AROUND US THERE WAS still the buzz of conversation. But it retreated, shrank down until it felt like only Davey and I were at the table. Even Luce seemed miles away.
“If this is a joke, man,” said Davey, “you lost me somewhere.”
“I should’ve been clued by the money,” I said. “Dono always kept a stack of cash in the house, for emergencies. But there was no money when I searched his hiding place the day he was shot. I knew that some cop hadn’t found and pocketed the roll. Any cop would have also tagged the guns and other illegal shit hidden there as evidence.”
Davey frowned. “So maybe Dono was broke.”
“You knew that hiding place from when we were kids, Davey,” I said. “And how to get into it.”
“I didn’t take any money when I got that bag of clothes and stuff for you, Van. I swear.”
“You’d taken it already, and spent it. You were throwing fifties around, here at the bar when we first met last week. And you bought Juliet that expensive necklace the day after. I should have looked more closely at that, too. Back when we were teenagers, every time you had cash in your pocket, it never lasted more than a day.”
“Van, you’re not thinking right,” said Davey. “I mean, you’re wiped fucking out.”
“But even with all that, I still didn’t see you for Dono’s killer. Until yesterday.”
“Look at you, man. You’re so spaced you can barely sit up straight.”
“I found the truck, Davey.”
I felt the crowd press in a little. It was hard to read Davey’s face. His bright blue eyes held mine steadily.
“When you brought me the duffel bag from the house, you told me you’d looked for the truck where I’d left it in the garage. You said that it was gone when you got there. That was a lie.”
“I never saw the damn truck,” Davey said, loud enough to make Luce and Mike lean back in surprise. “That’s why I lent you Julie’s car, thanks very goddamn much.”
“You went to the truck. You knew that the laptop was inside, that it might lead me to Dono’s killer. You knew all that because I was dumb enough to tell you why the laptop was important, why you had to risk going to the truck with cops hunting through every inch of downtown for me. The laptop was there, and you had to get rid of it.”
“Van, you’re not hearing me. I didn’t care about the fucking computer. Because I didn’t shoot Dono.”
“You had to get rid of the laptop. You couldn’t just remove it from the truck. It would be obvious who’d taken it. So you stole the whole damn truck instead. Jumped the engine and drove it right out of the garage. Ballsy.”
Davey was shaking his head no, over and over. But I thought I saw a flash of pride.
“You were in a hurry,” I said. “You had to meet me at the library. But you had to hide the truck first. Not a lot of places to do that near downtown, not if the cops might be combing every garage.”
Davey grabbed the bottle and poured himself another shot. Mike stared at his brother, looking as if someone had hit him in the back of the head with a plank.
“There’s a gravel lot off Steinbrueck Park,” I said to Mike, “under the viaduct. It’s a pay lot where some of the cruise-line people leave their rides. Sometimes for weeks at a time. Just drop twenty bucks and your keys in the box, then pay the rest when you come back. A good place to stash a car.”
I tried a second sip of the whiskey. It was warm from being in my hand, and it went down easier.
“It’s the same place Davey and I would use when we were kids and we’d boost a car to go joyriding. Or to sell it.”
Davey was staring at me. His mouth was set in a thin line. It wasn’t pride I had seen. It was defiance.
“You drove the truck out of the garage,” I said. “And you took it to the best place you knew to hide it. Trouble was, I knew it, too.”
“You fucking punk,” muttered Corcoran from where he stood. Davey shrank back.
While I’d been talking to Davey, a group had gathered around us. Maybe a dozen men or more. Luce had left the table. If there were any citizens left in the bar other than Mike, I didn’t see them.
“Last night,” I said, “I went looking. I found the truck in the lot off Steinbrueck. The cops have it now. And Julian Formes’s laptop. You had to leave that in the truck. You couldn’t be carrying it when you met me.”
“Van,” said Davey. He reached a hand across the table, placed it on my arm. “Van. The truck might have been where you say, all right? But I wasn’t the one who put it there.”
“You were,” I said. “It’ll be easy enough to prove. Fingerprints in the truck, maybe. You must have caught a cab back to the library, probably from in front of the Marriott or the Edgewater. The driver will remember you.”
“Circumstantial,” Davey said. If I hadn’t been watching his face, I wouldn’t have made out the word.
Willard was behind Davey, his shadow falling across Davey’s shoulder.
Hollis nudged me on the shoulder. “No reason to talk about all this now,” he said. His voice was almost a whisper. “We can take our time later.”
I looked at Hollis and around the table at Corcoran and Willard and the others. Hard men. Angry.
“If anybody touches him,” I said, “it’ll be me.”
Hollis stared at me for a moment. He nodded and eased off.
I turned back to Davey. “Yeah, all of that is circumstantial,” I said. “But there’s still the laptop. Before long the cops will be able to listen to each of the recordings. Including the conversation between you and Dono, right before you put the gun up against his head. That will be as good as a confession.”
The bottle of Redbreast was almost empty. I poured the last of it into Davey’s tumbler. “Unless you want to say it to my face.”
He waited a long moment and then took the glass. His fingers were trembling. He wrapped his other hand around them.
“I told him,” Davey said. “I told Dono about that night with Bobby Sessions and those two skinhead freaks. I told him you pulled my ass out of the fire and I saved you right back, before they could blow you away. If Dono had a soul, he should be fucking proud of you.” Davey stared at his hands, holding the glass. “Instead you skipped town to get away from him, and now he leaves the bar to somebody else. He had to make it right.”
“And you had a gun.”
“I was wasted. I thought if Dono finally knew the whole story, he’d see that you deserved a fuck lot better from him.” Davey shook his head no again. “When I told him, his eyes went dead. And then I thought, ‘No, I’m dead. He’s going to kill me.’ He walked straight over to the side table, and I remembered that he kept a pistol in the drawer there. You showed it to me once.”
I’d probably told Davey about the gun way back when I’d shown him Dono’s hiding place. Just a kid, trying to seem cool.
Davey looked up finally, held my gaze. “I shot him. I didn’t mean to.” Somebody standing behind Willard cursed. Davey flinched at the sound. “I swear it.”
“You should have told me what happened,” I said. “Even if you couldn’t turn yourself in, you should’ve told me.”
“It was for you. I messed up, but I was trying to help. You know that, right?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what the answer was.
“Van,” Willard said. “Clear out of here.”
Jimmy Corcoran nodded. “We got this.” Someone behind him laughed, one single humorless bark.
I looked across the table at the press of men.
“Davey’s turning himself in,” I said.
“Dono is our guy, too,” said Corcoran. “Don’t make this into something worse.”
“Hey,” Hollis said to him.
I stood up. “Nobody’s stopped me yet, Jimmy.”
Willard edged forward, half a step. Corcoran smiled.
“The police are coming.” It was Luce. She elbowed her way through the circle. “I called them.”
We all looked at her. Was she bluffing?
“Detective Guerin said they have a squad car on the block already,” Luce said.
Hollis exhaled heavily. “Clever girl.”
“Lucky,” said Willard. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to Davey or to me.
Luce glared at the men. “No more trouble over Davey Tolan. He isn’t worth it.”
I took Davey by the arm and got him up. He was nearly limp with fear. We could wait for Guerin outside.
The men blocking our way moved, just enough.