Helpless

Chapter 35

As Tom pulled into the parking lot of the Plenty Market, he noticed one peculiar thing. The parking lot was empty. The supermarket store lights were off as well. Tom checked his watch. It was quarter past nine at night, and according to the sign taped to the inside window, the market had closed over an hour ago.

Where was Boyd? Tom wanted to know.

Tom heard a loud whistle. The supermarket’s back door opened, expelling a thin shaft of yellow light that illuminated a narrow column of dark asphalt. A silhouetted figure emerged from the doorway. It was Roland. He held open the back door and motioned for Tom to come inside.

Tom didn’t realize there was additional parking by the loading zone, and now observed two cars taking up four available spaces. One of the cars, the Mercedes, he knew belonged to Roland. Tom entered a dimly lit stockroom, noticing Roland had on a neatly pressed dark suit. The stockroom was a cavernous, dry space with stacks of corrugated boxes sitting atop wooden pallets. A small office fronted by a large plate-glass window stood to Tom’s right. Tom saw a heavyset man seated at a desk inside that office.

The other car had to be his.

For a moment Tom thought it could have been Lange’s.

“Shopping after hours?” Tom asked Roland.

Roland didn’t respond. Instead, his eyes did the talking, and they didn’t appear pleased. Roland closed the door. Tom thought he heard it lock.

Roland walked past Tom and went to the back of the stockroom. Tom took a quick look behind him as he followed. The guy in the office stayed put.

Roland stopped, then turned to face Tom. He kept his arms at his sides.

“Where’s Lange?” Tom asked. “Is he here?”

“I didn’t find Lange,” Roland said. “I lied.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I needed to get you down here, and I knew if I told you I’d found Lange, you’d come. I don’t like to leave things to chance.”

“What are we doing here, Roland?” asked Tom. “I’m not a big fan of being lied to.”

“We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Adriana. Why’d she post your bail?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I’m guessing she felt sorry for me. She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Why don’t we call her now and get this straightened out?”

“I told her not to call you back,” Roland said. “She already gave me her story.”

“And?”

“And she said she felt sorry for you.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“I don’t believe her.”

“Oh.”

“This is really tough for me,” Roland said. “I consider you a friend. One of my best. So I’m going to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible. Are you sleeping with my wife?”

Tom glanced behind him. The big man was still safely tucked inside his office. Tom didn’t know where this was headed, but every instinct told him it wouldn’t be someplace he wanted to go. Roland kept his expression about as revealing as the cardboard boxes behind him.

“Roland, this is crazy. You’re dead wrong if you think I’m sleeping with your wife. Let’s stop this right now, before it escalates.”

Roland stayed calm, calmer even than the night he confronted Bob at the club with the same accusation.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Roland said. “Are you sleeping with my wife?”

“No. I’m not.”

Tom kept his arms at his sides. Roland’s folded across his chest. Neither man spoke. The only sound Tom heard was a constant humming from the large walk-in cooler to his right.

“I don’t think I believe you,” Roland eventually said. “Last chance to convince me. Why did my wife put a hundred-thousand-dollar bet on you?”

“Roland, I’m just as curious as you are.”

Roland’s face slipped into a snarl. “Are you fucking my wife?” he shouted.

“If I were, don’t you think that’d be a stupid way to hide an affair?”

At that, Roland unhinged his folded his arms and let out a deep sigh. He studied Tom a long while. “Didn’t the SEALs train you in how to lie without being detected?”

“They trained me to do a lot of things,” Tom said.

“I bet.”

“I think now would be a good time for both of us to cool off,” Tom said. “Let’s have a sit-down. Me, you, and Adriana. We’ll talk tomorrow, with clearer heads.”

Tom moved to leave, but Roland grabbed him by the arm.

Tom spun around and locked eyes with Roland. “You don’t want to fight me,” he said. He kept his voice calm. “Bad odds. A lot worse than your wife’s bet on me.”

“I told you, I don’t fight.”

“Have a good night, Roland. We’ll talk.” Tom took two steps toward the rear door.

From behind, Tom heard Roland whistle loudly.

Damn, how he wished he could do that whistle.

The man seated inside the office emerged. Heavy jowled, with an oil slick of dark hair, he waddled over to Tom and blocked the way out. He wore a short-sleeved yellow shirt and a poorly knotted red knit tie that arched over his considerable belly. His name tag, pinned to his shirt, identified him as both Gill Sullivan and the general manager of the Plenty Market.

Tom eyed Sullivan with suspicion. “I’m guessing he’s not here to offer me a special on ribs,” Tom said, turning around to look at Roland.

Sullivan stood grinning, his arms folded and resting upon his massive midsection.

“Do you want to spend all your pretrial time locked up?” Roland asked.

“That’s not your call to make, Roland. Thanks to Adriana—who I’m not sleeping with, by the way—I’m a free man until my trial.”

“Not if you violate the conditions of your bail.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that.”

“Here’s my proposition to you, Tom. Admit to me that you’re having an affair with Adriana, or spend the night in the walk-in refrigerator here.” Roland pointed to the large refrigerator, coated in steel on all surfaces, big enough to park a VW Bug.

“What?” Tom squinted his eyes, unsure that he’d heard the man correctly.

“Admit it to me, right here, right now, or spend the night in the cooler,” Roland repeated.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Tom said.

“Admit it.”

“I’d be lying. That’s not fair to your wife.”

“There’s no other reason she’d have bailed you out!”

“She likes me. We bonded over what happened to Stephen and my struggles with Jill.”

“Bullshit! I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She can’t keep her hands off you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“If you insist on lying to me, then you’ve got to spend the night in deep freeze,” Roland said.

“You can’t make me do that.”

“Yes. I can.” Roland turned to Sullivan and nodded.

Sullivan stepped around Tom, cocked his arm back, and thrust it forward with surprising speed. The general manager hit Roland in the face with a closed fist, hard enough to make a popping sound.

Roland staggered backward, then tumbled over a box of paper goods stacked knee high on a pallet behind him. When Roland got back on his feet, Tom saw a giant welt, red and rising, on his right cheek. Roland was breathing hard. He touched his hand gently to the injury.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tom cried out.

“What am I doing?” Roland said with disgust. “What are you doing? is the better question. Gilly, did you just see Mr. Hawkins here assault me?”

“That’s what I just saw,” Sullivan said.

“And you’d be willing to make that statement to the police?”

“Of course I would, Mr. Boyd. That man just attacked you.”

“What? What are you two trying to do?”

“Assault and battery are serious charges, Tom. I don’t think the judge is going to put up a bail number that Adriana, or anybody else, for that matter, could afford to post. Now, get in the refrigerator, Tom.”

“I’m not sleeping with your wife.”

“Get inside. Sleep on it. Maybe when you come out, you’ll be ready to confess.”

Tom tensed. Moving faster than Roland or Sullivan could react, he lunged forward and seized his former teammate by his suit jacket lapels.

Roland just grinned. “Touch me and I won’t give you the option of not going to jail.”

Tom let go of Roland’s suit jacket. He flashed on the hundred different ways he could snap the man’s neck. Sullivan maneuvered himself behind Tom and opened the door to the walk-in refrigerator.

Tom closed his eyes and balled his fists. He could level these men with two punches. But he knew what outcome that would bring.

Prison. Jill would give up on him. He’d never convince a jury that he’d been framed.

One thing Tom had learned from his time in the navy was that everything with a way in also had a way out. Ducking to pass underneath the low-framed metal doorway, Tom stepped inside the chilling space. The door closed with a quiet click. And Tom plunged into total darkness.