Episode 23 · The Guarantee

Serren’s hands rested on his knees. His refusal had been calm, as though he had already considered what it would cost.

Krista spoke before Soles could.

— When did you last see Kerr?

— Eight days ago, Serren said.

Soles felt his chest tighten.

— Here?

— At my home. In the evening, unannounced. He had a bruise on his face and his right hand was wrapped. He asked me for money.

His right hand. Soles remembered the arm he had caught against the truck door. He had been too frightened of the pistol to notice what the impact had done.

— Did you give him any?

— No.

— Why?

— Because my guarantee covered a debt to the garden. It did not cover a man leaving the city at night.

— He told you he was leaving?

— He told me he had to leave. That someone was looking for him.

Serren looked at Soles without hiding what he had understood.

— He did not tell me who. I assume I know now.

A door sounded in the corridor. Soles recorded the date on his phone. Krista waited for him to finish.

— Did you tell the investigator this? she asked.

— Until today, I had nothing to tell him. A club member asking for money is not a crime.

— Now you do.

Serren put his palm on the folder.

— If you take the copy, I’ll call the investigator myself today. My name is on it; I want him to hear it from me before he asks the committee office for it.

Krista drew the ledger reference closer.

— Call him, Soles said.

Soles leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. His ribs stabbed, but he did not sit back.

— Where did he live?

— I don’t know. The address in his admission file belongs to the company. The company closed a year ago.

— And where did he go when he wasn’t here?

— I never asked. He was not the sort of man you asked questions you would not ask in front of other people.

Soles added Kerr’s visit and his injured hand to the note on his phone. The man who had asked Serren to vouch for him was still unnamed.

When he looked up, Serren was watching him.

— Mr. Soles.

— Yes.

— I’m sorry about your parents.

Soles waited for an explanation or a qualification. The sympathy was all Serren offered. That made it easier to believe.

— Thank you.

— One more thing.

Serren opened the folder and handed its only sheet to Krista.

— The appendix. My copy. The committee office has the original.

Krista took it with both hands. Soles leaned toward her. The text was only a few typed lines, with one signature at the bottom and another beside it, smaller and more slanted. The amount of the debt. The term, one year. Serren’s name beside the word guarantor. And, on a separate line, a condition Soles read twice:

The member shall not, for the duration of the guarantee, accept assignments from persons outside the club without the guarantor’s knowledge.

— He broke it, Krista said quietly.

— I don’t know, Serren replied. He never told me about any assignment. Maybe that means there wasn’t one. Maybe it means he didn’t tell me.

— Why are you giving it to us? Soles asked.

Serren closed the empty folder.

— Because you came with the right question, even if you asked it badly at first.

He stood. Krista stood as well. Soles did so more slowly, one hand on the arm of the chair, and this time there was nothing beneath his palm but velvet.

At the door, Serren stopped.

— If you find him before I do, he said, tell him my guarantee is over.

The young man led them downstairs. Krista put the appendix in her paper folder and waited until they were outside to speak.

— I have to tell the archivist, she said then. That I have the copy.

— Why?

— Because I still have to work with these people after you leave.

Soles nodded. He remembered her condition at the table and added nothing.

— You did well starting the conversation, he said after a few steps.

— You started it. I just arrived first.

— I got the “explain it to me” part wrong.

— Yes. But you fixed it quickly.

On the path, the sprinklers had started again. Soles took out his phone.

We’re coming out. Same way we went in.

Maxim’s reply came almost immediately.

I see you. Walk slowly—you’ve got your hand on your chest like you stole something.

His bandaged hand was pressed against his breast pocket, where the sheet of questions was. He had not noticed. He let it drop to his side and walked on beside Krista to the gate.

Maxim was waiting for them at the corner, the engine running and the window halfway down. When he saw them approaching, he leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door from inside.

Krista stopped on the sidewalk.

— I’m going back, she said. The archivist is still there.

— Now? Soles asked.

— Now. If he hears from someone else that I have the copy, it won’t matter that I told him too.

She opened the folder and held the appendix out to Soles.

— Take a picture. Send it to the investigator. I’ll explain to the archivist where it came from before we ask him for anything else.

Soles photographed the page twice, the second time closer so the signatures were clear. He handed the folder back. Krista closed it, tucked it under her arm, and looked at him for a moment, then at Maxim.

— Don’t let him do anything tonight.

— Him? Maxim said. Have I ever let him?

Krista smiled, waved to Soles, and headed back into the garden. He got into the truck.

— Well? Maxim asked.

Soles told him everything he had learned, from the mask under the glass to the bandaged right hand. He read him the condition in the appendix from his phone screen, word for word.

Maxim did not put the truck in gear until he was finished.

— The right hand, he repeated.

— His arm hit the truck door. I don’t know how badly. We know he still had the pistol when he ran.

— So you cost him something.

Soles looked at his own bandaged hand and tried to picture Kerr’s bound the same way.

— And he asked Serren for money, Maxim continued. A man he had no guarantee would give him any. Means there was no one else he could go to.

— Or the others didn’t want to see him anymore.

— Same thing.