The Confessors' Club

SIXTY-EIGHT

Leo found me at twelve-thirty in the lobby, eating unsweetened Cheerios, dry, and watching television. There had been no report of a corpse being discovered in a car in Chicago, nor on the websites I’d snagged on my cell phone. Then again, it had been that kind of neighborhood.

He curled a forefinger for me to stand up, and went to the front desk to check out. ‘Excellent beds you have here; I can’t remember the last time I slept a solid twelve hours,’ he said, as though he hadn’t just done a round trip to Chicago to partake in the felonious transport of a corpse.

‘You hear anything last night?’ the resort manager asked. It was the same question she’d asked me, after Amanda left.

‘I was out cold for twelve hours,’ he said again. ‘What happened?’

‘Damned kids, looking for booze. They broke in the kitchen door.’

‘Did they get away with much?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s just it: I can’t see where anything was taken, other than maybe a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter. Damn, dumb bored kids, looking for a thrill.’

Outside, I said to Leo, ‘Clever, you saying that about being asleep for the whole night. Twice.’

‘Cleverness is one of my many middle names,’ he said.

‘Amanda heard us leave.’

‘Let’s hope the desk lady did not,’ he said, cleverness draining from his face. Then, ‘No news?’

‘Nothing on television or on the Internet.’

‘I checked the Internet, too, after I went out to the Escalade earlier. No word of a car being found, boosted and stripped, with a body in the trunk.’

We went outside. ‘Don’t blow a tire; you’re driving with no spare,’ I said, peering into the back as he climbed into the Jeep. He’d put the Jeep’s spare in the back, and covered it with my yellow rain poncho.

‘Caution is another of my middle names,’ he said, and took off for Chicago.

I called Jenny from the terrace.

‘Leo had implied your vocal chords were healthy enough to call before now,’ she said.

‘It’s been hectic.’

‘Yes, that story,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s unresolved, and potentially damaging.’

‘You’re worried about Amanda?’ she asked.

‘And her father.’

‘Where are you exactly?’

‘A ski resort in the piney woods of Wisconsin.’

‘Alone?’

‘Amanda’s here. Leo just left.’

‘I’m going to be so proud to not ask the next question.’

‘Separate rooms,’ I said.

‘This is so like high school.’

‘You rented rooms in high school?’

Jenny laughed before the newswoman, never far away, took over again. ‘Give me something for the future.’

I told her all of it.

‘The wires out of Chicago have barely scratched the surface of this,’ she said when I was done.

‘I need you to watch those wires.’

‘For a stolen car found stripped, with a body in the trunk.’

‘With luck, they’ll find it today, and then we’ll know.’

‘Are we still talking about you coming to San Francisco sometime?’

‘Seafood on the Wharf.’

‘There could be that,’ she said, hanging up and leaving me to wonder why I’d ever want to waste time going to the Wharf.