Page 4 of Into the Fire

“Dead serious.”

Max swallowed dryly and said, “Whose number is it?”

“A reporter at the L.A. Times. Don’t trust this to anyone but her. Promise me.”

“What’s up with you, Grant?”

Grant laughed. “Nothing. Nothing’s gonna happen to me. Look, I deal with some heavy hitters. And I’ve taken down my share of shady characters. I just want to make sure I have…” He paused, no doubt selecting his next word with that legendary exactitude. “Insurance. In case one day I kick over the wrong rock. It’s not the kind of thing you’d come across in your…” Another exactitudinous pause. “Line of work. But as you said, you’ve seen stuff like this before in the movies.”

In the movies, Max thought, this shit always worked out. The hero prepares his in-the-event-of-my-death file to disincentivize anyone from whacking him in a dark alley. Then he wades brashly into the conspiracy and outs the bad guys, saving the day. And no one has to waste a single thought on the schmuck holding the insurance envelope.

But this wasn’t the movies, and if Max had learned one thing from real life, it was that it didn’t go as well as cinematic bullshit.

He looked down at the holes worn through the knees of his jeans, sawdust still caught in the white harp strings of denim. “I don’t know, man. This cloak-and-dagger stuff isn’t really my thing.”

“Come on, Max,” Grant said, like he was talking to a kid or a dense customer-service specialist. “For once in your life, maybe step up, shoulder some responsibility.”

A stiletto to the gut. It took Max a few seconds to breathe again. He kept his eyes lowered, not wanting to let Grant see how devastatingly effective his neat little salvo had been. He imagined that Grant had rehearsed it a time or two in the mirror at his health club.

Max studied his hands. “What about Jill?”

“My wife’s not exactly a safe distance removed from me. Or my family. The thing with you is, no one will ever know. I mean, no one would ever think of you.”

Max said, “Right.”

“You know what I mean. Now, please, Max.” Grant considered his Breitling. “I have to get back to the office. Can I count on you?”

Max picked at a ragged edge of thumbnail where he’d nicked it in a band saw. Without looking up, he held out his hand. “I promise.”

“Great. Thanks so much.” Grant almost seemed sincere. “Thanks, Mighty Max.”

That brought him back. Five years old at a family picnic at Point Dume, and Max had built the tallest sandcastle. Then he’d Godzilla-stomped his way through it, and everyone had laughed and pointed, even his old man, and Grant had bestowed on him the nickname. A brief, shining moment when he’d been the pride of the Merriweathers.

Grant stepped forward and slapped the stiff canary-yellow envelope into Max’s palm. Something jangled inside, small but solid.

A waft of expensive cologne and Grant was gone.

Nothing’s gonna happen to me.

Parked at the curb now, Max recalled how long he’d sat there holding the envelope. How he’d duct-taped it behind his toilet tank before leaving to line up with the hardworking Hispanic day laborers outside Home Depot, hoping to be picked.

He pulled out his clamshell phone and read the last text exchange once again in case it had magically rewritten itself in the past fifteen minutes.

ME: HOW’D HE DIE?

DAD: GUESS HE WAS SHOT. PROB’LY ONE OF THE BAD GUYS HE HAD UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS. A DAMN SHAME. ALWAYS THE GOOD ONES WHO GO YOUNG.

Pocketing the phone, Max started to climb out of his truck, but then he looked up and halted on all fours on the passenger seat. Up on the second floor of his building, the perennially unshaven and surnameless Mr. Omar had just emerged from his apartment to head to Max’s place next door. He shuffled through the jaundiced beams thrown from the outdoor hallway’s overhead lights. When he reached Max’s door, he knocked with considerable force.

“Max, Max, Max. You’re late again. Max? I can hear you in there. Don’t make me keep being a bother, my friend. I have more important matters to handle, believe me.”

Mr. Omar rapped a few more times, sighed audibly, and returned to his apartment. Through the big front window, Max watched him settle back into his Barcalounger, bathed in the aquarium light of his television.

Tomorrow’s shift would put Max over the top for this month’s rent—he’d beeline straight from work to Mr. Omar and settle up then.

Crawling from the truck, he closed the door as quietly as he could manage. Rather than risk the stairs and walk past Mr. Omar’s window, he headed for the telephone pole at the edge of the building. Convenient U-shaped steps studded the pole.

Up he went, getting one foot on the convenient gutter ledge, and then in through the bathroom window he kept unlocked for moments like this.