Gregg Hurwitz: Prodigal Son

The Mystery Man hesitates, as if trying to read the dark windshield. Then he shakes his head with disgust. “All right. You want another shot? Tomorrow. Same time, same place.”

As Evan runs home, the shame burns out of him at last, hot tracks down his face. Van Sciver is waiting in the bedroom and no one else. Word has spread. He holds his belt, looped once, the ends clenched in his wide fist.

He says, “We never finished that conversation last night.”

4Next-Level Deep Shit

Two weeks later Duran had almost forgotten about the pair of deputy marshals who’d breezed in at the midnight hour and asked him to keep tabs on the owner of that banged-up Bronco. Built dude with the squeaky voice and that woman done to a turn, all long red nails and fluffy hair—it was like he dreamed them up.

But the call jogged his memory.

Jake Hargreave phoning up to ask about his truck. He had a husky voice and a shifty temperament, and Duran could understand why he had the Marshals Service on his tail. And yes, he wanted to come now, at half past two in the morning, which seemed a sketchy time for a dude to want to reclaim his ride.

Duran reviewed the paperwork. “Okay,” he said. “But I don’t see how you’re gonna drive it outta here, condition it’s in.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that,” Hargreave said, and cut the line.

Duran unzipped his pouch—$128.95—and took out that phone number the deputy with the high-pitched voice had scrawled down. Staring at it, he chewed his bottom lip. Something felt wrong. But it felt just as wrong to not call.

For all Duran knew, Hargreave was a Ten Most Wanted fugitive, and contacting the authorities right now was the only way to stop him from shooting up a mall or Silence of the Lambs –ing some lady in a basement well.

Plus, the thousand dollars.

Which was pretty much all that was standing between him and his little girl, who was becoming less little every day his sorry ass couldn’t get his shit together.

He dialed.

A woman picked up. “U.S. Marshals Service.” In the background he could hear music playing, Rihanna asking some lucky fool to stand under her umbrella, ella, ella.

“Hi … uh. I was asked to call this number—”

Rihanna cut off abruptly. Then the woman said, “Yes, that was us.”

Now he recognized the voice: Ms. Red.

It occurred to him that neither of the deputies had given him their names. Looking down at the scrap of paper, he wondered why they hadn’t left an official business card.

But the conversation was already proceeding without him.

“Well?” she repeated impatiently.

“Sorry,” he said. “What?”

“I said, did the owner of the Bronco call?”

Duran thought about how the security feeds had gone to static when the deputies made their appearance and then magically restored themselves after they’d exited the yard.

“Mr. Duran,” she said firmly.

He felt himself sweating. He hadn’t given her his name. Ms. Red had clearly done some digging in the federal databases.

“Yeah,” he heard himself saying. “Yeah, he did.”

“He’s coming in to get it now?”

“That’s right.”

The line clicked off.

Perspiration cooled on the side of Duran’s face. He set the phone down on the counter and stared at it. The chill of the yard crept into the kiosk, fogging the window. The November wind kicked up, howling through the hull of a burned-out Mustang.

From its spot in the nearest row, the Bronco stared back at him.

He recalled the male deputy’s words: He needs his truck. And we need him.

Why did Jake Hargreave need his truck?

Duran got out of the kiosk, stepping onto ground crusted with broken glass. The toe of his sneaker caught a smashed bottle cap, sent it skittering across the asphalt.

Approaching the truck, he shone his flashlight through the spiderwebbed windshield. A scattering of safety glass across the dashboard. A plastic parking permit hooked over the rearview mirror, along with a bouquet of Little Tree air fresheners. A dark smudge on the black webbing of the seat belt—dried blood?

The driver’s door was caved in, but the rear gave with a creak. Duran searched the backseat, the cargo area, the floorboards—nothing but a few more glass pebbles and a stray quarter. He crawled through to check the glove box. Totally empty.

Someone had been thorough.

Duran backed out and squatted, chewing his lip.

He felt out of alignment, a snow-globe storm of instincts and impressions flurrying inside him, refusing to settle. Every time he reached for a thought, it twirled away, lost to the squall.

Rising, he cracked his back and decided to patrol the property to clear his head. He passed a motorcycle with a pancaked front wheel that had undoubtedly cost a life or two. He passed a forty of King Cobra, a crumpled paper bag slumped around the bottle’s midsection like a skirt. He passed the hole in the chain-link that the possums were fond of sneaking through, pale vagabonds with marble eyes.

Behind him the motion-activated light in the kiosk clicked off, bathing the lot in semidarkness. He pulled the company Maglite from his pocket and clicked it on. Weaving through the dark outer edges of the labyrinth, he let the flashlight pick across all those vehicles. Cracked windshields fragmented the beam, sent it kaleidoscoping across the rows of battered cars. Atop the chain-link fence, security cams peered down at intervals, robots noting his progress. The whole scene felt eerie and otherworldly, an urban landscape from a dystopian future.

He wondered what kind of deputy marshal was up at 2:30 A.M. listening to Rihanna.

No business cards. The woman who’d answered the phone generically, still not giving up a name. The dude with the crazy voice and the crazier suit. Duran had seen plenty of deputy marshals, but never one who dressed like that.

He finally pinned down the suspicion fluttering beneath all the noise.

What if they weren’t deputy marshals at all?

He stopped at the far edge of the lot. Clicked off his flashlight. Stood in the darkness to let the full weight of his misgivings land.

He cursed himself for not digging deeper before now. Had he not wanted to admit that something felt wrong? After all, they’d offered him a thousand reasons to deceive himself.

He took the slip of paper from where he’d crammed it in his pocket and stared at the digits. He didn’t want to check. Not at all.

But he had to.

He called information, asked to be put through to the Marshals Service office downtown.

Dispatch answered, a woman with a pack-a-day voice who sounded not entirely awake.

“Yeah, hi,” he said. “I was given a phone number by a deputy who … uh, might not have been a deputy. If I read it to you, can you tell me if … uh, if it’s real?”

“I can’t disclose any phone numbers of federal employees,” she said.

“Right. I get that. I’m giving you a number.” He rattled it off quickly, before she could cut him off. “I just need to know if it’s someone impersonating one of you guys. Before I give up any classified information.”

She grunted. Said nothing.

But he could hear the keyboard rattling away.

In the ensuing pause, a set of headlights swept into the lot way across the maze of wrecked cars, throwing wild shadows over the twisted metal. He couldn’t see the vehicle, not directly, just the refracted beams needling through the gloom.

He felt his heartbeat kick up a notch, fluttering the side of his neck. The vehicle crept toward the heart of the yard.

“I’m sorry, sir, but that number isn’t registered to the Service,” the woman said. “And it’s not listed in the database as a personal number for any of our—”