The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(51)

Lipsky was trying to get into his head again. This wasn’t the direction Peter wanted the conversation to go. “Any news on those license plates from the other day?”

Lipsky ignored the question. He gave Peter a steady stare, apparently done with the banter. “It wasn’t hard to find you,” he said. “I can tell that truck of yours from a mile away. You are still a suspect in that killing. And apparently a nuisance at UWM, you and that dog both. Your truck plate came in with a request for information.”

“I’m not hiding,” said Peter. “I have work to do. What about those license plates?”

Lipsky shook his head and watched the traffic. “The Impala turned up stolen, owned by a white kid lives on the south side. His dad called it in that afternoon. They found it in a parking lot at Mayfair Mall, with a couple of bullet holes in the rear end.” He said, “The other plate, the Ford SUV, I think you got the number wrong. The number you gave me is for a BMW sedan, not a Ford SUV. Owned by a dry cleaner in Brookfield, seventy years old. No record. I talked to the guy, said he hasn’t been downtown in years.”

Peter knew he hadn’t gotten it wrong. His face must have showed something.

Lipsky put a curious look on his face. Maybe it was even genuine. “What do you care about that Ford?”

Mingus whined. Peter went back to work with the hairbrush. “I told you the guy in that Ford almost ran me over, right? What really happened was he almost hit my dog. That’s why Mingus ran off that night. That guy was driving like a complete asshole. I wanted to have a talk with him about civic responsibility.”

“Mm,” said Lipsky, clearly not buying a word of it. He looked at Peter as if measuring him for a suit he knew wouldn’t fit. “Is that where you got that beautiful shiner? In a conversation about civic responsibility?”

“What, this?” said Peter, touching the multicolored bruise on his cheek. “Just a misunderstanding. Could happen to anyone.”

“A misunderstanding,” said Lipsky. “With a couple of ex-Army tough guys who got patched up at Saint Mary’s night before last, am I right? They gave the ER doc a line she didn’t believe.”

Again, not how Peter wanted the conversation to go.

The detective smiled. “I like to check the hospitals after a shooting,” he said. “See what might connect up.”

Mingus abruptly ducked his head and backed out of the wet rope collar, then dashed gleefully to the far side of the parking lot. After shaking himself thoroughly, he looked at Peter, tongue out in a canine grin.

“Shit,” said Peter.

Lipsky measured up the bruise with his X-ray eyes. “What happened, they call you a jarhead?”

“Something like that,” Peter admitted.

Lipsky nodded. “Let’s take a little inventory here,” he said, ticking off each item on his fingers. “One, you’re sleeping in your truck. Which has a broken window, and some bullet holes, let me add, so its usefulness as a homeless shelter is dropping fast. Two, you’re doing pickup carpentry in a shit neighborhood, so I know you’re going broke if you’re not there already. Three, you’re getting into fights with strangers, although at least you seem to be winning. Then there’s number four, the personal-hygiene thing. Generally a problem when you’re homeless. Can I ask how long has it been since you had a shower? And walking through a car wash doesn’t count.”

Peter could see Lipsky’s point. But Lipsky didn’t have the whole story, and Peter wasn’t about to tell it. Lipsky could think what he wanted.

Peter opened the back of his truck and climbed up for his duffel. “I do have a change of clothes,” he said, peeling off his wet shirt and pants. Not sure why he felt the need to explain himself. The photo of Jimmy in his pocket had gotten damp, too. He dried it gently and laid it down where he wouldn’t forget it.

“That’s good,” said Lipsky, peering past him into the box. Peter could practically feel him cataloging the contents. “Otherwise you’d freeze to death. Which reminds me. I think I found you a new driver’s-side window. At some car graveyard in Mobile, Alabama.”

Peter turned to look at him, halfway into his last pair of clean pants.

Lipsky shrugged. “A guy I know runs a salvage yard,” he said. “All this shit’s on the Web now, it took him about five minutes. I’m getting it at cost. It’ll be here in a couple days.”

Peter stared at him. “Why would you do that? You don’t know anything about me.”

“Here’s the thing,” said Lipsky. “Maybe I do. Just a little.”

While Peter put on a clean white shirt, and tucked the photo into his breast pocket, Lipsky turned away to lean on Peter’s truck. Looking out at the parking lot, he took a pack of gum out of his pocket, selected a stick, and stripped off the wrapper.

“When I got my discharge from the Rangers—this was ’93—I was seriously fucked up,” he said, as if to nobody in particular. “Somalia killed about a dozen of my closest friends. Then Iraq—I got there months before Desert Storm. My unit was on foot in the desert, spotting targets. The Republican Guard I met didn’t have their hands up.”

Lipsky shook his head. “They teach you to kill, but they don’t teach you to forget. That’s what bourbon’s for, right? I saw some bad shit over there. Hell, I did some bad shit. When I got home, I was lost. Couldn’t sleep. Drinking with both hands. Ready to do some damage, if only to myself.”