Bad Guys (15 page)

“No, nothing.”

We got to the Camry, and Angie got in, dropping her Banana Republic package in the passenger seat. I told her not to be too late, waved goodbye, and then, once I was sure I was out of sight of her rearview mirror, sprinted back to the Virtue. Trevor, with his car in position and the engine running, was going to have the jump on me if I didn’t get out of my spot quickly. I’d end up losing both of them.

When I’d left my car, there had been a small compact car on one side of me and a massive Ford Expedition on the other. The compact had left and been replaced by some other kind of SUV, some General Motors variety. It was as though I’d parked the Virtue at the bottom of a canyon. This was the thing about these vehicles: you couldn’t see around them at intersections, you couldn’t see around them in parking lots, you couldn’t—

There really wasn’t time to work up a satisfying rant about SUVs. I had to get moving. I got into the Virtue, threw the Gap bags down in front of the passenger seat, and got my key into the ignition. The engine, much to my relief, turned over right away this time. “Yes!” I said, put the car into reverse, and turned around to see my way out of the spot.

I was looking into walls of steel—massive doors and fenders—on both sides. The only view I had of the outside world was directly behind me, across the aisle to the tail ends of some cars on the other side.

So I began to creep out. Surely, if someone saw me backing out, they would stop and let me—

Someone laid on their horn. I slammed on the brake as a car shot past. Okay, maybe not everyone was as polite as I would have hoped. I began inching out again, just a little bit, just a little bit more.

Another horn. I hit the brake again, and this time a car roared by from the other direction, but at least this motorist had the time to roll down his window and respond to me: “Watch it, asshole!”

And I thought: I do not know who you are, but if I had the time, I would get out of my car, walk over, and beat you with a tire iron. Parking lot rage.

After he drove on, I kept on inching. But two more cars went by and their drivers didn’t even bother to honk. They just drove past, figuring that I, somehow, deep down in my corridor of steel, could see them.

“Fuck it,” I said, threw the car into park, got out, and walked out into the aisle. A vehicle was driving up, and I held up my hand to stop it.

The driver put down his window. “Yeah?” he said as I approached.

“You want a spot?” I asked. “I’m pulling out.”

“Uh, no. I’m picking someone up.”

“Okay, then, just do me a favor. I’m surrounded by those two goddamn SUVs and can’t see to back out. You mind blocking everyone here for a second until I can get out?”

It wasn’t until that moment I actually noticed that this guy, who was now scowling, was behind the wheel of an SUV.

“I mean,” I said, “they’re great cars and all, super in the snow, right? But when you’re driving a little shitbox like I’ve got, it’s hard to see, you know?” He glared at me a moment longer. I did a minor eye roll and said, “It’s my wife’s car.”

He shrugged, indicating he would wait.

I ran back to the Virtue, hopped in, screeched out of the spot, and sped toward the exit I figured was the one Angie would most likely have used. I was looking for her car or Trevor’s, or both.

I got as far as the exit without seeing either of them. My palms were slipping on the plastic steering wheel, and I could feel sweat forming on my forehead. I was up to the light and had to make a decision whether to head left or right, and as I pondered an impossible decision, someone honked at me from behind to get moving.

“Fuck off!” I shouted, even though there was no chance whoever it was would be able to hear me. And then, a couple of hundred yards up the road to the right, I caught a glimpse of a car with only one taillight.

I turned the wheel hard right, hit the accelerator, listened to the motor whine a little harder. I was hoping a major thrust of power would kick in at some point, if not now, maybe by the weekend. Maybe Paul was right. Maybe there was nothing under the hood but gerbils.

Now that I’d spotted what I was sure was Angie’s car, I looked for Trevor’s, and sure enough, there it was, about five car lengths behind Angie. Now that I had both of them in sight, I could catch my breath, let my heart rate get back to something approaching normal.

Trevor and I followed her, discreetly, all the way to the ramp to the highway that led west out of the city. Angie eased over onto the ramp (no signal, what was I going to do?) and picked up speed as she merged with the traffic.

Where the hell was she going?

You could take the expressway to get from one part of the city to another, of course. It was a great way to bypass dozens of lights. But it became clear after a few miles, no doubt to Trevor as well as to me, that she was headed outside of the city limits. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were headed out to Oakwood.

Why would Angie be headed to Oakwood? Of course, she still had a few friends out there, but not that many. And of course, maybe she wasn’t going to Oakwood. There were plenty of other suburban enclaves between the city and our old neighborhood.

I was only a few car lengths behind Trevor. It was night, and there was enough traffic that riding directly behind him wasn’t going to raise his suspicions any. Every once in a while another head would pop into view, then disappear. The dog, Morpheus. For a while, he rested his front paws on the top of the rear seat and looked out the rear window. The world’s biggest bobbing-head dog.

While he was looking back toward me, it appeared that Trevor was occupied with something. He kept glancing down between the seats, like he was searching for something in the console. His head kept turning, looking down, then back up again to watch the highway. If he kept this up, he was going to have an accident.

Once we were about five minutes out from the city, Trevor’s right blinker came on and he was gone at the next exit. I guess he’d had enough, grown tired of the chase. For all he knew, Angie was headed for the coast, and even stalkers had to pack it in at some point.

I was faced with a choice. Follow Trevor. Follow Angie. Follow no one, and go home.

Now that Trevor had given up following Angie, at least for this evening, there wasn’t anything else for me to do. It made sense for me to get off at the next exit, turn around, and head back home as well.

Except I couldn’t help but wonder where Angie was going.

A few minutes later, Angie turned off at Oakwood.

I took the same exit, hanging far enough back that I wouldn’t end up pulling alongside her at the light at the end of the ramp. She made a left, in the direction of our old neighborhood, and I turned left as well so that I could catch the ramp that would put me back onto the highway and into the city.

I’d like to tell you that I don’t know what made me drive past the ramp and stay on Angie’s tail. But I do.

I wanted to know where she was going. I wanted to know who she was seeing. I’d crossed some line myself here, from following her to make sure she was okay, to following her to find out what she was up to. Because, at some level, I was scared about the choices she might be making, and that if they were choices I didn’t approve of, scared by how little influence I might have to stop them.

She guided the Camry into our old neighborhood. And then Angie was turning down our old street. I hung way back, not wanting to get caught in the act by her a second time. It was starting to look, and this didn’t make any sense to me at all, as though she was going to turn into the driveway of our old house.

But then she drove past it, slowed, and turned into the driveway two doors down.

She was parking the car at Trixie’s house.

Angie was making a stop at the home of the friendly neighborhood dominatrix. During office hours.

Angie got out of the car, locked it, knocked on Trixie’s door, and a moment later, was admitted and disappeared.

I HAD A GOOD FRIEND ONCE, Sarah and I would hang out with him and his wife every once in a while, and we’d always have a good time. We’d do dinner, maybe a movie, sometimes just go to each other’s houses and have a few drinks. And one night he phoned me, late, after Sarah had gone to bed, and told me he’d been seeing someone else, for more than a year, and that he wasn’t sure, but he might be in love with her, and I thought: Why did you tell me this? Did I really need to know?

I was his friend, and he needed to talk, but the honest-to-God truth was, I’d have been much happier being kept in the dark. I didn’t want to know that he was cheating on his wife. It shattered some illusions, first of all. I thought everyone was as happy as Sarah and I. (This was, of course, before she became saddled with me as an underling at work.) I dreaded the next time we’d all get together, the four of us, and have to pretend, when I engaged in small talk with his wife, that I did not know what I knew. Because the knowledge seemed to carry with it the burden of responsibility. Should I tell his wife? No, of course not, I told myself. Don’t get involved. But knowing something that she did not know, something that intimately affected her, overshadowed every moment of conversation. Part of me resented my friend after that. He’d
implicated
me in his indiscretion. He’d made me a part of his deception.

I think there’s an element of this to parenting. There are things you simply do not want to know. Weren’t there things I’d done as a teenager that it was better my parents never knew about? Maybe a couple. Perhaps even a lot. And hadn’t I turned out okay, so long as you didn’t count the paranoid, obsessive-compulsive behavior tics my dad had passed on to me? As long as your kids are okay, as long as they’re safe, as long as they’re back home in their own bed when the sun comes up, isn’t that enough?

I wish I knew.

These were the thoughts bouncing around in my head as I sat in a car just down the street from Trixie Snelling’s house. My daughter had paid her a visit. If I had not followed her out here, if I had never known she’d made this trip, I would not have had to wonder what its purpose was.

Only a few hours earlier, I’d been talking to Trixie on the phone, and as we’d caught up on each other’s news, she’d struggled to remember Angie’s name. Her faulty memory now struck me as forced, as an act, a way to preemptively throw me off the trail. Why would she not want me to know that she and Angie had been in touch?

It wasn’t as though Angie and Trixie had been friends when we’d lived out here. For most of the time we’d lived in Oakwood, none of us had known what Trixie did for a living. But by the time we moved away, we were all in on the secret.

Who’d contacted whom? Had Trixie invited Angie out? Had Angie gotten in touch with Trixie?

And if I didn’t relieve myself immediately, would I do permanent damage to my bladder?

I’d had a lot of coffee, and it had suddenly caught up with me. I uncapped the Snapple bottle that was in the cup holder between the seats, the one I’d brought along just for this very purpose, and, after unzipping, did what I had to do. It occurred to me that this would be a bad time for a police officer to do a patrol of the neighborhood and find a seemingly respectable reporter for
The Metropolitan
sitting alone in a car while keeping an eye on the home of a dominatrix.

Carefully, I recapped the now-f bottle, giving the cap an extra-tight turn. Rather than put the bottle back in the cup holder, I slipped it, upright, down into the storage pocket on the back of the passenger seat. It was a tight fit, which was a blessing, since there was no chance the bottle would tip or fall out.

I’d been sitting in front of Trixie’s house, staring at it and our Camry in the driveway, for nearly fifteen minutes now. I’d considered all the possibilities.

1. Angie was a client. Unthinkable.

2. Angie was an apprentice. Unimaginable.

3. Angie had decided to drop by for a cup of tea. Unbelievable.

4. Angie was getting a gift certificate for me for my birthday. Unlikely.

I happened to glance at the digital clock on the dashboard. It read 10 P.M. Nuts. I was supposed to meet Lawrence Jones at the doughnut shop at 10:30. If I left right now, I might make it in time.

But could I leave Angie out here? And could I leave without knowing why she was here?

I got out my cell phone from my jacket pocket and Lawrence’s business card from my wallet. I keyed in the office number from the card. I could ask him whether he was on schedule, and whether I could afford to be a bit late to our rendezvous.

No answer.

So I tried the second number listed, his cell.

No answer.

“Shit,” I said.

Unless I was prepared to get out of the car, knock on Trixie’s door, and demand some sort of an explanation from the two of them, there wasn’t much to be gained by hanging around. It wasn’t like I could, at this hour, pretend to drop by Trixie’s, and discover Angie there by accident. All that would accomplish would be to give Angie the idea that I was a customer.

So, riddled with reservation and doubt, I turned the key forward.

And the car said,
Whirwhirwhir
.

This can’t be happening, I thought. I turned the key again.

This time, not even a
whir
. There was no sound at all.

This was not the best place to sit and wait for the auto club to show up. I mentally crossed my fingers and turned the key a third time.

The engine caught.

I put the car into drive and sped out of Valley Forest Estates, got back onto the highway, and broke the speed limit (once I was finally able to coax the Virtue into exceeding it) all the way back into town.

I arrived at the doughnut place around the corner from Garvin Street about 10:35 P.M. and glanced at all the cars in the lot as I pulled in. I felt a weight lift from my shoulders when I didn’t see Lawrence’s Buick. At least I hadn’t kept him waiting.

I went inside. Now that I had been thoroughly drained of coffee, I felt I could accommodate some more. But, rattled as I already was by the evening’s revelations, I opted for a decaf. And an oatmeal muffin.