He shut the trunk. “Ready?” he asked.
I nodded numbly and climbed in the passenger’s seat. He swung himself into the other side and started up the engine, then pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road that led back towards the apartment.
A question occurred to me. I’d been dying to ask for a long time, but I didn’t know who to consult or when the right time would be. Jay seemed like a good enough guy, and since I couldn’t say for sure if or when I’d ever see him again, I figured I had to give it a shot.
“Jay, why does my father hate Ben?” I asked quietly.
I saw Jay’s fists tighten on the steering wheel, but he didn’t say anything for a long time. It wasn’t until we arrived at the apartment that he finally spoke. “I can’t talk about that,” he said. “You’ll have to ask Ben yourself.”
I tried to get him to tell me something, but he wouldn’t budge an inch. He carried the packages of new clothes up to the apartment and deposited them in a neat pile on the coffee table. Just before he left, I grabbed his arm. “Jay, please,” I said. “I have to know why I’m in this mess. There’s more to it than just my father’s anger. There’s history; there has to be.”
He shook his head sadly. “There’s bad blood between them,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you. You’ll have to ask Ben to explain.” He walked out without another word.
Chapter Eighteen
Ben
“Nope, never seen him before,” the man said gruffly. He shut the door in my face.
I growled and slammed my fist against my thigh. Then, realizing I was crumbling the paper in my hand into an unusable mess, I relaxed and smoothed it out. I plucked the pen from my pocket and scratched off another name from the list.
I was painfully aware that going down all the John Robinisons in the phone book was an idiotic way of doing things, but I didn’t have any other ideas that struck me as particularly brilliant. Half a dozen down and not a single one of the bastards had ever even seen the man in the photograph that Ivan’s guy had given me. There were only a couple more, and then I would be back to square one.
Dina hadn’t been much use. I’d stopped by her place first, on the off chance that she knew something she hadn’t already told us years ago. One look at the picture and she shook her head confusedly. She looked up eagerly and asked, “Do you know something new? Are you going to catch them?”
“I don’t know, Dina,” I’d said. “I’m trying my damnest. I don’t know whether this picture is even helpful. Even if the guy does know something, it’s been three years since Olaf went down. The son of a bitch could’ve skipped town a long time ago.”
She’d clutched my arm, her grip surprisingly strong for a woman as tired-looking as her. “Find him,” she’d said, eyes blazing. “He knows something. I can feel it.”
I promised her I’d do my best, then I’d hit the sidewalks to beat down doors until someone gave me an answer worth chasing.
Yet, a full day later, it looked like I was going to come up empty-handed. I was down to the last JohnRobinson the book, and the sun was about to set behind me. I felt my muscles sagging on the bones. It was tiring to have doors slammed in my face over and over again, not just literally but figuratively, too. Every person who told me they’d never heard of JohnRobinsonnever seen a man like the one in the picture was one more severed possibility, one more nail in the coffin of my dead friend, my murdered brother.
I checked the address on the mailbox in front of me with the list in my hand. Yep, this was the place. One last visit before I headed home and tried to figure out what my next move might be. I walked up the driveway, climbed the short staircase to the porch, and pressed my thumb against the doorbell.
I heard it echoing inside, followed by the yip of a little dog and a man cursing. “Shut up, ya cunt,” he bellowed roughly. Slippered feet slushed along the floor, growing louder as he walked in my direction. The chain rattled and then the door was yanked open. “What do you want?” he demanded.
I looked up. It was him. John Robinson. There wasn’t a sliver of doubt in my mind that this was the same man. The mustache was gone, but there was no mistaking that bulbous nose and shiny bald head I’d been shoving in people’s faces all day. It was him.
I wasn’t going to take the chance of him getting away. I was sick and tired of being polite. A full day of rude assholes slamming a door in my face had worked my patience to the bone, and I was never a patient man to begin with.