On the street ahead of it, a pair of fire trucks were parked at oblique angles, their lights splaying red tones across the asphalt and sidewalk.
“This requires a response,” Bob said as he watched the fire crews trying to hook up a second hose to a hydrant, to douse the flames before they could catch the vacant, scrubby lot next door or, wind-aided, jump the road to other businesses.
“I don’t think Mr. Feeney would appreciate that sentiment,” Sharmila said. “Everyone knows Mel as a stoic sort of feller. He wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“I don’t think he’d worry too much about the guys who probably did this,” Bob said.
“I wasn’t talking about them.” She glanced sideways from the driver’s seat. “It really doesn’t seem to occur to you that you could be the one who gets hurt, does it?”
Bob shrugged. The shrink in Las Vegas had told him he had poor impulse control; not as bad as a career criminal, perhaps, but undeveloped enough to get him into plenty of hot water.
The shrink had told him a lot of things about himself, things he still didn’t really want to accept. That had been the point of going to Seattle, getting a second opinion from another expert.
But on the risk? Maybe he had a point. But…
“Somebody has to be the guy who wades in,” he said.
“Yeah, but…”
“There are always bad guys out there, uncivil, selfish people who need standing up to. Usually, it’s not the people we expect who do so. It’s not the cops; they come after a crime has been committed. They don’t prevent it. It’s not the politicians or the men with money, because more often than not, the bad guys ultimately work for them.”
“That sounds like a pretty broad justification—”
“It’s reality,” he stressed. Then he felt guilty for the harsh tone. “Sorry. But one of the things you learn in the Corps is that there is always—always—an asshole somewhere. And there always have to be good people making a difference. Most people think of military men and women—and law enforcement, for that matter—as a bunch of bullies and thugs. And there’s no doubt the combative nature of the job does attract some. But most are there for the right reasons, even when the job is distasteful or wrong. And those good people will (a) never get the credit they deserve, socially, and (b) always wind up in harm’s way themselves to make things right for others. It ain’t nice, and it ain’t right. But it is reality.”
“That’s a pretty brutal outlook on life.”
“It’s a realistic outlook on people,” Bob insisted. “If I let this go, whoever did this just wins. They may not win long term; they may fuck up or be busted for something else. But they win at ruining Mr. Feeney’s life. And all because he rented me and Marcus rooms. And I can’t allow that.”
“You realize they’re just trying to draw you out?” Sharmila warned. “They don’t care about an old guy like Mel Feeney. But they know you’re wanted by the police. And they know that anything that happens to you they can say was during a citizen’s arrest. If you go to them looking for payback, or retribution, or whatever you want to call it, you’ll be on their turf, where they have the legal impetus, the built-in excuse of self-defense. They’ll try to kill you.”
Bob shrugged. “I’m not the one anyone needs to worry about.”
Mel Feeney looked remarkably chipper, Bob figured, for a man with burned feet and a golf-ball-sized lump on the back of his head.
He was sitting up in a hospital bed. Bob could tell that much from the video chat screen on the nine-inch tablet.
Keep the mood light, Bobby. Consider the man’s feelings, not your own. It wasn’t going to be easy. He’d spent the prior hour vacillating between angered determination and a forlorn sense of, once more, being the problem that brought harm to others.
The older man leaned in slightly towards the screen—or perhaps just drew it closer—and whispered, “There must be ten cops here, minimum. For some reason, they’re expecting you to show up.”
“Yeah, we sort of figured,” Bob said, nodding sideways to the driver’s seat and Sharmila. “Sharmila’s here too.”
Feeney frowned. “My place…”
Bob couldn’t hide his bleakness over what had happened. “I’m sorry, sir. Really, I am.”
“You tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen,” Feeney said simply. “But…” He looked side to side to see if he was being observed, then smiled impishly, “…I wasn’t lying about the insurance.”
“So… you’ll be okay?” Bob said.
“Okay? I’m retiring! Heck, I’m worth so much more burned up than operating, I might be able to afford Tahiti, never you mind Merida. Too damn hot there anyhow.”
“I know who did this,” Bob said.
“We all know who did this, Bob,” Feeney said. “I mean, who ordered it, anyhow… Saw Tommy Kopec in a truck out on the street right before someone conked me from behind.”
“He and his brother, then,” Bob said.
Feeney took on a guarded look. “Now… you don’t go doing anything rash, Bob. Merry Michelsen’s a bad man, and the Kopecs are crazier than rabid coyotes, only half as kind.”
“He’s already promised me he’s not going after them,” Sharmila said. “Right, Bob?”
“Something like that,” Bob said, which beat pointing out that he’d technically promised not to kill them. But there’s a lot of room for suffering between alive and dead.
Feeney seemed less convinced. “Bob, you didn’t force me to rent you a room, and you tried to move before something happened. You don’t owe me a damn thing,” he stressed. “Point of fact, I’ll be a little pissed off if you take it as such.”
“It’s not about owing anyone,” Bob said. “It’s just about right and wrong. Someone a whole lot smarter than me once said that evil only wins when good men do nothing. I’d say the obvious extension is that ‘good men’ who do nothing aren’t really good men.”
“Then I reckon what you really want is me worrying about you,” Feeney said. “Because that’s all that’s going to happen if you charge off somewhere tonight looking for revenge. Good or bad, right or wrong, I’m not in a mood to be worrying.”
Bob shook his head gently. “Nobody’s ever had to worry about me in the past,” he said, though he knew they had, “and nobody needs to worry about me now.
Sharmila leaned into the camera’s range. “Besides… we’re going to spend the evening thinking about you, not the Kopecs,” she told Feeney. “Right, Bob?”
Bob offered Feeney a smile. “You just get better. Okay?”
33
