The Fixer Read Online Free Page A

slammed the trunk closed.
    He looked around again, just to make sure no one had seen anything, and then he glimpsed a truck lumbering by with COSMOS SELF STORAGE painted on its side, and he had an idea.
    *   *   *
    Cosmos Self Storage was a tall boxy cinder block building on a short block of matching cinder block buildings off Fresh Pond rotary, a faceless row of automotive glass companies and plumbing supply firms. It looked freshly painted, bright yellow, like a Crayola box. He parked right in front and locked the BMW when he entered. Inside it was cavernous, warehouselike. The storage units were rows upon rows of converted industrial pallet racks. Sitting at a desk behind a window was a young guy with big eyelet piercings in each earlobe. He answered Rick’s questions in a tone that made it clear he’d rather be doing anything other than sitting in a box in a self-storage facility. He slid a clipboard through the slot.
    Ten minutes later, Rick had rented the smallest storage unit available. It was located on an upper level, like all the smallest units, reachable only by means of a rolling steel ladder.
    Motion-sensor lights came on as he went down the aisle looking for the locker. He found number 322 and pulled the ladder over to it, climbed to the top platform, and tried his key. The lock came open, but it took him a while to figure out how to open the roll-up steel door.
Calm down, man,
he told himself. He took a deep breath, then surveyed the space. The unit was maybe four feet wide by five feet high by six feet deep. More than enough space. Its interior was clean and dry.
    It would do just fine. An anonymous locker in a building where no one seemed to be paying much attention to anyone.
    He rolled a dolly out to the parking lot and unloaded the trunk.
    Ten minutes later he’d moved all six black trash bags into the storage unit. Even though there didn’t seem to be anyone else loading or retrieving stuff, no one here but the guy with the big holes in his earlobes, Rick still was careful not to open the bags until he was crouched down inside the unit. Not that he needed to. He just wanted to see if the money was still there, if it was still real. He resisted the urge to count it again. Looking around—the coast was clear—he reached into one of the bags and pulled out a few packets and slid them into the inside zippered pocket of his Mountain Hardwear down jacket. Then he grabbed more packets, stuffing one into each of the four pockets. His ski parka was now worth a hundred thousand dollars.
    A little spending money.
    When he was finished, he rolled down the steel door and locked the Master Lock and glanced around, his heart pounding, sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead. He tugged at the lock a few times to make sure it was secure.
    There was probably only one person who would know how the hell all that cash ended up in the house on Clayton Street, walled up in the crawl space. How it got there and what it was doing there.
    Only one person.
    And that guy—Rick’s dad—couldn’t speak.

4
    T he whiteboard sign mounted outside Leonard Hoffman’s room said, in big flowery purple letters:

    A sign like that hung outside every resident’s room at the Alfred Becker Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. It was meant to remind the nursing staff that their charges were real people with real families and lives, give them something to chat about.
    All the nurses and health care aides acted as if they liked Len a lot, probably because that was part of their job, to make visiting family members think that each Dad or Grandma was their very favorite. Which had a certain piquancy to it. Because if Leonard Hoffman did have the power of speech, they’d all love him for real.
    He’d had what people called an outsize personality. He was endearing, funny, corny. He loved women, flirted with them in a way that was flattering, that didn’t seem at all icky, especially coming from an older guy. Women were always