“Jesus,” said Bob. “You’re not only the superintendent, you’re a psychologist too. Or is that just stuff they teach you in leadership courses?”
Bob saw Walker’s jaw muscles tighten. “I mean it, Oz. Take it easy. Free yourself. Move on.”
“On where?” Bob said loudly as he blinked away tears of rage. If there was an answer he never heard it, he’d already left the office without closing the door behind him. He headed straight for the elevator, punched the button and waited. Turned, walked back through the office, registered that Hanson and Kjos weren’t at their desks. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out an old ID card he had reported as lost to the MDP, only to get a phone call two weeks later from a brunette in Near North who told him he’d left it behind in her apartment after using it to cut cocaine. She’d returned it to him in the mail, and he’d hung on to it without telling anyone, on the principle that you never know.
Bob took a last look at his place of work.
Was there anything else here he might be needing?
His gaze took in the notes tacked to his cubicle wall.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
He hurried back to the elevator, changed his mind, retraced his steps and pulled out the tack holding the Vikings schedule.
He reached the elevator just in time to see the doors sliding shut.
He felt a strange impulse to laugh as he slowly trudged down the stairs.
Exiting into the square in front of city hall he stopped, breathed in deeply, closed his eyes and summed things up. He was a man with no woman, no job and no car. In other words, he was finished. He tried to think. Then he headed off in the direction of the bank.
—
The Minneapolis impound lot was located at the roughest end of Colfax Avenue, with scrap-metal dealers and used-car sales as its neighbors. Stella Cibulkova sat in the booth and checked the ID the man in the orange coat had just shown her.
She looked back at the computer screen where she’d typed in the number.
“You are aware that $2,300 is owed on this vehicle, Mr. Oz?”
“I confess I didn’t realize it was quite so much.”
“That’s not just the unpaid parking fines. It also includes reminder fees and the cost of keeping the car here for the past four weeks. This isn’t a parking lot.”
“I know, but it’s expensive, isn’t it? Love your earrings, by the way.”
Stella looked up. The man smiled. She didn’t smile. She rarely did at work. It didn’t pay.
“If you want to take the car you have to settle up first.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Stella.”
Nor did she like the fact that they had to wear these name tags, as if she was a waitress in some restaurant.
“You can transfer—”
“You take cash, Stella?”
“Er, yes. In principle.”
The man produced a wad of bills and began to lay them on the counter.
“I swear by paper, see. The paperless society, that isn’t for me. The paperless marriage, for example. No, there’s no obligation there, Stella. Too easy to just run from it all.”
The notes looked smooth and as if freshly ironed, as if they came straight from the bank. As he peeled off the fifty-dollar bills and laid them down he counted them in a loud, steady voice. There was something about his voice, a wounded sensitivity that made her feel as though it was the last of his money he was laying down in front of her.
“Two thousand three hundred,” he announced finally as he looked down at the few notes that were left in his hand. Peeled off one last one and held it out to her with a broad smile.
“And this one is for you, Stella.”
