Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

“So this guy,” I said. “What’d he look like?”

Jeff shrugged. “Just a guy, you know?”

It was like pulling teeth. “Was he tall, thin, fat, black guy, white guy?”

“A white guy,” Jeff said, nodding, like that should do it.

“Fat?”

“No, he was in pretty good shape. And he had kind of light-colored hair, I guess. And he had pretty decent clothes. He smoked.”

“How old was he?”

“He was pretty old,” Jeff said.

“Like what, sixties, seventies?”

Jeff concentrated. “No, I think thirties.”

“How much was he paying you?”

“Well, he gave me the thing, you know, the wedge he called it, and he said he’d give me fifty bucks for every card I swiped through it. But mostly he wanted them to be high-end cards, like gold cards and stuff like that. So in a single shift, I could make a thousand bucks. Dalrymple’s, they were paying, like, just minimum wage, plus tips, but some nights they were good and some nights they weren’t, although I always told my mom they were big so she wouldn’t wonder why I had so much money.” He paused. “While it lasted.”

It wasn’t hard to understand the appeal for a young kid looking for some fast cash.

“But that last night, when Roy-”

“Roy?”

“Roy Chilton, the manager? When he saw me swiping the card an extra time through the wedge, he knew right away what it was and went all ballistic on me.”

“Why’d you do it, Jeff?” I asked. “You’re a good kid.”

He shrugged again. “I wanted to get a laptop.”

I stared out the window for a moment, watched the traffic go past. I asked, “Did Sydney know about this?”

“No way,” he said. “I never told her anything about it. I kind of didn’t want anyone to know. I told Sydney I got the job at Dalrymple’s, but when I got fired right away I told her I dropped a family’s entire order all over the floor and that was why they got rid of me. And I made Evan swear not to tell Sydney anything about the card I gave him.”

I could recall Syd mentioning something about Jeff losing his job, but never the reason why.

“You’re not saying anything,” Jeff said. “You pissed at me?”

I laid my hands flat on the tabletop and closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, Jeff was looking at me warily, wondering, I think, whether there was something wrong with me.

“You probably weren’t the only kid this guy had doing this,” I said. “That’s a lot of fake cards, a lot of identities getting ripped off for a lot of money.”

“One time,” Jeff said, “he made some mention, it was to get some people started, people who’d just come to the country, so they could get things and stuff.”

I thought about that a moment.

“You still have that cell number for this guy?”

Jeff shook his head.

“You sure you don’t remember his name?”

Jeff struggled for a moment. “Thing is, he told me his name once, but then when he answered his phone, he said, like, ‘Gary here.’”

“But Gary wasn’t the name he gave you?”

“No, it was something else.” Jeff wrinkled his nose, like the answer was out there and all he had to do was sniff it out. “It mighta been Eric.”

“Eric,” I repeated.

“I think that was it.”

“How’d you hook up with him the first time?”

“Someone told me that if I was looking for a way to make some extra money, to give this guy a call. I thought, maybe I could do something different than the Dalrymple’s thing, or work this other job on the side. Turned out the two of them went together.”

“Who?” I asked. “Who told you this?”

“Please, Mr. Blake, I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble.”

Maybe, if he hadn’t mentioned the name Eric, I’d still think it was possible Jeff’s problems were in no way connected to Sydney. Now I had the feeling there was a very strong link.

“Spill it, Jeff,” I said. “Who tipped you to this guy?”

Jeff ran his index finger sideways under his nose, then said, “You know him. He sells cars where you work? Andy?” I blinked. “Andy Hertz?”

“Yeah, that’s him. But don’t ever tell him I told you.”

I sat there, trying to put it together. Jeff looked at me and said, “Hey, Mr. Blake, you seen Patty around lately?”

DRIVING JEFF BACK TO HIS HOME IN MY BEETLE, I said, “How do you know Andy Hertz?”

“Last year, when Sydney was working at the dealership, she got to be friends with everybody,” Jeff said. “Sometimes, when Syd and I and Patty and some of our other friends got together, Andy would hang out with us. He was older than everybody else, but he was kind of cool, and plus he could buy beer for us.”

“Isn’t that great,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “He’s a pretty good guy.”

“So, Andy just told all of you how to make a little extra money?”

“No,” Jeff said. “Just me. I mean, the only one I know that he told was me. I got to talking to him alone once about trying to find a job, and he said he had a number for a guy he’d run into a couple of times, that he could fix me up with something.”

“Really,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you tell Andy what happened?”

“Like I said, I didn’t want anybody to know, so no, I didn’t tell him. My dad said I couldn’t ever tell anybody. I never even told Andy I got in touch with the guy in the first place.”

I did my best to concentrate on the traffic ahead of me. I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples. I very much wanted to have a chat with Andy Hertz.

“You okay, Mr. Blake?” Jeff asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re not going to mention to Andy that I told you this, are you?” he asked worriedly.

I glanced over and said nothing.

Despite his size, he seemed to sink in his chair. In the fishbowl-like interior of the Beetle, he still had plenty of headroom. Jeff was quiet for another moment, then said, “I wonder if I did something to piss Patty off. She usually calls me back.”

I DROPPED JEFF OFF-his mother was standing at the door and had been there the whole time for all we knew-and as I was backing out of the driveway, intending to head straight over to Riverside Honda and have a few words with Andy Hertz, my cell went off.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Blake? Detective Jennings. Where are you?”

“Driving to work.”

“I need you to come in to police headquarters.”

“Can it wait? I need to go to the dealership and talk to-”

“You need to come in now.”

Panic washed over me. “What’s happened? Is it Sydney? Have you found Sydney?”

“I’d just like you to come in,” she said.

I wanted to tell her I might have a lead on finding Eric, whose real name might be Gary, but decided to wait until I got to the station.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.

She met me at the door of the police building. “I appreciate you coming right away,” she said.

“What’s happened?” I asked. “Have you found Syd?”

“Come with me,” Jennings said, and I followed her down a tiled hallway, around a corner, and into a simple, unadorned room with a table and chairs. “Have a seat,” she directed me.

I took a seat.

She left the door open, and a couple of seconds later we were joined by a barrel-chested man in his fifties with a military-style brush cut.

“This is Detective Adam Marjorie,” Jennings said. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who took much ribbing about his last name. “He’s… now involved in the investigation.” Her tone suggested he was higher up the department food chain, and was stepping in to show how things were done.