Memory Man

Sarcasm. Interesting.

“If you were in the Navy you might have health coverage.”

Leopold shook his head. “DD. Dishonorable discharge.”

“So you were in the Navy?”

“Yeah,” conceded Leopold.

The sounds from above were getting louder. Decker checked his watch. Two minutes left and Brimmer seemed like the type who would show up right on time to escort him out.

“Any PTSD?”

“Any what?”

“Head problems? Depression? From combat?”

“I was never in combat.”

“So you’re just a sick son of a bitch who wipes out a family because somebody dissed you?” Decker kept his voice level and calm.

Leopold attempted a grin. “I guess so. I’m bad news, man. Always have been. If my momma were alive she could tell you. I’m just a shit. Screwed up every damn thing I ever touched in my whole life. No lie.”

“And when we check your military records it’ll show you were in the Navy as Sebastian Leopold?”

Leopold nodded, but absently, as though he weren’t really agreeing with the statement.

Decker leaned closer. “Let me ask it clearer. Is Sebastian Leopold your real name?”

“One I been using.”

“Since birth or more recently?”

“Not since birth, no.”

“So why use that name, then, if it’s not yours?”

“What’s in a name, man? Just letters stuck together.”

Decker pulled out his phone and, pointing it at Leopold, said, “Say cheese.”

He took Leopold’s picture and then put his phone away.

Then he held out a pen and a piece of paper. “Can you write down your name for me?”

“Why?”

“It’s just for my records.”

Leopold took the pen and slowly wrote out his name.

Decker took back the paper and the pen, stood, and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

He went to the door and called for the jailer. When the man came and unlocked the door Decker said, “Memory serves, there’s a bathroom right down there, right?” He pointed the opposite way he had come in.

The jailer nodded. “Yep, men’s room is the first door.”

Decker stuffed his pad and pen back into the briefcase and moved swiftly down the hall toward the john. His change in plan had been prompted by the footsteps he’d heard clattering down the steps. More than one pair, which meant that Brimmer had reinforcements. Which meant they knew something was up.

Decker walked past the door to the toilet and hung a left and then a right and hit another corridor. He was as familiar with the layout here as anyone.

The hall ended in a door. He opened it and stepped out onto the loading dock. There was no one there. And only one truck backed up to the dock, its overhead door open, revealing the trailer to be empty.

Decker skittered down a short stack of steps and his new, tight shoes hit asphalt. He turned left down an alley and emerged on the main street ten seconds later. He hung another right and then a left at the next intersection. There was a hotel there and a cabstand.

He told the lead cabbie, “Head north as far as five bucks will take me.”

The cab dropped him off a while later. He hoofed it to a bus stop, and two rides later he was back at the Residence Inn. As he stepped off the bus he noted there were two police cars parked out front and an official departmental car he knew had to belong to someone other than a street cop.

Well, shit.

Chapter 10

The only good thing, figured Decker, was that he hadn’t gotten the chance to retrieve his gun from the trash can along with his other clothes. Walking in armed to the situation that was probably awaiting him would not be smart. He could run for it, he supposed, but that was probably what they were expecting. And he didn’t like running. He just wasn’t built for it anymore.

So he loosened his tie, undid his top shirt button, let out a sigh of relief as his thick neck was freed from this glorified noose, and walked into the lobby of the Residence Inn. There he was immediately surrounded by four police officers.

Decker studied them calmly. “With what’s going down at Mansfield I didn’t think you’d be able to spare the manpower.”

“Cut the shit, Decker,” said a familiar voice.

Decker slid his gaze to the side. “Hello, Mac.”

“That’s Captain Miller to you.”

“I’m no longer on the force.”

“Show some respect or you might be in a jail cell before I’m done with you.”

MacKenzie Miller was in his late fifties, puffy as a bullfrog and with similar coloring. He was as wide as he was tall, Decker in miniature. He was dressed in a suit, and when his coat moved open as Miller strode across the lobby, Decker could see the ubiquitous braces that held up the man’s pants, though his substantial waistline, like Decker’s, did that job fine all by itself.

“And why would that be?”

Miller gave him a patronizing look and then snapped, “Brimmer!”

An embarrassed-looking Sally Brimmer hurried over from where she had been standing next to a fake ficus plant with a thick coating of dust on the leaves.

“Is this the man, Ms. Brimmer?”

“That is undoubtedly him, sir,” she said quickly, narrowing her eyes and giving Decker a venomous look.