Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

“You were great,” Neal said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Sorry I ever put you in this situation. Sorry I took this job so lightly, that I misunderstood Withers-not once, but twice-sorry I was out in the yard rolling around with the wrong guy while I left you to deal with a killer in our home. Sorry I got out there in time to see Withers’s car roaring away. I’m one sorry son of a bitch.

“The dog’s going to be all right,” Candy said. She daubed Brezhnev’s neck with antiseptic. The dog lay panting on the floor, with what looked like a satisfied smile on its face.

Karen bent over, stroked the dog’s neck, and said, “You have a lifetime’s supply of biscuits coming from me, kid.”

I put her in a position where an old dog saved her life, Neal thought. Just saved her life.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again.

“I’m okay. I’m shaken… I think we all are… but I’m okay.”

Neal kissed the top of her head, then walked over to Polly, who stood in the middle of the floor with that stupid expression on her face. It made him even angrier. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

But he noticed that she didn’t resist.

“We’re going to have a talk,” he said.

He didn’t wait for an answer or an argument, but hauled Polly into the bedroom and sat her down on the bed.

“I want the truth from you now,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like who is Gloria?” Neal snapped.

“She’s my best friend,” Polly said, “and my supervisor at work.”

“Well, your best friend gave you up,” Neal said.

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“How’d she know where you are?”

She chewed her lip.

I have to control my temper, Neal thought, because my temper isn’t getting anywhere. She’s perfectly capable of just dummying up if I keep getting angry.

He sat down next to her.

“You have to help me now, Polly,” he said. “Someone wants to kill you, and someone came very close to killing Karen, so you have to help us.”

“I called her.”

Neal felt his face turn hot with anger. He fought to keep the bite out of his voice as he asked, “Why?”

“She’s my best friend,” Polly repeated. “We talk.”

Not anymore, you don’t.

“Does she have a man friend named Walter?”

“She has lots of man friends,” Polly answered. “I don’t know one named Walter.”

“Do you know a guy named Walter Withers?”

“No.”

The phone rang and Neal picked it up.

Polly took the chance to run out of the room.

“You were supposed to call me back,” Graham said. “There may be some complications.”

“Like a hit man coming to my house?” Neal asked.

“Hell no, nothing like that,” Graham said. “Don’t be paranoid.”

“Okay, a button man just hit our place, but I’m sure it was nothing personal.”

“What happened?” Graham asked.

“Someone just took a run at our honored guest.”

“Is everyone all right?!”

“No thanks to me,” Neal said. “Karen did a Mickey Mantle on his lumbar vertebrae. You told me this wasn’t a mob thing, Dad. Can you still tell me that?”

Graham sounded ashamed. “No.”

He briefed Neal on everything he’d learned. Neal, in turn, told him about Chuck Whiting, Mrs. Landis, Gloria, and Walt Withers.

“Walt Withers isn’t a hit man,” Graham said. “He’s taken a fall, but not that far.”

“Far enough to be a wheelman?” Neal asked. “The hitter got away in Walt’s car.”

Neal had his own doubts, though. He had left Withers just hours before, dead-drunk. It seemed barely possible that he could have driven a car, let alone made an assassination attempt.

“We’ll get a team out there,” Graham said. “Can you sit tight until morning?”

A team? Neal thought. So far, the old team had blown his location, let in at least three opposing players, and seemed to have given the other team copies of the playbook. He’d had about enough of the team. And there was a practical problem. With security so badly compromised, he couldn’t be sure that any team that arrived didn’t have one or more opposing players on it.

Neal answered, “I think I’ll try a solo sport for a while.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Well, I am doing that.”

A long silence. Neal could almost see Graham rubbing his artificial fist into his real palm.

Then Graham said, “Son, every time something goes wrong, you go off on your own, and every time you do that, you fuck things up worse. You can’t be doing that anymore. You have to stop running away like some sulking thirteen-year-old. You have to stay connected now, son. I know you’re mad and you’re scared, but it’s time to grow up and stay connected.”

“Fuck you, Graham.”

But he’s right, Neal thought. I can’t handle this one on my own.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

Graham told him.

“Neal…” Karen stood in the doorway. She saw he was on the phone and so she sat down on the bed.

“Polly says you hate her and she wants to leave,” she said.

“I’ll drive her to the airport,” Neal offered.

“Someone tried to kill her, Neal!”

“And almost killed you instead,” Neal answered. “All because she had to get on the phone and blab to her buddy.”

“She trusted her friend,” Karen said. “Is that such a sin?”

“See?” Neal said. “Trust?”

“Neal…”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Neal said, “she can take a hike. She’s not worth it.”

“I dunno,” Karen said. “A deck and a hot tub?”

“We’re going to have to run, you know,” he said. He reached for her and pulled her close. “I almost lost you. I couldn’t take that.”

“I wouldn’t be so thrilled about it, either,” she answered, stroking the back of his head. “How long will we have to run?”

“I don’t know,” Neal answered. “But we need to get going.”

“I’m going with you,” Candy Landis said, stepping into the room.

“Doesn’t anybody in this house knock anymore?” Neal asked. “And no, you’re not coming with us.”

He was throwing things into a duffel bag when Chuck came back from Brogan’s.

“He has a hell of a bruise and a possible fracture of the cheekbone,” Chuck said. “That lady from the store is driving him to Fallon to check it out. They’re going to stop by for the dog.”

I owe Brogan, Neal thought-big-time. Not to mention the dog.

He could feel Chuck staring at him.

“Yeah?” Neal said. He didn’t exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings toward old Chuck.

“I should remove Mrs. Landis from the area,” Chuck said.

“Well, Chuckles, we’re about to remove ourselves from the area,” Neal said. “And Mrs. Landis is going with us.”

“That’s just not an option.”

Neal turned from his packing and stared up at Whiting, who did not seem particularly intimidated.

“You want options, buy a Buick,” Neal told him. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea, either, but the women insist, and I don’t have the time to argue.”

And between me and me, until I can figure out who is on whose side, I don’t mind having a little leverage in the person of Mrs. Jackson Landis.

“Can you protect her?” Chuck asked.

Neal saw the little bones protrude at the base of Chuck’s jaw and wondered if maybe this was a little more than business.

“I don’t know,” Neal answered. “Can you?”

“Of course.”

Neal zipped up the duffel bag and said, “Yeah, you’ve done a pretty good job so far. She was, what, six feet from a gun barrel, would you say?”