Missing Persons

43

We’d almost completed a totally silent trek from the Sunflower back up the Mall to my office when he said, “You wouldn’t have come out with me if I’d told you what I was up to.”

“Damn right,” I said.

A few more steps of silence followed. Then, without the slightest bit of animosity in his voice, Sam added, “You should get off your high horse, see what the world looks like from down here with the rest of us.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I wasn’t as careful as Sam was about keeping the animosity out of my voice.

“Your cherished position in life-you know, psych-o-therapist, guardian of all the world’s secrets-it’s not as special as you think it is. You’re just a damn guy doing a damn job. You have trusts to keep. Well, surprise, surprise, other people do, too. Other people take their responsibilities as seriously as you do.

“Me? Tonight? It turns out I saw a way to get Diane some help for whatever mess she’s in. I saw a way to get some serious eyeballs out looking for the guy in the Camaro. You wanted me to find a hook for all this. Well, I found one. The way I see it, call me naive, but no blood gets spilled by my strategy. A few people have to swallow some pride-yeah, you included-but so the fuck what? You think this was an easy meeting for Jaris? The guy has his hands full; trust me on that.”

I was inclined to say that I didn’t give a ferret fart whether or not it had been a pleasant meeting for Jaris, but I didn’t.

Sam had his hands in his pockets and was looking down at the sidewalk as we talked. At Ninth he led us off the curb without looking for traffic in both directions. In half a second a guy heading north on a bike almost creamed him. If the man hadn’t screamed a profanity in warning, I’m not sure Sam would have ever noticed.

Even with the profanity, he seemed unfazed. He muttered, “Too cold for a bike.”

We started up Walnut toward my office. As we passed the building that was the second or third incarnation of one of Boulder’s legendary breakfast houses, Sam said, “I miss Nancy’s. Those herb cheese omelettes? They were something. Lucile’s is great, but I miss Nancy’s.”

“Me, too.” After three or four more steps, I added, “You’re right, Sam.”

“About Nancy’s? Course I am.”

I hadn’t been talking about Nancy’s, but he was right about that, too. “Wonderful biscuits. Remember those biscuits? But I meant that you’re right about what you said.”

“I know that, too.” He exhaled audibly. “The fact that you admit it doesn’t change anything, doesn’t mean that what happens next is going to be what you want to happen next, or even that what happens next is what I want to happen next. All that’s different now is that some people who care about the jobs they do are going to try to find some of these missing people.” He pulled his right hand from his pocket and yanked at the knot on his tie. “How bad a thing can that be?”

He was right.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“For being an asshole.”

“You mean a sissy-ass?”

I laughed. “That, too.”

“Hey,” he said.

And that was that.

Almost a block later he climbed into the cradle of the driver’s seat of his Cherokee. “Carmen likes to buy me clothes,” he said.

It took me a moment to realize that Sam was revisiting the conversation we’d been having in the restaurant at the precise moment when Slocum and Olson ambushed me. I had just asked him about his tie. “I figured,” I said.

“What do you think?”

“About the new threads?” I asked. “Or about the fact that Carmen likes to buy them for you?”

Sam shook his head gently, and I could hear the throaty tang of a little chuckle come out of the darkness. “See, that’s the thing. I don’t know one other guy who would ask me that question. Not one. And that’s why I’m okay with the fact that you’re an asshole sometimes.”

“Goodnight, Sam. Thanks.”

I was halfway home before I realized that I’d spaced out telling Sam about my visit to Doyle’s house with the Realtor the previous night.