Something for Nothing (44 page)

Martin felt tired. He felt like he was a mouse that had been cornered by a big cat, the kind that played with you for hours, never really going in for the kill, just wearing you down until you were dead.

“Look, Detective Slater,” he said. “I can tell you everything I know about Val, but it isn't much. I mean about Val and Angela. How about if I just step up there—”

“Oh, right,” Slater said. “Of course.” He looked at Martin and smiled, then gave himself a whack on the side of his head with the palm of his right hand. “What am I thinking?”

Then he reached his hand out for Martin, to help him climb on board. “Permission to come aboard, Anderson,” he said. Martin looked at Slater's big hand and sinewy forearm for a second, and then reached out and accepted the offer. A second later he was on the boat—his boat. He felt the slight roll of the water beneath him as he landed on the deck.

“So,” Martin said, looking at Slater—or looking up at him, because he really was kind of tall. Six-two or six-three, even. A lot taller than Martin. “Do you mind if I ask why you're here?”

Slater shrugged. “Not at all,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest, put his hands under his armpits, and gave a little shiver. “But to tell you the truth, I'm actually a little chilly. Do you think we could go inside and talk? Or go downstairs, I mean? I'll be honest—I peeked in there while you were gone, and it looks pretty cozy. And the second I
saw you I thought, good, now we can go down into the cabin and warm up.” He looked at Martin, not really smiling now.

Martin looked at him for a second, assessing. It wasn't as if he had much of a choice, of course. If Slater said he wanted to talk inside, then they were going to talk inside. But he was still trying to gauge things. Was this situation out of control, or was it salvageable, somehow? Was Slater here to arrest him? Or was he just someone who enjoyed keeping people off balance even if he wasn't planning to arrest them? He'd referred to himself as a narcotics detective, and he'd said something about Martin clearing out of his house. So, clearly he was on to Martin. But how much did he really know?

Martin shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He held his left arm out for Slater to go in ahead of him. “After you,” he said.

But Slater smiled, stood his ground, and then extended his right arm and gave a slight, almost indiscernible mock bow.

“After
you,
” he said to Martin—more sarcasm.

Martin reached out to open the little doors that led down into the cabin. They weren't strong, just louvered panels, but they were made of the same teak that was on the rest of the paneling. They were nice doors.

Martin pushed the doors open and started down the short staircase to the cabin. It was darker down there, especially when first stepping in out of the late-afternoon sun. Plus, there weren't any lights on, and the curtains were drawn on the narrow windows that were about chest high on both sides of the room. But he knew his way around, and so he moved easily down the four steps, and then stepped across the room to the wall switch that turned on the overhead light. He reached out, flicked it, and turned around as the light buzzed into full wattage.

He saw right away that the cabin was in disarray. Cabinets opened, pillows overturned, kitchen drawers dumped onto the floor. Shit everywhere. What the fuck? The first thing he thought of was Val's house. It wasn't as bad as at Val's house, but it was the same general feeling.
It was the feel of silent loudness—as if the noise of everything falling and crashing had only stopped the second that Martin opened up the louvered cabin doors, and all the scattered objects agreed to hit the floor and stop moving and clattering. And Martin was about to say something to this effect—say a sentence that contained the word
ransacked
—when Slater stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. Hard. Incredibly hard. So hard that Martin felt in his confusion as if he'd run full tilt into a protruding pole of some sort, one that someone had mistakenly inserted into a wall at a dangerous perpendicular angle. And it was the twin notion of a “mistake” and of “someone” that floated somewhere in the front of his consciousness as he fell to the floor and gasped for breath . . . retched, saw green and red and yellow. Someone made a mistake and hurt me. Someone needs to help me.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there on the cabin floor, balled up and panting, his hands opening and closing in some kind of embarrassing, primal effort to control—or to at least deal with—his pain. He had no idea it could hurt so much to be hit in the stomach. Fucking hell. He didn't feel nauseous, though, and even lying there he was thankful for that. But he was definitely lying down, and so he knew that there had been an accident of some sort, and that he'd been hurt. As his vision started to focus (and as he opened his eyes, finally—he must have had them closed for a minute), he saw the orange shag of the boat's rug, and he saw Slater's feet and shins. He was wearing his black high tops.

Martin rolled over a little bit, felt a surge of pain, and laid back, resting on one elbow. He had thought Slater was standing and looking down at him, but he was actually squatting. He was up on the balls of his feet, and his elbows were on his knees. Had Slater punched him? He'd been about to tell Slater that he'd had a break-in, and that he was glad that a cop was on hand to see it. But then Slater had punched him . . . right?

“Martin,” he said, with the same edge of sarcasm. “Are you okay?”

Martin looked up at Slater. He was still confused, but he was glad
to hear the question. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. I don't know what happened. Did you just punch me?”

Slater was quiet for a long second. He looked down at Martin and shook his head, still smiling his mysterious little smile.

“Martin,” Slater said. “You've been a naughty boy, and we need to talk.”

There was something in the quality of Slater's voice that made Martin snap back into fuller awareness: awareness of what Slater had just said (that he was a naughty boy) and that yes, Slater had just punched him in the stomach. Laid him out—boom, just like that. And then Martin saw that Slater was holding a small stack of bills in his hand. Or rather, a stack of bundles of bills. Bundles that looked a lot—exactly—like the bundles that Martin had put into his tool box. When he saw that Martin had finally spotted them, he started to flick the end of them with his thumb.

Jesus Christ, Martin thought. The money. He's got it, and he's flicking it with his thumb just like I did.

Martin sat up a little more—pulled himself up onto his ass, pulled his knees up toward his chest, and wrapped his arms around his shins. He put his head down onto his knees, then looked up at Slater. Fuck, he thought. I'm going to jail.

“Okay,” he said to Slater. He could tell that his voice was a little bit hoarse. “Fine. Let's talk. Jesus. You didn't have to hit me like that. That's fucking police brutality, you know.” He looked up at Slater as he said this, and made eye contact with him.

Slater nodded, but didn't move. Just sat there, squatting and smirking at Martin.

“I'm going to ask you a question, Martin,” he said. He was looking right back at Martin, his green cat eyes a lot more serious than Martin had seen them before. “Okay? And just so you know, I'm going to use it as a gauge for how much I can trust you right now. Okay? All right? How does that sound?”

Martin nodded. He moved his head slowly, and didn't look away.
Didn't blink, even. He knew that a lot was hanging in the balance right now. Was he going to jail?

“Good,” Slater said. “Good. All right. So tell me—where did you get this money?”

Martin paused, trying to think quickly.

“Where did I get it?” he asked. He was stalling. It was the sort of question he'd asked in high school, when the teacher called on him and he didn't know the answer. Maybe someone will pass me a note with the correct answer. Or maybe the bell will ring. There was always a chance. Here, though, Martin actually did know the answer—he just didn't want to tell Slater. Slater had obviously found the money that he'd stashed in his tool box, under the sink. But the question was whether or not Slater knew that it was part of Val's larger stash. At this point, Martin wasn't thinking about hanging onto the money so much as avoiding any connection to Val—or to Val and Angela's murder, for that matter. If he told Slater he had Val's money, what would stop Slater from assuming that he'd killed Val and Angela?

“That's right, Martin,” Slater said, nodding his head and smiling just a little bit. “Where did you get it? Did you rob a bank? Did you buy it at a store? Are you a male prostitute? Do you turn tricks for perverted rich guys down here in the fucking cabin of your boat? Where did you get it?” By the time Slater got to his last question, his voice had risen to a near shout. And it was a scary kind of almost-shout—sudden and frightening, with an edge. One minute he was smiling and calm, the next his voice was cutting into Martin, angry and threatening.

Martin took a deep breath. He was going to go for it. He didn't want to go to jail—didn't want to take a chance on trusting Slater.

“That money?” he asked. “That's just—that's money from a plane sale. I—we. Well, we didn't want to declare the money on the books, because we didn't want to pay taxes on it. So . . . you know . . . it's money I'm hiding from the IRS.”

Slater cocked his head to the side a little bit. He didn't look pleased—he looked like he was wincing, in fact. “The IRS?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Actually, it's from a couple of planes we've sold this year. But, yeah, it's money from my business. Why? What do you think it is?”

Instead of answering, Slater stood up, yawned, stretched, then put his hands on his hips.

“Martin,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You're wearing me out. I think I need a nap. Waiting around for you out here made me tired, and now you're testing my patience with your answers to my questions.”

He started to walk around to the side of Martin. Martin started to adjust himself to try to keep him in his line of vision, but just as he did he felt a blow to his side, just under his ribs. He fell over with a half-yell, half-groan, knowing even as he did that Slater must have kicked him. And hard—just as hard as the punch in the stomach. Harder, maybe.

And so again he lay there panting and writhing on the ugly orange carpet, trying to control the pain. Now he did feel nauseous. He remembered a blow like this once when he was playing football as a kid with some friends, and someone had plowed into his side—into his kidney. He'd puked right there on the grass. He felt the same urge to throw up now, but he wanted to preserve at least a little dignity. He found himself thinking about his kids. There weren't any cogent thoughts, just images. Their faces, the sound of laughter and crying. The sound of fear—times he'd told them not to worry, that there was nothing to be afraid of. Climbing into bed with them after they'd woken from a bad nightmare.

E
VENTUALLY HE PULLED HIMSELF
up onto his knees. He was hunched over, elbows on the rug. He looked sideways at Slater, who was sitting now on the little coffee table that was anchored to the floor in front of the couch. He was hunched over, elbows on his knees, just like when he'd been squatting in front of him. Martin wasn't quite sure how much time had passed. Probably not much, two or three minutes, maybe.

“How're you feeling, Martin?” Slater asked. “Are you all right?”

Forehead on the floor, Martin turned his head to look at him. Slater
looked distorted from the upside-down angle—distorted and more frightening. But in spite of himself, Martin felt a little bit reassured to hear Slater ask if he was all right. It must mean that he didn't really want to hurt me—that he won't do that again.

“I'm all right,” Martin said.

“Good,” Slater said. He paused, looking down at Martin. “Are you ready to have a real discussion now? Yes? Okay? Ready?” He nodded, acting like he was talking to a little kid, or a dog, maybe. That was how Linda talked to Arrow sometimes.

Martin pushed himself off the floor and sat up, butt on his ankles. He sighed and looked at Slater. His side was killing him. Jesus. Then he shifted over onto his ass again, put his feet out in front of him and pulled his knees up.

“Sure,” he said to Slater. “Yeah. Let's keep talking.”

Okay, he thought. Here it comes. Have you been flying drugs up from Mexico for Val Desmond? You have? Okay then. Martin Anderson, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law. And so on. He knew the lines from watching
Dragnet
—where Slater would never get a part. And rightly so—Joe Friday never punched and kicked his suspects. Neither did Serpico, for that matter. Apparently, Slater was more of a Popeye Doyle type—the rogue cop. Broke some rules, pushed the envelope. But unlike Gene Hackman, who seemed neither strong nor scary, Jim Slater was the real thing.

“Okay,” Slater said. “Excellent.” He leaned forward and patted Martin on the shoulder. “I knew you were all right when I first came to your house with the thing about the plane up in Humboldt. Oh, and we nailed that guy, by the way. Did I ever tell you that? That guy was a real clown. Really stupid. And I should tell you, we had a good laugh at the station over what you said about his mustache and how he looked like a porn star. One of my buddies even told him about it when we busted him. Not about you saying that, I mean. But he told him that we were referring to him as the porn-star drug dealer.”

He shook his head, chuckling to himself. Martin tried to picture the guy, but couldn't. He was too confused. And what was his name? Or what had he said his name was? He couldn't remember.

“Huh,” Martin said, not sure if he was actually supposed to respond. “No. I don't think you did call me about that. But good. I'm glad you got him.”