Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

51

You’re sand in the gears.

Behr recalled hearing varying versions of this complaint his whole career, and while he understood it conceptually, seemed powerless to change when he needed to. He made his way on a tender ankle from the car through the near-midnight dark to his place.

“Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?” Susan asked the minute he walked in the door, bringing him out of his thoughts. Between the stink of smoke on him, the soot on his face, and the bandaged hands, there was no chance he was getting off without an explanation.

“Nothing to worry about, I’m fine,” he said. “There was a fire.”

“I see there was a fire. Where? What kind of fire?” she demanded.

“I was … looking to do an interview … and a device went off.”

“A device?”

“I believe they call them improvised explosive devices.”

“Jesus, Frank! What’s going on here?”

Her question was straightforward enough, but he knew where his answer would lead the conversation.

“What do you mean?”

They stood there, eyes locked, for a moment-and then she plunged ahead. “I know you’re working the shooting,” she said. “Okay? I know.” The look on his face asked “how?” and she continued. “The other day when you were in the shower I opened your notebook.” Even though it was beside the point, the admission caused him to see red.

“Why are you opening my notebook?” he asked with some heat.

“Why are you pursuing this thing when they told you not to?”

“Because I want to know,” he said, his decibel level rising. “And because no one tells me what to do.”

“That’s great, Frank. And what about us-me and the baby? You have responsibilities now-”

“I was shot at, Susan-”

“I know you were. And it makes me sick that I could have lost you. Which is why I was hoping you’d walk away from it and just leave it alone.”

“Well, I can’t,” he said.

A thought occurred to her and she looked into his face. “You’re doing this because you’re bored.”

“Bored?”

“That’s right. With the grind of the Caro job. With the suit and the BlackBerry and the bosses and the supervision. Maybe with me. Our life …”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Suze,” he said.

“Then tell me it’s not true,” she said.

“Not the part about you.”

“And the rest of it?”

He couldn’t answer. Not in a way that wouldn’t blow things up between them like the firebomb he’d just survived. So he bit down and didn’t say another word for a good minute or two.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice at its quietest register, “but I can’t break off now. I’m close to finding some things out, and then I can hand it off to the police and it’ll be done. Then it’ll be nose to the grindstone. I promise you that.”

It was between them now, like a boulder, but she chose to relent.

“How are your hands? Do they hurt?” she asked, touching him softly on his arm.

“No, they just itch right now,” he said.

“Can I do anything for you?” she offered. He shook his head. “All right then, I’m going to bed.”

“Fine,” he said, “I’ll be in with you in a few minutes.”

The smart move would’ve been to go off to bed with Susan right then, to reassure her that he was as reasonable and responsible a choice in a partner as she could possibly want. But he hadn’t had time to run the partial plate on that Lincoln he’d seen earlier, so he sat down and started in on the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles database. It was an uphill climb with only half the digits he needed, but he kept trying. He also ached to head out and brace Lenny Barnes, to interview Lori the escort, to learn more. But he held himself back from pushing that course, because if he pumped Lenny Barnes it would invariably track back to Caro and likely cause the video of Potempa’s daughter to go viral, destroying the man. Behr just couldn’t do it to the guy.

At the ninety-minute mark, he had made some minor progress and realized he wasn’t going to get much further. His best guess was that the Illinois-plated Lincoln was registered to the largest rental car company in the world. He could farm out cracking the company’s database to a hacker, but in the end, the car would likely come up rented to an alias. That was if his guess was even right, and it wasn’t one of the dozens of private Illinois citizens who owned the same vehicle.

Behr shut down his computer. His hands had progressed from itching to stinging, and were now throbbing, along with his head. He picked up the phone and called over to the hospital where they’d taken the shooter.

“I’m not supposed to release this, so please don’t share it with anyone,” the duty nurse said after he’d explained who he was, “but since you tried to save the guy, I’m sorry to tell you our burned John Doe expired of shock and burn trauma.”

Behr thanked her and hung up the phone. His night was over.