Something for Nothing (18 page)

Martin didn't see anyone else out there, either in the car or standing next to it. The guy must have come alone. He wondered if this was unusual. On
Dragnet
the guys always worked in pairs. But it was definitely the kind of thing that happened on that new cop show he'd seen a few times.
Toma,
or something like that. The guy who played Toma would dress up in some sort of disguise and make the bust all by himself. Martin wondered for a second if this guy was in disguise, what with the jeans and the rest of it. But then he realized the guy had already said he was a cop, and that this didn't make any sense. Had his partner hurried around to the rear of the house to provide backup? Were they going to take turns beating the shit out of him?

Martin knew—or sensed, anyway—that he should assert himself here just a little bit. Right about now he should be screwing up his face and saying something like, “What the fuck is this all about?” But he didn't think he could pull off something like that. Maybe if the guy had called to give him a heads-up: “Do you mind if I drop by to talk over a few things with you . . . like why you think you can get away with smuggling heroin into the U.S. from Mexico?”

But of course this was exactly the reason the guy
hadn't
called ahead—he wanted to catch Martin off guard. Martin knew this, saw the setup and saw how he ought to respond, but it didn't matter. All he could do was tell this cocky detective guy to come on in, sure, no problem, whatever he needed.

The cop followed as Martin led the way into the kitchen area, which opened out onto the living room. His house looked different to him all of a sudden: the big indoor gas barbecue and overhead fan, and then past that the leather couch, the painting of the Golden Gate Bridge,
the array of framed photos taken in the winner's circle at the area race tracks, the built-in bookshelves. He glanced at the titles:
Catch-22, The Day of the Jackal, King Rat
. . . It all looked expensive, he realized—too expensive. Did it smell of drug money? He knew this was ridiculous, that he'd actually purchased the house and everything in it legitimately (everything except Miriam's jewelry box, that is). But it didn't matter. Standing there and asking this narco guy if he wanted a beer (and he did want one, which surprised Martin), he felt that there was only one conclusion the cop would reach: that this house was paid for by the poor peasants Val had told him about, the ones who picked the opium. Martin imagined them harvesting the poppies, loading up their mules, and then making the long, perilous journey out of the mountains and into some backward village in order to sell their goods at a slim, subsistence-level profit. Martin was suddenly certain that this cop did know their story, and that he was connecting it to his house here at 1186 Miwok Drive in Walnut Station, California. Or maybe the cop might be thinking that the house and all of its fancy crap were built on the misery of the dozens of heroin addicts he dealt with every day, month after month, year after year.

Martin thought again of the films he'd seen at his daughter's drug classes, the ones showing heroin users going through withdrawal—the puking, the tremors, and the other stages of misery that they'd been forced to watch in that uncomfortable little classroom. And then he realized with a sudden clarity that the detective standing in his kitchen was in fact the selfsame narcotics detective who'd given the scare-you-straight pep talk to the kids. And in fact, he realized, the wheels turning now, that this was the guy who'd pulled up his shirt and shown them his bullet wounds. Martin wondered if the guy recognized him from the class, but discounted the possibility. Martin had been one of the invisible parents, the ones who paid the fee and then sat there, glad they were doing the right thing, but also bored and a little embarrassed by it all.

The kids were out in the backyard playing in the pool. Martin had
just turned on the pool's heater a couple days before, and the water was finally getting warm enough to be comfortable. Maybe that was why the two of them had been out there for over an hour without arguing or screwing with one another. Sarah had the radio on. It was just weak AM radio noise dissipating into the afternoon heat, but something about the sound gave Martin a sudden sense of support.

“So what can I do for you?” Martin asked as he leaned back onto one of the tall stools arranged along the counter next to the barbecue grill. His voice came out in a sort of trilling, wavering falsetto, and he noticed that he was sweating. He had to resist the urge to reach up and wipe the perspiration from his forehead—though he wondered if a wet, glistening forehead was more of a giveaway than the act of reaching up and wiping it off.

Slater sat down on one of the other stools at the counter (leaving one between them, thank God), and took a long swig of his beer. Then he glanced out the window at the kids. Peter was lying on his back on a raft, waving his arms wildly as he tried to move backward in a sort of spastic backstroke (it was a difficult move on a raft, Martin knew, but he looked really uncoordinated). From what Martin could tell as he sat there, following Slater's gaze and looking out through the sliding glass door, Peter was trying to move because Sarah was standing on the diving board, about to jump in and swamp him off the raft. They were both screaming, and overall it was a usefully idyllic scene. How could a family like this be involved in drugs?

But with a sideways glance Martin saw—or thought he saw—that Slater was aware of Sarah's body as she stood there, preparing to jump. She was in a bikini, and though skinny and still girlish, she was tanned and wet and attractive. Martin could see it, and he knew that this cop did as well. Sarah jumped and did an awkward cannonball, sending water high in the air and causing Peter to squeal with joy.

“That looks like fun,” the cop said, turning back to Martin. “Nothing like a sunny day and a pool.” He smiled, and took another sip from his beer.

“Yeah,” Martin said, nodding slightly. “But I'm gonna have to drag them inside pretty soon. They won't put any lotion on, and my wife will kill me if they're sunburned. She's not here right now,” he added. “She's out. She drove out to Berkeley with a couple of friends to shop and have lunch.”

Martin said this, and then wondered what the fuck he was talking about. Lotion? Berkeley? Linda was in town, in Walnut Station, grocery shopping. Why had he lied like that? But of course he knew exactly what was going on. He was scared to death and prattling on, hoping to stem the rising sense of panic he was feeling. He took a sip of beer, but he was barely able to swallow it. It wasn't like the guy had stormed in and arrested him, but clearly he hadn't driven to his house to talk about the great lunch places in Berkeley.

Slater nodded, sipped from his beer again, and then set it down on the counter. “Listen,” he said. “I know you want to know why I'm here—and like I said, I'm sorry to bother you like this, on a weekend and everything.” He held his hand up to his mouth and burped lightly. “Excuse me,” he said.

Martin nodded, knowing as he did that it was an awkward gesture. “Yes,” it seemed to say. “You're excused.”

“The thing is,” Slater said, “a plane went down a few hours north from here—up in Humboldt County. It crashed. A small-craft plane. It was a Cessna. And from what I've been told, the serial number has been traced back to your business out in Hayward. Which means, I guess, that you sold the plane to whoever it was that had it.”

Martin thought briefly about Slater's grammar—it was “whomever,” wasn't it? He wasn't sure. But he knew better than to say anything and make the guy overly aware that he was in a swanky house in the suburbs, one where grammar and other forms of etiquette might be at issue. Though maybe the guy didn't even care about that sort of thing. Whoever. Whomever. What did it matter?

But just as quickly it occurred to him that Slater wasn't here to arrest him. Or it didn't seem that way, not given the general tilt of the
conversation. And with that realization came an immense sense of relief. He felt as if he'd been given a reprieve—as if he'd received a diagnosis of terminal cancer, only to be told a week later that it was a mistake, that it was the wrong set of X-rays, it's really Mr. Johnson who's dying, not you.

Still, though, he was confused.

“Someone crashed a plane I sold?” he said. “I haven't heard about that. Who was the owner? Which plane was it? Are you saying that it's my fault? That it was defective or something?”

Slater held up his hands in a sort of mock-defensive posture. “Nobody's saying this is your fault,” he said. “Really. And even if that were the case, it wouldn't be anything I'd be here about.” He put his hands back down, glanced out at the backyard again for a quick second, then looked back at Martin. “As for the plane, we don't know who the owner was—that's the problem. But it was a Cessna. I can't remember the specific make. Hold on.”

He set his beer down and took his wallet out of his back pocket. He dug around for a second, and then pulled out one of his business cards. On the back he (or someone) had scrawled “Cessna Skyhawk.” “White and blue.” “N38251.”

Martin stared at the card for a second, and then nodded. He remembered the plane. It was a pretty nice one, actually. He'd sold it about a year ago. But he was having trouble placing the guy who'd bought it. He tried to remember the guy's name. David Something? He wasn't sure. But he did remember that the guy had paid about three thousand dollars, plus a trade-in on a pickup truck of some sort. If he remembered right, it was a tall blond guy, with a mustache. One of those bushy, porno-guy mustaches. He and Ludwig and Beaton had joked about it when the guy left the office after his first visit.

“The guy's gonna make a porno in it,” Ludwig had said. “It'll be called ‘Flight Lessons,' and it'll be some gal who takes guys up and does them at ten thousand feet. She can't help it—she gets off on high-altitude sex.”

“No,” Beaton said. “He'll fly to some remote place, maybe get stranded, and then meet up with a lost civilization of Amazons. You know, the women who run their own society, and kill men after they have sex with them. He'll try to escape, but they'll stop him. ‘Fuck us, mustache guy,' they'll say. ‘Fuck us.'”

Martin missed having Beaton around. Not necessarily because he was such a great guy—he was actually a pain in the ass. Always whining, complaining about something. But Ludwig really lit up when he was with Beaton, and Martin liked it when Ludwig was in a good mood. Ludwig had been sort of flat lately—he seemed bored, basically—and Martin felt as if it was partly his fault. Though the real problem was the fact that there wasn't any business. How long could you go to work every day, trying to sell something, and not see any customers?

“Well,” Martin said. “I'm pretty sure I remember the guy. But I don't have any information about him here. I must have his name and address and all that stuff at the office, though, out in Hayward. But what do you mean you don't know who he is? Is he dead?”

Slater yawned. He looked tired all of a sudden. Martin hadn't noticed, but he had bags under his eyes, and dark circles. He was clearly one of those thin, high-metabolism guys with incredible energy and focus, but he also seemed a little ground down.

“Look,” he said to Martin. “Here's the deal. When the plane was found, it was full of marijuana. Lots of it—about a hundred kilos or so.”

“A hundred kilos of marijuana?” Martin asked. He was genuinely surprised. “In one of my planes?”

Slater nodded, clearly pleased they'd gotten to the point. “Yep,” he said. “But the problem is that no one was in it. No bodies, no one walking around injured. Just a smashed-up plane and a bunch of dope out in the forest in Humboldt County. We only know about it because a park ranger happened to be nearby. It was total luck. It's in a really remote area, and if he hadn't seen it, we'd never have known about it. The plane would have sat there for years, probably. But he saw it go down,
and it didn't take him very long to find it. A couple of hours, he said. But by then whoever had been in the plane was gone.”

“Wow,” Martin said. “I'm not sure what to say.” And he didn't, not really. He'd heard about this sort of thing before, of course, but this was a little too close to home.

“Yeah, well, now you get it,” Slater said. “And you know why I'm here.”

Martin was about to answer—tell him that of course he understood, or something like that—but he was thrown off by a sudden high-pitched scream from the backyard. Martin looked out over Slater's shoulder and saw that Peter was spraying Sarah in the face with one of the hoses from the Pool Sweeper. She was trying to hide behind a raft, but it wasn't working very well.

“Sorry,” he said. “My son is tormenting my daughter.” He was feeling more comfortable now, but he also knew that he needed to tread carefully. This was a narcotics detective, after all.

Slater chuckled, looking over his shoulder at the kids in the pool. “That's all right. I've got a couple of little ones of my own. In Martinez. We don't have a pool, though,” he said. “I bet they'd love that. We've been talking about one of those above-ground things, but I've heard they can be a pain.” He looked back at Martin. “And to tell you the truth,” he said, “I can't really swim very well. Pools make me nervous.”

Martin nodded, noting the information. Martinez was lower income, for the most part. That's where you bought a house when you couldn't afford one anywhere else in the Bay Area. You bought a house there and then commuted to your job in Richmond or Berkeley or wherever. And when you came home at night you put up with the stench of the oil refineries. No way, Martin thought. Forget it. As for above-ground pools, they were definitely low-brow, maybe upper working class. If you put an above-ground pool into your yard in Walnut Station, you'd be labeled a hopeless loser. No one would come over to swim in it. Martin wondered if Slater understood this basic difference. He wasn't sure,
but he knew enough to change the subject—he didn't need to remind Slater that Walnut Station was a big step up from Martinez.