Page 40 of Fluffed and Folded

“Asher, man,” Anthony said. “Asher.”

“Dude,” Dex agreed in the same tone.

Tristan and Josie waited to see if that would lead to more. It did not. The two men stared into space, two different directions. “Yes, Asher,” Josie prompted. “Did you know him?”

“I don’t think anyone really knew Asher,” Anthony said.

“I went to a game with him once,” Dex added, surprising everyone.

“Really?” Anthony said, and did he sound a little envious?

“Yeah, it was weird,” Dex said.

Josie tossed Tristan a helpless look. Now that the conversation had turned to sports, she was over her head. “Weird how?” Tristan asked.

“We’d barely spoken two words before, then one night he knocks on my door, says he scored tickets to a game, and did I want to go. I thought maybe he was having some kind of latent loneliness, wanting a bonding experience, also free tickets, you know? I said sure. Obviously I figured they were the cheap seats and maybe I would score a couple of hot dogs, have a budget night. But we get there, and it was some of the most exclusive seats in the park. I’m talking we were within breathing distance of the team’s owner.”

“How did he get the tickets?” Tristan asked.

“No idea,” Dex said. “I joked with him about having a secret connection, but he never spoke a word to another human in that place, me included. Just watched that game with a spooky sort of intensity.”

“He watched the game in silence?” Tristan confirmed.

Dex nodded. “At first the game was a skunk. I mean, we were losing bad. The Nationals’ year had been hit or miss, but I felt bad that the game he chose was one where they were losing so bad. So I made some comment, bad game or something. But Asher.” He paused and frowned. “He stared at the field and said, ‘They’re going to win this one.’”

“And did they?” Josie asked.

“Yeah,” Dex said, wonder in his tone. “They came back. It made the news, their comeback was so miraculous. They won huge.”

“What was Asher’s response?” Tristan asked.

“I thought he’d be pumped, or maybe even smug. But nope. Not a word. We stood up and left and never spoke again. I’m not into all that mysticism stuff, but I swear it was like he manifested that win by the power of his will. It was only baseball, but it was one of the weirdest nights of my life.”

“That gels with my image of Asher,” Anthony agreed. “At first he came across as casual and friendly, but once you got past that, he was pretty intense.”

“Intense with sports or other stuff?” Josie asked. To her it seemed impossible to be intense about something as inconsequential as sports, but others disagreed on that point.

“Just stuff,” Anthony said, shrugging. “Sometimes he’d be sort of friendly and chatty, but it could switch like that.” He snapped his fingers. “You’d be talking and comment on something stupid, like the weather, and he’d all of a sudden get serious and say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ like it was life and death or something. He was hard to figure.”

“He must have been rich, though. A car like that,” Tristan prodded.

“Yeah,” Anthony agreed, nodding. “But…” His face worked into a puzzled frown. “Also no. He wasn’t flashy, didn’t dress great, his apartment was nothing special, didn’t travel.”

“Then what made him seem rich? Maybe the car was a gift or something,” Tristan tried.

“I don’t know. I used to work as a caddy at a country club and you learn a lot about people who are actually rich, versus people who are trying to be rich. Asher acted a whole lot like the first kind. He had a sort of confidence that has to be earned. I don’t know how else to describe it, but he also didn’t seem rich. It was weird.”

“Yeah, weird,” Dex agreed. “I wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out he was in the mob or witness protection or something like that.”

“Did you ever see anyone you thought might be dangerous lurking around here, before the murder?” Tristan asked.

“Why? Are you afraid someone’s going to come to your apartment and finish you off?” Anthony asked, grinning stupidly.

“It never hurts to be prepared,” Tristan said. He tried to sound meek, something harder to accomplish when he was probably bigger than both of them put together.

Anthony laughed, as if the prospect of Tristan’s fear amused him. “So many people come and go from here. It’s hard to say who’s shady these days.”

“I heard Asher and our landlord had a thing,” Tristan tried, and that particular rumor caught the two men by surprise, if their shocked expressions were any indication.

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