The Survivor

Chapter 17

When Nate approached the Santa Monica house, blaring music greeted him from the garage-less a song than a wall of noise aimed at his face. A masculine voice screamed the wrong lyrics to a Guns N’ Roses song: “Welcome to tha Jun-gul, we got funny games!”

Nate passed between the cars, which had been pulled out onto the driveway to free up the garage, and a big doofy teenage kid drew into view inside, hopping around and flailing at an electric guitar. Cielle sat atop a low cabinet, flipping listlessly through a magazine, her fingers punctuated with black nail polish. Her private-school uniform-plaid skirt and white blouse-matched neither the fingernails nor her scowl, but it gave Nate a brief, inexplicable stab of pride nonetheless.

“Na na na na na na na na knees, knees! Come on, I’m gonna make you SPEED!” The kid noticed Nate and dropped the guitar, letting it dangle around his neck from the sling. He was at least six-four and thick, but he looked less strong than soft and uncoordinated, all elbows and knees. The curse of the teenage male. A few spread-out dots marked his pale chin and cheeks where a five-o’clock shadow was trying to will itself into existence. An oversize hoodie with plush, checkered lining half covered a pair of Bermuda shorts so long and baggy that they hung in one piece like a kilt. He wore a slightly bemused smile and shaggy black hair capped by-of all things-a hipster fedora. Ear gauges had enlarged the holes in his lobes to the size of nickels.

Jason. The shithead boyfriend.

Cielle’s dark pupils lifted, though her face stayed pointed at the magazine. “Gasp,” she said flatly. “It’s my screwup of a father.”

Despite the reception, Nate took a moment to soak in the sight of her. Beautiful, safe, intact. She looked up at him, wrinkled her brow at the spectacle of him standing there gawking.

“Don’t be disrespectful,” he said, covering. “It’s Mr. Screwup.”

“Nice suit, Nate,” she said. Jason ducked out of the guitar and extended it to Cielle, who gave him a withering glare. “I’m not a coatrack.”

He set it down lovingly on the floor and turned to Nate with excitement. “Dude, you’re the man. People are wearing WHAT WOULD NATE OVERBAY DO? T-shirts. I’m not kidding-Google that shit.”

“What are you talking about?” Nate said.

“Have you watched the news? You’re a celebrity.”

“No. Steve McQueen was a celebrity. I’m Monica Lewinski.”

Jason chewed his lower lip. “Who’s Steve McQueen?”

“Who’s Monica Lewinski?” Cielle asked.

“I give up,” Nate said.

Cielle, back to her magazine. “Thank God.”

Nate eyed the husky kid. “Jason, right? How old are you?”

“Seventeen. But I’ve been emancipated ’cuz my parents were screwups, too. No offense.”

“None taken. You are aware that my daughter’s fifteen?”

Cielle flipped a page harder than necessary, giving off a crisp snap.

“And a half,” Jason said. The edge of a tattoo peeked up from his collar. “It’s only like sixteen months’ difference.”

“I appreciate the math. But you’re still too old for her.”

“Or maybe you’re just blinded by the radiance of my awesomeness.”

“Or maybe that.” Reminding himself that he had bigger fish to fry right now than an emancipated seventeen-year-old with gauge earrings, Nate backed out of the garage and headed to the porch.

Pete answered the front door, on his knees in the foyer, skinny bottle in hand. “Nate. How you feeling today?”

“Oh, God. Let’s not start that, please. And what the hell are you doing?”

“Putting hot sauce on my dress shoes.”

Casper watched cautiously from the kitchen doorway. He lifted a stare in Nate’s direction, his Rhodesian ridgeback brow furrowed in puzzlement. The wrinkles on his forehead could convey a broader range of human emotion than most human faces could.

Nate took in this standoff as Pete returned to the task, diligently applying sauce to the heel of a two-tone wing tip. “Of course,” Nate said. Then: “Why?”

“The dog has chewed up half my shoes.”

“So you’re putting hot sauce on them.”

“To dissuade him. Yes. An admittedly unconventional approach, but I’m running out of footwear. At least footwear that doesn’t make me look like a homeless guy.”

Nate had to smile.

Pete got up. “Casper. Come. Here. Come. Come.”

Nate snapped his fingers low at his side, and Casper trotted over. His hindquarters stayed offset at a slight jag from his front legs, like revelers navigating a two-man horse costume.

Pete took Casper’s collar and pointed the dog’s unwilling nose to the shoes. “See this? Steer clear.” He scratched Casper behind the ears, released him, and dusted his hands. “He’s a maniac. Ate a box of tampons last week.”

“This dog is an exceptional animal.”

“That’s what all dog owners say. You ever hear anyone say, ‘Oh, my dog? He’s really ordinary.’”

“A fair point.” Nate looked at Casper. Casper looked at him. They knew better.

“So what’s up, Nate?”

“I want to talk to you and Janie, actually.”

“She’ll be right down.” Pete started for the kitchen, then said reluctantly, “Listen, the U-pipe beneath the sink’s leaking. I’ve checked it twice. What am I missing?”

“It’s the drain, not the U-pipe. Plastic washer gets worn out. There’s a box of them in the corner of the pantry.”

“Thanks.” A sheepish grin. “I’ll take a look at it.” Pete assumed his position behind the kitchen island. Ground turkey shaped into patties, corn bobbing in a pot on the stove, two glasses filled with soda and a third, presumably Cielle’s, with water.

Pete drizzled olive oil into a pan, dropping in sliced onions as Janie entered.

Her head tilted as she took in Nate. Awkward. “You called late last night?”

“Yeah. Look. There’s really no good way to lead into this. So … uh, I didn’t just go up on that bank ledge to foil robbers. I was up there to jump.” He kept his eyes on the marble island, but he sensed both faces go lax. “The disease, you know? And…”

“What, Nate?” Janie said.

“You need to be careful here. Keep an eye on Cielle. Keep her close.”

“Wait. Why? You’re scaring me.”

“Just … be cautious. It’s for your own good. And hers.”

“We haven’t seen you in nine months,” Janie said. “You don’t get to tell us what to do. Certainly not without telling us why.”

“Okay.” He took a breath. Bit his lip. “I got knocked out and regained consciousness half embedded in a slab of ice.”

She’d been ready with a response, but his words must have caught up to her, because her mouth froze partway open. It closed with a little pop.

Still speechless, she circled a hand for him to continue, then listened intently as he spelled out his ordeal with the Ukrainians, ending with Pavlo’s threat.

The onions sizzled, black wisps rising, until Pete picked up the pan and turned it upside down in the sink. Janie sank onto a barstool. Pete coughed out an angry one-note laugh, wiped his mouth.

“They threatened to kill my baby?” Janie finally managed. It seemed she was saying it aloud to try to get her mind around it.

“Yes. But I’m not gonna let that happen.”

“All due respect, Nate,” Pete said, “but it hardly seems like you’re in control of the situation.” He hurled a dish towel at the backsplash.

Janie looked catatonic. From the garage, muffled screaming: “You can have anything ya want but yer a better mint taker for free!”

“We need to just get in the car and start driving,” Janie said.

“Not yet,” Nate said. “These guys have shown that they have reach, resources. They’ll be watching, and who knows what they’ll do if you try to run. I’ve got a window to take care of this.”

“So we’re supposed to just sit here?” Janie said.

“You want them to catch up to us at a Motel 6 in Nevada?” Pete said.

The question bled through the air, and they breathed until it dissipated.

“Do we tell Cielle?” Nate asked Janie.

“Are you kidding?” Pete said. “It’d scare the living hell out of her. What’s the upside in that?”

“She hates not knowing,” Nate replied. “Not having a say in things. Janie? Are you okay?” Nothing. “Janie, look at me. I will take care of this.”

“Give us a moment here,” Pete said.

“Okay.” Nate pulled his gaze reluctantly off Janie. “I need to check something in Cielle’s room. I’ll just…”

Heavy on his feet, he mounted the stairs. For all his concern about sparing them fallout from his illness, here he’d inflicted on them something much worse. In Cielle’s room he headed for the closet. Parted the curtains of clothes. A mound of clutch purses in the back. He dug under them, and there it was.

A red diary.

Just as Pavlo had promised. His men had shown up so quickly after the bank shoot-out. They’d stood where Nate now stood, arms in his daughter’s wardrobe, prying and digging and reading. Revulsion rose in his gorge, then something sharper. Rage.

Gathering himself, he breathed deeply, tapping the red leather against his thigh. Something in the closet caught his eye, mostly hidden beneath a black sweater. The edge of a wooden frame. Was it? He lifted the sweater tentatively to discover their old family portrait. The three of them laughing and hugging and half falling over. She’d kept it. Buried in her closet, but still. When he inhaled, he felt the slightest catch in his throat.

The door boomed open, and Cielle and Jason spilled in, Cielle mid-rant: “-just saying I can’t believe you called a friend of mine ‘Sewer Crotch’ on your Facebook page.” She halted two steps into the room, her eyes blazing over to Nate, who was bent into her closet, incriminating diary in hand.

Nate held out his hands, a felon at gunpoint, “I’m sorry. I-”

She flew across the room and ripped the diary from his hand. “I can’t believe you. I get that you’re dying and everything, but you can’t just sail in here and start prying around in my stuff and reading my journal.”

“Seriously,” Jason added.

“Can we get this clown out of here?” Nate asked.

“Chillax.” Jason showed him his palms. “I’m leaving.” He kissed Cielle, keeping his eyes on Nate the whole time, a little power move that, on another day when Nate owed his daughter less, might have resulted in a broken nose. And then the kid was gone, thumping down the stairs whistling the chorus from “Paradise City.”

Nate faced his daughter across a floor littered with dirty clothes and torn-out magazine pages.

She glowered at him. “Why are you back here?”

“What?”

“Why’d you come back again? I assume it wasn’t just to read my diary.”

He wanted so badly to be straight with her, to paint the whole picture, taking some of the edges off the gory points, but he wasn’t sure what was best, and Pete and Janie certainly deserved a vote. He cleared his throat to stall, but Cielle was having none of it.

“What were you doing at the bank, Nate?”

Quite a lane change. He heard himself hesitate a beat too long. “Bank stuff. Making a deposit. But I was interrupted by the robbery-” A second late he caught his choice of words.

“Interrupted? From what? Making a deposit?”

“Yes,” he said.

“In the news you said you were in the bathroom.” Her gaze, steady beneath those long eyelashes. Questions and emotions whirring beneath the surface, slot-machine reels that wouldn’t land. Did she know?

He chewed his cheek, not wanting to lie more but not willing to tell his fifteen-year-old daughter that he’d been planning on killing himself.

Finally she said, “At least do me one favor. Let’s not pretend that either of us doesn’t know you’re lying.”

“Okay.”

Relief showed on her face, though she covered quickly, wiping her nose roughly on her sleeve. More silence.

He started for the door.

“You hate him,” she said.

“What?”

“Shithead Jason. You hate him.”

Nate paused, hand on the knob, trying to switch lanes. The dispute loomed ahead like a pileup. “He doesn’t exactly make a glowing first impression.”

“Jay is a musician. He’s an artist.”

“No. Eric Clapton is an artist. Jason is a mouth breather with a guitar.”

“Who’s Eric Clapton?”

Nate thought, I’m gonna kill myself in earnest.

She was already caught up in her objection. “Who do you want me to date? One of those is-this-gonna-be-on-the-test dorks from my AP classes? I like Jay because he’s different. And you know what else? He’s here for me. Unlike some people.”

“I know you still like me a little.” Nate gestured at the uncovered family portrait in the closet. “You keep the ridiculous picture of us in here.”

She curled her broad shoulders, withdrawing into herself, her hands gone again in her sleeves, turning the cuffs to puppet mouths. “Nowhere else to store it.”

He nodded. They were done here. As he passed her on his way out, his arm brushed lightly against hers, and he realized that this touch of fabric was the first physical contact he’d had with his daughter in years. How had it gotten here? The question weighed on him all the way down to the kitchen.

The smell of burned onions laced the air. Pete paced, circling the island, and Janie sat on the barstool. She was grimacing in pain, her head tilted and one arm stretched low with the wrist cocked back.

“I have an acquaintance who’s a cop,” Pete said. “We have to take this to someone who knows what the hell he’s doing.”

“And say what?” Nate asked. “What proof do we have? A pair of handcuffs in a warehouse? Even the ice has probably melted by now.”

“This is out of our league, Nate. And certainly too much for you to handle. We need to enlist the help of folks whose job it is to deal with people like this.”

“Pete, I researched this guy. He’s a heavy hitter. He means what he says.”

“He made a death threat. On a girl. They can move on him fast, get him behind bars.”

“Investigations take time. A lot of time. And Pavlo Shevchenko is rich and connected.”

“So he owns cops?” Pete’s voice rose, fear and frustration masquerading as anger. “Federal agents? Who will do what? Call to warn him?”

“I work in a cop shop, Pete. It doesn’t take a dirty cop. It takes one clerk with a big mouth. One IT guy willing to search a file. Trust me, I looked stuff up today I wasn’t supposed to.”

Jane lifted her head and pulled her arm across her chest, tugging at the back of her elbow, grimacing.

“I’m talking about one offline conversation,” Pete said. “With someone I trust.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” Nate stabbed a finger up, aiming in the vicinity of Cielle’s bedroom. “Given what he’ll do to her if you’re wrong?”

Pete stopped pacing, his long face looking even longer. The drain dripped invisibly beneath the sink.

“No,” Janie said. “Not yet anyway.”

“Shevchenko gave me five days,” Nate said. “I have until Sunday.”

“To do what, Nate? Rob a bank?” Pete blew out a breath, ran both hands through his thick hair. “You make messes, Nate. That’s what you do. And other people clean them up for you.”

Janie gripped the top of her head, pulling gently to the side, trying to stretch out the knot she always got on the right side when she was tense or upset.

“Her shoulder.” The words came out more sharply than Nate had intended.

“What?”

Nate pointed at Janie. “Rub her damn shoulder, Pete.”

A puzzled pause, and then it finally dawned, and Pete stepped behind her, massaging. Janie grimaced against the pain.

Nate took her hands across the island and looked into her scared blue eyes. “No matter what I have to do, I will not let them hurt our daughter. I promise you.”

She gave the slightest nod. He started out.

Pete called after him, “Where are you going?”

“To handle it.”

Nate passed Casper at the front door, gnawing on Pete’s wing tips. He seemed to be enjoying the hot sauce.