Deceit

FIFTY-THREE

She answered her phone on the second ring, then even more surprisingly, she didn’t hang up.

Maybe because I asked her if she was going to go back to her maiden name after the divorce.

Back to the name Steiner.

She went silent, one of those strangled pauses that say more than words can. Then she agreed to meet me on Lincoln and Ninth.

The first day I’d met her, she’d told me about her father.

My pop was a mechanic, she’d said, after I thanked her for fixing my coil wire. He basically lived under the hood.

Just like someone else I’d heard about.

He took auto-mechanic classes in jail-that’s what he ended up doing when he got out… The boy-wonder engineer, fixing cars for a living.

There was more.

At our second dinner, after she happened to mention that she’d known Wren.

That’s where we’d met, she said. At the home… to try to scare up some memories.

And what was Anna doing at the home?

My pop. He’s got Alzheimer’s, she’d said.

And when I’d asked Wren-not really Wren, but whoever was on the phone with me that day-if Lloyd Steiner was still alive?

Barely.

Did you try to speak with him?

Uh-huh. Let’s just say he’s not talking.

It was possible.

Maybe even plausible.

So you think Lloyd Steiner went to jail for ten years to appease the public and kept his mouth shut all that time?

Maybe he had kept his mouth shut.

Just not forever.

I called the home. I introduced myself as a concerned relative. I asked a sympathetic-sounding attendant how Mr. Steiner was doing today. “Lloyd Steiner? Is he okay?”

“No change. We’re pretty much down to force-feeding him now.”

It’s what you do for someone you love, she’d said. He’s my dad. I’d do anything for him.

In the end, maybe that’s what she’d needed to do.

Anything.

That picture she showed me.

Cody on the push-and-pedal. The kid pumping his legs like nobody’s business-striking out on his own. Going wherever he wanted to-exploring the great wide world.

Except he wasn’t.

Mom was right behind him holding on to that pole and steering him where she wanted him to go. It was an illusion.

Dirty trick, huh?

Yes, Anna, it was.

It was.

It’s funny how she still stirred something in me.

Maybe it’s our nature to let the body forgive what the mind can’t.

Or else we’d all be at one another’s throats. And we’d never let go.

“Someone paid you a visit three years ago,” I said. “A creepy-looking man with a voice like a girl’s.”

We were standing on the corner on Lincoln. Early evening, lots of foot traffic heading toward the promenade.

She nodded.

“Your dad was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s by then. It was probably his last chance to get something out. Before he vanished-the part of him that could actually communicate with the world. That could still form words.”

She turned away, rubbed something out of her eye.

“This man paid you a visit. He said something like this-I’ll paraphrase. Your daddy made a deal. A long time ago. He’s got to honor it. Even if he’s gone off the deep end of the ocean-even if he’s begun muttering things to local reporters. A secret’s a secret. A deal’s a deal.”

There was something in her eyes.

Tears.

“He’d begun talking about the past,” she said softly.

I nodded. “Sure.”

“That’s pretty much all he talked about. It’s what happens when you start going… That’s what the doctor said… Like counting backward when someone’s putting you under. And then you’re asleep. You’re gone. Sometimes he was actually there, back in the 1950s…”

“ 1954,” I said. “I bet he spent a lot of time in 1954. The year Wren was interested in hearing about. The year of the flood. By the way, what’s your real name? I feel silly calling you Anna.”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“No. Guess not. The deal your father made. Maybe it was the best deal he could get. Under the circumstances. I think they would’ve gotten him one way or another-he had a history. He spent ten years in jail, but he did something for his family. He got something out of it. You must’ve come later. After he got out.”

She nodded. “They’d had a ten-year coitus interruptus.” She forced a smile. “I guess they were making up for lost time.”

“You met Wren at the home. Maybe the creepy-looking man told you to do that-your dad’s blabbing about things he has no business talking about, and he’s talking about them to a reporter-get over here and keep an eye on him. Or maybe you met Wren first-when you were visiting your dad. And he sought you out and asked if he could speak to him. About a flood. And a town. It doesn’t matter. Either way, you became Wren’s friend-a kind of confidante?”

“Yes.”

“He was excited. Just like you said. He’d discovered something that happened just twenty-three miles down the road. Something awful. Something huge. Your father must’ve confirmed it. Did he give Wren something? Did he hand him more than his memories?”

“No. I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because they got scared enough to do something. Because your father’s memory wouldn’t be considered exactly rock solid. Not anymore. Because…”

“Look, I can’t talk about this.”

She still looked sad-something else now. Frightened. Even here, in the middle of a breezy Santa Monica evening, scared stiff.

“What did he threaten you with?” I asked softly. “Your dad, sure-but he’s half-dead already. You have a son. Your mom-she’s still alive. Did he force you to make the same choice your father did? Protect your family? Or don’t.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

“You became their spy. You kept tabs. They needed to know how much your father told Wren. What. If he’d given him something tangible. That was your job-be Wren’s friend but their eyes and ears. Help put the water back in the bottle.”

A car slowly turned the corner; she took a step back as if she were about to break into a run.

“Did you tell him? That you’re meeting me here?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’re sure? You’re not lying to me?”

“No.”

“Good, then you can stop peeking behind your back. Your father. He talked about the past. 1954. He spilled the beans. The dam that really wasn’t. The little explosion the history books don’t tell us about. He didn’t give Wren anything? Nothing?”

“No.” She looked up. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“I told you. They got spooked enough to do something.”

“They weren’t the only ones who got spooked.”

“Wren?”

She nodded. “He knew. That he was being followed. He thought his phone was being bugged. He didn’t know whom to trust anymore.”

“He trusted you, though, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He trusted me. He started to worry that something bad was going to happen to him.”

“He was right,” I said. “They killed him.”

She turned pale, went deathly quiet like she had over the phone.

“No,” she whispered. “No. He e-mailed me.…”

“Not Wren. He was buried out in the woods. I found his body.”

“They said no one would be hurt if I went along… I swear to God… you have to believe me… They promised me…”

“I believe you. You were told what you needed to be told. Be Wren’s pal. No one will get hurt. Ask him things. Tell us what he says. They lied.”

A car rolled by, playing the latest from Eminem: yoh… yoh.

“So what did Wren say?” I asked her. “Aside from being worried that something was about to fall on his head?”

“He didn’t tell me the details,” she said. “He said it was safer that way. He was doing a story on the flood. He said they’d covered up something-the government-a big accident that happened in the fifties. The flood was the least of it. He said you can keep a secret for only so long and then you can’t. He said my father helped make everything clear to him. That I should be proud of him. That he was going to break the story wide open. Even if something happened to him. Even then the story was protected.”

“Protected? What did he mean?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He said the story was someplace they couldn’t get to it. That’s all. That it was protected. That sooner or later, someone would bring it into the light.”

“Into the light? That’s what he said?”

She nodded.

“Did he mention an army vet who’d wandered into town? Eddie Bronson?”

“No. Why?”

“Because he was the trigger. Because he set everything in motion. Because he was someone who should’ve died in the flood, but there he was-still alive. That’s when Wren started to dig into the history of Littleton Flats. Just like I did. Three years later.”

She looked genuinely perplexed. She was telling the truth; they’d told her only what they wanted her to know.

“When did they inform you that your services were needed again?” I asked her.

“The day before I ran into you.”

“But you didn’t just run into me.”

“No.”

I tried to calculate. My mind wasn’t what it used to be. The drugs had dulled the edges, loosened the coil wires.

Benjy had flown the coop. They knew he was headed here. They got scared. He’d seen his mom-he’d called the fucking sheriff’s office? Who else had he talked to?

“They gave you that stupid name. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Come on, any idiot could see it. Any idiot except this one. Anna Graham. Anagram. They opened that AOL account for you. You really don’t know why?”

“No. I really don’t know why. Why did they want to make my name an anagram?”

“Because a doctor had fed me anagrams in a story two years ago. A story I made up. My reservoir of creativity might’ve been running a little dry at that point. I was down to borrowing the conventions of a thriller.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s two of us. I think I’m beginning to, though. I am. You loosened my coil wire. You fixed my coil wire. You went out on two dates with me. But you didn’t know who I was? Tom Valle? My sordid past?”

“No.”

“Life is full of surprises. Did you ever meet anyone else? Besides the man with no face?”

“No. He found me three years ago. In Santa Monica. Rang my bell and said he needed to talk to me about my dad. Okay, I said, sure, come in. I made him coffee. This was before he threatened my kid. My mom. As calmly as someone discussing the weather. When I picked myself up off the floor, I told him to get out and go screw himself. I was going to go to the police, the FBI. He held the phone out for me. ‘Remember to spell my name right,’ he said. You understand, he was very clear about this-that he was unofficially official. That I was fucked. I did what I needed to. I didn’t know about Wren. Honest to God I didn’t.”

It was odd. Having someone beg me to believe them. If it wasn’t the definition of irony, it should’ve been.

“I believe you,” I said for the second time. “Did they tell you what to say to me? Fed you stuff to feed me? You didn’t just happen to mention that you lived on Fifth, near the promenade, did you?”

“No. Why was that was important?”

“They were hoping I’d take a stroll there. That I’d pursue you.” I felt myself blushing-the awkward 13-year-old picking someone for Seven Minutes in Heaven who didn’t want to be picked. Not by me. “I did pursue you-stupid me. Have you been to the theater lately? Maybe you saw that hysterical sex comedy that takes place on the Santa Monica Pier?”

“No. Why?”

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

The foot traffic had thinned a bit. A slight breeze was swirling, lifting the mimosa petals on the sidewalk flowerpots, fluttering the edges of her thick, lovely hair.

It would’ve been nice, I thought. If she had really liked me. If she hadn’t been told to smile at me across the rec room of the nursing home. If she’d listened to my pathetic story and said I understand; I forgive you. I will love you anyway.

Now she looked up, those big brown eyes.

“I still don’t get it,” she said. “Why would they want me to tell you anything?”