‘What?’ Tom snapped and dug his hand under his armpit – like that would help.
‘Halo.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Er … Niño Alvarez is missing.’
‘Good. I hope the bastard’s dead. He stood on my thumb.’
There was a confused silence in which Tom started to feel just a little childish. He suppressed it by snapping at Halo again: ‘Anything else?’
‘No. Just that.’
This time Halo’s silence was hostile, and Tom remembered that Alvarez was a friend and colleague of his. Shit. ‘What’s his wife doing?’ He couldn’t remember the woman’s name but he hoped his slightly less aggressive tone would be enough to placate Halo.
‘Sylvia,’ Halo provided, as Tom had known he would – cos that’s the kinda guy Halo is, he thought, a little bitterly. The pain in his hand was subsiding now and he was definitely feeling guilty.
‘She’s called the police but they don’t give a damn. I mean, he’s a man, not a little kid or some such. I guess they figure he’s in Tijuana tying one on, or with a girlfriend.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I wouldn’t be calling you if I did. He hasn’t been back to work since that day.’
‘Well, what can I do about it from here?’
‘Why? Where are you?’
‘Cape Town.’
There was a surprised pause, then Halo wondered, ‘Does that mean this call is costing me a fortune?’
‘Yep.’
‘Shit. I gotta go.’
‘Suck it up, Halo. I found some stuff out.’
‘Pride of Maine stuff?’
‘Possibly. The 737 out here – it looked like the fan disc or the flange bolts failed. I have one of the bolts, which might help.’
‘What about the fan disc?’
‘It got stolen. And the investigation team were all killed in a fire the same night.’
‘Sheee-it.’
‘Sheee-it is right. I’d be dead too if I hadn’t got up to go back to the wreckage on a hunch. Even then they drove us off the road.’
‘Us?’
Tom kicked himself. He didn’t want Halo knowing his personal life. ‘I’m with a friend.’
‘You getting laid?’
Tom’s hackles rose at the surprise in Halo’s voice. ‘So? What’s the big shock?’
‘I’m not shocked.’
‘You sound shocked.’
‘Well,’ Halo started haltingly, ‘congratulations. Who is she?’
‘None of your business.’
Tom heard the smile in Halo’s voice as he said, ‘My friends get laid, that’s my business.’
‘I’m not your friend, Halo. You’re just some guy who calls me up and hassles me to do work he doesn’t pay for. And gets my thumb squashed.’
Once again, the hurt silence. What is this? Tom thought irritably. Everyone’s a goddamn wife.
Except Ness. So far Ness had played things very, very cool, and he liked that about her – liked that she hadn’t tried to make them something before they were ready to be that. Of course, Richard probably had something to do with it, but Tom pushed the thought to the back of his mind.
‘When will you be home?’ said Halo, and Tom snorted. Halo had completed the wife analogy.
‘Couple of days.’
‘Can you call me?’
‘Yeah. Okay.’
‘Okay, then.’ Halo sounded subdued. Tom tried to ignore it and hung up. He wondered if he should have asked after Vee. Too late now.
Ness emerged, managing to look better in a hotel towel than most movie stars did on the red carpet, and all thoughts of Halo, Vee, Niño Alvarez – in fact, all thoughts bar one – drained from Tom’s brain as if they’d never been there.
*
Halo stared at the phone and thought about Niño Alvarez. They weren’t good friends but they were colleagues and that made them friends of sorts, didn’t it?
Two months before, some of the guys had asked him to make up the numbers in a Friday-night softball game they had running. Halo had struck out three times and Niño was the one who’d made him feel better about it. Playing catcher, it was Niño who’d yelled, ‘Strike three!’ then jabbed a finger towards an imaginary dugout and laughed. ‘You’re gonna fit right in here, man!’
That meant he owed Niño some loyalty, didn’t it?
Tom Patrick, on the other hand, was a bit of an asshole, even by Halo’s charitable standards. The NTSB man was an arrogant, tactless prick, with the sensitivity of a very large bull in a very small china shop. But if he had to pick sides, Halo realized, he would have a hard time deciding which way to go. He didn’t think it was only his need for Tom’s help that motivated him. There was something about the man – something deep under that thick skin – that Halo believed was worthy. Logically, he knew this theory lacked the tiny sticking point of hard evidence. Tom had never been anything but rude, offhand and dismissive around him.
Apart from that one time, Halo realized. The time he’d made him pasta.
Halo almost laughed at the thought. He was not some lonely sonofabitch who could mistake a bowl of spaghetti for friendship. He had pals, he had colleagues – hell, nowadays he even had Vee and Katy, and they would be enough for any man, all by themselves.
