Into the Fire(100)

The man drew himself upright. “That’s the precise question I’ll need you to answer. I’m the owner of this property.”

Behind him the front door hinged open unevenly. The early-morning light hit Max’s face at a diagonal, splitting it in half. “Oh,” he said. “Damn.”

The man took him in. “Well, this just keeps getting better.”

When Max looked at Evan, his face wore the weight of years of exhaustion. “Meet Clark McKenna.” Max shifted the bag on his shoulder. “Violet’s dad.”

“Max Merriweather,” Clark said. “It was my understanding that I’d never have to see you again.” He scratched the side of his nose with the hand holding the Smith & Wesson.

“Why don’t you put the gun away?” Evan said.

Sheepishly Clark complied. “I saw that the water meter was moving. And it shouldn’t be. We set up alerts for all the properties. We get a lot of squatters.” He said the last word pointedly, hoisting one shaggy eyebrow.

“Violet helped me out,” Max said. “I was in a bit of trouble.”

“Now, why don’t I find that shocking?” Clark said.

Max looked down at the porch stair and stepped around his ex-father-in-law.

Clark grabbed him by the arm as he passed. “I’ll need to inspect inside,” he said. “If there’s any damage, you’ll be held accountable.”

“Damage?” Max laughed, shaking his arm free. “You’ll have to inspect for anything that’s not damaged.”

Evan said, “Why don’t I handle the walk-through?”

As Max moved away, Clark grimaced. “You can’t acquire a sense of honor,” he proclaimed, stepping inside. “You either have it or you don’t.”

Evan followed him through the dank interior. The revolver hung weightily in Clark’s sweatpants pocket, flapping around.

“—racked up twenty dollars on the water bill,” Clark was saying. “Who’s supposed to pay for that? It’s not the money. It’s the entitlement.” He shook his head. “Six in the morning, and I’m out here overseeing my own business personally.”

He looked fit and healthy, a vibrant seventy-something. The kind of man who was superb at caring for himself. Organic food and facial peels and a weekly massage at the racket club. The kind of man who marveled at why others couldn’t just keep their heads above water like he did, who didn’t understand that if you don’t have any boots, you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Evan found few things more grating than a man who believed he had the answers to life.

Clark kept on. “Do you think I need to be here? No. But do you think if I wasn’t the type of person willing to drive from my house in Pasadena to Lincoln Heights to make sure things are right, I’d be where I am in life?”

Evan asked, “Where are you in life?”

Clark came up short, blinked a few times. It was as though he’d never considered the question. “Who are you to Max again? You’re a…?”

“Friend.”

Clark frowned at that, toed a patch of rotting floorboard. “Doesn’t surprise me he landed in a mess. He’s a troubled son of a bitch. I’ll give him this, though. He keeps his word. Never thought he’d honor the deal.” He moved to the trash bag taped over the window. “Was this like this before?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “Wait. What deal?”

Clark just looked at him. Then headed out. “Have a good day, Mr.…”

Evan let the ellipses ride.

Clark high-stomped across the muddy front yard, removed his shoes, and put them in the trunk of his Jaguar. As he got in the driver’s seat, Evan tugged open the passenger door and sat beside him.

“I beg your pardon—”

Evan said, “Talk.”

Clark pulled back his head, clearly unaccustomed to receiving a directive. He started to object, then seemed to notice something in Evan’s stare. Something unsettling.

“Do you have a daughter?” Clark asked.

Evan thought of Joey sitting next to him in the car, spinning through radio stations at warp speed in search of a favorite song. Her endearing aggravation over fine points of arcane hacker etiquette or the incivility of texting “kay” with a lowercase k. How she’d wept against him once when a dam of memories had broken loose, her frail body shuddering as if trying to come apart. The smell of her soap, lilac and vanilla. She owned a piece of Evan as Evan owned a piece of her, and there was no undoing that, not now or ever.

He said, “No.”

“If you did, what would you be willing to do for her? To protect her?”

Evan pictured the faulty latch on the flimsy, single-pane window at Joey’s apartment. The broken light above the call box downstairs. The loose guard plate on the front door. The feeling it engendered inside him, an unease inching up his spinal cord toward imagined scenarios.

“This doesn’t interest me,” Evan said.

“Then I’ll tell you,” Clark said. “You’d do anything. If you thought something wasn’t right for your daughter, that she was going down the wrong path.” He wet his lips, his eyes glassy with some memory. “She was failing. My baby girl. And if you had resources, you’d do anything to—” He caught himself.