Inside Passage. Burt Weissbourd

okay there?”

      “No problems I know of.” What was happening?

      “Good. Find Billy. It’s important.”

      “I’ll call you.” She broke the connection, tense.

      Corey put down her coffee mug and hurried into her jacket. It would be windy on the ferry deck. She tried his cell phone again. Maybe he had turned it off or thrown it away. Near the sink, she found two Pepcid for her churning stomach.

      She was zipping up her windbreaker when the picture window behind her exploded into her living room. She threw herself face down on the floor amid shards of broken glass. When she looked up, she saw Lester leaning through her broken window. The lizard bastard had smashed it with the heavy brass handle of his cane.

      “Cat got your tongue?” he asked. When she didn’t answer him, he offered, “goddamned cat must have gone right through your cheap, plate-glass window.” Lester made a throaty sound, then he went around and opened the front door. Once inside, he took oversized photos from a large manila envelope and set them on her table. She rose warily to one knee, carefully sweeping aside broken glass. “Your kid’s fucked,” he said, oblivious to her glare.

      She stood warily, eyeing this maniac as she slowly walked toward the table. On her table he had spread out pictures of Billy: with an older boy at his stash; with a baggie; dividing it up; putting the smaller baggies in envelopes; Billy and his girlfriend smoking a joint in a car; Billy and his friends getting stoned in some backyard.

      She stared at the pictures: one, then another. She went for them.

      The brass handle of the cane almost took her fingers off.

      Corey faced him. “Are you crazy?” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Why in hell are you here?”

      “Off the radar screen.”

      “I am off the radar screen.”

      “Out of the country. Tomorrow.”

      What? “Out of the country?”

      Lester tapped his cane on the floor, impatient.

      “And if I don’t?”

      “Billy does his time. Felony drug time. Runs in your sorry family.”

      They knew just what button to push to make her jump out of her skin. “If you ever do that, I’ll tell about you and Nick—”

      “If you told your lies—” Lester stepped closer, and she felt the cane, hard, against the back of her knees. She buckled, stifling a scream. “If you ever did that—” He looked down at her. His watery eyes were dead. “First, we would explain that you were a pathological liar. A lying convicted felon with no evidence.” He leaned in, looming over her. “Then, sometime later—maybe a week, maybe a year—Billy would become invisible, like his dad.”

      She was underwater. No, it was a black viscous liquid, like oil. Corey closed her eyes until she could breathe again. Then she stood, facing him. “Why are you doing this to us now? Why can’t you just leave us alone? I keep to myself. I haven’t said word one.”

      “You’re a thorn.” He stepped closer, his breath warm on her face. “If you’re gone, I can pretend you’re dead.”

      Okay, Lester was a troll who liked swinging cats around by their tails. But Nick had sent him here. Was Nick just trying to frighten her? “You think you can threaten me anytime, and I’ll just do whatever you say?”

      “Yeah, I think that.”

      She let it go. This was scaring her. “What about Billy?”

      “He’s the carrot and the stick. If you follow the program then he follows you. When I’m satisfied. Say a month from now. That’s lucky seven for a whipped bitch like you.”

      Corey closed her eyes, then opened them. “And if he won’t go?”

      Lester made his churlish throaty sound. “We want him to go, he goes.”

      What had she done? Why was this happening? All she could think to do was find Billy. “Before I leave, I have to see him.”

      Lester wrote an address on the back of a picture, then handed it to her. “Nick’s got a guy at the county prosecutor’s office.” He had her full attention. “If you’re not gone tonight,” he waved a gloved hand over the photos, “Billy’s arrested before noon. At school.” Lester’s lips turned up, let’s drown the cat. “One more thing. Dick Jensen is expecting you this morning at 10:00 a.m. He’s heard you have consorted with known offenders. He’s heard you left the jurisdiction without permission. He says you missed a meeting. He asked me if you have a firearm. I said I’d let him know. These are all violations.”

      As always, Lester had saved the worst for last. He was telling her he owned her probation officer, and Jensen could send her back to jail. Jensen had surely called Sally to say that she wasn’t complying with the terms of her release. She wanted to scratch out Lester’s watery, raisin eyes. When she didn’t, Corey felt the blackness coming on. She fought back. “Goddamn you,” she hissed. “You’re—”

      He ignored her. “Like I said, this is a sweet deal for you. You get to be with your son. If it was up to me, I’d see the both of you back in jail.” Lester buttoned his threadbare suit and muttered, mostly to himself. “Up to me, I’d unleash the fucking dogs of war.”

      Her probation officer had a desk in a corner office. Corey waited on a chair in the hall. She watched him talking on the phone. Dick Jensen was at least sixty and round-faced. Even on the phone he had these ways of asserting himself when he didn’t need to.

      She was surprised when he came out of his office and motioned her to follow him. It was a little two-fingered summons. “Where’d you park?” he asked over his shoulder.

      “The lot in back.”

      They went down the stairs to the parking lot. “Which is your car?”

      She pointed out the black pickup.

      “Keys?” He held out his hand.

      “Why?”

      “Vehicle search.”

      “Fine.” She set the keys in his palm and watched him open her truck.

      He checked the back, under the seats, then the glove compartment. She was right there, making sure he didn’t plant anything. That’s when she saw him pull an ID card she had never seen from her glove compartment. He hadn’t put it there either. No, damnit, Lester had. This morning. Jensen showed it to her. It had her picture, but the name was Marsha Dunston. She didn’t recognize the address.

      “Where’d you get this?” he asked.

      She was trying to stay calm. False ID was a violation of the terms of her probation. “I’ve never seen this in my life. Never.”

      “Be careful what you say. You’re in enough trouble already.”

      “What trouble?”

      “You missed a meeting.” He opened his pocket calendar to show her an apparent appointment, circled in red.

      “How did they get to you?” she asked.

      “I beg your pardon, lady?”

      “Lester Burell planted that fake ID. You know him? Big guy with a cane. And I didn’t know anything about any meeting.” She sighed. This wasn’t working. His face was getting red. “Just get it over with.”

      “No problem. You’re not complying with the terms of your probation.” He turned and gave her another two-fingered summons, then walked back toward his corner office.

      Abe had been treating Nan Larsen, a real estate agent, for almost a year. She suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, which often made her irritable. Today, she was carrying a large bag. She opened