he went off to medical school. “Hey,” I would say to him when we occasionally ran into one another, “just what kind of job do you expect to get with a medical degree?”

Years later, he became my doctor.

This appointment hadn’t been my idea. It had been my wife Sarah’s. And “idea” is probably the wrong word. “Ultimatum” would probably be a better one. “Go see Harley,” she said, “or I’m going to call a divorce lawyer. Or smother you in your sleep.”

The threat about the divorce lawyer didn’t worry me that much. Sarah has a low opinion of the legal profession, and would probably choose sticking with me over engaging the services of one of its members. But the smothering-me-in-my-sleep thing, that seemed within her range of capabilities.

“The thing is,” Harley continued, leaning up against the paper-covered examining bed, “there’s a lot of shit to deal with in life, and sometimes that’s just what you have to do. Deal with it. You’re not the only one with a teenage daughter, you know. Mine’s twenty-two now, seems to finally have her head on straight, but two years ago she was too busy boffing some out-there art student to study for her midterms. The guy did a show of sculptures made from raw meat. You had to go early.”

“I can’t seem to help it,” I said. “I worry. I worry all the time. It’s the way I’m hardwired. Sometimes I’ve let it get the better of me.”

“I know,” Harley said. “I watch the news.”

“And I’ve been trying to do better, honest to God, but this thing with Angie …”

“How old is she now?”

“Eighteen.”

Harley’s eyes rolled, remembering. “And what did you do, exactly?”

“She’d promised to be home by one in the morning. She was going out with some guy from where she worked for the summer, at the pool store. She sold chlorine and algaecide and tested water samples, and there was this guy who worked there, young kid, who went around the neighborhood maintaining people’s pools for them.”

“Yeah.”

“So she started going out with Pool Boy.”

“This is what you called him. Pool Boy.”

“Not to his face, or to Angie. It was just a name I had for him, is all. Anyway, she was out with him one night, and I was already awake around midnight, and sometimes if I’m up that late, I’ll stay up to make sure she gets home okay. I’ll read. But if I read in bed, it keeps Sarah up, with the light on, so I went down to the living room, stretched out on the front couch right by the front door, so I’d be right there when Angie got home. Even if I nodded off, I’d hear her when she got in.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I guess I did doze off, and when I woke up, it was two-thirty in the morning, which meant Angie was way past curfew, way past when she said she’d be home. So I got up, went into the kitchen and called her cell, but couldn’t get an answer.”

“So, knowing you, you did what you do best,” Harley said. “You panicked.”

“I did not panic,” I said. “I went out looking for her. I knew where Pool Boy lived—he lives with his parents—and what kind of car he drove, so I drove over there, and the whole house is dark, except for one light in the basement.”

“Not a good sign,” Harley said, nodding slightly.

“Yeah, well, I got out of my car, looked around his, then went up to the house.”

“You knocked on the door at, what, nearly three in the morning?”

“No, I kind of didn’t want to do that unless I knew for sure Angie was there, since I was probably going to be waking up Pool Boy’s mom and dad, so I thought I’d just have a look in the basement window. I had to get down on my knees—they’re these shallow windows, only come up about a foot from ground level.”

Harley sighed, closed his eyes.

“There was a bit of a gap in the curtains, and I could see it was your basic rec room, wood paneling on the walls, old couch.”

“And who was on the couch, I’m afraid to ask,” Harley said.

“No one,” I said. “Look, you need to understand, I don’t want to violate Angie’s privacy, I know what kids are up to today, but it’s a safety thing, okay? I just needed to know that she was okay.”

“So you didn’t see her in the window,” Harley said. “Was Pool Boy there?”

“Not inside,” I said. “But when I got up from looking in the window, I noticed that he was standing next to me.”

“Awkward,” said Harley.

“And his dad was next to him. I guess the dad heard the car, his son was still up, they came out to investigate.”

“Was this before or after they called the cops?”

“After. But by the time they arrived, we’d sorted it out. I mean, they realized who I was. Pool Boy said he’d dropped off Angie around twelve-thirty, and asked if I’d checked her bedroom before I’d come to his place.”

“Which you hadn’t.”

“I was sure I’d hear her when she came in. But she says she tiptoed, didn’t want to wake me.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About a month. Before school started up again. Angie’s still hardly speaking to me. And the thing is, now I think she’s got some sort of stalker.”

Harley dropped into the other chair in the small examining room. He was looking pretty exhausted. I seem to have that effect on people at times. “A stalker.”

“Not the Pool Boy. I think they’ve broken up.”

“There’s a surprise,” Harley said.

“Is this part of the new medicine?” I asked. “Crack wise while your patients open up to you?”

“Of course not. Go ahead. I shall remain nonjudgmental.”

“She calls him a stalker, but you know how kids talk. Anyone who’s interested in them they don’t like is categorized a stalker. But he calls her a lot, shows up unexpectedly wherever she is. I’m just worried this guy may be some kind of a nutcase. But I’m kind of in a bad spot now, what with the Pool Boy incident being so fresh in everyone’s mind, that anything I say or do looks like some kind of hysterical overreaction.”

“Just because a guy calls her a few times and shows up where your daughter hangs out doesn’t make him a serial killer.”

“I know that. But I get, jeez, I get this knot in my chest, worrying about my family. It’s not like we haven’t had some problems in the past.”

“That was then. That was an isolated incident.” Harley leaned forward a bit in his chair, like he wanted our conversation to be more intimate. “Zack,” he said slowly, “I don’t want to put you on anything unless you feel it’s absolutely necessary. It’s better to work out your problems without medications.”

“I totally agree,” I said. “I’m not asking for a prescription. It’s not like I’m a hypochondriac or something, although, if you did diagnose something, I’d have to conclude it was fatal.”

“Maybe you need to focus your attention on work, get your mind off what’s happening at home. What you’re going through isn’t any different than what every other parent goes through. We all worry about our kids, but we have to let them live their own lives, you know.”

“Sure.”

“So, when you’re writing, doing your work, doesn’t that help get your mind off other things? Isn’t that a good way to reduce your anxiety level?”

I nodded. “For the most part.”

“So, what are you working on now? Another book?”

“Well, I’m back with a paper now, The Metropolitan, doing features. You can’t exactly make a living writing books.”

“I liked that one you did, about the guy goes back in time to kill the inventor of those hot-air hand dryers in men’s rooms before he’s born. That wasn’t a bestseller?”

“No,” I said.

Harley looked surprised. I continued, “I’m doing a feature right now on this private eye, and the last few nights, I’ve been with him on this, like, well, a stakeout I guess you’d call it, hoping to catch some gang that’s been smashing into high-end men’s shops, making off with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff.”

“Sounds interesting,” Harley said. “But I trust it’s not the sort of thing where you’re exposing yourself to any real risk. You’ve had enough of that.”

I smiled tiredly. “Don’t worry. From now on, I just write about stuff, I don’t get personally involved.”

“That’s good,” he said. “And what about the pharmaceutical option? You want a scrip for anything?”

I shook my head. “Naw, unless there’s anything else you can recommend.”

Harley got up, opened one of the stainless steel cabinets that held cotton balls and gauze and tongue depressors and bandages, rooted around in there and came out with a bottle of what appeared to be very expensive Scotch. He set it on the table next to him, found two small paper cups, and poured a couple of fingers’ worth into each.

“I find this works well,” he said.

Chapter 2

2

“I’m bored,” I said.

Lawrence Jones ignored me. We’d been sitting curbside in his rusting ten-year-old Buick for nearly three hours now, on Garvin Avenue, half a block down from Brentwood’s, the expensive men’s shop owned by Arnett Brentwood, who had pooled his resources with some other proprietors to hire Lawrence and some other detectives to find out who was busting into their places of business at night and making off with their inventory. This was not some “lame-ass security gig,” Lawrence had assured me. Arnett Brentwood and his fellow clothiers not only wanted to stop these guys, but find out who they were and get their merchandise back.

Lawrence sat behind the wheel, rarely taking his eyes off the storefront. It was probably the third or fourth time I’d suggested I was not being sufficiently entertained, and he was learning quickly that the best way to deal with me was to pretend I wasn’t there.

He was an ex-cop in his late thirties, black, fit and trim, slightly over six feet, and gay, which I thought explained why he was a much better dresser than I. After a couple of minutes of dead silence, he said, “Sorry.”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry this isn’t more exciting for you. If I could have, I’d have called these guys, told them to rob this place sooner, that you had to go to bed early.”

“I appreciate the thought.”

We’d been watching the traffic, paying close attention to any vehicles that slowed down as they went past Brentwood’s. We were still in the city proper, but beyond the downtown. Few of the buildings around here got above two or three stories. Brentwood’s took up two floors, with an apartment on the third. Brentwood didn’t live there. He was doing too well to live above his shop and had a nice house in the Heights.

“So, are we looking for any particular kind of car?” I asked.

Lawrence did half a shrug. “Not sure. Probably a truck, something big like that. Middle of the night, they drive up, ram through the front window and into the store. You can’t do that in a Civic. Guys run in and grab armloads of suits off the rack, run back into the truck, and they’re gone. Usually do the whole thing in under a minute.”

“Neat. Maybe it’s a pit crew, those guys who can gas up a car and change the tires in ten seconds.”

“Well, there’s a driver, at least two more guys running in and out, that would be my guess. Brentwood got hit once before, about three months ago, and his security cameras picked up some blurry images of guys all dressed in black with black ski masks, looked like a bunch of commandos. Some of the other places around the city, didn’t even have any cameras, but sounds like the same bunch. Cops promise drive-bys, but they’re not going to solve this unless they stumble onto some warehouse and find the suits by accident.”

Lawrence’s cell rang inside his jacket. “Yeah?” he said. “Nothing happening here either. Yeah, right, at least I got company.” He cast a sideways glance my way. “I’ll check in with you in half an hour.”

He slipped the phone back into his jacket. “That was Miles.”

“Miles?”

“Miles Diamond. I work with him a lot, pass stuff his way. He’s watching Maxwell’s. They haven’t been hit yet, but they’re just the kind of place these guys like. High-end stuff, Italian suits, right on the street, big window that goes right down to the sidewalk. Perfect.”

“Miles Diamond,” I said. “Now, there’s a name for a detective.”

“It helps make up for the fact he’s this little bald white dude. He’s good on surveillance, ’cause you can hardly see him behind the steering wheel.”

“You meet him when you were on the force?”

“Miles is too little to ever make it as a cop. He’s always been private. And he’s got this gorgeous wife, she must be five-ten, spectacularly engineered. Saw them out dancing one time, he’s got his head nestled in between them there, looking very contented. Not my kind of thing, but hey, he’s happy.”

“So, if it’s quiet at Maxwell’s, maybe our guys are going to hit here tonight?” I suggested, ever hopeful. This wasn’t going to be much of a feature on the life of a private detective if all we ever did was shoot the breeze in a rusted-out Buick.

“I should’ve got a coffee,” I added. “Tomorrow night, we get coffee.”

“Just makes you piss,” Lawrence said.

I made a few notes in my reporter’s notebook, some color, how the street looked so late at night. Hardly any cars passing by—

“Hold on,” said Lawrence. “Big black pickup ahead.”

I looked up from my notes. It was one of those Dodge Durangos, with that front grill as big as a barn door. But it didn’t slow as it passed Brentwood’s, and there was no one inside but the driver.

“Stand down,” Lawrence said.

We were quiet for a while. When I felt it was time to attempt a bit of conversation, I said, “What do you do for anxiety?”

“Anxiety?”

“Yeah. You’ve got a stressful job, things to worry about, you make a living tracking down not-very-nice people. So how do you deal with that?”

Lawrence thought for a moment. “Jazz,” he said.

“Jazz?”

“I go home, I put some Oscar Peterson, some Nina Simone, maybe some Billie Holiday or Erroll Garner on the stereo. Sit and listen to it.”

“Jazz,” I said. “So you don’t actually take anything. You listen to music.”

“You’re not paying attention. Not just music. Jazz. And no, I don’t take anything. What the fuck would I take?”

I felt on the defensive. “I don’t know. Xanax? Herbal remedies?”

Lawrence smiled. “Yeah, herbal remedies. That’s me.” He glanced at his watch. “Time to check in.”

Lawrence got out his cell again and punched in what I presumed was Miles Diamond’s number. He put the phone to his ear and waited. “Come on, Miles, pick up.” There must have been time for a good eight rings. Lawrence gave up, held the phone in his hand, which he rested on the bottom of the steering wheel.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“I don’t know.” His cheek bulged out as he moved his tongue around. “Sometimes you just can’t answer your phone. I’ll give him another minute.”

We didn’t say anything for the next sixty seconds. Lawrence entered Miles Diamond’s number again, put the phone to his ear.

The phone probably rang only twice. “Hey,” said Lawrence, and then something happened to his face. His eyes narrowed, grew sharper.

“Who is this?” Lawrence said. “No, why don’t you tell me who you are, and then maybe I’ll tell you who I am.”

I could hear, faintly, someone at the other end.

“Fuck,” said Lawrence. “It’s me, Steve. It’s Lawrence. What the hell’s happened to Miles?”

He listened quietly, then said, “I’ll be there in ten.”

He put the phone away, turned the ignition, and the Buick rattled to life. I just looked at him, waiting.

“Nothing’s going to happen here tonight,” he said to me. “But Miles got a little action.”

Lawrence put the car into drive, swung the car across Garvin so we were headed in the other direction, and drove a lot faster than that car had any business going.

We rounded the corner onto Emmett, a short but trendy street with several ritzy stores, including a jeweler’s, a shoe store, a place that sold rare art books, a couple of high-end ladies’-wear places, and one storefront that was nothing but shattered glass and splintered wood. Above what used to be the window was the name Maxwell’s.

There were three black-and-white police cars, and a couple more unmarked cruisers with their trademark tiny hubcaps, plus an ambulance, but the attendants weren’t doing any rushing around. Most of the attention seemed to be focused on something in the middle of the street.

Lawrence pulled the Buick up onto the sidewalk about a hundred feet back, and we both got out. A uniformed officer approached Lawrence, raising his hand up flat to press against his chest and keep him away from the scene, but before he could touch him Lawrence said, with some authority, “Where’s Steve Trimble?”

“Over there,” the cop said, lowering his hand and using it to point.

A tall white guy with short dark hair, glasses, and a pencil-thin mustache, who was kneeling over the facedown body of a man a few steps away from the curb, glanced our way and got to his feet. He and Lawrence approached each other with an uncomfortable familiarity, like they knew each other but weren’t friends. Still, I thought maybe Lawrence would extend a hand, but he didn’t, and this Trimble guy didn’t either.

“When he got hit,” Trimble said, “at least it didn’t break his cell phone. When we heard it ringing inside his jacket, I grabbed it. What was he doing here?”

Lawrence looked over at the dead body of Miles Diamond. “He and I were watching different stores, thinking they might get hit. I guess his did.”

Trimble pursed his lips, nodded. “You friends?”

“We each threw each other a bit of work. He was a good guy. He’s got a wife.”

“I’ve seen her,” Trimble said, grinning. “He was a lucky guy till now. Who’s this?” he asked, tilting his head toward me.

“Zack Walker. He writes for The Metropolitan.”

“Hi,” I said. Trimble glared at me briefly, then said to Lawrence, “What’s he doing, a piece on guys who couldn’t hack it on the force?”

Lawrence ran his hand over his mouth, like he was going to have to physically keep his comments to himself. He slipped his hand into his pocket and said, “Do you know what happened here, Steve?”

“Mr. Diamond appears to be the victim of a hit-and-run. We got a witness, guy walking his dog, about a block away, said this black SUV was backing out of Maxwell’s here after taking out the front of the store, and squashed our guy here. He must have got out of his car—that’s it parked over there—I don’t know, but he woulda been better off staying put.”

“So they ran him down,” Lawrence said. A vein I’d not noticed before was pulsing at the side of his head.

Trimble shook his head slowly. “Not sure. The dog walker, he said Miles was behind the SUV, one of those big tall ones, you know, and he was so short, they just might not have seen him when they were backing up. These SUVs, they should all go beep-beep when they back up, like trucks, you know?”

Chapter 3

3

My daughter Angie was at the kitchen table, ignoring the buttered toast I’d put in front of her and fiddling with one of her nails instead, when her cell phone started chirping. She dug it out of her purse, looked at the display, and said, “Shit, my stalker.”

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