Cash Burn by Michael Berrier

lose it all. The job, the wife, the house. You’d have nothing. Then you really would be like me.”
    He shoved Jason’s face into the carpet and walked out.

18
    In his Explorer, Tom Cole adjusted the seat. The churn of the motor vibrated like a massage, reclining, reclining. He relaxed his neck so his head was against the headrest. He had to adjust his position every hour or so anyway, or surveillance would turn into torture.
    With his head back, he caught in the window’s reflection a blurred image of his mustache, like a ghostly hedge. He reached up and ran his palm down the whiskers, pulling down on the skin around his mouth. His eyes were so tired, they felt like he was stretching them.
    A couple walked quickly past the building. They found their car, and the man hustled his date into the passenger side and stepped around the front end as if he’d stolen something. But they were probably just nervous about the neighborhood. They should be, with Flip living here.
    Without taking his eyes from the entrance, Tom worked his radio to find a better station. He found an oldie. Chicago’s horns and Terry Kath’s vocals beat out “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” and Tom sang along softly.
    The readout on his radio told him another twenty minutes had passed. He opened his cell phone and redialed Flip’s number. Six rings, seven, eight. He let it go on.
    Eleven twenty-two and still not home.
    A Jethro Tull song came on. This station was deep into the ’70’s. What was the name of this one? Tom knew the words before Ian Anderson toned them out. Here was the title. “Living in the Past.”
    He tried Flip’s phone number again.
    A solitary pedestrian, hunched and with his hands buried in the pockets of his steel-colored jeans, skulked up the sidewalk past Tom’s Explorer. The cigarette poking out of the corner of his mouth dripped a gray worm of ashes down the front of his T-shirt.
    Tom disconnected from the incessant ringing of the phone.
    Eleven twenty-five.
    In the side mirror, he watched the domed back of the man receding down the sidewalk.
    Commercials drove him away from the radio station. He scanned through the channels but found only classical, rap, and a religious station.
    He clicked off the noise.
    Eleven forty.
    Redial.
    Three rings, four.
    A click and rustle. “Yeah.” The voice came through the lines with the texture of a shovel in rocks.
    “Where’ve you been?”
    Flip must have been holding the handset against a gaping mouth. His breath was a tornado through the receiver. “What are you calling me for?”
    “I’m coming up.” Tom shut the cell phone before Flip could answer. He slipped the keys from the ignition and was out of the car and across the street. He buzzed Flip’s room.
    He buzzed five times before the door clicked open. He struggled up the stairs.
    Flip leaned in the open doorway to his apartment. He wore a sweatshirt that bore a paisley-shaped brown stain. Wrinkles were pressed into the shirt and pants in vertical and diagonal crossing patterns without connection to the angles of his joints.
    He’d just changed clothes.
    “You’re working late, Officer.” Flip’s forehead gleamed dully with dried sweat.
    “Where’ve you been, Flip?”
    “I’ve been home. Why?”
    “No, you haven’t been home. I’ve been calling every twenty minutes for two hours.”
    “Oh, was that you? If I knew it was you, I would’ve answered. For sure. I figured it was a telemarketer.”
    The smirk made Tom want to plant the nose of his Glock against Flip’s temple. “I don’t buy that for a second. Where have you been?”
    “I’m starting to get the feeling you don’t trust me.”
    Tom snorted. “You’re getting that feeling. All right. Let me ask you something. What were you doing in that house?”
    Flip straightened away from the jamb, and his arms uncrossed.
    We’ve got something here.
    “House?” The word belonged to a sentence Flip seemed unable to mouth.
    “Yeah.