George Pelecanos - The Way Home

Flynn exchanged another commiserating look with the officer before moving away.

He was not in love with the police, but he was empathetic about the job they did and the people they had to deal with every day. He had never once regretted his decision to leave the MPD, but he was glad he had experienced that life, if only for less than a year. The brevity of his tenure aside, the man in blue had never left his blood entirely.

He owned a. 38 Special, which had been the MPD sidearm in his day, before the force switched over to the Glock 17. Though it probably wasn’t true that all police felt naked without a gun after their retirement, it happened to be true for Flynn. Despite the District handgun ban, recently lifted, he had bought the revolver hot from one of his installers and kept it loaded in the nightstand beside his bed. He liked knowing that there was a firearm within reach. Given the relative safety of his neighborhood, his decision to own an illegal gun was emotional rather than rational. He realized he’d pay a heavy price if he was caught with it, but he was willing to take the risk.

“Pardon me,” said Flynn to the male officer, as he stepped around him and went through the open kitchen door.

Flynn went toward the front of the house, into the center hallway, and cut left into the library. He inspected the work that Chris and Ben had done. It had simply been a sloppy performance. One side of the carpet was misaligned with the wall and slanted away from the bead. On that side, nearest the built-in bookshelves, the corner of the carpet had not been laid properly and appeared to have been pulled up and hastily put back down.

“Chris,” said Flynn, shaking his head. Flynn knew that he had measured correctly and he had double-checked the size of the roll when it had come into the warehouse. This was on Chris and his friend Ben. They just hadn’t done the job with conscience or care.

He went to the spot that looked worse and got down on his knees. He lifted the corner to check on the padding and saw that a cutout had been made in the hardwood floor. With one knee holding down the bent-back carpet, he got his fingers under a notch in the cutout and lifted it away from the floor.

A kind of basket, fashioned with wood slats, had been built in beneath the floor. It was meant to hold something, but it held nothing now. Flynn actually scratched his head. The concealed cutout and basket were nothing to him, and asking Mindy Kramer about them would only be a further complication. He replaced the panel, put the carpet back down, and phoned his son. Chris and Ben were headed south on 16th Street, just five minutes away.

When they arrived, they came straight to the job site where Flynn was waiting.

“Hey,” said Chris.

“Chris,” said Flynn, “what’s this?”

Chris breathed through his mouth, his eyes darting nervously as he revisited the work they’d done. What Flynn used to call his “what the fuck did I do” look. Ben stood beside him, silent, not able or willing to look at Flynn. Flynn smelled the alcohol sweat coming off Ben and could see a hard night and shame in his eyes. He wondered how long he could carry this man. When poor performance began to affect Flynn’s business, he had to reconsider the hire. Even if it was his own son.

“That’s not how we left it,” said Chris.

“C’mon, Chris. Don’t play me like that.”

“Listen to me, Dad. We did this job right.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Chris thumb-stroked the scar above his lip, something he did unconsciously when he was struggling with a problem. “What are the police doing here? We saw ’em in the back of the house when we came down the hall.”

“Somebody broke in last night,” said Flynn. “It’s got nothing to do with this.”

Flynn noticed Chris glance at Ben, and he saw Ben stare down at his shoes, his posture slackening. Something wasn’t right.

“Maybe whoever broke in came in here and messed up our work,” said Chris.

“Please,” said Flynn.

“I’m tell ing you. We did the job correctly.”

“I don’t have time for this right now,” said Flynn. “You two get to work and correct it. I’ve got to go back out there and make some sort of price adjustment for the customer. It’s gonna cost me, but hey, what’s a few hundred dollars.”

“Take it out my check,” said Chris.

“You know I don’t do that,” said Flynn. “Go on, get to work.”

Flynn left the room. Chris stared at Ben, who would not meet his eyes.

“You heard him,” said Chris. “Let’s fix this shit.”

Chris and Ben refinished the job properly while Thomas Flynn dealt with Mindy Kramer and adjusted her bill. When they were almost done, two young police officers came into the room where they were working and had a look around. The female officer asked Chris what he was doing, and he told her that they were correcting a new-carpet install that had been done the day before. Chris and Ben said nothing further. If they had been asked other questions, their responses would have been similarly to-the-point and minimal. They did not hate police, but neither did they trust them or have any desire to cooperate or fraternize with them.

The day had cooled little by early evening, when Chris pulled into the small parking lot behind Ben’s apartment house, finding a spot shaded, somewhat, by a thin-armed maple. Chris pushed the transmission arm up into park and let the motor run. Ben had his elbow resting on the lip of the window and was staring out toward the cemetery. They had spoken very little on the ride uptown.

“You gonna talk to me now?” said Chris.

Ben turned his head and looked into his friend’s eyes. “I didn’t take the money, Chris.”

“You told me that already.”

“You believe me, right?”

“I do. But you know who took it.”

Ben nodded slowly. “Had to be Lawrence Newhouse.”

“ Shit. You told Lawrence?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why him?”

Ben briefly shut his eyes, as if that could erase what he had done. “Lawrence came past my spot last night.”

“He just dropped in for no reason.”

“Nah, he wanted something. You know that. Ali’s been tryin to help his nephew out. Young man’s up on charges, I expect. So Ali’s lookin to, you know, help him get a job at a McDonald’s, someplace like that. Lawrence don’t think that’s good enough for his nephew. He wanted to see if your father could put him on.”

“I’m not doing that,” said Chris. “I’m not getting involved with Lawrence or anyone in his family. I wouldn’t do that to my old man.”

“I told Lawrence the same. In a different way, but I told him. And then I went for a drive with him, just to get him out my apartment.”

“I would’ve shown him the door.”

“That’s what I should’ve done, but I didn’t. We ended up down by the river, and Lawrence got me all fucked up on weed and alcohol. You know I can’t hold my drink. I started to talk behind the vodka. I’m not making an excuse. I’m just sayin, I was trippin and that’s what I did. I can’t even tell you what I said to him. I mean, I was that far gone. But I woke up this morning and I knew I had told him enough and that I had messed up bad.”

“Shit, Ben.”

“I know, man. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry don’t fix this.”

“I could talk to Lawrence. He still stays down there at Parkchester. Ali could get up with him through his nephew.”

“What for?” said Chris.

They sat there for a while without speaking. They thought about what to do, and it came to Chris that there was nothing to do. There was no one to return the money to. There was simply a basket, now empty, underneath a floor in an unoccupied row house. No one would miss the money or know that it had been there or that it was gone.