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  Markovic and Elzey returned, a fresh energy stiffening their strides. Elzey spun a chair around, mounted it like a Harley. ‘We’re encountering some difficulties nailing down biographical details,’ she said. ‘For you.’

  Mike felt his pulse tick up a few beats. ‘Why are you running me?’

  ‘“Running” you.’ Markovic gave an impressed frown. ‘Look who’s been watching Law & Order.’

  ‘Listen,’ Elzey said, ‘a guy asks us to look into something, we look into it. You have a squeaky-clean record with a number of blank spaces. If you’re really as concerned as you claim, you can probably fill in some of those blanks so we can know where to look.’

  Mike pictured them shoulder to shoulder in that back office and wondered what they’d been discussing that had prompted them to take such an aggressive tack. He said, ‘I have no idea where to point you.’

  ‘Come on. There must be something. A bad deal, a weird overlap, a near miss . . . You’ve never bumped up against anything like that?’

  ‘No.’ Mike was out of shape when it came to this and was sure his face showed the lie. But he couldn’t exactly spill here about PVC pipes and an implicit deal struck with the governor’s office. Besides, he felt certain that the confrontation had nothing to do with that anyway. The near-surface violence, the circling-shark approach, the unspoken threat to his family – the whole thing was raising more red alerts than some PR bullshit involving subsidies and green houses.

  Elzey held out her hands. ‘We can’t help you if you’re not more forthcoming with us.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Why are you making this about him?’ Annabel came vertical in her chair, nearly pushing Kat out of her lap.

  Kat grumbled a complaint, and Markovic leaned over and said to her, ‘Why don’t you go play on those chairs over there?’

  ‘She’s tired,’ Annabel said. ‘Then she can lie down.’

  Kat dragged her backpack over to the row of chairs and slouched into one, her dangling sneakers a few inches off the flecked tile.

  ‘Two men came after me in a parking lot,’ Mike said. ‘What’s my background have to do with that?’

  ‘You want to tell us?’ Elzey’s tone was polite, conciliatory. When she bent her head to listen, her angel tatt – black ink on dark skin – looked like an elaborate birthmark. ‘Plus, it doesn’t sound like they came after you any more than you went after them. So they were acting strange—’

  ‘This wasn’t just strange. It wasn’t some game or random harassment.’ Disheveled in his overpriced suit, Mike yanked his tie free and stuffed it into a pocket. ‘These are dangerous men. I can tell the difference.’

  ‘How?’ Markovic matched Mike’s stare. ‘I mean, an upstanding businessman like you – where would you have learned to read men like that?’

  ‘Anyone could’ve read these guys.’ He was burned out, his fuse short, his words terse. ‘Plus, they stole something from my daughter.’

  ‘Sounds like they were trying to return missing property.’

  ‘How do you think it got missing?’ Annabel said.

  ‘Your daughter had a backpack with her,’ Elzey said. ‘It couldn’t have fallen out at the ceremony?’

  Kat said, loudly, from across the room, ‘I think I’d notice if there was a stuffed polar bear in my backpack.’

  ‘Maybe she lost it at the ceremony and was embarrassed,’ Markovic offered quietly. ‘Or she was worried she’d get in trouble. Kids. Maybe she lied.’

  ‘We don’t lie in our family,’ Mike said, before he could catch himself.

  ‘It was stolen days before,’ Annabel added.

  ‘Maybe Katherine misplaced it. Like in your truck, by the door. You get to the party, open the door, it falls out . . .’ Markovic’s face said he was just painting a scenario, but his eyes said something else.

  Mike’s confidence faltered. He couldn’t be certain that the detective was wrong. After all, Kat wasn’t positive where she’d last seen her stuffed animal. He felt himself growing more defensive, shoring up his own case, which he knew was exactly what you’re not supposed to do. He spoke low so Kat wouldn’t hear but felt his teeth clenching around the whisper. ‘No. They broke into our house and stole it.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Markovic’s face softened. ‘So you filed a burglary report?’

  Annabel cast a sharp look at Mike; she’d recommended, wisely, that he leave out the possible break-in. He looked away glumly. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Markovic asked.

  What was he going to say? Because I thought I was hearing ghosts in the baby monitor? Because there wasn’t a single sign of forced entry? Because maybe it was all in my head?

  Even though she didn’t believe it herself, Annabel shouldered in in his defense, ‘We may have heard something—’

  Elzey’s cop stare made her pause, the phrase – ‘may have’ – reverberating in the abrupt silence.

  Annabel pressed on, trying to explain without making them seem crazy, but Mike stayed quiet, drawing into himself. He knew this drill, the feeling of being on the wrong side of an interrogation. Though it had been years since he’d been on the receiving end, he could still read the shifts that made clear that you were subject to the law, not being aided by it.

  He stood, touched his wife on the back. ‘Let’s go.’ He nodded at the detectives. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Elzey said.

  Mike stayed on his feet. Waited a moment. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even. ‘I’ll stand, thanks.’

  Elzey stood, matching him eye to eye. Annabel rose, too, jostling Elzey a bit since the detective was standing too close to her. Markovic watched the whole thing with an air of been-there detachment that seemed weary and faintly amused all at once.

  ‘The way this shit went down,’ Elzey said, ‘you better hope your boy William doesn’t press charges against you.’

  Her temper was up, her intonation shifting, dropping into a street cadence. She and Mike were different pages from the same book. She’d made good, gone legit, but the street kid was still in there, wanting to scrap, needing to prove something. She blinked once and looked away, uncomfortable under his gaze.

  Mike said, ‘You seem awfully dug into this all of sudden.’.

  Elzey made a pronounced shrug, all shoulders and spread hands. ‘You came through our door.’

  Annabel let out a single, mirthless laugh. ‘My husband gets assaulted at a ceremony honoring his community service and you start investigating him?’

  ‘“Assaulted”?’ Markovic finally stood as well, the four of them now around shoved-back chairs like a huddle that wasn’t huddling. ‘From what you said yourself, they never so much as threatened you.’

  Mike said, ‘The whole thing was a threat.’

  ‘Then help us figure out why you’re being threatened,’ Elzey said. ‘Your records look like Swiss cheese. You just appeared outta thin air when you were nineteen, yeah?’

  ‘I grew up locally.’

  ‘What’s “locally” mean? Strip mall across the street?’

  ‘I haven’t broken any laws. I’m fully in the system. Taxes, Social Security number. I don’t need to report every fact from my childhood.’

  ‘How ’bout any fact?’ Elzey said.

  ‘You’ve got my date of birth.’ The one he’d been assigned along with the last name Doe. Even when he’d personalized his surname, he’d kept the birthday, since it was the only one he had.

  ‘What about the rest? Parents? Childhood address? Grade school?’

  ‘Why are you so interested in my past?’

  Elzey’s lips met in something like a smile. ‘Me and Marko, we’re just askin’ questions here.’

  Annabel took Mike’s arm and said, ‘Thanks for all your help.’

  Kat was on her feet, watching anxiously, chewing on a backpack strap. She scurried across to meet them. The whole way to the door, Mike could feel the detectives’ stares boring a hole through his shoulder blades.

&nb
sp; THEN

  Chapter 14

  Three minutes past midnight, Mike sees the red lights against the window of the shared bedroom of 1788 Shady Lane and he knows. The neighboring cot is empty; Shep’s been working as a bouncer at a crappy bar and won’t be home for hours, if at all. Mike hears the Couch Mother’s steps thundering toward the front door, a quickening drumroll of his own mounting anxiety. He burrows, wanting to bury his head beneath the sheets. On the plastic stool that serves as his nightstand rests a dog-eared copy of The Grapes of Wrath that some genius – no doubt Dubronski or Tony M – has scratched up so the cover reads The rape of rat. Around him the others stir. Mike thinks, It’s all over.

  A half hour later, he is in the all-too-familiar interrogation room, and this time, there will be no kindly Saab-owning grandfather to rescue his ass.

  Yes, that is him in the security-still frame. Yes, he pawned the rare, stolen coin. Yes, he found it on the street.

  As always, the detectives are faceless, nameless. They are adults in Peanuts cartoons. They are sounds and pointed information.

  ‘You’re a decent kid,’ they say. ‘We can tell. It’s not too late for you.’ They say, ‘We been looking at your record. Some run-ins, sure, but a safecracking job? It doesn’t add up. Now, we know you’re buddies with Shepherd White, and that sounds like something more up his alley. That kid is bad news. He’s going down sooner or later. You gonna let him drag you down with him?’

  Mike thinks, Loyalty. He thinks, Stamina.

  They say, ‘You’re on your way to college, trying to be a good citizen. Bright future. Shepherd White is a punk and a reprobate. You do the math.’

  But Mike is working out a different equation. He is still seventeen years old. Shep is eighteen, and Shep has two felonies on his adult record. If Mike rolls on Shep, this will be Shep’s third strike, and he will go away for twenty-five to life.

  Mike knows the options, and both scare him so badly that he has sweated through his communal T-shirt.

  The detectives are unimpressed with Mike’s willingness to be exculpated. They say, ‘If you don’t want to play ball, here’s how it goes. You’ve got a shit-stained rap sheet, and we’ve got an angry victim, one Mr Sandoval from Valley Liquors, willing to say what needs to be said. Juries love safecracking cases; in this day and age, they’re quaint and easy to grasp. One way or another, we will nail your sorry foster-home ass. Even if we have to take a loss on the burglary, we can make receiving stolen stick as a felony. Which means you do time. So you better think long and hard about whether your pal is worth it.’

  If Shep was present, he would speak up. He would serve a life sentence before letting Mike take the fall, because he is pure, unlike Mike, who is fighting with himself to do the right thing and wishing Shep were here to step in and take the choice away from him.

  Mike’s throat is dry and tight. He says, ‘He is.’

  The detectives are ready for this. They produce an application from Cal State L.A. and say, ‘Read.’

  Mike reads question 11b, which is highlighted in yellow: ‘Have you ever been arrested for, convicted of, or forfeited collateral for any felony or Class A misdemeanor violation?’

  They say, ‘That’s right. This won’t be done when you get out either. This is throwing away college. This is throwing away your future. Think it over.’

  He is arraigned the next day and makes bail.

  At home, as he heads up the walk, Mike sees Shep waiting in the bay window. They go out back, plunk down on the rotting swings.

  Shep says, ‘No way. I’m going in and telling them.’

  Mike says, ‘You go in, you’re not coming back out, Mr Two-Strikes-You’ve-Seen-Me-Play-Ball.’

  Shep’s voice, for the first time in a long time, is loud. ‘I don’t care. This is your life. This is college. I’m going in.’

  ‘If you go in, I’ll never come visit you,’ Mike says. ‘I’ll never talk to you again for the rest of my life.’

  Shep’s face changes, and for one awful instant Mike thinks he is going to cry.

  As promised, receiving stolen property sticks. The judge is tired of kids like Mike, and he is assigned to six months in the Hall. The night before he is due to report, he asks for a moment alone in the bedroom. The others grant his last request. Shep’s face shows nothing, but Mike knows he is devastated to be left out with the others. Mike cleans up around his space, makes his little cot a last time, then pauses to take stock of the room. Resting on the long-broken air conditioner is one of Shep’s shoes, so big it looks like you could sleep in it. The drawers of the communal dresser tilt at all angles, the tracks long gone. There on the plastic stool is The rape of rat. He picks it up, runs his thumb across the tattered cover. Like the Saab, it seems to encompass everything he cannot have, everything he is not, everything he can never be. He reaches over and drops it into the trash can.

  Dubronski is in the doorway; Mike thinks the asshole has WD-40ed the hinges for occasions such as this. Dubronski has been watching, but for once that fat bully face is not lit with schadenfreude. He pops a Jelly Belly for a sugar hit, plays with his pudgy hands. ‘Hey, Doe Boy, I just wanted to say, this sucks ass. I always thought if you could make it, hell, maybe we all were worth something.’

  And that makes Mike’s insides crumble in a whole new way.

  The Hall is tough, but not as violent as billed. Mike knows how to fight, so he doesn’t have to much. But it is hell – the hell of utter neglect. The others, his peers, represent every dirty part of himself that he never managed to scrub clean. He watches his back all the time and suffers from vigilance burnout, waking every five minutes, spinning circles down the corridors, keeping his back against the chain-link during yard time.

  The third week he gets summoned to the head office, where the superintendent waits. She is not a warden. Just like he is not serving a ‘sentence’ but a ‘disposition’, and the hulking guards are called ‘counselors’. All those soft names don’t seem to make the time any less hard.

  She asks, ‘How would you explain your state of mind, son?’

  Mike says, ‘Scared straight.’

  ‘I understand you caught a bad rap. If you keep up the good behavior, I will make sure your time here is pleasant.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I will do my best to get you an early release. In the meantime don’t make me look stupid.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And when you’re out, don’t make me look stupid then either.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  A few days later, a pie-faced guard wakes him at two in the morning and mumbles the news: The Couch Mother is dead.

  Details are scarce. The rest of the night, Mike sits on his turned-back sheets with his bare feet on the icy tile, a wall of static blotting out thought and feeling.

  In a hushed morning phone call with Shep, Mike learns that she had a stroke on a rare trip to the bathroom and cracked her head open on the lip of the tub. She had a good heart, a strong heart to push blood through all that acreage. But still, all hearts have their limits.

  Hearing Shep’s voice jars something loose in Mike’s chest, and he hangs up and walks down the hall to the bathroom and locks himself in a stall. He sits on the closed toilet, doubles over, and sobs three times in perfect silence, his eyes clenched, both hands clamped over his mouth.

  She may not have seemed like much, but she was what he had.

  He is allowed to attend the funeral. Two sheepish uniformed cops, Mike’s escorts, stand in the back of the airless chapel. As the service begins, the hearse from the previous funeral is still idling in the alley, visible through a side door, and the folks for the next one are waiting in the reception area. Mike walks the aisle, regards the refrigerator of a casket, and thinks, I failed you.

  None of the foster kids will give a speech. The notion of ceremony, of formality, evades them all. Finally Shep gets up. Somber in an ill-fitting dress shirt, he takes the podium. His mouth is a stubborn line. Silence
reigns.

  ‘She was there,’ he says, and steps down.

  Though the by-the-hour pastor frowns, Mike knows that Shep means this as the highest compliment.

  Nine weeks later Mike walks from the Hall with a bag of clothes and forty dollars from the state. Shep is waiting for him outside on the shoulder of the road, leaning against a dinged-up Camaro, arms crossed. Mike has no idea how Shep knew about the early release date; he just found out himself the morning before.

  As Mike approaches, Shep tosses him the keys. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Shep says.

  ‘Loyalty,’ Mike says. ‘And stamina.’

  Over the next few months, he applies for a few real jobs, but that felony charge gets in his way, sitting there like a boulder in the middle of a canyon road. So he gets a job as a day laborer, working with prison-release guys twice his age, hauling soot out of firehouses. With his first paycheck, he hires a lawyer out of the yellow pages and has his juvenile record sealed. But he soon discovers that while prospective employers can’t see his file, they will always know that it is sealed. And what they imagine his transgressions to be, he gleans, is worse than the reality.

  At a dingy downtown government office, he stands in line with a bunch of domestic-abuse victims to get his last name and Social Security number changed. He is assigned a fresh number and a fresh surname, this time of his own choosing. He is Michael Wingate, and he has no past, no history. He has a clean start.

  He gets a proper job as a carpenter, and nights he presses shirts in a purgatory of a dry cleaner. He and Shep drift, riding separate undercurrents. It is natural, gradual. It goes unspoken.

  One day he walks past the window at Blockbuster and sees her standing there between Drama and Comedy. He stops to gawk. The sight of this woman makes him hurt in the worst way; it makes him yearn. But he is too intimidated to go in and talk to her, so instead he goes home and lies awake all night, cursing his unexpected timidity.