Head Games Read online

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Nobody does. He told me once that it was the least he could do. That these kids didn’t have time to wait for his schedule to clear. Of course, he’s also provided us with significant financial support.”

  “And what do you consider significant?” I said.

  She wagged a finger at me. “‘Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.’ TJ Sommerset has been generous with more than his time. Several times a year we get a check from him for anywhere from twenty to fifty thousand dollars. It makes a huge difference to a charity like ours, believe me.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “Even with the parks donating hotel rooms and admissions, these types of trips are usually beyond the reach of our families. Most are racked by medical expenses. Each of TJ’s donations allows us to serve between four and ten families. There are probably twenty-five families whose entire trips were funded solely by TJ.”

  “He’s made quite a difference.”

  “He’s a blessing. A gift. And I’m glad he’s decided to take his light out from under the bushel basket.”

  I paused, wondering how much longer I could deceive this woman before the floor collapsed under the weight of my guilt and I plunged straight to hell. “Do you think,” I said slowly, forming the thought in my head, “that TJ’s interest in Journeys of Hope comes from the loss of his father as a child?”

  This time it was Marian Cooksey’s turn to pause. “I don’t know. I wasn’t aware that he lost his father as a child.”

  “Liver cancer.”

  She nodded slowly to herself, letting just a bit of her weariness show, a weariness of watching far too many people die at far too young an age.

  “We all have our reasons, Mike.” She took a breath that seemed to clear the weariness aside. “So what changed TJ’s mind? The last check?”

  “Last check?”

  “He didn’t tell you? Well, it did come anonymously as a money order, but it’s from his bank. I just assumed…”

  “May I see it?” I asked.

  “I suppose…” Marian Cooksey got up and rummaged through a desk file drawer. “I have copy in here. Ah.” She pulled out a file folder and handed me a photocopied money order dated a week ago. It was made out to Journeys of Hope.

  The amount was $300,000.

  “It arrived the other day,” she said. “No note. No return address. I just assumed it was from TJ. I’ve tried calling him several times over the past few days but haven’t reached him.”

  I handed the photocopy back. “Is that unusual?”

  “Not really. Although, he usually gets back to me within a day or two, depending on what he’s doing.”

  “Have you ever gotten a check that size before?”

  “Never.”

  Marian Cooksey and I chatted for a few more minutes, but I started to itch to get out before she realized I wasn’t being completely honest. I left her both my cell phone and the main Global number if she had any questions or information, or if she got another big check. I told her that Global was still deciding how to proceed and needed to discuss any publicity with TJ first.

  After saying good-bye, I lingered alone for a moment in the waiting room, examining the bins of toys against the wall. Then I wrote Journeys of Hope a check for a hundred bucks, placed it on the receptionist’s desk, and slipped out the door.

  * * *

  The Journeys of Hope offices were on the fourth floor of a worn-down medical complex. I debated taking the unventilated stairs but quickly discarded the notion as unnecessarily masochistic. I pressed the call button and waited for the rickety elevator to rumble up from the first floor.

  One of the downsides of a career as a cop is a pathologically heightened sense of suspicion. You tend to see many perfectly innocent situations as potentially nefarious. The shifty-looking kid lingering in the back of the 7-Eleven. The department-store shopper with the ridiculously large purse. It’s a tiresome way to live, always expecting people to act their worst, and a contributing factor to cop burnout. But the flip side is that the very same paranoia can sometimes turn out to be right, giving you a few seconds extra to prepare or react.

  I saw the guy from the corner of my eye, leaning over a water fountain a few steps from the elevator. I didn’t know why, but my spider sense was seriously tingling. Looking back on it now, I should have heeded that suspicion and done something. Grabbed him. Threatened him. Shot him.

  Something.

  But I didn’t. At the time, I didn’t know. How could I? I shrugged it off. Besides, I wasn’t carrying a weapon at the time.

  Instead, when the elevator chimed, I stepped calmly in and watched him lean up from the water fountain and step into the box with me. He was a big dude, at least four inches taller than me, in his late forties, early fifties, with an unruly shock of dyed black hair. Deep-set eyes, buried under a heavy brow. He was dressed in dark slacks and a fluorescent green golf shirt that was so bright, you could read by it. The Day-Glo shirt was stretched across his girth, topped with a blue blazer. Neon business casual.

  I hit the first-floor button and the doors wheezed closed. We each assumed the standard elevator position, facing forward, saying nothing, like at a line of urinals. As soon as we started our slow descent, however, Mr. Day-Glo spoke, still looking forward.

  “So, Mike,” he said in a voice higher and more nasal than I would have expected. “How goes the search?”

  I paused for a breath’s length. “Who wants to know?”

  “A friend.” He turned and took a single step toward me. “Actually, a friend of a friend.”

  I quickly sized up my situation and it wasn’t good. No escape. Him between me and the alarm button. The elevator continued its glacial, vibrating descent.

  “That’s far enough, pal,” I said.

  He took another step, which, in the confined space, put him right in my face.

  “Any leads?” His breath was polluted with cigarettes and stale coffee. “The clock’s ticking, Mikey.”

  “Back off, or—”

  “What? What are you gonna do?” He placed a hand into his blazer and rested it under one arm. I saw the shadowy glint of a pistol handle. I tensed my body, preparing to grab his arm and launch a knee into his groin. I was unarmed, my Glock sitting uselessly in my truck’s glove compartment. I had foolishly questioned the appropriateness of bringing a nine-millimeter semiautomatic weapon into the Journeys of Hope office. Without a weapon or even the obligatory can of cop pepper spray, I knew my only hope was to make a decisive, dirty move.

  “You gonna find him?” he said. “I suggest you find him soon.”

  I contracted my thigh muscles, preparing a preemptive blow. In the instant before I struck, the elevator suddenly chimed and the door opened onto the second floor. An elderly couple stood there expectantly in the hallway.

  Day-Glo took a half step back and we both watched the stooped woman assist the even more stooped man, lifting his walker over the gap in the elevator threshold as they entered. Just as the doors closed, I slipped out of the elevator and bolted across the hall to the stairs.

  I tore down the steps three at a time and pushed out into the parking lot. A few seconds later I was in my truck peeling out onto the road. I saw no one exit the building and no one following me. I took a quick look around for a blue Mustang, but didn’t see it.

  Once I was a few miles away and the adrenaline began to subside, I got mad. Really mad. Pissed. Goon-style intimidation never sat well with me, and this was a classic case. A friend of a friend? If my guess about the friend’s identity was right, he was going to get a goddamn scorching earful.

  CHAPTER 8

  “So, Mikey, can you be there tonight?” George said through the phone receiver.

  “Screw you,” I said, glancing at Jennifer watching TV in the living room.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Tell Eli to go find him himself. Or
have his goon do it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just stop it, George. You’re insulting me.”

  “Mikey, seriously, what the hell are you talking about?”

  I took a sip of a freshly poured finger of bourbon. “Are you telling me you don’t know? Are you really telling me that?”

  “Mike. This is me. What happened?”

  I took another sip and exhaled deeply through my nostrils. I decided to give George the benefit of the doubt. I relayed an abbreviated version of my encounter in the elevator.

  “Mike, that wasn’t us. I swear.”

  “Right.”

  “Seriously. I swear.”

  “Maybe not you, George. At least, I hope not. But it stinks like Eli, I’ll tell you that.”

  “No way. He doesn’t operate like that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m telling you, Mike. It isn’t Eli. I don’t know … Maybe it was a reporter, or paparazzi or something. If the tabloids found out about TJ being gone, or even suspected it, they’d offer you a lot of money for a scoop. That’s why Eli’s paying so much. It has to be more than they’d pay.”

  “He wasn’t paparazzi.”

  “You’d be surprised. They’ll do anything. Bribe, threaten, lie, cheat, steal … Intimidation is a routine tactic for them.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Why would Eli do that? Why would he risk driving you away? We need you, Mike. I’ll talk to Eli and make sure he had nothing to do with it. Besides, he’ll want to know if the tabloids smell blood so he can come up with a cover story. Really, Mike, we need you. Just give me until tomorrow morning to talk to him. You’ll see. Tomorrow morning, okay?”

  I finished the bourbon and felt the will to argue melting away. “Okay…”

  “Good. Great. So, listen, I think we might have a lead.”

  “Oh?”

  “Can you spare a few minutes tonight?”

  “Tonight?” I repeated, looking again at Jennifer watching TV.

  “Just a few minutes, but I think it’s important.”

  George gave me the particulars and I reluctantly agreed. I jotted them down and then told Jennifer I had to go out. I’d be back before ten. Apparently, Gwen was busy tonight so Jennifer planned on staying home, listening to the new CD, maybe surfing the Web, chatting online with friends, or watching some MTV. So much for the modern teen to do, so little time.

  Still, I hesitated. Even if Eli and George had nothing to do with my friend in the elevator, this was, after all, the whole reason Jennifer was staying with me—so we could spend time together. Running out chasing TJ wasn’t going to improve our relationship.

  But since last night things were going okay. Well, at least we weren’t fighting, which was epic progress in our relationship. Maybe a little space would heal any lingering anger over my purse safari. So I left her a frozen lasagna and jumped in my truck.

  As I drove downtown, I periodically checked the rearview for the blue Mustang or any other car that seemed to be going the same direction for a little too long. But no one was tailing me.

  A few minutes later, I was standing outside a restricted-access door of the TD Waterhouse Center, known locally as the O-rena. I ran into an old cop buddy working off-duty security who slipped me into the tunnel. I made my way up into the arena where the Orlando Magic and the New York Knicks were in their shootarounds on the floor. The stands were about half-full as folks arrived and made their way to their seats.

  When I was first diagnosed with cancer, the docs gave me the whole spiel about statistics: survival rates, incidence of occurrence—I don’t even remember half of it. But one stat that had stuck with me was incidence of occurrence. Over forty thousand people are diagnosed with a primary brain tumor each year. That’s about fourteen for every hundred thousand people. Whenever I saw a large crowd of people—at a sporting event, a concert—I couldn’t help but wonder who in the crowd had a brain tumor but didn’t know it yet.

  That’s what popped into my mind as I scanned the half-empty arena. Soon those seats would all be filled, and there was a decent chance that someone watching the game tonight had his or her own Bob germinating in their brain and didn’t know it. Maybe he would never know it, or not know it in time to do anything about it. Maybe it was the woman wearing the blue baseball cap. Or the guy eating the hot dog. Have another hot dog, pal. And a beer. Enjoy ’em while you can.

  I continued scanning the seats and finally saw Holden and three other young guys coming down the stairs into the lower bowl. I made my way over to them and stepped up just as they sat in their third-row, center-court seats. Holden looked up at me, probably taking me for a fan, his countenance pleasant but wary. But then my face must’ve clicked for him because I saw the wave of recognition wash over him. Almost imperceptibly, his body relaxed and he smiled.

  “Dude, you made it,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “George called and said you needed to see me.”

  Behind us I heard a high-pitched gasp. I glanced around and saw a group of three teenaged girls. One pointed in our direction while the other two bounced excitedly on their toes.

  “Maybe we can go somewhere else,” Holden said, not turning around, but clearly aware that he had been recognized.

  You’re the one who wanted to meet at a professional sporting event, I thought to myself. Now you want privacy? But I kept my mouth shut. I gestured with my head and he followed me down the stairs to the floor.

  My off-duty buddy got us around the corner and into the locker-room tunnel. There were people around, mostly press and Magic staffers, but it was much more private than the stands.

  “So, what’s up?” I said.

  Holden fished in the back pocket of his jeans and produced a folded greeting card. Without a word he handed it to me.

  On the front was a black-and-white image of a country lane that forked off into two directions. I opened it and read the text.

  Life offers us many paths. Some are easy. Some are hard. Some are dead ends that force us to retrace our steps and start over. And some lead us upward to the clouds, and beyond, to our dreams.

  At the bottom was written in a steady, cursive script, Stay true to your path. TJ.

  I looked on the back but there was nothing more.

  “When did you get this?” I asked.

  “Today,” Holden said. “That’s why I called George. I figured you’d want to see it.”

  “Why did he send you a card?”

  “No clue. Why does TJ do anything?”

  “So, there’s no occasion?” I asked. “No birthday? Anniversary of the band?”

  “Gimme a break.”

  “He ever send you a card before?”

  “Not like this. We’ll sign cards for each other when it’s someone’s birthday, but that’s from the group.”

  “Where’s the envelope?” I said.

  “The envelope? For the card?”

  “Yeah. Let me have that, too.”

  Holden shrugged. “Sorry, dude. I think I pitched it.”

  “Can you still get it?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is it gone forever or just sitting at the bottom of your kitchen garbage can?”

  “I dunno. I think I opened it at the studio. It’s probably in the Dumpster by now.”

  I rubbed my face. “Okay. Did you look at the postmark? Where was it sent from?”

  “Jeez, dude. I didn’t know there was gonna be a test.”

  “Think, Holden. This is important. Where was this sent from?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice crisp with an edge of irritation. “I didn’t look. Knowing TJ, it was probably from fucking Neptune.”

  “Hey, Holden!” a deep voice called out behind us.

  “Yo, D!” Holden said, embracing the chest of one of the Magic players, a lanky black guy with an easy smile. The player was at least a head taller than us. He had been walking with the rest of the team back to the locker
room to prepare for player introductions. He and Holden chatted for a few minutes about an upcoming celebrity charity game.

  “It’s for the kids, man,” the player said before he disappeared down the hall.

  Holden looked back at me with an expression that suggested he’d forgotten what we were talking about. I held up the card to refresh his memory.

  “You get anything else?” I said.

  “No, dude. Just the card. We done here?”

  “Where do you think TJ is?”

  “If I knew that, he’d be here now.” Holden leveled his gaze at me, telling me that he was done with the conversation.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me know if you get anything else.”

  “You’ll be the first,” he said, and walked back up into the stands.

  I pinched the card between my fingers, staring at it, trying to squeeze some meaning out of it. TJ was telling us something. There was a reason he sent this. Was a pattern emerging? The card, the big check to Journeys of Hope, if that was indeed TJ’s doing …

  Was he just being TJ, as Holden implied? Or was he sending a message? Feeling sentimental? Saying good-bye? Did he have no intention of coming back?

  Too many possibilities and too little evidence. I read the card again, but didn’t divine any answers. I heard the Knicks being introduced and headed down the hall toward the exit. The thunderous music “for your Orlandooooo Magic!” boomed through the building. Before the players were introduced, I was out the door and into the humid night air.

  * * *

  “Morning, Bob,” I mumbled aloud, my voice a hoarse croak at five thirty in the morning. The pain in my head was intense, a searing stab that cut behind both eyes. Bob didn’t reply, but I knew he heard me.

  I also knew I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep, so I showered and made a pot of strong coffee. I popped a couple more of Cam’s Zuraxx and tried to sit very still at the kitchen table, closing my eyes in a vain attempt to numb the invisible knife in my skull.

  I don’t know how long I had been sitting there, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Jennifer watching me from her bedroom doorway. I couldn’t read her expression. She seemed cautious, maybe curious, maybe concerned. Maybe all three. Maybe none.