Last Man Standing

19

Web drove the Crown Vic down the street his mother used to live on. It was a neighborhood on its last legs, its potential never realized and its vitality long since exhausted. Yet the location, thirty years ago considered rural, was now smack in the middle of prime suburbia, what with the continued sprawl of the metropolitan area, where commuters rose from their beds at four to get to the office by eight. In five years’ time, a developer would probably buy up all the dilapidated properties, bulldoze them under and new homes costing too much would arise from the dust of old ones sacrificed for too little.

Web got out of the Crown Vic and looked around. Charlotte London had been one of the older people living here, and her house, despite Web’s efforts, was about as run-down as the rest. The chain-link fence was a few rusting strands from collapse. The house’s metal awnings sagged with water and carried grime that could no longer be cleaned away. The lone maple in front was dead, with brown leaves on it from the year before scraping a sad tune in the breeze. The grass had not been cut for a while because Web had not been around to push the mower. He had fought a valiant effort over the years to keep it as it had once been but had finally given up because his mother had taken little interest in maintaining her home and yard. Now that she was dead, Web figured he would be selling the place at some point; he just didn’t want to deal with it right now, maybe never.

Web went inside and looked around. Right after her death he had come here. The place had been a mess, exactly as his mother had left it. He had spent an entire day cleaning the house and ended up carrying ten thirty-gallon bags of trash to the curb. Then Web had kept the electricity, water and sewer going after his mother’s death. It wasn’t that he ever envisioned himself living here, but something just wouldn’t let him go. Now he surveyed the rooms, clean except for dust and the occasional cobweb. He settled down, checked his watch and flipped on the TV just as a soap opera was interrupted for a special news event. This was the promised FBI news conference. Web scooted forward and adjusted the picture and sound.

Web gaped as Percy Bates appeared at the podium. Where the hell was Buck Winters? Web thought. He listened as Bates ran through Web’s distinguished career at the FBI and some feel-good film was shown of Web accepting various awards, medals and citations from the Bureau heads and one from the President himself. Bates spoke of the horror in the courtyard and Web’s bravery and grit in doing what he had done when confronted with such an overwhelming foe.

One shot was of Web in the hospital with half his face bandaged. This made Web reach up and touch the old wound. He felt proud and cheap at the same time. He suddenly wished Bates had not done this. This “promo” wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind. It just made him seem defensive. The journalists would crucify him, probably accuse the Bureau of covering their ass by shielding one of their own. And maybe, in a way, they were. He let out a low moan. He didn’t think it could get any worse, yet it just had. He turned off the TV, sat there and closed his eyes. In his mind he felt a hand on his shoulder, but there was no one there. This seemed to always happen to him when he came here; his mother’s presence was everywhere.

Charlotte London had kept until her death the shoulder-length hair that had over the years turned from glorious, sexy blond to elegant, luxurious silver. Her skin had been unwrinkled because she was allergic to the sun and had covered herself from it all her life. And her neck had been long and smooth with tight muscles set at the base. Web wondered how many men had been seduced by that delicate but overpowering curve. When he was a teenager Web had had dreams about his young, sexy mother that to this day he still felt shame for.

Despite the drinking and less-than-healthy eating habits, his mother had not gained an ounce in forty years and the weight had remained pretty much in its original locations. When she really put herself together, she had been a knockout at age fifty-nine. It was too bad that her liver had given out. The rest of her could have kept going for a while longer.

As beautiful as she had been, it was her intellect that attracted most people. Yet the conversations between mother and son had been downright bizarre. His mother did not watch TV. “They call it an idiot box for good reason,” she had often said. “I’d rather read Camus. Or Goethe. Or Jean Genet. Genet makes me laugh and cry at the same time, and I don’t really know why, for there is arguably nothing humorous about Genet. His subject matter was vile. Depraved. So much suffering. Mostly autobiographical.”

“Right. Sure, Genet, Goethe,” Web had told her several years before. “G-men, like me, sort of.” His mother had never gotten the joke.

“But they can be wonderfully compelling—erotic, even,” she had said.

“What can?” he had asked.

“Vileness and depravity.”

Web had taken a deep breath. He had wanted to tell her that he’d seen some vileness and depravity in his time that would have made old Jean Genet barf up his lunch. He had wanted to unequivocally inform his mother that these evils were nothing to joke about, because one day somebody filled to the brim with vileness and depravity might appear on her doorstep and violently end her life. Instead he had remained silent. His mother had often had that effect on him.

Charlotte London had been a child prodigy, astounding folks with her broad-ranging intellect. She had entered college at age fourteen and earned a degree in American literature from Amherst, graduating near the top of her class. She had spoken four foreign languages fluently. After college Charlotte had traveled the world alone for almost a year, Web knew, because he had seen the photos and read her journals. And that was back in the days when young women didn’t do that sort of thing. She had even written a book chronicling her adventures, and the book was still selling to this day. Its title was London Times; London had been her maiden name, and she had changed it back after her second husband had died. She had had Web’s surname legally changed from Sullivan after she had divorced her first husband. Web had never carried his stepfather’s name. His mother would not allow it. It was just how she was. And to this day he never knew why he had been given such an odd name as Web with only the one b. He had gone up and down his maternal family tree and the answer wasn’t there. His mother had steadfastly refused even to tell Web who had named him.

When he had been little, his mother had shared with Web much of what she had seen and done on her teenage travels, and he had thought hers the most wonderful stories he had ever heard. And he had wanted to go on trips with her just like that and write in his journal and take photos of his beautiful, adventurous mother against the backdrop of pristine water in Italy or on a snowcapped mountain in Switzerland or at an outdoor café in Paris. The beautiful mother and the dashing son taking the world by storm had dominated his boyhood thoughts. But then she had married Web’s stepfather and those dreams went away.

Web opened his eyes and rose. He went to the basement first. Thick dust covered every surface, and Web found nothing remotely close to what he was looking for. He went back upstairs and into the rear of the house where the kitchen was. He opened the back door and looked outside at the small garage that housed, among other things, his mother’s ancient Plymouth Duster. Web could hear the cries of children at play nearby. He closed his eyes and rested his face against the mesh as those sounds sank in. In his mind Web could almost see the football being thrown, the coltish legs hustling after it, a very young Web thinking that if he didn’t catch that ball, his life would end. He sniffed the air, the smell of wood smoke mingling with the sweet aroma of freshly cut fall grass. There was nothing better, it seemed, and yet it was only a scent, never lasting for very long. And then you were pretty much right back in the shit of life. The shit, he had discovered, was never temporary.

In his vision, the young Web ran harder and harder. It was growing dark and he knew his mother would be calling him in soon. Not to eat, but to run over to the neighbors to bum cigarettes for his stepfather. Or to hustle down to the neighborhood Foodway with a couple dollars and a sad tale for Old Man Stein, who ran the place with a bigger heart than he should have. Always hustling down to the Foodway was young Web. Always singing the sad Irish song, his mother coaching him on the lyrics. Where had she learned it, the sad song? Web had asked her. As with the origin of his given name, she had never answered him.

Web could vividly remember Mr. Stein squatting down with his big glasses, old cardigan and neat white apron and graciously accepting the crumpled dollar bills from “Webbie” London, as he liked to call Web. Then he would help Web pick out food for supper and maybe even breakfast. These groceries, of course, always cost far more than two dollars, and yet Stein had never said a word about the cost. Yet he had not been so reserved about other things.

“You tell your mother not to drink so much,” he had called after Web as he had run off home carrying two bulging bags of groceries. “And you tell that devil of a husband of hers that God will strike him down for what he has done, if a man’s hand does not do so sooner. And if only God would allow me that honor. I pray for it every night, Webbie. You tell her that. And him too!” Old Man Stein was in love with Web’s mother, as were just about all the men in the neighborhood, married or not. In fact, the only man who didn’t seem to be in love with Charlotte London was the man she was married to.

He went upstairs and stared at the attic pull-down stairs in the middle of the hallway. This was where he should have started his search, of course, but he did not want to go up there. He finally grabbed the rope pull, hauled down the stairs and climbed up. He clicked on the light, his gaze darting to every darkened corner as soon as he did so. Web took another deep breath and told himself that simpering cowards rarely accomplished anything with their lives, that he was a big, brave HRT assaulter with a loaded nine-millimeter in his holster. He moved into the attic and spent an hour compulsively going through more elements of his history than he really cared to.

The school yearbooks were here with the awkward pictures of boys and girls trying to look older than they were, when only a few short years would pass before they would desperately be trying to do the opposite. He also spent time deciphering the yearbook scribbles from classmates outlining lavish plans for their futures, which had not come true for any of them that Web knew of, including himself. His old varsity jacket and his football helmet were there in a box. There was a time when he could remember where every scratch on the helmet came from. Now he couldn’t even remember the jersey number he had worn. There were old and useless school-books, journals that had nothing in them but stupid pictures drawn by bored hands. His bored hands.

In one corner was a clothes rack with garments from the last four decades gathering dust, mold and moth holes. There were also old records warped in the heat and cold. There were boxes of baseball and football trading cards that might now be worth a tidy fortune if Web hadn’t used them as targets for dart games and BB shooting. There were pieces of a bicycle Web vaguely remembered owning, along with a half dozen burned-out flashlights. There was also a clay figurine his mother had sculpted, and quite well; but it had been bashed around so much by his stepfather that the figure was now not only blind but also lacking ears and a nose.

It was all a sad memorial to a quite ordinary family that actually had been anything but ordinary in certain ways.

Web was thinking of giving up when he found it.

The box was under a collection of his mother’s college books, the works of long-dead philosophers and writers and thinkers. Web quickly looked through the box’s contents. It was enough to start with. He would be one poor investigator if he couldn’t follow it up to something. He was surprised he had never noticed it before while growing up in this house. But he had never been looking for it back then.

He jerked around and stared at the farthest corner from him. It was dark, shadowy and he could almost swear something had moved there. His hand eased to his gun. He hated this attic. Hated it! And yet he didn’t really know why. It was just a damn attic.

He carried the box to his car and on the way back to his motel Web used his cell phone to call Percy Bates. “Nice job, Perce. What a difference a day makes. But what happened to old Bucky?”

“Winters backed out at the last minute.”

“Right. In case I go crashing down. And so he left you to do it for him.”

“I actually volunteered when he waffled on it.”

“You’re a good guy, Perce, but you’ll never rise higher in the Bureau if you keep doing the right thing.”

“Like I give a crap about that.”

“Any breaks?”

“We traced the guns. Stolen from a military facility in Virginia. Two years ago. Big help. But we’ll chase it down every path until it dies on us.”

“Any sign of Kevin Westbrook?”

“None. And no other witnesses have come forward. Apparently everyone down that way was struck deaf and dumb.”

“I guess you’ve talked to the people Kevin lived with. Anything come out of that?”

“Not much. They haven’t seen him. Like I said, he avoided that place anyway.”

Web chose his next words carefully. “So nobody to love the kid? No old lady or grandmother lying around?”

“There is an old woman. And we think she’s Kevin’s mother’s stepmother or something like that. She wasn’t real clear on the relation either. You’d think it’d be pretty simple to say one way or another, but talk about your extended families. Dads in prisons, moms gone, brothers dead, sisters hookers, you got babies dropped off everywhere with anybody who looks halfway respectable, and that’s usually the older folks. She seemed genuinely worried about the boy, but she’s scared too. They’re all scared down there.”

“Perce, did you ever actually see Kevin before he went missing?”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to put together a time line between when I last saw him and when he disappeared.”

“A time line. Damn, wish I’d thought of that,” Bates said sarcastically.

“Come on, Perce, I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes, but I saved that boy’s life and I’d kind of like him to keep it.”

“Web, you know the likelihood of the kid turning up alive is pretty damn slim. Whoever took him wasn’t planning a surprise party at Chuck E. Cheese’s for the boy. We’ve searched every place we can think of. Got APBs out in all the surrounding states, and even on the Canadian and Mexican borders. It’s not like they’d hang around the city with the kid.”

“But if he was working for his brother, he might be safe. I mean, I understand this Big F is one mean bastard, but popping your little brother? Come on.”

“I’ve seen worse and so have you.”

“But did you see Kevin?”

“No, no, I didn’t personally see the kid. He was gone before I got there. There, you satisfied?”

“I spoke with the HRT guys who were babysitting him. They said they turned him over to a couple of FBI suits.” Web had decided not to mention Romano’s statement that actually only one man had been definitively involved, because he wanted to hear Bates’s take on it.

“You’ll be no doubt stunned that I talked to them too and found out the same thing.”

“They couldn’t tell me the names of the agents. Any luck there?”

“It’s a little early in the game.”

Web now gave up any pretense of congeniality. “No, it’s really not, Perce. I spent a lot of years doing what you do. I know how these cases go down. If you can’t tell me by now who the suits were, that means they weren’t FBI. That means a couple of impostors got inside an FBI crime scene, your crime scene, and made off with a key witness. Maybe I can help.”

“That’s your theory. And I don’t want or need your help.”

“Are you telling me I’m wrong?”

“What I’m going to tell you is to keep the hell out of my investigation. And I mean what I say.”

“It was my damn team!”

“I understand that, but if I find out you’re doing anything, asking one question, following up one lead on your own, then your ass is mine. I hope I’m making myself clear.”

“I’ll call you when I crack the case.”

Web clicked off and quietly berated himself for blowing his last asset at the Bureau. He had been as subtle as a dump truck, but Bates just seemed to bring out the bulldog in folks. And to think he had originally called merely to thank the guy for the press conference!