“My favorite.”
“Anything else you want?”
“Brain transplant.”
“Already on the list.”
“Good, good.”
I told him I’d be back over around dinner and headed out the door. I sensed he was getting ready to approach what I was doing from another direction, and I didn’t want to address it anymore. I wanted to act. To make progress. Wanted to make things right.
At my place I changed into a good pair of slacks and loose dress shirt. Checked myself in the mirror, then went to the bathroom and added some gel to my hair. I didn’t look like me, which was good.
I needed to be someone else.
Layers.
Layers told a story. It’s how books came to life. Characters are nothing but layers, emotions driving actions, actions having consequences, which fueled new emotions. Layer upon layer, a story is told. Truths learned. Secrets revealed.
I thought about how Rachel looked at her boys, how she looked at me in the low light of whatever room we were in.
I thought about this as I sat in the wireless carrier’s parking lot watching the young clerk sell a phone to a middle-aged man.
Anything new learned had to be processed, evaluated, decided upon. I’d spent all night doing just that. The question I kept coming back to was if the Visitor was being honest. The impression he wanted to give was he was strictly here for business. Find the money owed and that’s it. I’d replayed our conversation during the night when I should’ve been sleeping, and I still wasn’t sure what his true intentions were.
Could you trust a man with a gun? It was a little like going to church. Putting your faith in the Lord. At any moment he could pull the trigger. Boom. You’re dead.
Billions of people trusted God. I guess I could trust one guy with a gun.
That’s why I was parked in front of the wireless store, waiting for the customer to finish up his purchase. I hadn’t seen the Visitor or any suspicious vehicles on the Loop that morning when I left, but it meant nothing. The guy was good, had been keeping tabs on the neighborhood and me without being noticed. Yet another reason to believe he wasn’t the man who’d pursued me through the dark—I got the distinct impression if the Visitor wanted you dead, you would be dead.
The middle-aged guy nodded and shook hands with the clerk before exiting the store. There weren’t any other cars in the parking lot, and the clerk seemed to be the only one on duty. If I was going to do this, it would have to be now.
The prior night’s fog had turned to a heavy mist sometime in the early hours, and it speckled my face as I crossed the lot and went in the store. Inside it was over-air-conditioned and smelled like new carpet. The clerk was maybe twenty-one and wore a button-up shirt with the company’s logo on the breast. In the few seconds before he looked up from his tablet to greet me, I summoned the persona I’d been practicing all morning.
It was time to be a dick.
“Good morning, welcome to—” was as far as he got.
“Listen, bud, I need you to unfuck something for me real quick,” I said, coming right up to the counter, talking fast. Hurried. I was in a hurry. Couldn’t be bothered by pleasantries. “I just lost my wallet, my phone, and if you can’t help me, about two hundred grand.”
The kid’s jaw opened and closed like a fish, and I immediately felt sorry for him. “Well, I . . . I’ll definitely try.”
“Here’s the deal,” I said, leaning my full weight on the desk between us, looking directly at him. “Late last night I’m at the gym, and some asshole breaks into my locker. Takes my bag with all my shit in it. Already canceled my credit cards, but what I really need is the last five phone numbers I called. If I don’t make the calls I’m supposed to this morning, my ass is in a sling, you got me?”
“Uh, yeah, Mr. . . .”
“Vallance, Ryan Vallance.” The kid looked relieved that he could focus on something other than me for a second as he started tapping at his tablet. “See, I’d just get a new phone and sync everything myself, but all my cards are canceled and I gotta close a deal this morning. I can’t dick around that long. Ryan Vallance—it should be under Valiant Lending Agency.” I rattled David and Ryan’s business address off, which I’d memorized that morning.
All of this—a long shot. I wasn’t sure Ryan Vallance had his account through this carrier, wasn’t sure he ran his phone through the business, and definitely wasn’t sure this kid would give me the last few numbers called on Vallance’s account. But it was all I’d come up with since the Visitor had walked out my back door last night. If I could find out who Vallance had been in contact with before he died, then maybe I could figure out why he owed HerringBone money and what his “sure thing” for paying them off was. One layer leading to another I hoped would lead me to Rachel.