Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [17]
“That won’t work for me. How about later Sunday afternoon, four or five?”
“Five would be okay.”
Decker handed the boy his card. “If you get hung up, call this number. Where’s the memorial?”
“First Presbyterian on Tanner Road.”
“I’ll stop by.” Decker scribbled something down on his notepad. “Here.” He handed the boy a piece of paper. “This is for the taillight if you get pulled over again. It says I let you go with a warning and you’re going to get it fixed over the weekend.”
“Thank you, sir.” The teen looked at Decker, but didn’t say anything.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Um . . . did you really just happen to know my name or were you, like, following me or something?”
“Your taillight is broken, Joey.” Decker smiled. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Chapter Six
From the backseat of a cab that reeked of tobacco, Gabe texted her at 1:23 in the afternoon.
I’m here.
A minute later, Yasmine texted back: running a few minutes L8. B there soon.
A few minutes stretched to five minutes. Compulsive and punctual, Gabe was particularly antsy when waiting.
As a young child, he was always waiting: for his mom to finish up at her school, for her to finish her homework, for her to cook for him, for her to read to him, for her to tuck him into bed. Mom was always busy, busy, busy.
The five minutes turned to ten, then to fifteen. At 1:45, he texted Yasmine again.
It’s getting L8.
sorry. B right there.
It was only in retrospect that he realized how hard his mother had been working. Every spare minute of her time was taken up with her education or making ends meet. He never knew when she actually slept because she was always up before he was and went to bed after him. When he was a preschooler, they lived in a shithole studio apartment in Chicago with minimal heating in the winter. He distinctly remembered being smothered under a pile of blankets while he slept. He hated the weight. It made him feel like somebody was on top of him. But as soon as he took off one or two blankets, he was freezing. He could vaguely remember the warmth of his mother’s body, sliding into their shared bed, all of it in a fog of childhood and sleepiness.
It wasn’t until he was around five that Chris came into the picture.
No matter how he now felt about his dad, Gabe felt gratitude for Chris’s intervention. As soon as he came on the scene, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment and life became livable. They not only had more food, they had better food—chicken, fruit and vegetables, and even cookies—a far cry from his previous diet of milk, white bread, peanut butter, and macaroni.
In the back of his mind, he remembered eating a lot of noodles before then. Sometimes he’d eat noodles for days. Most of the time, Mom joined him, but there were times where she fed him and just watched him eat. He realized even at the age of two or three that Mom wasn’t eating with him. He remembered thinking that maybe she was hungry and he should share. But he was so hungry himself. And before he knew it, he had eaten up his entire bowl and drank all of his milk. And his mom would kiss his head and tell him he was a good boy. And those nights, he never saw her eat anything except drink coffee.
He sighed.
After disappearing from his life for almost an entire year, she had reached out to him. And he had blown her off. He suddenly felt ashamed, and when he felt guilty, he became moody.
Where the hell was the little girl? This was a bad idea. He became even tenser.
After Chris appeared, they never went hungry again. They had heat, they had air-conditioning, and he had the greatest luxury of them all—a piano.
Chris had taken him to Paris six weeks ago for New Year’s. Being with his dad was always like being with a powder keg with a very long lit fuse. It would eventually go off, but you never knew when. Gabe had been polite and quiet and for once, his dad decided to behave himself. The two of them actually had a pleasant time.
Not that they were around each other all that much. Chris