Joel Goldman - Shakedown

“It looks like he was preparing for the end of the world.”

“How’s that?”

“He had enough candles and?ashlights to last a lifetime,” she said.

“What about bottled water, canned goods and dried fruit, stuff like that?”

“Now that you mention it, we didn’t find any. Maybe he was just afraid of the dark.”

“Marty Grisnik stopped by the hospital. Says he saw you at Latrell’s.”

“Yeah. He wasn’t too happy that he was late to the party, but that’s the way Troy is playing it.”

“You bring him up to date on what’s been going on?”

“Sure. Figured that was the best way to get him on our side, but don’t tell Troy.”

“Not a chance. By the way, you say anything to him about Wendy?”

“Yeah. Grisnik asked for her name and a description. Said he wanted his people to help find her. Why? Is that a problem?”

“No. We need all the help we can get.”

“I’ll get back to you on the phone records,” she said and hung up.

The waiting room felt like it was getting smaller. The walls weren’t moving and neither was I. Waiting for Kate to come out of surgery while hoping that my cell phone would ring with good news was a suffocating prospect.

I left my cell phone number with the nurse, who promised to call when I could see Kate. I didn’t know where to look for Wendy, but I was certain that if I could find Colby, I would find her.

If they were being held against their will, I could spend the rest of my life combing the city inch by inch and never find them. If they were hiding, at least one of them would have to come out for food, money, or air. That was likely to be Colby. He wouldn’t go to his house or to Wendy’s apartment because he’d know that the FBI was watching both of those locations, as was anyone else they might be hiding from. Colby would reach out to a friend and I could only think of one person who might qualify.

Pete’s Place was not the place to be at midnight on a Friday night. There were only three cars parked anywhere near the door, one of them across the street. It may have been crowded earlier, but it was down to the stragglers. The restaurant next door, Pete’s Other Place, was buttoned down and black. The nearest streetlight was fifty yards to the north, a ball of yellow that splashed on the pavement and quit, leaving the bar buried in the dark, the faint neon glow in the window a pale beacon for anyone looking for a last stop.

The lights inside the bar were milky, the air quilted with smoke. A heavyset man who looked to be in his sixties, his chin on his chest, was passed out in a chair, his head angled against the wall, an empty beer pitcher on the table in front of him. Tanja Andrija was bent over him, patting his face to bring him around.

“C’mon George. Wake up and go home. I’m not running a bed and breakfast.”

George stirred and smiled, trying to grope Tanja. She batted his meaty hand away like he was a child.

“Not tonight, George. You’re too drunk to do me any good and your wife would kill us both, anyway.”

Two other men were seated at the bar. Both had the broad shoulders and over-the-belt-guts of men who’d spent their lives working hard and drinking harder. They lumbered off their stools.

“We’ll get him home, Tanja,” one of them said.

They each slipped an arm around George, hefting him to his feet like he was a sack filled with feathers and air. I sat down at the bar as Tanja opened the door and the trio stumbled into the night.

She closed the door behind them and snapped the dead-bolt, came around to the business side of the bar, and leaned against the far wall framed by bottles of booze, the mirrored wall behind her letting me watch me watch her. She was wearing low-riding jeans that hugged her like they meant it and a deep red T-shirt stretched tight across her breasts. Standing with her elbows on the counter, her ankles crossed, her eyes alive, and her mouth pitched at an inviting angle, she promised trouble. If she were on my calendar, I’d never make it to next month.

Marty Grisnik and Colby Hudson had fallen for her. I could see why. Grisnik was probably not over her all these years later. Colby might not get the chance to forget her.

“You came back,” Tanja said.

“Is that why you locked the door?”

“We’re closed.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do. Like I said, we’re closed.”

“I don’t want to buy a drink.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Colby Hudson.”

She looked around the bar. “I don’t see him.”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t know where he is.”

“What did he do? Break curfew?”

“I didn’t say he did anything. I’m just looking for him.”

“He was in here the other day,” she said, turning her back to me. The cash register was next to her. She opened it, removed the cash, and stuffed the money into a bank bag. She zipped it closed, tucked it under her arm, and looked at me in the mirror behind the bar. “Same day you were here. He introduced us. You should remember that.”

“I remember. You told Marty Grisnik not to bring me back.”

“I guess I should have been more specific. I should have told you not to come back. Consider it said.”

“You and I aren’t going to be friends, are we?”

She held the money bag in front of her with both hands like it was a shield. “I don’t think we have enough in common.”

“We have more in common than you think.”

“Name one thing,” she said.

“Colby Hudson. You said he makes you laugh. If you want him to keep doing that, I need to find him.”

“What are you, his mother?”

“Colby tell you what he does for a living?”

She hesitated, put the money bag on the counter, and stuck her hands in her pockets. She rolled her shoulders back, her blond hair swirling around her neck and her posture lifting her breasts. I couldn’t tell whether she was preparing to attack or surrender. “He’s an FBI agent, same as you. Marty told me all about you.”

“And Marty told me all about you. He said the two of you used to go out. He’s a cop and he’s your friend. Colby’s an FBI agent and, from what I saw the other day, he’s your friend, too. So why are you giving me such a hard time when I’m only trying to help Colby?”

“You’re not like Marty and Colby. You’re full of self-righteous bullshit, the way you judged Colby and me. What’s between us is nobody’s business but ours.”

I’d never seen Colby look at Wendy the way I’d seen him look at Tanja. I thought again of Joy and Kate. Each time I was ready to condemn someone else, I painted myself with the same brush.

“You’re right. It’s none of my business, but I still need to find him.”

“If Colby wants you to find him, you will.”

“Why wouldn’t he want me to find him?”

She looked at me straight on, her blank face set in stone. “I don’t know. I run a bar. That’s all.”

I stood. “You hear from Colby, tell him to find me.”

“Sure. Next time I see him,” she said.

“You do that. Is there another way out of here besides the front door?”

“Why?”

Her eyes widened and her brow arched upward in a?ash. In the next instant her face was smooth. If I had blinked, I would have missed her micro expression. Kate would have labeled it a classic expression of fear. It was the kind of fear that could come from hiding Colby in the back of the bar.

“Because you’re closed and the front door is locked. I’ll just go out the back.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, recovering quickly as she smoothed her T-shirt, tugging on the bottom edge. “I’ll let you out the front.”