CHAPTER TWENTY

Martin left the Sea Wolf at about 5:30. He’d sat at a table that overlooked the water, had a few drinks, eaten the filet of sole. The place had been almost empty, which was a relief—he was able to just sit and blank out. When he emerged from the restaurant, the fog was starting to roll in, and it was really cooling off.

He stood in the parking lot, trying to decide what to do. He wanted to go get some groceries, but he knew he was dirty. He put his nose to his right armpit and sniffed. He smelled sour—the smell of stress, of anxiety. He’d go down to By a Nose for a quick shower, then go to the market. He didn’t like the little shower in the boat—it was a tight fit, and the water really only trickled out—but he was really stinky . . . rank, actually . . . and the thought of cleaning off sounded pretty good.

Okay. He walked over to his car, leaned in, grabbed the little .22 from under the seat again, and put it into his front pocket. It was probably a good idea to keep it with him, just in case. He was pretty sure that a shootout with Hano at the marina was unlikely, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. Not that he thought he’d have what it took to use it, necessarily—to point it at someone and actually pull the trigger. He hadn’t even been able to kill a dog, for Christ’s sake. Was he really going to pop a few slugs into Hano’s big Hawaiian muscles? Probably not. But he put it into his pocket anyway.

He was almost to the boat and thinking about a warm shower when he looked up and saw the guy standing on the deck. For a second he thought he had the wrong boat. Then he realized no, it’s my boat, and someone is standing on it, looking at me. And then he realized, it’s Jim Slater . . . the drug detective.

“Ahoy there, Matey!” Slater shouted, waving his hand and smiling. “Ahoy!”

He was using the exaggerated accent of a salty old sailor, or a pirate, maybe, flashing his big Cheshire grin, laughing, and basically hamming it up. It was a big joke, and Martin could see that he was enjoying the opportunity to yank Martin’s chain, throw him off balance.

And it was working—had worked. Martin had been hustling along, but now he slowed to a stop just short of the boat. He felt like someone who’d run a long race and had been raising his arms at the finish line, ready to signal victory, only to see his opponent dash past him at the last second and break the tape. But it was more than that. It was as if the whole notion of victory, of winning the race, had been an elaborate hoax. He’d believed he was competing, but in fact he’d never had a chance to win, because the other guy was always going to be faster, stronger, smarter, more determined. It was as if it had all been rigged from the start.

“Don’t look so surprised, Martin!” Slater said as Martin got closer, then stopped again, right in front of the Viking. His voice was charged with enthusiasm, but Martin could hear the sarcasm. (“Don’t look so surprised, you fucking idiot.” That’s what he was really saying. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find you here?”)

Still smiling, Slater leaned forward, both hands against the side of the boat, and looked down at Martin as he stood there on the dock. He was wearing what Martin had come to realize was his uniform, basically: blue jeans and T-shirt. This time it was just a plain navy blue T-shirt, with a little pocket on the left breast. Again Martin was struck by how lean he was, and how athletic he looked. Sinewy muscles, big fat veins down the biceps and into the forearms. He looked strong. Martin wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d done a quick, somersaulting hand vault over the side of the boat and landed behind him. It certainly wouldn’t have left him any more surprised than he already was.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” Slater asked. “I’ve been waiting here for at least an hour. Maybe closer to two. The old guy a couple of boats down said that this was definitely your boat, and that you’d been here, but I was beginning to worry. I mean, first you clear out of your house in Walnut Station, and then you aren’t here . . . What’s a narcotics detective to think?”

As with the early moments of Slater’s visit to his house (how long ago had that been—years?), Martin knew that this was the time to act indignant, or at the very least, put out. What’s this all about? Why are you standing on my boat? Do you know you’re trespassing? Do I need a lawyer? That kind of thing. But again he didn’t have what it took. And, of course, Slater knew this, which was why he could stand there on Martin’s boat and fuck with him: because he knew that deep down Martin was just a big pussy. Even Gary Roberts would have been able to muster the courage to call Slater out right now (of course, Slater would probably kick the shit out of him for it, but that wasn’t the point—or it wasn’t the exact point, anyway).

But instead of pretending outrage, Martin just sighed.

“Okay,” he said, still standing on the dock. “Slater. What can I do for you? Is this about Val Desmond and his wife? I called the station, you know. I called them and told them I didn’t know anything about what happened out there at Val’s house.”

“It’s Detective Slater,” Slater said. But he was still smiling, and so Martin didn’t know if he was serious or not. Or he didn’t know if he was completely serious, that is.

“Okay,” Martin said. “Sorry. Detective Slater.”

Slater nodded. “That’s all right,” he said. He smiled at Martin again, and Martin nodded back, trying to think. He was too scared and confused to figure out what was going on, exactly. Here he was, standing on the dock, while this motherfucker was standing on his own boat, taunting him.

Slater put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. Then he looked around—at the control panel and the steering wheel, up at the bridge, and then back at the rear of the big deck. He nodded to himself. “This is one nice boat,” he said. More nodding. “What is it, about fifty feet? You can go way out in the ocean with this, can’t you? Do you go out deep-sea fishing in this?”

“Uh, yeah,” Martin said after a pause. “We go pretty far out. For salmon. Mostly salmon.”

Slater gave a slow back-and-forth shake of his head and whistled.

“Man,” he said. “That must be pretty cool. Do you go out there with your kids? What’s your boy’s name? Peter? He must love it.” He shook his head again, looking around—even reached out and ran his hand along the polished teak framing that ran along the control panel.

Martin felt tired. He felt like he was a mouse that had been cornered by a big cat, the kind that played with you for hours, never really going in for the kill, just wearing you down until you were dead.

“Look, Detective Slater,” he said. “I can tell you everything I know about Val, but it isn’t much. I mean about Val and Angela. How about if I just step up there—”

“Oh, right,” Slater said. “Of course.” He looked at Martin and smiled, then gave himself a whack on the side of his head with the palm of his right hand. “What am I thinking?”

Then he reached his hand out for Martin, to help him climb on board. “Permission to come aboard, Anderson,” he said. Martin looked at Slater’s big hand and sinewy forearm for a second, and then reached out and accepted the offer. A second later he was on the boat—his boat. He felt the slight roll of the water beneath him as he landed on the deck.

“So,” Martin said, looking at Slater—or looking up at him, because he really was kind of tall. Six-two or six-three, even. A lot taller than Martin. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re here?”

Slater shrugged. “Not at all,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest, put his hands under his armpits, and gave a little shiver. “But to tell you the truth, I’m actually a little chilly. Do you think we could go inside and talk? Or go downstairs, I mean? I’ll be honest—I peeked in there while you were gone, and it looks pretty cozy. And the second I saw you I thought, good, now we can go down into the cabin and warm up.” He looked at Martin, not really smiling now.

Martin looked at him for a second, assessing. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice, of course. If Slater said he wanted to talk inside, then they were going to talk inside. But he was still trying to gauge things. Was this situation out of control, or was it salvageable, somehow? Was Slater here to arrest him? Or was he just someone who enjoyed keeping people off balance even if he wasn’t planning to arrest them? He’d referred to himself as a narcotics detective, and he’d said something about Martin clearing out of his house. So, clearly he was on to Martin. But how much did he really know?

Martin shrugged. “Sure,” he said. He held his left arm out for Slater to go in ahead of him. “After you,” he said.

But Slater smiled, stood his ground, and then extended his right arm and gave a slight, almost indiscernible mock bow.

“After you,” he said to Martin—more sarcasm.

Martin reached out to open the little doors that led down into the cabin. They weren’t strong, just louvered panels, but they were made of the same teak that was on the rest of the paneling. They were nice doors.

Martin pushed the doors open and started down the short staircase to the cabin. It was darker down there, especially when first stepping in out of the late-afternoon sun. Plus, there weren’t any lights on, and the curtains were drawn on the narrow windows that were about chest high on both sides of the room. But he knew his way around, and so he moved easily down the four steps, and then stepped across the room to the wall switch that turned on the overhead light. He reached out, flicked it, and turned around as the light buzzed into full wattage.

He saw right away that the cabin was in disarray. Cabinets opened, pillows overturned, kitchen drawers dumped onto the floor. Shit everywhere. What the fuck? The first thing he thought of was Val’s house. It wasn’t as bad as at Val’s house, but it was the same general feeling. It was the feel of silent loudness—as if the noise of everything falling and crashing had only stopped the second that Martin opened up the louvered cabin doors, and all the scattered objects agreed to hit the floor and stop moving and clattering. And Martin was about to say something to this effect—say a sentence that contained the word ransacked—when Slater stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. Hard. Incredibly hard. So hard that Martin felt in his confusion as if he’d run full tilt into a protruding pole of some sort, one that someone had mistakenly inserted into a wall at a dangerous perpendicular angle. And it was the twin notion of a “mistake” and of “someone” that floated somewhere in the front of his consciousness as he fell to the floor and gasped for breath . . . retched, saw green and red and yellow. Someone made a mistake and hurt me. Someone needs to help me.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there on the cabin floor, balled up and panting, his hands opening and closing in some kind of embarrassing, primal effort to control—or to at least deal with—his pain. He had no idea it could hurt so much to be hit in the stomach. Fucking hell. He didn’t feel nauseous, though, and even lying there he was thankful for that. But he was definitely lying down, and so he knew that there had been an accident of some sort, and that he’d been hurt. As his vision started to focus (and as he opened his eyes, finally—he must have had them closed for a minute), he saw the orange shag of the boat’s rug, and he saw Slater’s feet and shins. He was wearing his black high tops.

Martin rolled over a little bit, felt a surge of pain, and laid back, resting on one elbow. He had thought Slater was standing and looking down at him, but he was actually squatting. He was up on the balls of his feet, and his elbows were on his knees. Had Slater punched him? He’d been about to tell Slater that he’d had a break-in, and that he was glad that a cop was on hand to see it. But then Slater had punched him . . . right?

“Martin,” he said, with the same edge of sarcasm. “Are you okay?”

Martin looked up at Slater. He was still confused, but he was glad to hear the question. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. I don’t know what happened. Did you just punch me?”

Slater was quiet for a long second. He looked down at Martin and shook his head, still smiling his mysterious little smile.

“Martin,” Slater said. “You’ve been a naughty boy, and we need to talk.”

There was something in the quality of Slater’s voice that made Martin snap back into fuller awareness: awareness of what Slater had just said (that he was a naughty boy) and that yes, Slater had just punched him in the stomach. Laid him out—boom, just like that. And then Martin saw that Slater was holding a small stack of bills in his hand. Or rather, a stack of bundles of bills. Bundles that looked a lot—exactly—like the bundles that Martin had put into his tool box. When he saw that Martin had finally spotted them, he started to flick the end of them with his thumb.

Jesus Christ, Martin thought. The money. He’s got it, and he’s flicking it with his thumb just like I did.

Martin sat up a little more—pulled himself up onto his ass, pulled his knees up toward his chest, and wrapped his arms around his shins. He put his head down onto his knees, then looked up at Slater. Fuck, he thought. I’m going to jail.

“Okay,” he said to Slater. He could tell that his voice was a little bit hoarse. “Fine. Let’s talk. Jesus. You didn’t have to hit me like that. That’s fucking police brutality, you know.” He looked up at Slater as he said this, and made eye contact with him.

Slater nodded, but didn’t move. Just sat there, squatting and smirking at Martin.

“I’m going to ask you a question, Martin,” he said. He was looking right back at Martin, his green cat eyes a lot more serious than Martin had seen them before. “Okay? And just so you know, I’m going to use it as a gauge for how much I can trust you right now. Okay? All right? How does that sound?”

Martin nodded. He moved his head slowly, and didn’t look away. Didn’t blink, even. He knew that a lot was hanging in the balance right now. Was he going to jail?

“Good,” Slater said. “Good. All right. So tell me—where did you get this money?”

Martin paused, trying to think quickly.

“Where did I get it?” he asked. He was stalling. It was the sort of question he’d asked in high school, when the teacher called on him and he didn’t know the answer. Maybe someone will pass me a note with the correct answer. Or maybe the bell will ring. There was always a chance. Here, though, Martin actually did know the answer—he just didn’t want to tell Slater. Slater had obviously found the money that he’d stashed in his tool box, under the sink. But the question was whether or not Slater knew that it was part of Val’s larger stash. At this point, Martin wasn’t thinking about hanging onto the money so much as avoiding any connection to Val—or to Val and Angela’s murder, for that matter. If he told Slater he had Val’s money, what would stop Slater from assuming that he’d killed Val and Angela?

“That’s right, Martin,” Slater said, nodding his head and smiling just a little bit. “Where did you get it? Did you rob a bank? Did you buy it at a store? Are you a male prostitute? Do you turn tricks for perverted rich guys down here in the fucking cabin of your boat? Where did you get it?” By the time Slater got to his last question, his voice had risen to a near shout. And it was a scary kind of almost-shout—sudden and frightening, with an edge. One minute he was smiling and calm, the next his voice was cutting into Martin, angry and threatening.

Martin took a deep breath. He was going to go for it. He didn’t want to go to jail—didn’t want to take a chance on trusting Slater.

“That money?” he asked. “That’s just—that’s money from a plane sale. I—we. Well, we didn’t want to declare the money on the books, because we didn’t want to pay taxes on it. So . . . you know . . . it’s money I’m hiding from the IRS.”

Slater cocked his head to the side a little bit. He didn’t look pleased—he looked like he was wincing, in fact. “The IRS?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Actually, it’s from a couple of planes we’ve sold this year. But, yeah, it’s money from my business. Why? What do you think it is?”

Instead of answering, Slater stood up, yawned, stretched, then put his hands on his hips.

“Martin,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You’re wearing me out. I think I need a nap. Waiting around for you out here made me tired, and now you’re testing my patience with your answers to my questions.”

He started to walk around to the side of Martin. Martin started to adjust himself to try to keep him in his line of vision, but just as he did he felt a blow to his side, just under his ribs. He fell over with a half-yell, half-groan, knowing even as he did that Slater must have kicked him. And hard—just as hard as the punch in the stomach. Harder, maybe.

And so again he lay there panting and writhing on the ugly orange carpet, trying to control the pain. Now he did feel nauseous. He remembered a blow like this once when he was playing football as a kid with some friends, and someone had plowed into his side—into his kidney. He’d puked right there on the grass. He felt the same urge to throw up now, but he wanted to preserve at least a little dignity. He found himself thinking about his kids. There weren’t any cogent thoughts, just images. Their faces, the sound of laughter and crying. The sound of fear—times he’d told them not to worry, that there was nothing to be afraid of. Climbing into bed with them after they’d woken from a bad nightmare.

EVENTUALLY HE PULLED HIMSELF up onto his knees. He was hunched over, elbows on the rug. He looked sideways at Slater, who was sitting now on the little coffee table that was anchored to the floor in front of the couch. He was hunched over, elbows on his knees, just like when he’d been squatting in front of him. Martin wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed. Probably not much, two or three minutes, maybe.

“How’re you feeling, Martin?” Slater asked. “Are you all right?”

Forehead on the floor, Martin turned his head to look at him. Slater looked distorted from the upside-down angle—distorted and more frightening. But in spite of himself, Martin felt a little bit reassured to hear Slater ask if he was all right. It must mean that he didn’t really want to hurt me—that he won’t do that again.

“I’m all right,” Martin said.

“Good,” Slater said. He paused, looking down at Martin. “Are you ready to have a real discussion now? Yes? Okay? Ready?” He nodded, acting like he was talking to a little kid, or a dog, maybe. That was how Linda talked to Arrow sometimes.

Martin pushed himself off the floor and sat up, butt on his ankles. He sighed and looked at Slater. His side was killing him. Jesus. Then he shifted over onto his ass again, put his feet out in front of him and pulled his knees up.

“Sure,” he said to Slater. “Yeah. Let’s keep talking.”

Okay, he thought. Here it comes. Have you been flying drugs up from Mexico for Val Desmond? You have? Okay then. Martin Anderson, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law. And so on. He knew the lines from watching Dragnet—where Slater would never get a part. And rightly so—Joe Friday never punched and kicked his suspects. Neither did Serpico, for that matter. Apparently, Slater was more of a Popeye Doyle type—the rogue cop. Broke some rules, pushed the envelope. But unlike Gene Hackman, who seemed neither strong nor scary, Jim Slater was the real thing.

“Okay,” Slater said. “Excellent.” He leaned forward and patted Martin on the shoulder. “I knew you were all right when I first came to your house with the thing about the plane up in Humboldt. Oh, and we nailed that guy, by the way. Did I ever tell you that? That guy was a real clown. Really stupid. And I should tell you, we had a good laugh at the station over what you said about his mustache and how he looked like a porn star. One of my buddies even told him about it when we busted him. Not about you saying that, I mean. But he told him that we were referring to him as the porn-star drug dealer.”

He shook his head, chuckling to himself. Martin tried to picture the guy, but couldn’t. He was too confused. And what was his name? Or what had he said his name was? He couldn’t remember.

“Huh,” Martin said, not sure if he was actually supposed to respond. “No. I don’t think you did call me about that. But good. I’m glad you got him.”

“Well,” Slater said, raising his hands and then bringing them down hard onto his thighs, slapping himself. It was a kind of punctuation to his comment. “I should have called you. You were a big help. Flying me out over Livermore and everything. And yeah, I don’t know, I just had the feeling that you were an all-right guy. You were honest about your daughter’s drug bust. And you brought her to that class, which shows something. Or I think it does, anyway. And your son with the baseball thing. Really cute.”

He nodded, looked at Martin, raised his eyebrows. I approve, his expression said. Which was baffling to Martin, because the guy had just punched him in the stomach and kicked him in the kidney.

“So listen, Martin,” Slater said. “You’re not stupid, are you? I mean, like that guy up in Humboldt? Look at you—this boat, your nice house, your business. Please tell me you’re not stupid.”

“No,” Martin said, shaking his head. “I’m not stupid.” (Yes, he thought, I’m stupid. I’m a fucking idiot—I’m the very definition of a stupid person.)

“No,” Slater said. “It doesn’t seem like it. And that’s why I was so surprised to see all those pictures of you and Val Desmond together. You know, up on the wall in your living room—the horses and everything. I mean, Val Desmond is—or was, I should say—a pretty nasty guy. We’ve been looking at him for a while now. I’ll bet you didn’t know that, did you? But anyway, when I saw the pictures of you guys together . . . well, I was surprised. You know? I just think a smart person would steer pretty wide of a guy like that.”

Martin looked at him for a second, not sure what he meant about the pictures. But then he remembered. When he’d been sitting there at the counter in his living room, looking at the mug shots that Slater had brought for him to look at, Slater had walked around the room, looking at pictures, books, and so on. And, Martin remembered now, he’d even muttered to himself a couple of times as he looked at the pictures of Martin and Val and various other people standing in the Winner’s Circle after some races. “Huh,” he’d said. And, “Mmm.”

“Well,” Martin said, trying again to think, to maintain his composure (even if his dignity was gone—look at me, sitting on the fucking floor of my own boat). “I don’t know, he’s just my horse trainer. Or he was, I mean. That’s not exactly illegal, is it?”

Slater shook his head, and then raised his hand and wagged his forefinger at Martin. It was an admonishing gesture, one Martin had always found incredibly irritating, but one that here was very unsettling.

“Don’t bullshit me, Martin,” he said. His voice had become sharp again. “I hate it when people do that. The last person that bullshitted with me was Val Desmond. And look what happened to him.”

There was a silence in the room after Slater said that. Martin could hear it—it was the sound of a menacing quiet right there in the cabin of By a Nose. It blocked out the sounds of the marina outside, on the docks and in the water. Boat engines, horns, the occasional voice. Here in the cabin, there was only the empty vacuum of nonsound that followed in the wake of what Jim Slater had just said.

And then the thoughts started to flood in. The fact that the boat had been ransacked, just like Val’s house was torn apart. The fact that Slater seemed to know a lot about Val. The fact that Slater’s questions seemed to have less to do with Val’s murder, or with drugs, than with Val’s money.

And then he was hit by the realization that it might not have been Hano who’d broken into Val’s house after all. No, in fact, it might have been—probably had been—Slater. Just as it had probably been—must have been—Slater who’d killed Val and Angela. And cut off Val’s finger.

But that didn’t seem possible. He felt a wave of nausea. He pulled his knees up to his chest again and took a couple of deep breaths.

“Martin,” Slater said. His voice was flat. No more irony. Just flat words. “Where’s the rest of the money?”

Martin had to pull himself back into the now of the moment. He’d been starting to fade. He took one more deep breath, then raised his head and looked at Slater.

“The money?” he asked. He wasn’t trying to be evasive. The problem was that he was having trouble with words, suddenly. They were like spoken blobs, and he had to concentrate to make them cohere into meaning.

“Listen, Martin,” Slater said. He sounded patient now, like he didn’t mind being expansive for a minute. “When I came back to Val’s house—the second time, after I got the call from the precinct and drove out there again, to the murder scene, acting like I didn’t know what the fuck had happened—I saw that you’d broken into the dog’s shed. I couldn’t fucking believe it. The broken window, the hole in the ground. I almost said it right out loud. I mean, I tore that whole fucking house apart looking for the money, and it was in the dog’s kennel the whole time.”

He shook his head, and then he pointed at Martin, smiling his cat smile. “That was smart,” he said, looking at Martin and nodding. “Though maybe you knew that that was where Val kept it, so it wasn’t really so brilliant. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. But it was still ballsy—that dog is fucking scary. I would have just shot it. But that doesn’t matter, because you got the money, and I didn’t.”

Slater sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he stood up, a move that made Martin fold up and cringe. He was certain he was about to get another kick in the side.

“It’s all right, Martin,” Slater said. More baby talk. “I’m not gonna kick you again. Because I don’t need to, right?” He reached over and patted Martin on the head.

“But,” Slater said, “if you don’t mind, what I am gonna do is get something to drink out of your fridge here. I saw that you’ve got some beer stashed in there, and I’m dying for one. In fact, I can get one for you, too, if you want.”

Slater walked over to the mini-fridge, crouched, opened it, and took out three cans of Coors. Then he stood up, set them down on the counter, and opened them. First one, and then the other, and the other. Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop. He looked at Martin, smiled, and flashed him the two-fingered V sign—the peace sign. Jesus, Martin thought. Talk about inappropriate. Or off the mark. Or just brutally sarcastic—which was the point, he realized.

Slater took a big gulp of his beer and burped. He picked up the three beers by the tops of the cans, walked around the counter, and handed one to Martin where he was still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room.

“‘Ere you go, mate,” he said. “Cheers.” He was affecting what Martin thought might be an Australian accent. Or maybe a British accent of some sort. He wasn’t sure. But it was unsettling, whatever it was.

Slater stepped over the coffee table, set his beers down, and sat down on the couch with a grunt. He grabbed a beer, took another big swig, and then looked at Martin. Martin took a sip of his beer, and found to his surprise that he was really thirsty—or that he really needed a drink of beer. He took another long swallow, and then another. Then he burped, too.

“Okay, then,” Slater said. “So this is the part where you tell me where the rest of Val’s money is. Because I know that you guys were planning a buy in Mexico in a few days, and that Val had the money for it at his house.”

He took another long gulp of beer, and Martin watched his big Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“That’s right,” Slater said, looking at Martin and smiling. “I know all about that. And do you want to know how I know? Because I had a bug on Val’s phone line. Pretty good, huh? I set it up myself. Climbed up the telephone pole, did the whole fucking thing. No one else in the department knows about it. I’m the expert from Oakland, you know? The big-time drug guy. I’m like . . . I don’t know, the Reggie Jackson of narcotics detectives out there. Which means that these suburban narco clowns, they let me do whatever the fuck I want.” He laughed and held his hands out in a can-you-believe-that? kind of gesture.

Then he sat forward, took a long swig, and looked down at Martin.

“Not that it matters,” he said. “But I’ll tell you that this whole bad cop thing is actually pretty new for me. It’s only since I switched out to the suburbs. I mean, I’m running all these wire taps, on Val Desmond’s house and a few other places, and basically I’m spending my time listening to guys like you talk to guys like Val. And I’m thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I’m used to dealing with real criminals, the fucking blacks and the Mexicans and the Asians out in Oakland and Richmond and those places. Or the Hells Angels. Those guys are bad news. Scary. And gangs? You don’t want to know.” He shook his head. He emptied his beer and threw it toward the kitchen, where it landed with a tinny, bouncy clatter. Then he burped again.

“But you guys,” he said. “I mean, Jesus Christ. Race horses and boats and planes and on and on. And I thought, this is different. This is the suburbs. No one gets hurt out here. It’s just rich kids in daddy’s car. So I began thinking, what if I can tap into a little of that? I mean, enough is enough. I live out in fucking Martinez, you know? ’Tinez. My wife is a waitress, I’m a cop, and we live with two kids in a shitty little three-room ranchhouse. And in a smelly neighborhood. Because of the fucking refineries. It’s terrible. Who knows what the cancer rate is out there. And the schools, they suck, because what teachers want to live out there?”

He picked up his second beer, took another long draw from it, and sat back again on the couch. He looked like a guy digging in for a Sunday of football watching. Maybe the Raiders and the Steelers. Ken Stabler and Franco Harris. What the hell.

“And the kicker is that I’ve been shot not once but twice,” Slater said. He was talking to Martin, but he was looking across the room, over Martin’s shoulder and toward the door. Martin was tempted to turn and see what he was looking at, but he was afraid to distract him.

“And what do I have to show for it?” he asked. “For two bullets in the line of duty? Nothing. Some big ugly scars that I can show off to other cops. Or at drug classes like the one your daughter took. And then I see guys like you, skimming off the top, working the system—all of you. You all want a free ride, no questions asked. And from what I can tell, you’re all getting it. So I thought, fuck it, I’m gonna get a little for me, too.”

Now, finally, Slater was quiet for a minute or two. He seemed suddenly like an overwound clock that had run down. Martin was quiet, too. Thinking. Slater’s rant had given him time to think, and the beer was helping him sort things out, feel less confused. Not less scared—he was more scared every second, in fact. Because he was fully aware now that Slater was really, genuinely dangerous. Crazy dangerous. This guy is nuts, he thought, and unless I figure something out pretty quick, I’m dead. He’s gonna get me to tell him where the money is, and then he’s gonna kill me, just like he killed Val and Angela. Why wouldn’t he? He shot Angela right in the back, for Christ’s sake. And he’ll make it look like I was killed by the same guy who gunned down Val and Angela.

In fact, Martin thought, he might even frame Hano for it. Because if he’d been bugging Val’s phones, he knew who Hano was. (And how ironic was that, by the way? Coppola had been right.) Why not frame Hano?

But then it occurred to Martin that there were probably plenty of Hanos out there for Slater to choose from. Including Martin himself. That’s right—maybe Slater would frame Martin for killing Val and Angela. He’d kill him, and then set it up so that he looked like the guy. What would Linda and the kids make of that? Would Linda refuse to believe that her husband was capable of such a thing, even in the face of overwhelming evidence? Probably not. She’d be horrified, but she’d think it was simply part of whatever had started a year or so ago, and that had included his theft of a jewelry box from his neighbor’s house. He’d simply unraveled, until she really didn’t even know who he was anymore.

The thought of his family suddenly overwhelmed him, and he was pretty sure he was going to start crying. His stomach and his side were incredibly sore, and he was running out of energy. But, he knew, this wasn’t the time to give in. He needed to think clearly, come up with a plan of some sort.

“All right, Slater,” Martin said. His voice croaked when he spoke; even though he’d finished his beer, his mouth was dry. “I’ll tell you where the money is. No problem. We can go there right now. I don’t give a shit. Really.”

And it was true. He didn’t care about the money. But still, if he could have pulled it out of his pocket right now and given it to Slater, he wouldn’t have done it. Because Slater would kill him right there, no question about it. And Martin wanted to live.

Slater nodded, a slow up and down movement, definitive. “Good,” he said. “That’s the answer I wanted to hear. You’re not so stupid after all, Martin. I knew it. I knew I could count on you. Fucking Val Desmond. He gave me all kinds of attitude. He was a real prick. Unbelievable. But you’re gonna make this easy, right?”

“That’s right,” Martin said. “All we have to do is run the boat out to Suisun Bay. It’s out there. We’ve got plenty of time if we leave right now.”

Slater looked confused. “Suisun Bay? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you mean up by Benicia and Martinez?”

Martin gave an exaggerated shrug. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s where I hid it. I didn’t want it anywhere near me. I didn’t want to be tempted to go and get it, at least not for a while.”

“Suisun Bay,” Slater said again. “Okay, whatever.” He shook his head. “But we’ll just drive. I don’t have all night to play around on your boat, Martin. I’m supposed to be tracking down the ruthless drug dealer that gunned down Val Desmond and his wife. I’ve got a job, you know.”

He chuckled at his own joke, but Martin held his gaze. He had to hang in there. He was making this up as he went along, but he thought he’d come up with something. It was kind of ridiculous, but he was hoping that it was so odd and wacky that Slater would buy it. It was worth a try. If they just drove out to the orchard behind Miriam’s house, he didn’t have a chance. He could see it. First, Slater makes him dig up the money—his buried treasure. Then he makes Martin keep digging, so that the hole is big enough for Martin to lie down in. Then he puts a bullet in his brain. Sorry, Martin. That’s what he’d say as he shoveled big clods of dirt onto him, hiding him until the stench of his corpse eventually led someone to look for the source. (Is this Martin Anderson, the guy who went missing? I think so. It must be. Wow! He must have gotten mixed up in something really nasty for this to happen.)

Martin coughed, and his side seized up with pain. “No,” he said. “We can’t drive. We have to take the boat. Because the money is out in the bay—on the water. I hid it on the water.”

Slater was quiet for a second. “What do you mean, you hid it on the water?” he asked. “Is it on a buoy or something? I mean, is it safe? Did you fuck this up, Martin? Did you lose the fucking money?”

“No,” Martin said. He made an effort to sound irritated. He knew he needed to sound confident. “It’s not on a buoy. And yeah, it’s safe. It’s on a boat. On one of the mothball fleet ships. You know, out in the bay. In Suisun Bay, like I said. My son and I go out there to fish sometimes, and . . . I don’t know, I just thought it was a good spot. To hide it away for a while. I mean, who would ever look there? So, yeah, I took the boat out there, climbed up the ladder on the side of one of the ships, and hid the money in a little storeroom. But don’t worry, because it’s in an ammo box. It’s watertight, airtight, and all that. I even locked up the door of the shed it’s in with a big padlock. It’s fine.”

Slater was quiet for a second, processing. “Jesus Christ, Martin,” he said, finally. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Those boats are pretty fucking huge, aren’t they? What the hell?”

Martin smiled. It was a forced smile, a fake smile, but it wasn’t hard to produce, for some reason. He could do this. He’d get Slater out there, and then he’d at least have a chance. He knew Slater was afraid of the water; hadn’t he said he couldn’t swim very well, and that this was one reason he hadn’t gotten a swimming pool for his kids? It was while he was watching Sarah and Peter play in the pool out at Martin’s house, when he’d said he was thinking about an above-ground pool for his own house. So, yeah, he was hoping that he’d have an opportunity to knock him overboard, somehow. Either that, or use his pistol. Because, yes, he’d remembered a couple of minutes ago that he had his .22 right in his pocket. He couldn’t get it out now; Slater would pounce on him in a flash. He knew that. Pounce on him and beat the life out of him. Literally. But if he could put some space between himself and Slater at some point . . . well, it might work.

“Look,” Martin said. Again he went for slightly irritated. “It’s a better hiding place than the one Val used, right? A lot better. And I’m telling you, it’s just a big graveyard out there. That’s what they call it, in fact—a ship graveyard. No one ever goes on them. They’re just sitting there because no one wants to admit that they’re useless now. The next time someone gets on that boat, it’ll be because they’re getting ready to scrap it. And that won’t happen for a long time, believe me. Because even scrapping it costs lots of money, and no one has any money anymore. Right? Except the drug dealers, that is.”

Slater liked this, he could tell. “You’re right about that,” he said. He shook his head.

“Okay,” Martin said. He wanted to keep the momentum going, didn’t want to get sidetracked. “So, what do you say? Can I get up and get us ready, get things going?”

Slater looked at him for a second, and Martin could see the wheels turning in his head. His cat eyes narrowed a little.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “If you can do that, then we’ll go.”

Martin shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What’s the name of the boat that you put the money on? What’s it called?”

Martin didn’t even pause. “The SS O’Brien,” he said. “You’ll see. There’s a big ladder right on the side.”