Christopher Sorrentino - The Fugitives

They rode in silence for a while. Kat said, “You know what else? What you did, what Saltino’s doing, that’s the typical thing. Look, Mom, no hands. Check me out. Which I don’t get. I think that every day you should do one thing you’ll never tell anybody about, that you’ll make sure no one ever finds out about. Every single day, to remind you that you’re free. To be free. Sometimes it’s the only way you know you’re alive, by keeping some secret knowledge that’s going to die when you do.”

“That’s a whole lot of secrets.”

“And a lot of inconsequence. All that BS about everything being connected, about chains of cause and effect. It’s not true. We’re just each of us alone.”

“Pretty cynical.”

“It’s not that it never matters, Alexander. It’s that it rarely matters.”

“I don’t know if that’s true.”

“’Course you don’t. It’s the total opposite of you. Secrets? You don’t need no stinking secrets. Whatever you do, whatever pops into your head, you have to turn it into a story. It’s compulsive.”

Mulligan didn’t speak. They were in some traffic now, moving into downtown.

“What happened to her, anyway? You went back to your wife. Did she end up back with her husband? When you were done with her?”

“No,” said Mulligan. “She never went back to her husband.”

“You in touch?”

Mulligan glared at her. “I thought you looked it all up.” He made a left and headed into the residential sections. “I’m taking you with me to my house,” he said. He felt a sharp thrill speaking to her as if she were an object.

“What if I want to go back to the hotel?” she said.

He didn’t have to look at her. “You don’t,” he informed her.

FOUR DAYS AGO

Hanshaw dressed in a clean, faded pair of coveralls that he found in his garage, in a box that hadn’t been touched since Annie had packed and labeled it and hoisted it onto the shelf. It was a box of folded clothes she’d probably intended to take to the Goodwill, and she had left nothing of her essence in it, but he’d lingered over her careful everyday handiwork for a moment. She’d been a tidy one. Then he’d rifled through the box until he found what he was looking for and shoved the box back on the shelf. From under the front seat of the truck he retrieved a magnetic sign that read SUMMIT HEATING AND VENTILATION SERVICE AND REPAIRSand slapped it on the driver’s door. He drove to the casino in a light mist, wipers flicking intermittently across the windshield. He went around to the back of the building and parked near the service area. He took a toolbox out of the truckbed and carried it inside. He rode up in the service elevator with two maids and their trolleys.

“What’s broken now?” one said.

He looked at her.

“I don’t know what holds this place together,” said the other. “The entire building must have been rebuilt already piece by piece.”

“Did you know,” said the first, “that all your cells die and get replaced numerous times over the course of your life? We lose over a pound of skin alone every year. There’s no part of us you can see that’s original.”

“Have a nice day,” he said, getting off on his floor. He walked purposefully into the corridor, deliberately nodding at a passing pair of guests, then crouched at the door to Argenziano’s suite. He opened the toolbox and removed a butter knife and a pair of gloves. The likely cycle programmed into the security system would bring his image into view on the monitors in the security room at ninety-second intervals for four seconds each time. He assumed that the odds were in his favor. Of course, all of his activities would be recorded on the DVR, but it was unlikely that anyone would review the data before it was deleted, unless he was interrupted, in which case it would hardly matter. Still, he worked quickly to get the door open, inserting the blade of the knife between the Saflok and the jamb and forcing it downward. In and out. Once inside, he placed the toolbox on the floor and removed his shoes. The suite was modest; the door opened onto a small sitting room with a love seat and an easy chair. The television dominated the room. A kitchenette was in an alcove to one side. Hanshaw crossed the space and entered the bedroom. There was a bed, a bureau, a nightstand, a desk. He proceeded from most obvious to least obvious and hoped that he would find what he was looking for before he had to plunge his arm down the toilet or into a jar of mayonnaise. It occurred to Hanshaw as he flipped through the papers in the desk that while he rarely asked questions, he often looked for answers. He knew that he wanted to be sure about what he was doing. He had about three scruples left and he liked to exercise them when he could. He looked through financial documents for ten minutes before deciding that Argenziano probably hadn’t left any obvious record of his misdeeds, which figured. He opened the closet and poked around for a while amid the suits and shirts. Nothing. He sat down on the bed and looked around. As he gazed at the wall opposite the foot of the bed, he noticed a jagged crack running from about eight inches beneath the ceiling. It disappeared behind a framed reproduction of Wheat Field with Crows, then appeared again below the frame. Hanshaw stared hard at it. The reproduction, alone amid all the fussily symmetrical decor, was off-center, and appeared to have been moved from its original spot above the bureau. He rose and lifted the frame from the wall. A safe had been installed behind it. It was definitely aftermarket: he’d already spotted the room safe in the closet. It was also definitely too small to hold much cash. He returned to the front door and retrieved the toolbox, then sat on the bed again and contemplated the safe. It had a basic keypad entry system. He could try to remove the safe from the wall and reset the code through the mounting-bolt holes, but it would be crude and time-consuming. He went to the desk and found a document with Argenziano’s birthdate, then returned to the safe and entered the first four digits, figuring it was worth a shot. The safe emitted three beeps and a small green light went on next to the keypad.

The interior of the safe was cylindrical, with a diameter a little greater than that of his calf. He reached inside and felt around, withdrawing three pieces of correspondence from Banco de Pegado (Panama) and a U.S. passport. There were also four Polaroid photographs, each of which showed a different faded-looking and overly made-up blonde performing oral sex upon the photographer, presumably Argenziano, right here in this room. The photographs saddened Hanshaw in a way he couldn’t articulate to himself. He put them back. The passport was Argenziano’s, and it showed that in April 2007 he’d traveled to Juan Santamaria International Airport in San José, Costa Rica, made a two-day trip to Panama City a week after arriving, and then had returned to Costa Rica for another four days before traveling back to the United States, entering the country in Miami. The correspondence was addressed to a P.O. box in Cherry City. Inside one of the envelopes was a smaller envelope that contained a safe deposit box key. Hanshaw thought about it for a moment. Then he laughed and tucked the key back in its little envelope. He returned everything to the safe. He straightened the room up and prepared to go. As he was headed to put his shoes back on, the door opened and he found himself face to face with one of the maids from the elevator.

“You’re still here,” she said. “Did you fix the problem?” She stood with her shoulder to the door, holding it open. He could see her trolley behind her in the hallway.

“Yes,” he said. He set the toolbox down and reached for his shoes.