Always Say Goodbye

15

If the photograph of the girl was close to her reality, than Lilla Fair was not destined for beauty. She was thin, long dark hair over a smiling face, showing large teeth, round surprised eyes, and a night sky full of freckles. She looked more like Borg than she looked like her mother, but she really didn’t look that much like him either.

The bonus in the photograph was that a group of people in the background were standing with beer bottles in hand. Except for one, they weren’t paying attention to Lilla. The one looking at her was either Chet or Matt. The other twin was next to him in profile. He was hoisting a blur of a beer bottle toward his mouth.

The first thing Lew and Ames did when they got back to Sarasota was to make ten wallet-size machine copies of the photograph at Office Max on Bee Ridge. The second thing they did was walk to the end of the mall and have dinner at the nofrills home cooking restaurant that featured mini-burgers.

“Dinner’s on Borg,” Lew said when they were seated across from each other at a small booth.

Lew had three mini-burgers with cheese. Ames had a steak, salad and mushroom soup.

When they finished, Lew gave Ames five of the copies of the photo and made a list of places and the people they should give the photographs to. Ames looked at the list and then at Lew.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

The list consisted of people whose names Ames recognized.

“Let’s do it,” Lew agreed. “I’ll take you back to the Texas. Then we split up. Take the ones I marked.”

“Sure you want it that way?”

“I’m sure,” said Lew.

“Suit yourself,” said Ames.

“I’m glum.”

Matt Manteen made the pronouncement from the bed in Room Six of the Blue Gulf Motel on Tamiami Road. His cap was perched on his head, his hands folded over a pillow on his stomach. He had always slept or taken a nap with a pillow on his stomach. He didn’t know why, and no one had ever asked, so he didn’t have to think about it. Matt had heard someone say, in a movie or something, “I don’t think about what I don’t think about.” It was his protective motto when asked to give an opinion on almost anything.

Matt had lots of opinions, all of them donated willingly by his dead mother and his brother. He would have welcomed a few more from his father, but he had given up on that. His father, when he had seen him, mostly at the hog-dog, had given orders, not opinions. Now he and Chet were giving their father orders.

Couldn’t help it though. Matt was glum.

The shower was running behind the door about ten feet from the foot of the bed. A television on a table against the wall was on but mute. On the screen, an old man with big white teeth and toupee that didn’t match the color of what little hair he had left was holding up a white plastic thing like it was first-place prize in the county fair. He was looking right at Matt, talking, saying nothing.

“I’ll call him back in an hour,” said Chet, sitting in a chair, his feet propped up on the bed he would share with Matt again that night if they were still in Sarasota. Lilla, if she were still alive, would sleep on the couch again, which was fine with her. Matt kept looking at the old man on the television screen. To Chet, the old man seemed happy as shit.

Behind the closed door, Lilla wasn’t singing.

“What are we gonna do about Lilla’s medicine?” asked Matt.

“She’s got enough of the stuff for a couple of days.”

The pause was long.

“What if he won’t pay?” asked Matt.

Chet was the longer-term thinker of the Manteen brothers, which was not a fact that merited pride. Life for him was a checkers game he could handle only one move at a time. Matt couldn’t even play the game. It had nothing to do with intelligence. It was about concentration. When they were in grade school, every other day, as they had been ordered by their mother, they had taken the pills Dr. Winenholt had given her. Hadn’t helped. They were put in a “special” class. That didn’t help. They were as smart as some of the other kids who didn’t go special. The Manteen brothers just couldn’t think ahead. Same thing in high school. “Jumpy,” that’s what their mother had told the teachers and principals. “My boys are jumpy.”

“Remember, if he won’t pay, we kill her,” said Chet. “It’s what we said we’d do and we’ve got nothing much in the world but our word.”

Matt shook his head, clutched the pillow more tightly to his stomach and said, “Killing Lilla won’t get us the money to make it to Montana. What it’ll get us is we’re murderers with no money instead of being not murderers with no money.”

“What are you talking about?” Chet asked, sitting up.

“I don’t know,” said Matt.

The shower thundered on. Chet glanced at the bathroom. A thin fog of steam lazily wisped under door.

“We are murderers,” said Chet.

“No,” said Matt, sitting up and pointing a finger at his brother, pillow still on his lap. “We killed two people. We did not murder them. We did not.”

“You shot the guy from Williston,” Chet said with weary exasperation. “The guy who won the money at the hog-dog, remember?”

“That,” said Matt emphatically, “was not murder. That was a necessity. We were broke. When good old Papa Borg closed the show, we were broke. I’m telling you something you already know here.”

“And Miss Theodora in the toilet at the All-Naked Girls Live?” asked Chet. “You shot her.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t. I did it right there in front of you and I’m saying I killed her, but it was not murder. It was a survival necessity. The difference seems to be a little too subtle for you,” Matt said. “Checkmate. That’s what they say in chess when you know you’ve got the game won and I’ve got this argument won. We are not murderers.”

“You don’t know how to play chess,” said Chet. “You can’t even play checkers.”

“I can,” Matt insisted. “I just don’t play it very good.”

They had agreed on one thing this time. They hadn’t really kidnapped Lilla. They had known her all her life, liked her. Damn, they shared the same father. The problem, Chet thought, was that there hadn’t been a plan here. Matt counted on Chet and Chet counted on their mother and their mother was dead. They had left Kane for good, a few things in the car trunk. They had stopped at Lilla’s house, asked if she wanted to go for a ride and a frozen Snickers or boiled peanuts. Lilla had said “sure” and climbed in the backseat. Lilla’s mom hadn’t objected.

When they had stopped at the gas station at the edge of town to put in ten dollars of gas, Lilla, singing, had gone into the bathroom. That was when Chet told him that they were going to hold Lilla for ransom. It was only right. Two years ago, Papa Earl Borg had just padlocked the hog-dog show and walked away, didn’t give them a three-dollar thank you.

Where Earl Borg had always made money on the dogs and looked like he was having fun, Chet and Matt had lost what little they had, including the three dogs and two hogs. They didn’t even have enough to pay what they owed Ralph Derby for patching up the animals.

Chet figured Earl Borg owed them severance pay or an inheritance or something.

“So,” Matt said with resignation. “He doesn’t pay and we kill her.”

“That’s the way of it, brother,” answered Chet. “That’s what I said. We’ve got nothing left but each other and our good word. We said we would kill her and that we full intend to do.”

The old man on the TV was suddenly replaced by a blond woman who had her own smile and her own plastic thing to sell. The shower stopped.

“That’s the way of it, brother,” Chet repeated, reaching for the almost empty bag of Doritos on the bed.

The door of Flo Zink’s house on the bay was opened by Adele. She smiled at Ames. In her arms was her baby, Catherine, who squiggled and made bubbles with her mouth. Catherine had been given the name of Lew’s wife for two reasons. Lew Fonesca had twice saved Adele’s life, and Adele really liked the name Catherine. Now she loved it.

Adele stepped back to let Ames in. The open living-room area had a playpen near the window and the familiar, clean, unstylish Wild West wood and leather furniture. The stereo, which was wired to speakers all through the house, was on low. Slim Whitman was singing “Since You’re Gone.”

“Flo here?” Ames asked.

“Shopping,” said Adele, putting the baby gently on her stomach on the white rug.

Catherine began making the arm and leg movements that would soon lead to crawling.

To Ames, Adele didn’t look much different from the way she had cleaned up after she came to live with Flo almost two years ago. Adele was blond, had a full woman’s body, and was, Ames knew from experience, one damn smart young lady. She had gone from a life of physical abuse and teenage prostitution to being a mother, albeit unwed. She was also now a high school student applying to colleges, particularly to New College and the Ringling School of Art, where she could go and still be in this house with Catherine and Flo.

Ames handed her the photographs and said, “You see any of these people, call me or Lewis.”

Adele looked at the photograph and then at Ames, a question in her eyes.

“The twins in the picture kidnapped the girl.”

“She reminds me of someone,” Adele said, still holding the photograph. “Me. Can I get you a coffee, Pepsi?”

There was no alcohol in Flo Zink’s house. Temptation had been cast out for almost two years.

“No, thank you. Got to deliver more pictures.”

“Did he find out who killed his wife?”

“He did.”

“And?” she asked, looking at Catherine who looked as if she were about to lurch forward.

“Best he tell you when he’s ready.”

In the next hour and a half, Ames gave copies of the photograph to several of the neighborhood’s bartenders and also to the clerks at 7-11, Circle K, Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and asked them to call him if they saw the twins or the girl. He told each of the people he talked to simply, “They may mean the girl harm. Her mother and father are worried for her.” Everyone he talked to had listened. On the back of each picture, Ames had printed his name, Texas Bar amp; Grille, and the phone number of the Texas.

Ames didn’t get back to the Texas on his motor scooter till after one in the morning. The Texas was closed and dark except for the nightlights. He let himself in the back door, put the gun back in the case behind the bar, and went to his room where he showered, shaved, put on his khaki pajamas. Then Ames got his reading glasses from the case on the table and read The Marble Faun. He finished the book a little before three in the morning and turned out the lights.

He would have four-and-a-half hours until he had to get up and start his chores. He needed no more. As he grew older, he found that he needed and was satisfied with less sleep.

Lew had given the photograph to the red-haired girl at the DQ window and shown it to the bartender at the Crisp Dollar Bill across the street from his office.

Then he went back to his office. It was too late to call Sally Porovsky, tell her what had happened in Chicago, ask if she could go out for a pizza after work tomorrow. He decided he wasn’t ready to tell her what had happened and was happening. He knew that once he started to talk about Chicago, about Victor Lee, about Earl Borg and the missing girl named Lilla, he would discover things he wasn’t ready to deal with. It was all tied together, knotted together inside him, but he didn’t know how.

There was someone else he would have to talk to before he could face Sally.

He looked at Dalstrom’s painting alone on the wall, the dark jungle with the spot of light and then he looked down at the photograph of the twins and Lilla.

The phone rang. It was two in the morning.

“Fonesca,” Earl Borg said calmly. “My idiot sons called. Ironic. For the first time in their lives, they think for themselves and their first decision is to kidnap their sister and demand money from their father. They want the money, in cash, forty thousand, or they’ll kill her. I told them I’d do it. But I won’t. You know why? Because, though my voice does not show it, I am fucking mad. In addition to which, those morons might just kill Lilla even if I pay them. Or they might take her with them wherever they plan to go even if I pay them and rape her or… who knows what.”

“Where are you supposed to pay and when?”

“They’ll call at nine in the morning, let me talk to Lilla,” said Borg. “And then I have half an hour.”

“They know you’re…”

“Blind, yes. I told them I’d send someone. Can’t be you. They’re not bright, but they don’t have Alzheimer’s. They might recognize you from the hog-dog business and you might not be able to get close enough to them. Your lanky friend will do quite nicely.”

“Pay them,” Lew said.

“I will not,” said Borg. “I told you once and I told you why. It needs no further elaboration. Goodbye, Mr. Fonesca.”

Borg hung up. Lew did too and went to the window.

Lew moved to the office window, lifted the blinds and gazed at the traffic beyond the DQ parking lot. Traffic was almost nonexistent at two in the morning, but the few cars that did go by sent out a soft whistle of wind as they passed, leaving a lull Lew found comforting.

Then the headache came. Lew knew it would, expected it, almost welcomed it. He went into his room, closed the door, closed the blinds tightly, unfolded a blanket he took from his closet and draped it over the window.

Lew’s family had a history of headaches. His mother, Angela, Uncle Tonio, the others, all got headaches, all the same, always on the right side of the head. When it got bad, the only thing that helped was darkness and moaning. Moaning was essential.

When the headaches were really bad, Angie heard music that wasn’t there. Uncle Tonio saw flashing colored lights. Lew sometimes smelled gardenias or barbecue sauce. This time he smelled, heard and saw nothing.

He turned off the light, rolled himself in a ball on the cot and welcomed the darkness and the pain. When he lived in Chicago with Catherine, when the headaches came, he would strip to his undershorts and curl in darkness on the cool tiles of the bathroom, his head on a bath towel.

Catherine understood. She asked no questions, offered no help because there was none to give.

Lew slipped into a deep sleep.

When he woke up, the headache was gone. He tried to go back to sleep but fleeting images snapped by like photographs on a home projector: Pappas smiling with his gun to his head; Santoro slumped over his desk; Milt Holiger’s pleading and defeated eyes; Victor Lee sitting in a tavern in Urbana and blankly looking at nothing to do and nowhere to go; and then Catherine being hit by the car, a series of flying shots, ending with a close-up of Catherine at the instant of impact, surprise and pain. Lew had not been there when it happened, but it was the most vivid of his images.

He sat up, got a towel from the closet, dried himself, deposited the towel in his small hamper and put on a short-sleeved gray garage sale pullover with a collar and the words TOP SAIL embossed on the pocket.

He took the blanket from the window, letting in the sun. He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. Lew went into his office, picked up the phone and punched in the number of the Texas Bar amp; Grille.

Half an hour later, Ames came up the cracked concrete steps. He didn’t use the rust-tinged railing for balance. He was straight-backed and moving slowly. When he got to the top step, he looked at the window and his eyes met Lew’s. Both men knew that the other had made no progress in finding Lilla and the Manteen brothers.

Ames opened the door and stepped into the office closing the door behind him. Lew turned away from the window.

“Borg wants you to make the payoff and get the girl back,” Lew said.

“Suits me,” said Ames.

“There won’t be any money in the payoff bag.”

“Didn’t think there would be.”

“I don’t want them killed,” Lew said, moving to his desk and sitting. “I think Borg does.”

“How about some serious wounding?” asked Ames.

“If you have to,” said Lew.

The phone rang a few minutes later.

Ames picked it up, said “McKinney,” listened and hung up. “Ten this morning,” said Ames. “I drop the bag in the trash can near the playground in Wilkerson Park. Then I’m supposed to walk over to the fence around the softball fields and watch for them to let the girl go. I’m guessing it’ll be a long walk for her and a quick run to the trash for the money. When they see the bag’s empty, they’ll have the girl in easy gunshot distance.”

Lew rubbed his right hand across his balding head.

“Anyplace to hide in the park?” Lew asked.

“They picked a good spot.”

“Okay,” said Lew. “We do it, but why are they doing the exchange in the daylight instead of tonight? Why stay here longer than they have to? They know Borg. They know he must be trying to find them.”

“Don’t know,” said Ames.

Lilla still had no idea that she had been kidnapped and certainly no idea that her half brothers were seriously considering killing her, that is to the extent that they could be serious about anything.

Lilla had no illusions about her own intelligence. She was no genius, except maybe compared to Matt and Chet, but she was smart enough.

She wanted to go out.

The brothers were staring at the television screen on which a big-bellied man in a red flannel shirt was shooting at clay pigeons being released a few hundred feet away.

“Pow,” said Chet as a piece of clay in the television sky exploded.

“Sitting in a hotel room,” she had said, “is not my idea of fun.”

“This is good stuff,” said Matt, eyes still on the fat man with the shotgun.

Lilla was thin, short for her age, long, straight brown hair down her back, eyes blue and wide. She looked younger than her thirteen years.

“We can watch TV in Kane,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“We’ve got business in a little while,” said Chet.

“Business,” she said. “What kind of business?”

“Good business,” said Chet. “Right?”

“Right,” Matt agreed.

“We got you a pizza last night,” said Chet. “Later today we take you to Disney.”

“Disney World? You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

“No shit, true,” said Matt.

“On the way we get another pizza,” she insisted. “And after Disney we go to another movie. Pizza, Disney and a movie in that order or just take me back home. I don’t have a good time there but I don’t have a bad one either, and when my mom tells me something’s gonna happen, it happens.”

“We are going to Disney World,” said Chet. “Like the guys on Super Bowl say. We are going to Disney World.”

“Pizza with olives, black olives, and those little anchovy fish,” she said.

Both Matt and Chet hated both black olives and anchovies, but this was most likely the girl’s last day on earth and since she was not going to live long enough to have it, they could promise her not only the damned pizza, Disney World and the movie, but a guaranteed spot on American Idol.