Something for Nothing (19 page)

“So what happened to this guy?” Martin asked. He wanted to reroute the conversation, but he was also interested.

Slater shrugged. “Who knows?” he asked. “I think he probably crash-landed the plane and then radioed someone to come and get him. I don't know why they left the dope there. They must have been in a hurry. Or maybe they were planning to come back. There were some motorcycle tracks nearby, and we think maybe he got picked up on a motorcycle, and so he couldn't carry anything with him.”

“Huh,” Martin said.

“Yeah,” Slater said, smiling now. “That about sums it up. ‘Huh.' That's what I said when I heard about this, too.”

“Really?” Martin asked.

Slater's smile lit up for a second. “Sure,” he said. “I said ‘huh,' and then I said, ‘We need to find out who sold this plane to this asshole, and get a description of him.' Because it turns out that the person it was registered to doesn't exist. He died in San Diego about five years ago.”

Slater paused for a second, apparently to let this new bit of information sink in. Then he continued. “Isn't that something?” he said. “A dead guy came to your office and bought a plane. Then he flew it up to Humboldt County, picked up some pot, and then crashed it. But now, apparently, he's not dead, because he got up and walked away.”

Slater smiled again, raising his eyebrows a little bit. “So maybe he's a vampire,” he said, his voice becoming more ironic. “Maybe he's undead—you know, he's not dead and he's not alive.”

Martin stared at Slater, not quite sure how to respond. Was he yanking Martin's chain? Did he know more than he was letting on? Of course he did. That's how cops operated. Especially detectives. But this guy seemed to be a little off. Either that or he was just a cocky asshole.

“Anyway,” Slater continued. “The point I was trying to make is that we don't know who this guy is. And so I came out here to see if you might be able to recognize him from some photos I've got with me.
I mean, I'm going to need to check your records, and see what sort of information he gave you. But my guess is that it's the same alias we have on the registration.”

“Okay,” Martin said. “I can do that—look at the pictures, I mean. No problem.”

“Good,” Slater said. “That's good.” He took another long swig from his can of beer, finishing it. Then he stood up and pulled out a manila envelope from under the jean jacket he'd been carrying when he came to the door. Martin hadn't noticed the envelope until now, which made him wonder if there was anything else he hadn't noticed. Did the guy have a gun under the jacket, as well? Or tucked into the back of his pants?

After that it was just like one of those cop shows on TV. Martin looked through the sheets of photos, saying “Hmmm” after every fifth or sixth image. The people in the pictures were the sort of guys you'd expect to see in a photographic lineup of possible suspects. They were all bad guys, basically. You could just tell. Greasy hair, bad skin, menacing expressions. Some of them had a sharp expression in their eyes, as if they were probably fairly bright, but had just made some bad choices (like getting over their heads in debt and smuggling heroin up from Mexico). But some of them just looked stupid. Their eyes were blank, vacant. In a few images the guys had their mouths hanging open. One guy looked completely surprised, as if it was only with the click of the camera that he'd realized the predicament he was in. “Holy shit,” his expression seemed to say. “I think I'm in trouble.”

As he looked through the images, he glanced up every thirty seconds or so at Slater. At first Slater watched Martin, gauging his reaction to the pictures. But after a while he started wandering around the room. He looked out at the kids (the screaming had died down, Martin noticed, which was a surprise; he'd been sure things were about to unravel). Then he walked over to the photos of Martin's horses in the winner's circles at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows. Martin saw him lean close, peering at the images of him and Val and whichever
horse happened to be in the picture. He read the captions, muttered “Huh” and then “Mmm” a minute or so later. He said no thanks to Martin's offer of another beer.

“Just concentrate on what you're doing,” he said to Martin, his voice level, even a bit reassuring. “Tell me if anyone looks familiar.”

Martin had been through about a dozen or maybe fifteen sheets of photos, when he saw the blond guy who'd been in his office.

“Hey,” he said. He put his finger on the image, as if to keep it from moving away now that he had spotted it. (“No you don't,” he'd say to the guy if he tried to sneak away from the little box that framed him in his photo. “You're not going anywhere.”) He looked up at Slater. “Here he is. This is the guy.”

Slater turned quickly from his scrutiny of one of the racing photos, and started walking over to Martin. He looked serious—his brow was furrowed, almost like he was frowning.

“Really?” he said. “Are you sure? Which one? Show me.”

Martin kept his finger on the spot just in front of the image, and turned it so that Slater could see it right-side up. “There he is,” Martin said. “That's the guy.”

He felt pleased to have found the guy's image. He knew as he sat there, finger pointing proudly, that he was being sycophantic, acting like a pet cat that had just left a dead bird on his owner's doorstep. But he couldn't help himself. He was scared, but he was also impressed by this guy. The self-assurance, the intensity—and the gunshot wounds, of course. The guy had been shot in the line of duty after all. And not once but twice. Either he was an idiot or he really cared about his job and really wanted to put the bad guys behind bars. And although Martin was himself one of the bad guys (at least technically), he was excited to be able to help nab this other shadowy figure from the criminal underworld. Get him off the streets and all that. For all Martin knew, this very guy had been involved in supplying the pot that Linda had found in Sarah's purse. Plus, if Slater was correct in assuming that the guy had used a fake identity when buying the plane, then he'd lied
right to Martin's face, pulled a fast one on him. And he didn't like that. Martin lied all the time, of course, but that didn't mean that he had to put up with it when someone did it to him.

“Okay,” Slater said, nodding and jotting something in a small notebook he'd pulled out of his back pocket (again he'd produced something that Martin hadn't noticed at first). “Okay,” he said again. “Great. This is great.”

Martin sat there, his finger still pointing to the guy. “He's got a kind of porno mustache,” he said, realizing even as he said it that it wasn't the right comment. “Or that's what we joked about, anyway. After he left, I mean.” He looked at Slater, and he felt his face turning red.

Slater looked at Martin for a second, studying him. Then he reached down and picked up the photo sheet, sliding it out from under Martin's finger. He looked at it for a second.

“Ha,” he said. “You're right. He does look like the kind of guy you'd see in a porno movie.” He smiled, looked at Martin, and then back down at the photo. “It's that fucking mustache. Jesus, look at that thing. I'm gonna tell him that when we get him—that you thought he looked like a porn star.”

“Hey!” Martin said, starting up from his chair. “Leave me out of this. I'm just the guy that sold a plane to him. Come on.”

Slater laughed, and right away Martin knew that he'd overreacted.

“Relax,” Slater said. “I'm joking. No one's gonna mention you to this guy. I mean, we still need proof that you sold the plane to him and everything, but that's it. Really . . . honest.”

Martin was about to tell him that he was only pretending to get upset when the sliding door opened, and Sarah and Peter stepped inside. They were both wrapped in big towels, but neither of them had done a good job drying off, so they were creating puddles of water on the linoleum. They'd been talking about something as they opened the door and stepped into the house, but now they were silent as they stood looking at Martin and Slater. Or looking at Slater, that is—staring openly at the sudden presence of a stranger in their house on a Saturday
afternoon. Though he wasn't technically a stranger; he and Peter had actually had a conversation once.

And it was this fact—the possibility that the kids might recognize Slater—that made Martin suddenly nervous. If one of them said something, then Slater would know that Martin's family was part of the more general problem of drugs in the area. What would he make of that? Would it dovetail with his initial impression (or Martin's sense of his initial impression) that something wasn't quite right down at the southern end of Miwok Drive—that things were a little
too
cushy for a mere suburban existence? Is this what he'd been thinking when he was looking at the pictures of Martin and his racehorses? Who wouldn't?

“Hey, guys,” Slater said.

“Hi,” Sarah said, pulling her towel up a little bit and covering her chest. It seemed like an unconscious move, but Martin approved.

Peter didn't say anything—just stood there, staring open-mouthed. Jesus, Martin thought. What am I gonna do with this kid?

Martin cleared his throat. “Kids,” he said. “This is Jim Slater. It's just work stuff. We'll be done in a few minutes.”

Sarah was already on the move. “Okay,” she said.

Martin could tell that she was a little bit embarrassed to be standing there in front of a stranger—a handsome, thirty-something stranger—in her bathing suit. He watched her disappear out into the entry hallway and then listened to her pad down toward her bedroom. She was probably going to get on the phone and tell a friend about it.

Peter kept standing there, looking at Slater and dripping onto the floor. Martin was about to say something to him—quit staring, quit dripping on the floor, be less strange—when Peter said, “You're that police detective from the drug class. The one we had to go to at the high school. Are you here for that?”

Martin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

Slater looked at him for a second, squinting a little bit, but then he opened his eyes wider in an obvious expression of recognition.

“That's
right,
” he said. “I
was
there. And I remember you. I didn't
recognize you at first. You're the A's fan. And you had the baseball book. How're you doing? It's good to see you.”

Martin watched as Slater took two steps forward and reached out to shake Peter's hand. Peter had been holding his wet towel around his waist with both hands, but he reached forward and shook Slater's hand. The towel slipped as he did this, revealing a roll of pale and cellulite-covered fat. But he didn't seem to notice. He was smiling shyly, and Martin could tell he was pleased. And impressed. Pleased to be remembered, and impressed that Slater was a police detective (who'd been shot not once but twice).

Martin knew he needed to say something, to make it clear that he hadn't recognized Slater as the detective guy from the drug class (although of course he
had
recognized him). “Why was that guy pretending he didn't recognize me?” Slater might ask as he drove away in his shiny Camaro. “I think he's hiding something from me.”

“Oh, okay—right,” Martin said as Peter and Slater turned to look at him. “Yes, absolutely. You gave the talk at the class. You're the detective that got shot during a drug raid. Or in two different raids. Right?”

Slater stared at Martin for a second, but then he nodded. “Yeah, that's right,” he said. “That was me.”

Martin was quiet, not sure what to say. He had assumed Slater would say more, but he just stood there looking back at him.

“Wow,” Peter said. “Did it hurt?'

Slater looked down at Peter and laughed, and Martin laughed, too. It was, he knew, a useful tension-reliever, and once again he was reminded that he really did love his son.

Slater stepped back over to his stool and sat down, leaning on the stool more than actually sitting. He crossed his feet at the ankles and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked pretty relaxed, but he also looked serious all of a sudden.

“You know,” he said, looking now at Peter. “Not like you'd think. Or not at first, anyway. Later on it did. It hurt a lot. But not right away.”

“Why not?” Peter asked. Martin thought about telling him to stop
with the personal questions, but he could see that Peter was fascinated. What nine-year-old wouldn't have been? He was standing in his own house, talking to a cop (a detective) about getting shot. This would go a long way on the playground. Not to mention around the house. Martin knew that Peter was going to be Jim Slater, the narco detective, in a lot of imaginary shoot-outs for the next few months.

Slater shrugged. “I was in shock, I think. Your body just sort of shuts down when something like that happens.”

“Did you think you were going to die?” Peter asked.

At this question Slater took a deep breath, as if considering how to answer, when Martin broke in. “Okay, Peter,” he said. “That's enough. That's a little too much. It's not a game, you know.”

“But he did get shot,” Peter said. “And—”

“Peter,” Martin said, his voice a little sharper now. “I said that's
enough
.”

Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation, and then plopped down angrily onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

“It's all right,” Slater said, looking over at Martin. “It's fine. I don't care—really.” Then he looked at Peter again. He uncrossed his legs and put his heels up on the rung of the bar stool. He folded his arms and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his thighs.

“Yes,” he said, looking right into Peter's eyes. It was almost as if there was a little cartoon-style laser beam connecting his gaze to Peter's as they sat looking at each other from across the room. “Yes, I thought I might die. Not the first time I got shot; I knew it wasn't too bad that time. But the second time, yes, I really did think I might not make it.”