Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

He stood. “I need to go find Andre.”

Her face was lowered, flushed with alcohol. She lifted a hand clumsily for him to take. He stared at it, slender fingers, soft pale skin, manicured nails. Her eyes, imploring.

He nodded at her and walked out.

30From Nothing to Something

Evan hit the target at the fourth location. The Szechuan Rose, enticingly sandwiched between a Chevron station and a pawnshop, had glazed red roof tiles and a glossy plastic dragon standing sentry at the entrance. The place bustled, the dinner shift in full swing. After several requests got lost in translation, the hostess sent Evan up the chain of command, pointing him to the kitchen. The inexplicably Japanese owner, busy orchestrating a massive take-out order, waved him up a back flight of stairs.

Evan knocked on the flimsy door at the top. A chain rustled, and a moment later Andre’s face appeared at the gap. His features contracted.

“How the hell’d you find me?”

“Long story.”

Andre’s eyes darted to look over Evan’s shoulder. “Your dumb ass was prob’ly followed here.”

“I wasn’t followed.”

“How would you know?”

“I’d know.”

Andre glared at him. “I told you to leave me alone.”

“Look. I’m here. No point in putting this off. Let’s just sit down and talk.”

“It’s a bad time.”

Evan said, “No shit.”

He held an unremitting gaze until Andre rolled his head back, cursed, and opened the door. When Evan stepped inside, the cooking aromas from the kitchen only intensified. He looked at the heating vents, and Andre nodded and said, “All day long I’m breathin’ egg foo yong up in here.”

Unmade bed. Dirty clothes heaped on the floor. A folding closet raked open to reveal a few crooked shelves. Evan could have spread his arms and touched opposite walls. In the far corner, a hot plate, basin sink, card table, and single chair composed a woeful kitchenette. A bathroom the size of a coat closet.

The only note of grace was a beautifully rendered sketch thumbtacked to the wall. Sofia gazing out with lifelike eyes, an openmouthed smile. She seemed happy to see whoever she was looking at. Even all these years later, Evan recognized Andre’s hand behind it.

He imagined that the drawing was precisely how an estranged father would want to remember his daughter.

Set before Sofia’s sketch on a chair, like an offering at an altar, was a bottle of drugstore rum.

Unopened.

Evan said, “What’s this about?”

“It’s about none of your business.”

Evan lifted the full bottle. Beneath, hidden from view, rested an Alcoholics Anonymous medallion. 1 MONTH. GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN, AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

Andre kept his eyes lowered to the floor.

Evan said, “Want me to pour this out?”

“No.” Andre wiped his nose. And then, “Yeah.”

Evan unscrewed the cap and glugged the cheap rum into the basin sink.

He dropped the bottle into a mound of fast-food wrappers at the base of the bed and looked for somewhere to sit. The room stank of alcohol, unwashed clothes, and Chinese spices. The walls seemed to lean inward. It was hard to breathe.

Andre picked at his nails, cleaning dirt from beneath them and flicking it onto the floor.

Evan felt it again, that black fog of disgust that had choked up his chest when he’d sat across from Danny at the prison. He felt that same urge to pull away, to scrape their shared history off himself, the primordial sludge from which he’d emerged.

Andre said, “I didn’t always live like this.”

“Okay.”

Andre bustled around, tidying up, which really only meant moving items from one crowded surface to another. “This is just temporary.”

“Okay.”

Beneath the bed a sheaf of sketches lay half visible. Andre crouched and gathered them up lovingly. “I’m better than this.”

“I know.”

He rose sharply. “No you don’t. I can see it in your eyes. I’m used to folks lookin’ at me that way.”

“Why’s that?”

The question put Andre back on his heels. “I dunno. Where we came from. No money. My race or whatever.”

“Or whatever?”

“Who knows what I am? Some kinda mutt. I’m earth-colored and beautiful. That’s what I am.”

“Okay.”

“And we wear it.” He slapped his chest with an open palm. “White boys like you don’t get it. You can outgrow your shitty upbringing. Can’t outgrow your skin. We wear it when we get pulled over and some asshole cop wants to break our balls. You don’t know shit. How hard it is to get from nothing to something. How sixty-five dollars can be the end of you.”

“Sixty-five dollars?” Evan said. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Christ, nothing.” Andre swiped his hand across the back of his neck, aggravated. “How much you got in your pockets?”

Evan said, “I don’t know.”

“Count.”

Evan pulled out his folded bills, freed the money clip, and counted. “Three hundred eighty dollars.”

“See.” Andre gestured at a yellow zippered pouch by his pillow. “Seventy-three dollars, twenty-two cents. That’s all I have in the world.”

“I don’t understand what conversation we’re having.”

“Course you don’t. That’s what I’m saying. Someone like you can’t understand someone like me.”

“There’s nothing more dangerous than thinking you’re a victim.”

Andre snorted. “Ain’t that some shit. How ’bout the people who want to kill my ass? They more dangerous’n me?”

“They think they’re victims, too,” Evan said. “That’s where it gets you.”

“Listen to your judgmental ass.”

“Without judgment,” Evan said, “we’ve got nowhere to go.”

“I don’t need you.” Andre jabbed a finger at him, a threat of violence underscoring the gesture. “The hell you do anyhow? You some kinda what? Social worker?”

“I don’t do anything,” Evan said. “I’m retired.”

“Right. You’re here ’cuz of Ms. LeGrande. Working a charity case. Like you know a damn thing about what I’m into.”

“I know Jake Hargreave was murdered that night at the impound lot. I know something materialized out of thin air to open his throat. I know that two well-dressed siblings, Declan and Queenie Gentner, were behind it. I know very powerful people are looking for you. I know you’re not safe anywhere you go.”

Andre’s eyes bulged, bloodshot squiggles showing in the sclera. Unguarded, stunned—a flicker of the face Evan recalled from childhood. Andre rested a quavering hand on the mattress and lowered himself to sit. Head bowed, cords of his neck pronounced, breathing. His voice much softer. “What else you know?”

Evan told him the rest, from his trip to Buenos Aires to the Hellfire blowing up the house.

Recalling all those field trips Andre had taken as a young man in search of his parents, Evan did not divulge his own relationship to Veronica. And he honored Veronica’s request, leaving out the part about Andre’s disturbing provenance.

When he finished, Andre said nothing.

Evan asked, “What don’t I know?”

Andre filled him in on some remaining details—the visit by the Gentners, the fake U.S. Marshals phone number, how he’d watched from the darkness as Jake Hargreave bled out.

Evan said, “Have you been back to the impound lot?”

“Nope.”

“Still have the keys?”

Andre flicked his chin at a plastic hook on the wall where his key chain dangled.

Evan checked the watch fob dangling from his belt loop. “The lot closes in an hour and a half. Once it’s empty, I’ll go look around.”