Thirteen Million Dollar Pop Read Free Page B

workout. He didn’t mind it. He didn’t have a problem with anything that reminded him he wasn’t dead right about now.
    He looked down at the morning paper to find they had the story. But they’d missed most of the details due to how late the deal had gone down. No names of the players were mentioned, just that two men had been fired upon in a downtown parking garage, that the shooter or shooters had gotten away, that no one had been killed.
    Susan entered the kitchen and looked at him, noticing his shirt and tie, and the suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair.
    “You’re going in to the office?” she asked, surprised.
    “Yeah, sure,” he said. “What else am I gonna do?”
    “No workout today?” she wondered. Almost every morning around 5:30 or so he’d be at it—running or weights, various other types of strength training, hitting the heavy bag or rolling Brazilian jujitsu. Not today though. After last night, there was something about it that seemed superfluous.
    “I took a holiday on account of being alive,” he said, smiling, trying to sound light.
    “Seems like a good reason,” she said, going to get a mug for the one cup of coffee a day her obstetrician allowed. “I didn’t even hear you get up. I’m sleeping like someone dropped a cinder block on my head these days.” Susan was complaining a lot about how tired she was, which was unusual for her—both the complaining and the fatigue. Her customary state was one of vivacious energy. “Have I mentioned that being pregnant isn’t much fun?”
    “You might’ve, once or twice,” he said. “A couple more weeks, then it’s lounging around and bonbon time,” he said, alluding to the start of her upcoming maternity leave.
    “Yeah, I’ve heard newborns are easy,” she said. “You want to go look at that place over on Guilford after work?” They’d given up Susan’s apartment three months back. It was nicer than his but small, while his had the extra bedroom that, though currently serving as a storage space, could be set up for the baby. But since his steady Caro money had been rolling in, they’d been seriously considering moving somewhere nicer. There were some new town houses over in Broad Ripple that would be a clean, fresh place to raise a child.
    “Sure,” he said, “shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let you know if they’re going to keep me late.”

5
    Morning had stolen in like a secret, and the big house was still and empty and quiet around Lowell Gantcher. Nancy and the kids were away in lake country for the month and he wasn’t doing well alone. He’d spent the night checking the paper’s Web page every minute for updates and had quickly begun to feel like he was playing the starring role in an unfolding nightmare. At first there’d been no information. Then there’d been a brief bulletin at around 4:30 A.M . He had kept checking incessantly, waiting for further details, but they didn’t come. The starkly worded initial report was all there was for hours.
    He’d taken to pacing around the house. Ten thousand square feet of living space, plus three thousand more in the finished basement that included screening, workout, and poker rooms, probably was a bit much. It hadn’t seemed so when he and Nancy had been buying it and tricking it out, but it was a real bull market house. That was only two and a half, three years ago, but it seemed a lot longer. Hell, they hadn’t even gotten the place fully furnished yet.
    He sat in the study, which was dark and silent, and wrapped in oak paneling. The only light in the room was the early sunlight bleeding through the closed slats of the horizontal blinds, which were also made of oak. This room was furnished. It was done up to the nines. His hands rested on a massive mahogany partners desk. There were matching leather couches and armchairs in alustrous tobacco color, silver frames and leather-bound books on the shelves around a wet bar. Over the marble fireplace hung a