Linwood Barclay - Bad Move

I stood there, gun in hand but pointed now at the floor, and said, “I shot the desk.”

I felt I had not made sufficient apologies to Greenway. “Really, I’m very sorry, I’ll pay for any damages. I really didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Earl took the gun from my hand. “Looks like I got back here just in time.”

I surrendered the weapon without hesitation. Earl took the half-inch of cigarette from between his lips, exhaled, and said to Greenway and Carpington, “I think I just saved your lives.”

“Thank you,” Carpington said. “Thank you so much.”

To me, Earl said, “Their cars are around back, and I was just about to hide my truck when I heard the shot. You about done here?”

“I think so,” I said.

Outside, we heard the familiar sound of tires crunching on gravel. Earl slipped back into the main part of the office that was still in darkness and peered through the blinds.

“What kind of car does Rick drive?” he called out.

“A little sedan,” I said. “Import, four-door.”

“No, this ain’t Rick then. It’s a big Beemer. Seven series.”

Greenway said, quietly, as though resigned to some terrible fate, “That would be Mr. Benedetto.”

“The more the merrier,” said Earl, who moved into position behind the door. When the first knock came, Earl swung the door in, held the barrel of the gun to Benedetto’s nose, and said, “Won’t you come in?”

He had a larger-than-life quality about him. Tall, broad, heavyset, immaculately dressed in a dark suit and expensive overcoat. Silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, big bushy eyebrows. His mouth was wide and turned down at the ends. He didn’t blink when Earl shoved the gun in his face, and he stepped into the Valley Forest Estates sales offices calmly.

Greenway called out from his office, “Mr. Benedetto! I can explain! We’re just having a bit of a situation here.”

I stepped out of his office. “Hi, Mr. Benedetto. I’ve heard a lot about you. And my friend and I would love to stay and chat, but we’ve pretty much finished conducting our business here.”

While Earl kept the gun on him, I went back to Greenway. “Where’s my phone?” I asked him.

For a moment, my question didn’t seem to register. Then he recalled grabbing it at the construction site. “Desk drawer,” he said. “Top right.”

I looked inside and sure enough, there it was. I slipped it into my jacket pocket. “Good night, gentlemen,” I said.

“Hey,” said Carpington, trying to show me his cuffed wrists. “What about a key?”

I shrugged, smiled. “It’ll just save the cops the trouble when they get here.” And I walked out, past Benedetto, Earl following me. We ran to his truck and got inside, backing out of the lot and heading up the street.

“What about Benedetto?” asked Earl. “Should we have used our last set of cuffs on him?”

I shrugged. “I think we’ve got what we need, regardless of whether he’s walking around free.”

I took a couple of deep breaths, and then, out of nowhere, started making whooping noises.

“Whoa! Jesus! Did you see us in there? Were we bad?”

“We were bad,” Earl said.

“We were baaad!”

“Sure,” he said, lighting up. “We were bad.”

“We were some bad motherfuckers, weren’t we?” I slapped the dashboard. I felt like we’d just walked out of a scene in Pulp Fiction . “I can’t believe we went in there, pushed them around, got some information. We kicked ass, didn’t we?”

Earl nearly smiled. “Yeah, kicked ass. Nearly killed them, too, you dumb fuck.”

We drove along in silence for a moment. I realized we were heading out of the neighborhood, nowhere in particular, it seemed.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“Hey, you’re the navigator. I just wanted to get us away from there. I thought maybe we needed a drink or something.”

“No,” I said. “No. I gotta finish dealing with this. I think I’m ready to go to the cops. I’ve got what I need.”

Earl nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a couple of things,” he said.

“Okay.”

“First, I’d appreciate it if you could keep me out of this. I was happy to help you out tonight, but maybe you can find a way to keep from mentioning my presence to the authorities. I don’t want them coming by and asking a lot of questions. I’ve got a business to run.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do what I can. I guess it depends on how much Greenway and Carpington say. They’ll probably have enough to worry about without filing any sort of charges about our busting into their offices.”

“I expect. And there’s something else, that can’t come from me, since I’d like to keep a low profile.”

“What?”

“When you call the cops, you might want to suggest to them that they check those clowns’ cars. I noticed, when I was moving them, there’s a lot of shit in those cars, books and files and stuff. Might be just the thing they’re looking for.”

I nodded. “Sure, I’ll be happy to pass that along.”

“You want me to drop you at the police station?” he asked.

I thought. “No. There’s a street behind ours, where I parked Stefanie Knight’s Beetle. I’ll pick it up, drive it over to the police station, get them to give me a ride home later.”

“Sounds good.”

He turned around, headed back to our neighborhood, and pulled up alongside the Volkswagen. As I opened the door, I said, “Thanks, Earl. You didn’t have to do this.”

“S’okay. Just remember to do what I told you.”

I nodded, slammed the truck door shut, and, as Earl drove off into the night, reached into my jeans for the VW keys. I got into the car, fired it up, and decided to check that my cell phone was on.

I dug it out of my pocket and saw that Greenway had turned it off, not keen to have to take my messages, I guess. I watched the tiny screen as the phone became activated, searched for a signal. And then: “You have 4 new messages.”

I could guess who they were from. Before I went to the police station, I thought I’d better give Sarah a call at work. It was time to come clean. She was going to be pissed, I knew that, but there was going to be no way to keep all this from her once the police were involved.

Without bothering to check the messages, I called her extension at work.

A male voice answered. Not Dan. Thank God. “City.”

“Sarah Walker, please.”

“Not here. Can I take a message?”

“It’s her husband. She go home in the middle of her shift?”

“Some emergency. Had to go home.”

And I thought, What if that was her who phoned when I was hiding out in the construction site? And when a strange voice answered-Greenway’s-and said I was unavailable? What would she have thought? Especially when she was unable to raise me, or the kids, at home?

Shit.

“Thanks,” I said, and then, as soon as I’d ended the call, I realized the gravity of what Sarah’s colleague had just said to me. Sarah had gone home. To the one place where I’d felt, all night, it was unsafe to return.

I started to key in our home number when the phone rang shrilly. I nearly dropped it. I pressed the green button and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Zack?” Sarah.

“Yes, yes, it’s me!”

“Didn’t you get any of my messages? God, I’ve been trying to get you all night.”

“I just got my phone back and hadn’t had a second to check them yet. I’m so sorry, it’s been quite a night.”

“I phoned you, and this other man answered, and I tried to call back, and I called home, and you haven’t been here, I couldn’t get the kids. So I left work and-”

“Sarah.”

“-I’ve never been so worried in my entire life, especially when-”