The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(25)

Maybe Jimmy was the polite kind of suicide.

The kind who cleaned his apartment and paid his rent first.

Because he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

Oh, Jimmy.

—

The dog nosed at the kitchen cabinet. It was still disconcerting to see him without the stick tied into his mouth, but Peter was getting used to it. He opened the door and found a few pans and an old coffee percolator, and two big metal bowls stacked atop a sealed plastic bin with a few cups of dog food scattered on the bottom. Peter set out the bin for the dog, who immediately hoovered out the contents, licked his sizable chops, looked at Peter, and whined.

“It’s okay, Mingus,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Mingus went to a worn corner of the carpet, turned around twice, and lay down, nose to tail, watching as Peter went through the closet. There was nothing in the pockets of the hanging shirts or pants; nothing slid between the jeans and sweaters folded on the shelf. Nothing was hidden in the old black suit that Jimmy would have worn to weddings and funerals. Underwear folded neatly in a shoebox, socks paired up in another. Peter emptied the boxes but found nothing but clothes.

The static had begun to crackle and rise, and his shoulders were getting tight, but Peter put each item back the way he’d found it. The man was dead, but it was still his home. And Peter wanted Dinah to see it the way Jimmy had left it.

There was nothing hidden under the bed or under the carpet. Jimmy had taped snapshots of Dinah, Charlie, and Miles to the wall by the bed, but there was nothing hidden behind them. There was no access to the attic or the knee walls where the roof slanted down.

He went through the desk last. It was small and its finish was peeling, but it was made of actual wood, from the days before particleboard turned furniture into disposable objects. The top was empty. There were three drawers down the left side. The bottom drawer was empty. The middle drawer held pens, a scattering of plain envelopes, a half-sheet of stamps. The top drawer held a big manila envelope from the VA, with a thick sheaf of papers. Peter pulled the envelope out to take with him.

Under the manila envelope was a yellow paper flier. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Looking at it, Peter thought it was the same as the flier folded up in Jimmy’s belt when he died. The photo showed a very young man with cropped black hair, smiling for the camera. He wore a striped button-down shirt. It might have been a high school graduation photo.

This time, Peter read the smaller print. “Felix Castellano, decorated Marine, missing. Please contact his grandmother, Aurelia Castellano.” It gave a phone number and date, just a few weeks before Jimmy’s death.

There was something about this flier. Peter felt it in the pit of his stomach. The urgent growl of pursuit.

But he didn’t know why.

He was down the stairs and out the door with the VA papers and the flier in a paper bag, the key in the lock, the dog crowding him on the stoop, the white static dissolving in the relief of the open air, before he realized it.

It was more than a flier. Jimmy was trying to find the missing Marine.

It was part of Marine culture, part of the lore.

You pick up your wounded.

You carry the dead.

You never leave a man behind.

And here was Peter, doing the same damn thing.

Trying to find the real Jimmy. To carry him home.

Jimmy, with his suitcase full of money and four slabs of plastic explosive.

Oh, Jimmy. What did you do?





12



Stepping out into the darkened street toward his truck, with the bag of Jimmy’s papers swinging at his side and Mingus ranging ahead, Peter felt the puff of wind on his neck and heard the unmistakable zhip of the bullet passing before the flat crack of the gunshots reached him.

It was familiar, the loose rattle of an AK-47, the way the world slowed down while his mind sped up. The granular glow from the few functional streetlights. The damp autumn breeze on his exposed skin. The coppery flavor of adrenaline in his mouth. He didn’t want to like it. But there was something unavoidably delicious about that taste.

Automatically, he turned his head to look for the muzzle flash and saw the man in a Bulls jacket standing beside the open rear door of a sedan stopped at the intersection fifty yards away. The long gun was at his shoulder, but his eye wasn’t down to the sight.

With the crystal clarity of stopped time, Peter thought the guy should be ashamed for missing at that distance. Even with an AK, which was notoriously inaccurate. It was like the early days of the insurgency, deposed Baathists full of the false confidence that came from running a dictatorship, walking into the street like action heroes, firing from the hip. This was before they learned to hide, and aim, and blow shit up.

The world popped back into motion when the gunman fired again. The AK clattered and a window broke behind Peter. A car alarm howled. Out in the darkness, Mingus started barking like something out of a caveman’s nightmare.

Stepping behind the cover of his truck, Peter couldn’t see the dog, but he didn’t have time to look. The gunman paused, probably changing clips. Peter fished his keys from his coat pocket, opened the passenger door, reached under the seat and found the .45. Shoved the bag of Jimmy’s papers where the gun had been. Mingus kept barking, now from somewhere above him.

Above him? He looked up. Mingus had somehow climbed up on the roof of the truck, sounding like a demon dog.