Page 51 of Into the Dark
I order a small tub of cookie dough and a lemonade and look about for a free seat somewhere. I spot a couple standing up to leave one of the tables outside, so I point to it, and the young Italian-sounding guy says to take a seat and he’ll bring out our order.
I prop Caleb up to my left and take out my phone to call Rachel. I spoke to her briefly on Sunday after I left Alex at the hotel, but I haven’t since. Whenever I feel guilty about leaving her to run the club completely, I remember I pay her an £80k salary to do exactly that.
“Hey, Jake,” she answers.
“All right, Rach. Anything doing?” Just then, the server puts the ice cream down in front of me and Cale, who starts to bounce excitedly in the seat.
“Not really. I had to come in today to meet the sound guys who wanted to do their sound check for Thursday. They’re bringing their own setup, but they wanted to test the space.”
“These are the Dutch guys?” I hook the phone between my head and shoulder and reach across to tuck Cale’s napkin into the neck of his T-shirt, pulling his chair closer to the table. Then I hand him the spoon.
“Yeah. They were cool. Seemed happy when they left.”
“Kev hasn’t been about, has he?” I lift my spoon and lick the ice cream off it.
“No, thank god. Whatever you said worked. I haven’t seen him since Thursday night,” she says. She sounds relieved.
My warning to Kev was met with an eyeball, some grunting, and a half-arsed promise not to take from the bar again. Then he stormed off only to come back an hour later with what he owed me. He dumped it on my desk in three rolls of a hundred. Interest included.
I haven’t seen him since. Neither has Dan. It should worry me. But I’ve got enough to worry about. He’ll be back when he needs something. Fred called me while I was in Sussex to ask if his disappearing act was down to me taking care of “my end.” Fuck knows why he’d think I’d keep that from him if I were involved. Maybe Fred’s trust in me is slipping. Which is something I can’t afford. Meaning I need find out where the fuck Kev is and do what I need to do.
After I hang up on Rachel I try Kev’s mobile again. It goes to voice mail.
“Kev, it’s me again. Where are you?” I scrub a hand over my face. “We have sh—stuff to do. Just call me back, yeah.”
As I throw my phone back onto the table Cale gives me a wide-eyed look, startled, ice cream dripping down his chin. I soften my face and smile at him.
“Is it good?” I ask.
He nods, looking back at his glass bowl of slowly melting ice cream. “Uh-huh. I want more.”
“Finish that first, mate.”
“Okay.” He nods, giggling as he tries to chew the ice cream.
“So, Cale, I wanted to talk to you about something, man to man.”
He stops chewing, gives me a confused look, and then looks back at his ice cream. “Man to man,” he says.
“Yeah. ’Cause you’re Daddy’s best friend. You know that, right?”
He looks confused again, his mouth turning up into a frown. He starts to shift uncomfortably on his chair, his shoulders lifting up as he looks down at his hands. “Best friend.”
“Yeah, you know what a best friend is?” I ask.
He nods again but still looks uncomfortable. “Louis is my best friend,” he blurts. He looks guilty about it.
“Louis?”
“Louis asked me to be his best friend, and I said yes,” he says. “So I can’t be your best friend because then Louis would be sad.”
I nod, trying to hide my smile. “I get it. Don’t worry. That’s okay, buddy. Louis is from nursery, right?” I ask, and he nods. “Well, we don’t want to make Louis sad, I guess. Maybe I can be your best friend at home, and he can be your best friend at nursery. You think that would be okay?”
He thinks about it for a ridiculous amount of time. “Okay then,” he says with a nod, sitting up and leaning his elbows on the table. “I’ll tell Louis that you’re my best friend too.”
“Well, only if you think it won’t make him upset.”
He looks concerned again. “Maybe I’ll keep it a secret.”