James Patterson - Lifeguard

I scanned the faces of a few waiting people. Right now, there was only one question I wanted answered.

Was she there?

Ellie had visited regularly when I started serving my term. Almost every Sunday she’d drive up, with books and DVDs and cute notes, marking off the weeks. Coleman was only a couple of hours’ drive from Delray. We made this date: September 19, 2005. The day I’d be getting out. Today.

She always joked she’d come pick me up in a minivan, like the day we met. It didn’t matter that I was going to have this record and she was still working for the FBI. It would distinguish her, Ellie said with a laugh. Make her stand apart from the organizational clutter. She’d be the only agent dating a guy she had put away.

You can count on it, Ellie said.

Then the Bureau actually offered her this promotion. They transferred her back to New York. Head of the International Art Theft office there. A big move up. A lot of overseas travel. The visits started going from every week to every month. Then last spring, they sort of came to a stop.

Oh, we e-mailed each other a few times a week and talked on the phone. She told me that she was still rooting for me and that she was proud of what I was doing. She always knew I’d make something of myself. But I could detect a shift in her voice. Ellie was smart and a winner and had even been on the morning news shows after the case. As September grew close, I got this e-mail that she might have to be out of the country. I didn’t want to push it. Dreams change. That’s what prison does. As the days wound down I decided, if she was there, well, that’s where I would pick up from. I’d be the happiest guy in south Florida. If not…well, we were both different people now.

There was a taxi and a couple of cars parked in the waiting area in front of the prison. A young Latino family stepped forward excitedly for someone else.

No Ellie. I didn’t see a minivan anywhere.

But there was something parked just outside the fence at the end of the long drive that did cause me to smile.

A familiar light green Caddie. One of Sollie’s cars.

And leaning on the hood was a guy with his legs extended and crossed, wearing jeans and a navy blazer.

Orange hair.

“I know it’s not exactly what you were hoping for, mate,” Champ said, smiling contritely, “but you look like a guy who could use a ride home.”

I stood there looking at him on the hot steaming pavement, and my eyes started to well. I hadn’t seen Champ since I’d gone inside. He’d spent six weeks in the hospital. A punctured spleen and lung, only one kidney. The bullet had ricocheted off his spine. Ellie had told me he’d never race again.

I picked up my bags and walked over. I asked, “So, just where’s home? ”

“The Kiwis have a phrase: home’s where the women snore and the beer’s free. Tonight, we’re talking my couch.”

We threw our arms around each other, gave each other a long embrace. “You look good, Champ. I always said you cleaned up well.”

“I’m working for Mr. Roth now. He bought this Kawasaki distributorship on Okeechobee…” He handed me a business card. Geoff Hunter. FORMER WSB WORLD CHAMPION. SALES ASSOCIATE. “If you can’t race ’em, you might as well sell the damn things.”

Geoff took the bag from me. “What do you say we boogie, mate? This old bus here gives me the willies. Never did feel safe driving anything with a roof and four wheels.”

I climbed in the front passenger seat as Geoff tossed my bags in the trunk. Then he eased his still-stiff body behind the wheel. “Let’s see,” he said, fiddling around with the ignition key, “I have a vague recollection how this is done…”

He revved the engine hard and pulled away from the curb with a start. I turned and found myself looking through the rear window one last time, hoping for something that I knew wasn’t meant to be. The towers of the Coleman Detention Center receded, and with them, part of my own hopes and dreams.

Champ hit the gas and the twenty-year-old Caddie revved into some new gear that had probably lain dormant for a long time. He looked over and winked, impressed. “Whadya say we hit the turnpike, mate? Let’s check out what this old bird can really do.”

SOLLIE SENT FOR ME the next morning.

When I got to the house he was watching CNN in the sunroom off the pool. He looked a little older, a little paler, if that was possible, but his eyes lit up brightly when he saw me come in. “Neddie… It’s good to see you, boy.”

Though he never visited me in Coleman, Sollie had been watching out for me. He set me up with the dean of graduate programs at South Florida, sent me books and the computer, and assured the parole board I’d have a job with him, if I wanted it, upon my release. He also sent me a nice note of condolence when he heard my dad had died.

“You’re lookin’ good, kid.” He shook my hand and patted me on the back. “These institutions must be like Ritz Carl-tons now.”

“Tennis, mah-jongg, canasta…” I said. I tapped my behind. “Skid burns from the waterslide,” I said with a smile.

“You still play gin?”

“Only for Cokes and commissary vouchers lately.”

“That’s okay.” He took my arm. “We’ll start a new tab. C’mon, walk me out to the deck.”

We went outside. Sol was in a white button-down shirt tucked neatly into light blue golf pants. We sat at one of the card tables around the pool. He took out a deck and started to shuffle. “I was sorry to hear about your dad, Ned. I was glad you got to see him that time before he died.”

“Thanks, Sol,” I said. “It was good advice.”

“I always gave you good advice, kid.” He cut the deck. “And you always followed it. Except for that little escapade up on the roof of the Breakers. But I guess everything worked out fine. Everyone got what they wanted in the end.”

“And what was it you wanted, Sol?” I looked at him.

“Justice, kid, just like you.” He slowly dealt out the cards.

I didn’t pick them up. I just sat there, staring at him. Then I put my hand on his as he went to turn over the play card. “I want you to know, Sol, I never told anyone. Not even Ellie.”

Sollie stopped. He tapped his cards and pressed them, facedown. “You mean about the Gaume? How I knew all that stuff was written on the back? That’s good, Ned. I guess that sorta makes us even, right?”

“No, Sol,” I said, looking at him closely, “not even at all.” I was thinking about Dave. And Mickey and Barney and Bobby and Dee. Murdered for something they never had. “ You’re Gachet, aren’t you? You stole the Gaume?”

Sol stared at me with those hooded gray eyes, then he hunched his shoulders like a guilty child. “I guess I owe you some answers, don’t I, son?”

For the first time I realized I had totally underestimated Sollie. That comment he made once, about Stratton believing he was the biggest fish in the pond but there always being someone bigger.

I was staring at him now.

“I’m going to show you something once, Ned,” Sol said, putting down the cards, “and for your silence ever after I’m going to pay you a lot of money. Every penny you thought you were going to make that day when you went to meet your friends.”

I tried to remain calm.

“That’s a million dollars, Ned, if I remember right. And while we’re at it, how about another for your friends, and another for Dave. That’s three million, Ned. I can’t repay you for what happened to them. I can’t bring back what’s been done. I’m an old man. Money’s all I have, these days…Well, not entirely…”