Page 186 of Two Marlboros

In fact, I had a trick up my sleeve. It was the normal procedure in cases like that, although I would have preferred a spontaneous statement. I might as well have tried.

“You could become our informant, Ryan. You would have your sentence related to the drug dealing offense cancelled. You would only have to serve the robbery one. Think about it.”

He planted his gaze in mine. His expression was firm, perhaps pondering my proposal. He barely lifted his chin, as if looking for the catch, but in fact it was an established practice for those who chose to become informants. Someone like Ryan on our side would enable us to break up the gang in no time. He, however, lowered his chin and defenses again, then shook his head. He had refused.

Many small-time drug dealers had often accepted that compromise, because surely what bound them to their pushers was not loyalty. The only one they had was loyalty to the stuff, and they followed it wherever it went, changing dealers like one changes underwear. So, if talking involved saving their own skin, why not? Most of the time they managed to get a place in the recovery communities, and that was enough to have gained on both sides. But Ash, who up to that point had intervened only to antagonize Ryan, began the talk in rather quiet ways.

“Dear Mr. Goldwin, I would like to make one thing clear.”

He shifted his gaze immediately to my colleague but waited before responding.

“There are strong indications against your friend Nathan Hayworth.”

Ryan’s eyes went wide. “What? That’s not possible!”

“It is possible. Now, if you won’t do it for your own sake, at least do it for Nathan. He’s facing several heavy charges, such as drug dealing, robbery, illegal drug possession,so on and so forth.”

He looked at him with wide eyes, not shifting his gaze from Ashton, perhaps because he was afraid of missing some information. I was certain of one thing at that moment, though: my colleague had found that boy’s raw nerve.

“...And I would also include ‘misdirection’ in the list of charges,” I then added.

“What? Why?”

I thought, with an ounce of satisfaction, that my sentence had had just the desired effect. Ryan was warming up, and I could only be pleased, because he would have checked his answers much less.

“Let’s say he may have artfully edited some details to pass as a victim in the situation, such as posing as a witness to the robbery when he was actually an accomplice or hiding those notes in his mailbox or the phone under his own couch,” I continued.

Ash looked at me petrified, perhaps because I was supporting that assumption of his that I had always rejected - although it was a fiction - or perhaps because I had revealed to Ryan a number of details that were supposed to remain private, but which I had played out with a definite purpose in mind.

“No, no, nothing is true. Nathan didn’t do any of this. If anything, they were his ideas...”

He paused soon after, but as I suspected Ryan had not shown the slightest surprise in the facts I had listed, a sign that he knew them. It was a big step forward and corroborated the idea of planning, but I felt I could do more.

“‘His’ whose?” I pressed him, somewhere between excitement and fear.

Ryan lowered his gaze, and his furrowed brows gave me the idea that he was thinking. He brought his fingers to his mouth and began nibbling on his thumbnail, nibbling on that one first and moving on to the cuticles at the base later. I would have paidgold to know what was stirring in his thoughts, but I had to settle for my guesses.

“Ryan?” I called out to him, but he gave no sign that he was listening.

The boy loved Nathan, and I was pretty sure he did, too. He would never have agreed to send a friend to jail because of his cowardice. And at that moment the words I had read in a book came back to me, a little confused: while it’s true that drugs screw up your brain, what they leave you with is a kind of affection for those who have been a part of your life.

And it was with that sentiment that Ryan stopped torturing his fingers and uttered the words that relieved me of a burden I could no longer ignore.

“He’s going to run off to Mexico. Not Nathan, of course. I’m talking about Waitch. W-H. Walker Harvey, or just Harvey to his friends. And this plan is all his doing...”

35

Thawing

(?Elton John - Sorry seems to be the hardest word)

A sound of distant footsteps woke me up. I opened my eyes wide and found my brother’s forehead in front of me. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was and what I was doing there. It came back to me how I had ended up in what had been my home for so many years, in that bed too small for two people but too big for a crying little brother. Jimmy was sleeping in the fetal position leaning against my body, his finger in his mouth and the blanket clutched between his little fists. His face was lit by a streak of sunlight, a sign that it must have been late morning by now. I barely pulled away just to look at him from further away, and that vision could only melt my heart. I had a tough little brother, who at only five years old was putting up with two parents in perpetual quarrel and a brother who couldn’t love him the way he should have - although I was working on that last point.

The smile on my face was wiped away the next moment, when from downstairs I heard an all too familiar voice.

My father.

Shit. I had fallen asleep.

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