Bright Futures

18

"Took you a while,” Corkle said, opening the door. “Come in.”

He was wearing tan slacks, a dark lightweight sweater and a blue blazer. Well dressed for a man who never left his house.

Ames and I followed him as he led the way to the rear of the house and onto a tiled, screen-covered lanai. The kidney shaped pool was filled with clear blue-green water.

A glass pitcher of something with ice and slices of lemon in it sat on a dark wooden table. There were five glasses.

Behind the table stood Jeffrey Augustine, black eye patch and all.

“It’s just lemonade,” said Corkle. “Mr. Augustine will pour you both a glass, and we can sit and talk.”

Both Ames and I took a glass of lemonade from Augustine. I took off my Cubs cap and put it in my back pocket.

“I feel like one of those rich bad guys in a fifties movie,” said Corkle, glass in hand, sitting on a wooden lawn chair that matched the table. “Like what’s his name, Fred…”

“Clark?” I said, sitting next to him.

Ames stood where he could watch Augustine, who was also standing. Augustine wasn’t drinking.

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” said Corkle. “Bald, heavyset sometimes, a little mustache. That’s the guy. Fonesca, D. Elliot Corkle is not the bad guy here, Fonesca.”

“You kidnapped Rachel Horvecki,” I said.

“Mr. Augustine brought her here to protect her,” said Corkle, looking at the lemonade after taking a long drink. “She came willingly, and you two executed a flawless rescue.”

“Protect her from what?”

“She’s rich now,” he said. “Someone might be inclined to take a shot at her or drop a safe on her in the hope and expectation of getting her money.”

“Ronnie.”

“Ronnie Gerall, otherwise known as Dwight Torcelli,” he said. “I’ve known Rachel since she was a baby. Always been a little bit in outer space. Her father put her there. Good kid. She deserves better than Torcelli. So does my daughter.”

“Someone tried to kill me about an hour ago in the parking lot at Beneva and Webber.”

“With a pellet gun?” he asked looking at Augustine whose fingers automatically reached for his eye patch.

“With a rifle.”

“You know why?” he asked, drinking more lemonade.

“Because I’ve been talking to people.”

“People?”

“People who told me who killed Philip Horvecki and Blue Berrigan.”

Corkle held up his lemonade and said, “Pure lemonade with small pieces of lemon evenly distributed throughout. Good, huh?”

“Very good,” I said.

“Made with the Corkle Mini-Multi Mixer Dispenser. Put in the water, the ice, lemons, push a button. It works almost silently; you just place the individual glass under the spout, and it fills automatically. Same perfect taste every time. Works with lemons, oranges, berries, any fruit or vegetable. Cleans with one easy rinse. I like orange-banana.”

“You know who killed them,” I said.

“I’ll give you both a Corkle Mini-Multi Mixer Dispenser when you leave,” he said. “Parting gift. Much as D. Elliot Corkle enjoys your company, he doesn’t think we can be friends. Are you owed more money for your troubles?”

“No,” I said.

“If there’s nothing else…”

“Nothing else.”

Augustine had placed his empty glass on the table and folded his arms in front of him.

At the front door, we waited while Corkle got us each a boxed Corkle Mini-Multi Mixer Dispenser. Ames handed his to me. They were lighter than they looked.

When we cleared the door, Ames said, “I’ll take that now.” He took his Corkle Mini-Multi Mixer Dispenser and added, “He was armed. Augustine.”

“I know,” I said.

“I think it best if I keep my hands free till we’re away. Where to now?” Ames asked.

“To see a baby and get something to eat.”

“I’ll watch for snipers,” he said.

About a block from Corkle’s I said, “Victor’s gone.”

“Where?”

“Home.”

“Good.”

“He saved my life when the shooting started.”

“He was waiting for something like that.”

“You knew?”

“I figured,” said Ames.

“I should have,” I said.

Flo was home alone with Catherine who toddled toward us, arms out for Ames to pick her up, which he did.

“Gifts for you,” I said, handing her both Pulp-O-Matics.

“Those are the things I saw on television years ago,” she said. “Almost bought one then. My friend Molly Sternheiser had one. Said it was a piece of shit. Tried to get her money back. Never did. Now, for some reason, I’ve got one and a backup.”

Flo had given up her flow of curse words when Adele and Catherine came into her life. Every once in a while, however, a small colorful noun bursts out unbidden.

“Don’t try to understand,” I said. “Just mix.”

She reached up, took my cap from my head and handed it to me. I pocketed it.

The music throughout the house wasn’t blaring, but it was as present as always.

“That’s Hank Snow,” she said. “ ‘Moving On.’ ”

Flo was wearing one of her leather skirts and a white blouse. She only had six or seven rings on her fingers. She was dressing down.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, watching Catherine and Ames, who were almost face to face and both very serious.

The baby reached up and touched his nose with pudgy fingers.

“I’ll find something to eat,” said Flo.

“Adele?”

“School,” she said. “How about chili? Got a lot left over from dinner yesterday.”

“Fine,” I said.

She went to the kitchen while I sat and listened to Hank Snow and watched Catherine and Ames. After a minute or so he handed the baby to me and went toward the kitchen to help Flo.

Catherine was pink and pretty, like her mother. She sat on my lap and started gently bumping her head against my chest until Flo called, “Come and get it!”

The chili was good, not too spicy. We drank Diet Cokes and talked.

Catherine in her high chair worked on crackers. I watched her. I was here for a few minutes of sanity.

I told Flo that Ames and I were now officially partners.

“That a fact?” she said.

“Fact,” Ames confirmed.

“How’s the new place working out?”

“Fine,” I said.

Ames ate his chili straight. I filled mine with crumbled crackers.

I had been aware for some time that if Ames indicated something beyond friendship in his relationship with Flo, she would be receptive. Flo was somewhere around sixty-five years old. Ames was over seventy. Flo had a built-in family to offer-herself, Adele, and the baby, plus the money her husband Gus had left her.

I didn’t think Ames was in the market, but the door was open.

Adele called. She was going to be late. Flo told her we were there. Adele said she was sorry.

Catherine was in Flo’s arms and George Jones was singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today” when we left. Ames went out first and looked around to be sure no one was about to shoot at me. There was no real cover around the houses in the area, which was almost without trees and bushes. The trees that did exist were, like the houses, only five or six years old.

“Next stop?” asked Ames, riding shotgun again as I drove.

“I’ve got dinner with Sally,” I said.

“Best be looking for whoever’s shooting at you.”

“I think I know.”

I told him. He nodded.

“So,” he said. “I keep an eye on the shooter.”

“Yes.”

We met at Miss Saigon just across 301 from the Greyhound bus station. The restaurant was in a small, downscale mall with mostly Hispanic businesses: a tienda, a travel agency, a beauty shop, a check-cashing service. One of the shops in the mall was, according to Ettiene Viviase, a legitimate business and a front for a neighborhood mom-and-pop numbers racket.

I arrived first, putting my Cubs cap in my pocket. I didn’t want it stolen through the broken window of my car. I wore a clean pair of tan wash-and-wear pants and a white shirt with a button-down collar. The cap didn’t really go with the dressed-up version of Lewis Fonesca.

I ordered Viet nam ese iced tea. Sally arrived ten minutes later, touched my shoulder as she passed, and sat across from me. Coming separately had been Sally’s idea.

“I don’t want any front door good-byes,” she had said.

“I understand,” I had said.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said.

“Not very.”

“Not very sorry or not very late?” she asked with a smile that could have used more enthusiasm.

She ordered an unsweetened iced tea.

When the waiter returned, I ordered noodles with short ribs. Sally ordered duck soup.

We ate in silence. The restaurant was small and busy, with mostly Viet nam ese customers. Vaguely Asian music was playing in the background. Voices were low.

“Did you…?” she began, pausing with chopsticks raised. She stopped, question unanswered but understood.

“He’ll go away soon,” I said.

“Soon?”

“Maybe the next few days.”

“Far?”

“Far,” I said.

“How do you plan to persuade him?”

“You’ll know in a few days.”

I didn’t use chopsticks, though I could have. My wife had taught me how to use them. At first I had been a poor student, but I caught on. Now, I couldn’t bring myself to use them. It was something I did only with Catherine, a small thing but a fine silkscreen for memories.

“Lewis,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You drifted off somewhere.”

“Sorry,” I said. “With Ronnie gone, you won’t have to leave.”

“It was hard for me to come here tonight,” she said, looking down at the bowl in front of her. “Hard for me to face you. I can’t imagine seeing you day after day.”

“You won’t get any accusations from me,” I said.

“I know, but you don’t need any more pain from man or woman.”

“Don’t leave,” I said.

“That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, but where do we go if I stay?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“You answered a question with a question,” she said. “I do that all the time with clients.”

“So?”

“You don’t even know how I look nude and we’ve never been to bed together,” she said. “Almost four years, Lewis.”

I tried to stop it, but the image of Sally and Dwight Torcelli in bed came to me. It would come back to me, too. I was sure.

“We can work on it,” I said.

“You, me, Ronnie, and Catherine in bed together,” she said. “You don’t forget anything, Lew. I’ll bet you even know the name of your grade school gym teacher and exactly how he looked.”

“She,” I said, remembering. “Shirley Ann Stoffey. Her husband was Jerry Stoffey, a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune. Mrs. Stoffey had a small purple birthmark above her left wrist. She had a Baltimore accent and a tarnished tin whistle she always wore around her neck.”

“You see? You can’t forget and you can’t bring yourself to lie about your memories. You never forget,” Sally said.

I didn’t say anything. I should have, but I couldn’t. This was the moment for sincere, simple eloquence, but it wasn’t in me. Sally was right.

She sighed deeply and said, “I’ll tell you what. The job in Vermont is open-ended and I could always come back here. I might even get a raise. The kids would be happy if we stayed. I’ll tell you what. In Vermont, a year from today, we meet and see… Lewis, I’m leaving, not just you but my own memories.”

“You can’t run away from memories,” I said. “I tried. They follow you.”

“I’ve made my decision,” she said.

“I understand.”

And I did. Sally usually had coffee after dinner. Not this time. I said I would pay. She let me. She gave me a quick kiss and left me sitting there.

I paid in cash and left a big tip. I don’t know how much fifteen or even twenty percent is. I don’t know how much nine times seven is. I had counted on Catherine to do that. I had counted on Sally to do it, too.

Sally was right, right about everything.

I got in my Saturn, put on my cap, and drove to the place where I was reasonably sure of finding the evidence I needed to convince the police.

I parked a block away and walked back. At the window, I checked, double-checked, and checked again to be sure no one was inside. The next shot from the person who lived here would likely be up close and with a shotgun. The window wasn’t locked. I climbed in.

Less than ten minutes later, pocket flashlight in hand, I had found everything I needed. I left it all in place and left.

Tomorrow, it would be over.

It was about eleven at night when I climbed the long flight of stairs to my rooms. With Victor gone, I would be spending my first night alone here. I was looking forward to it. But first I had to deal with the visitor standing on the landing at the top of the stairs.

“Where have you been?” asked Greg Legerman. “No, wait. I take that back. It’s none of my business. What I should say is, How is the effort to save Ronnie going? That is my business.”

“It’ll be over tomorrow,” I said.

I opened the door, reached in to turn on the lights. He followed me inside. I closed the door and he moved to the chair behind my desk. I could have told him I didn’t want to talk. It would have been true, but I sat.

“Where’s Winn?” I asked.

“Home, I think. We don’t spend all our time together. Well, most, but not all. I’ve decided I’m going to Duke. So is Winn.”

I shifted my weight, took out my wallet and counted out cash, which I placed on the desk in front of Greg.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“What you paid me minus the time I spent working on your case.”

“Why?”

“Let’s say your mother and grandfather have paid me more than enough.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, looking at the money.

“You will tomorrow.”

“ ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps at a petty pace,’ ” he said. “That’s Shakespeare, sort of.”

“I know. Very poetic.”

He looked around the room wondering what to say or do next.

“Do you know the history of your semiprofession in the United States?”

“No.”

He got up, leaving the cash on the desk, and started to pace as he spoke.

“The first U.S. marshals were appointed by George Washington to serve subpoenas, summonses, writs, warrants, and other processes issued by the courts. They also arrested and handled all Federal prisoners.”

“I’m not a U.S. marshal. I’m a private contractor.”

“I know, I know. But you see the history, the connection. Our lives, our history, and the history of the entire country-the entire world-are connected by slender threads of seemingly random events.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Would you like a can of Coke?”

If he said yes I would have given him the caffeine-free variety. Greg Legerman needed no more stimulation.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I get carried away.”

“You have any idea who killed Blue Berrigan?”

“No, but I have to tell you something about him. Berrigan.”

“Tell.”

“I hired Blue Berrigan to lie to you, to tell you he had evidence that would clear Ronnie.”

“He tried.”

“He wanted more money from me. Said he’d tell the police I had killed Horvecki.”

“And you wouldn’t give it?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t know who did, probably whoever killed Horvecki.”

“Maybe,” I said. “How did you know Berrigan?”

“He used to work for my grandfather on his infomercials and at his mall appearances. I’ve known him all my life. He always needed money. It was a bad idea.”

“Very bad.”

“I got him killed,” said Greg.

I didn’t say anything.

“What happened to the Chinese guy?” Greg asked. “His bedroll’s gone.”

“Went home. A place far away and exotic.”

“China?”

“Oswego, Illinois.”

“Cheng Ho, fifteenth century admiral, diplomat, explorer, son of a Muslim, descendent of Mongol kings, was the first real Chinese explorer extending his country’s influence throughout the regions bordering the Indian Ocean.”

“Greg,” I said, trying to slow him down as he paced, speaking so quickly that I missed some of the words.

“Fifteenth century,” he said. “Do you know how the Romans numbered the centuries before the Christian era?”

“Greg,” I said again as he paused in his pacing to glance at the dark Dalstrom paintings on my wall.

I thought he was going to shift from the Roman calendar to something about art, but he stayed with his history.

“Eleven months, a three-hundred-and-four-day year. But my question was a trick. Your answers to me have been tricks. The Romans didn’t number their years. When a new year came, they called it something like ‘The Year of the Counsels of Rome.’ They didn’t think of decades or centuries. Time meant something different to the Romans.”

“Greg, how did you get here?”

“I drove, of course.”

“How about staying here tonight?”

“Why?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

He went back to the chair, sat, played with the money, scratched his forehead and said, “No.”

“I’ll call your mother.”

“No,” he said. “Not necessary. She isn’t sitting up waiting for me.”

“Your grandfather?”

“No. I won’t be missed. I’m never missed. I am a trial and a tribulation to my family,” he said, finishing with a broad grin. “Don’t worry. I’ve brought some of my quiet-down tranquilizers. I’ll be fine.”

“Bathroom is over there. I’ll get my sleeping bag out of the closet.”

“I need a pillow.”

“I’ll get you one.”

“Thanks. I’ll take that Coke now.”

“Caffeine free,” I said.

“I’ll take it.”

I got it for him. He used it to wash down three pills he fished from a small plastic bottle.

“I’ll resist telling you about the developmental history of tranquilizers,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You remind me of your grandfather,” I said.

“Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“Observation.”

“Others have said the same. I long to be away at the Duke campus, built and endowed by…”

I sat listening as he slowly talked himself down, drank two Cokes, used the bathroom twice, and finally, at a few minutes past midnight, took off his shoes. I got him a pillow. He took it and moved to what had been Victor’s corner.

I turned off the lights and got into bed. It would not be the first night I slept without a pillow. I’d have to put the purchase of a guest pillow on my mental list of things I needed.

There was no problem. I lay in darkness in my T-shirt and shorts and let the thoughts of both Catherines, of Sally, and of what I had to do in the morning come. They came and went, and I slept well. I slept dreamlessly.

Greg was gone when I got up a few minutes before eight the next morning. The sleeping bag was rolled up with the pillow plumped on top of it. The cash I had laid out was still on the desk and there was a scribbled note I could barely read:

I have the feeling that what you will do today will be something other than what I would like. Consider the cash payment for your putting up with me last night. Greg Legerman is not an easy town.

I called Ames and told him I would pick him up in half an hour.

“Did you get any sleep?” I asked.

“Some.”

“Our shooter?”

“Didn’t move.”

“You have breakfast?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Okay if we eat here?”

“Sure.”

Half an hour later I was seated at a table in the Texas Bar and Grill and being served by Big Ed. We ate chili and eggs and didn’t say much.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For?”

“You fixed my car window last night,” I said. “Or was it the car window fairy?”

“Me. Took a few hours off when our shooter was tucked in.”

“You armed?”

Ames pulled his jacket open to reveal a small holstered gun.

“Leave it here,” I said. “We won’t need it where we’re going.”

I called Ettiene Viviase and he agreed to meet us at the jail just down the street when I told him what I wanted to do.

We could have walked to the jail from the Texas, but I drove and we found a space with a two-hour meter. I dropped enough quarters into it and we met Viviase in the reception area in front of the bulletproof window, behind which sat a uniformed woman.

“She’s here,” Viviase said. “Make it good.”

He took us through a door and into a small room where lawyers and clients, relatives and inmates, cops and criminals met to talk and lie and threaten and plead.

Torcelli, wearing an orange uniform, sat at the table.

He looked at me and said, “You’ve come to get me out.”

“No,” Viviase said. “He came to be sure you stay in here. You killed Philip Horvecki.”

Torcelli’s nose was covered by a wide bandage that didn’t hide the spreading purple. The cavities of his eyes looked as if they had been painted black.

“I didn’t… What? I didn’t kill Horvecki. Tell him Fonesca.”

“Go ahead,” said Viviase. “Tell us.”

I told my tale slowly and carefully so Torcelli wouldn’t make any mistake about what he was hearing.

The first words from him when I finished talking were, “I want my lawyer.”

“He withdrew from your case,” said Viviase. “He has a bad cold.”

“His feet are cold,” said Torcelli. “Alana stopped paying him, didn’t she? Find Rachel. Rachel will pay him.”

“We’re looking for her,” Viviase said.

“This is a mistake,” Torcelli said again, this time looking at Ames, who said, “Take it like a man.”

“I didn’t touch your daughter,” Torcelli tried, turning to Viviase. “A kiss, maybe. What’s the harm in that?”

“She’s fifteen,” Viviase answered.

“Fonesca, you were supposed to help me,” Torcelli said, his voice dropping, his head in his hands.

“I guess I failed,” I said.