Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

58

Behr sat at his kitchen table in jeans and trail shoes, having finally retired the suit. He had a couple of gel packs from the freezer and had started in icing his left eye, where Teague had clipped him with a right, then moved on to his leg, and was concentrating on his right knuckles and wrist, which had incurred some damage as he was dishing it out, when he heard the front door open.

“Frank, are you home?” he heard Susan ask.

“In the kitchen,” he called out.

“What’s going on?” she asked, still out in the living room.

“Nothing much,” he said. He heard the rustle of plastic shopping bags.

“I just got a call from the manager over at Glen Arbor. Why is your jacket and tie on the floor? We need to make our move on that unit if we’re going to-” She appeared in the doorway and stopped talking as she took in his condition.

“You’ve been fighting.”

“Yep.”

“What happened?”

“Bit of a story.”

“Start anywhere.”

“We’d better pass on that apartment,” he said.

“Why?”

“I got fired today.” Silence fell between them, along with a palpable patina of worry.

“Oh my god, oh my god … oh my god,” she said, sitting down heavily across from him.

“It’ll be okay.”

“Oh my god.” She actually grew pale.

“Breathe,” he instructed.

“I don’t want to be this person, Frank … but I’m not working and the baby’s almost here.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said again.

“How?” she asked.

“The shingle goes back out.” He shrugged. “I’ve always gotten by.”

“Starting from scratch clientwise this time, though.”

“Yep. Something will come along …”

“Something will come along.” He saw her face set in anger. “I can’t believe this. We’ve got to let the apartment go …”

“Like I said, it’s not a good time to-”

“You were hedging before you lost your job.”

“Maybe I was,” he allowed.

“And you’re out careening around on this thing-”

“I was minding my damn business and got shot at-”

“You wear a gun to work,” she said. “Are you really minding your business?”

There it was, a topic they’d never broached before. She hadn’t mentioned a problem with what he did until now. Had she been holding back, or had things changed? It didn’t matter. Here they were.

“You know what I’ve realized, maybe since the baby started getting close?” she asked. “That I spend my nights alone. Whether you’re out working, or even when you’re home. You’re not focused on this baby, and you’re just … unreachable.”

It lay there, half lament, half accusation, all true. Behr cast about for a response.

“Look, it’s been a tough time. That’s my fault. But I’m trying … to focus on the baby. And I do love you, Suze. Isn’t that enough?” he offered.

“Not if you won’t let me do the same back to you,” she said, and then searched for words. “People think unrequited love is the worst fate imaginable, but the truth is: being without either half of the equation is awful. Because it just makes you feel empty.”

He felt like a child trying to process a chemistry equation. He knew what she was saying was important, but he was not capable of addressing it in a meaningful way.

“I’m not trying to shut you out. I’m just trying to put this thing down, and then …” Behr said, tapering off like a first-year French student, not sure what else to add.

“Then what? The next one? And one of them goes the wrong way and that’s it … I’m afraid, Frank. Afraid that one day the lousy Snoogler is all I’m gonna have,” she said, referencing that body pillow of hers with the silly name.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. But it wasn’t a satisfactory answer to her. The conversation became stuck in an eddy after that, and he tried to convince her to go into the bedroom and rest. But she was set on going out, to her office to talk to her boss Ed Lindsay about whether she could come back to work immediately, before the baby was born, and if not, how quickly she could come back afterward. She grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

“Susan,” he called feebly, but the closing door was her final response. Behr didn’t go after her. He knew she was right about all she’d said, because within a minute he felt his mind pull back to the Kolodnik case, and he let it.

The numbers associated with the tax breaks in the proposed Senate bill were huge-tens of millions, maybe hundreds. On the streets he’d seen people killed over five bucks, so what would that kind of money cause men to do? Once the fever was unleashed, values-monetary, moral, or that of human life-had a way of becoming arbitrary in a hurry.

If he looked at the thing from five miles up, it was clear enough: everyone was acting in his own self-interest. It was as simple as that and something he shouldn’t have forgotten. Forces wanted Kolodnik gone. Caro wanted Behr out of the way so things were smooth with the cops. The police wanted to be the only player on the field, as they always did. Not for any grand conspiracy for the most part but for a much cleaner reason: expediency. Behr wanted to find who’d shot at him. Mothers looked out for their babies because that’s what mattered to them. All these things only became a problem when agendas conflicted. But then it was indeed a problem.

Behr opened his notebook and pored over what he had and what he still didn’t. Then he realized there was someone he hadn’t gotten to yet, and it was time to do so. It was time to get a hold of Lowell Gantcher.