John Lescroart - Damage

Farrell had already closed his eyes and slumped back in his seat. Now, with what felt like Herculean effort, he opened them. “I hope the Chinese Merchants, if my calendar isn’t wrong, which it might be. Treya’s gone on vacation with no warning and she keeps my book. And I thought my back, too. Or did.”

Ritz looked back at him. “You didn’t know she had a vacation coming? How’d that happen?”

“She didn’t know it, either. She’s Glitsky wife, you know that?”

“Sure.” It took him a second, then he half turned in his seat. “Oh, the threat. Ro Curtlee.”

“She took it pretty seriously.”

“I would, too.”

“Well, we’ve got people on him around the clock now. Hope that slows him down some. He is one bad motherfucker. Still, I wish Treya hadn’t gone off. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

“You want,” Ritz said, “I’ll swing by Ro’s place while you’re talking to the Chinese Merchants tonight and shoot him dead. Then you can say I was with you the whole time, and we’re good. And then you can call Treya and tell her she can come back, the coast is clear.”

“Okay,” Farrell said. “Let’s do that. That’s a good idea.”

“Long as we got a plan,” Ritz said. “So where are we going?”

“The Mandarin Oriental. I think.”

“At least it’ll be good food.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Ritz. It might start out good, but by the time it gets to my plate… Let’s just say they don’t call it the rubber chicken circuit for nothing. Now I’m going to close my eyes.”

“The Mandarin’s like five minutes away, sir. That’s a short nap.”

“It’s five minutes more sleep than I’ve had since yesterday.” After another few seconds, Farrell opened his eyes and said, “Are we going?”

“One other thing, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. What?”

“If you could let dispatch know if you’re going to be bringing your dog along to work when you want the car? The thing is, I’m pretty allergic.”

“To Gert?”

“To pretty much all dogs, sir. Cats, too. Pollen. You name it.”

“I’m sorry about that, Ritz. I didn’t know. So, what, you wouldn’t take the gig on those days?”

Ritz shrugged. “Other guys could cover. Just to let you know.”

“Okay,” Farrell said. “I’ll try to call and let somebody know. If I can remember. When I’m bringing Gert down.”

“Is that likely to be often, you think? Just so I can plan?”

“I don’t know, Ritz. Sometimes, I guess. I don’t really know.” He paused, slumped down farther with his hand over his eyes. “My girlfriend left me, too,” he said. “Last night.”

Ritz spun his head to look at him. “Are you shittin’ me? Sam?”

“Sam.”

“Man, first Treya, then Sam.”

“Actually the other order. Sam, then Treya, but yeah. Then you, if you want to count people leaving me for one reason or another.”

“It’s not like I wouldn’t stay if you really wanted me.”

“It’s all right. You do what you have to do.”

Ritz took a beat. “Man, you are having some bad week here.”

“I know,” Farrell said. “I feel like a Haitian with a Prius.”

Abe Glitsky’s father, Nat, was rinsing what few dishes they’d used tonight in the kitchen of the small duplex he shared with Sadie Silverman on Third Avenue just off Clement Street. The kitchen was in the back of the flat, and although its dimensions were only about ten-by-eight feet, they used it for a dining room as well, sitting while they ate on their spindly wooden chairs and eating off one of Sadie’s dainty occasional tables from her old house.

Nat wasn’t exactly robust anymore, but then again, at eighty-three, he wasn’t in the ground, either, so there really wasn’t much to complain about. His weight was down from his lifetime high of 180 to about 155 pounds, and most disturbing, he’d lost an inch and a half of his original five foot ten-where had that gone?-but he still had all of his hair, now wispy and white, but still there, thank you very much.

At the table sipping at the thimbleful of port she’d poured herself, Sadie turned the page of her book, sighed, and closed it. “I don’t get all these vampires,” she said. “This is my third try on one of these books and I just can’t get myself to believe them.”

“Maybe that’s because there are no vampires in real life.”

“But there are no Star Wars in real life and I love those. Or hob-bits. Or time travel, either.”

Nat turned around at the sink. “When did there stop being time travel?”

“Stop.”

Nat turned back to the dishes, ran a sponge over a plate. “If I didn’t believe the first two books I read,” he said, “I wouldn’t have gone to the third.”

“That’s because you’re so impatient. I like to give things a chance.”

“Good. Now I know what I’ll get you for Valentine’s Day. Number four. And I am not impatient. My patience is legendary.”

Sadie sighed again. “But everybody’s reading these.”

“Not me.”

“That’s because all you read is the Torah.”

“That’s all I need. You might even like it more than vampires. Besides, you read it enough and you know all the good parts by heart and then you can carry it around inside you.”

“And David begat Solomon, and Solomon begat…”

“Hey! You don’t have to believe in that stuff, but I do.”

“I believe David begat Solomon, maybe. But that whole Moses and the parting of the Red Sea thing…”

Nat turned around, drying his hands. “Miracles, Sadie. They happen every day. You and me, for example.”

She couldn’t help but smile, pointing a finger up at him. “That’s cheating and you know it. Bringing it around to us. We just got lucky.”

“Luck schmuck. We’re a miracle and you know it.”

“All right. I’m not going to fight you about it.”

“You’d better not. You might be smitten for ingratitude.”

“Smitten, there’s a word.”

He stepped over and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to cut a piece of honey cake. You want a bite?”

“Small,” she said.

And the doorbell rang.

“Your father’s right, Abraham. You don’t look too good. Are you eating?”

“Sure,” Abe admitted.

“Like when?”

“When what?”

“When did you last eat?”

“I’m eating now. This fine homemade honey cake.”

“Or sleep?” his father asked.

In the tiny kitchen, on his dainty chair, next to the two older people, Abe could have been a giant. “How ’bout we leave off with the third degree?” He swallowed his bite of cake, sipped from his cup of tea. “Are you following this Ro Curtlee thing at all?”

“Some trouble when you arrested him,” his father said. “I read the paper.”

“I arrested him for threatening the kids. They gave him bail and let him out again, and Treya decided she couldn’t… she had to get the kids out of here.”

“To where?” Sadie asked.

“LA. Her brother’s place.”

Nat’s bite of cake stopped halfway to his mouth. “You’re saying she’s gone?”

Abe nodded. “This afternoon.”

“Why’d they let him out?” Sadie asked.

“They’re insane. They don’t live in the real world.”

“Vampires,” Nat said.

“Not exactly, Pops, but close enough. Anyway, as you can see, I stayed.”

“Is she mad at you?” Sadie asked.

The corner of Abe’s mouth went up a quarter inch. “I want to say she understands, but I’m not sure.”

“What’s not to understand?” Nat asked.

“Me, staying. Why my job is more important than my kids, or maybe even-she thinks-my life.” He twirled his eggshell-thin china cup of tea in its saucer. “The thing is, she left her job. She thinks I should have left mine.”