Denial

5

“Four people aren’t at Seaside Assisted Living who were there two nights ago,” Ames said.

“Someone in the office told you that?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Went to see Dorothy. We took a walk around, talked to people. Came up with a list. Word is no one died the night our Dorothy says she saw the murder.”

A new song came on. A tenor was warbling something called “I’m Going Shopping with You.” Ames turned his head toward the speaker over the bar.

“That’s Dick Powell.”

“Right. Give the man a free beer,” said Billy from behind the bar.

“What happened to the people who left?” I asked, bringing Ames back to the present.

“Word is one was transferred to a nursing home,” he said. “Another two left on their own. Other went to live with her daughter-in-law.”

Billy came over with a beer for Ames and said, “On the house. Got another Powell coming up, ‘Speaking of the Weather.’ Know it?”

Ames nodded. He knew it.

“You checked with the nurses?” I prompted as Billy walked back to the bar.

“That’s your job,” he said.

He was right. Ames nursed his beer through Dick Powell before we left.

It took about ten minutes to get to the Seaside and five minutes to be sent into the office of the director, Amos Trent, a serious, heavyset man with a well-trimmed mustache and a suit almost as tan as his face. He said that neither he, nor the nurses, nor any member of the Seaside staff could give information about residents except to relatives. His eyes moved for an instant toward the four-drawer steel filing cabinet in the corner of his office.

“You understand,” he said. “Privacy. There are people who prey on older people, offer them everything from jobs stuffing envelopes to life insurance for a dollar a month. We have to be concerned about insurance, liability. One of our heaviest insurance premiums covers privacy of records. I’m sorry.”

He got up, put out his hand to Ames and me to let me know the meeting was over. His handshake was firm. So was his decision.

“Okay, then we’d like to see Dorothy Cgnozic,” I said.

“You were here earlier, weren’t you?”

“We were,” I said. “Dorothy’s an old friend.”

“You mean,” said Trent, “Dorothy is old and you are friends, not that you’ve been friends a long time.”

Trent looked at Ames.

“We’re friends,” he said.

“Well,” said Trent. “That’s up to Dorothy, but I believe she is sleeping, afternoon nap. We don’t like to wake our residents up when they’re napping. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

Trent looked at his watch and said, “I’ve got to get to a meeting. Look, I know about Dorothy’s… mistake, delusion, dream. She’s been telling everyone, the residents, nurses, even the dining room staff about the supposed murder. No one was murdered. Dorothy has, let’s see how I can put this, Dorothy has an active imagination. Her husband was a poet.”

I didn’t see how Dorothy’s husband being a poet had anything to do with her having an imagination, but I just nodded.

He was looking at Ames again when he said, “If the time comes when you’re inquisitive about assisted living…”

I didn’t give him any help.

“Father? Uncle?” he tried.

“Mr. McKinney is my friend,” I said.

Ames wasn’t smiling. Ames smiled almost as little as I did and I never smiled.

“Sorry,” said Trent. “I just thought…”

“You boning me?” Ames said evenly.

“Boning you?” repeated Trent with a smile.

“Playing with me,” he said.

“I wouldn’t play with my friend,” I said, recognizing the look in Ames’s gray eyes.

In a few seconds if Trent didn’t leave or we didn’t back out, I was reasonably sure Ames would find a way to make the mustached manager of the Seaside suffer.

“Let’s go,” I said, putting a hand on Ames’s sleeve.

“Dorothy doesn’t get many visitors,” Trent said, folding his hands in front of him. “Please come back to visit.”

In the parking lot we got into the car. I backed out of the space and turned down the road past the pond, where two ducks floated.

“He was boning me,” Ames said.

“He was,” I agreed.

Silence again as we drove south on Beneva and turned at Webber, heading for Tamiami Trail.

“We’re goin’ back,” he said, looking straight ahead.

“Yes.”

“When?”

I looked at the clock on the dashboard.

“About two in the morning,” I said. “Suit you?”

“Suits me just fine,” he said.

I drove Ames to the Texas Bar amp; Grille, and said I’d pick him up at one-thirty in the morning. That suited him fine too.

Then I headed for El Tacito, the Mexican restaurant where Arnoldo Robles, the man who had witnessed Kyle McClory’s death, worked. El Tacito is in a shopping mall at Fruitville and Lime. I found a parking space four doors down from the restaurant in front of a dollar discount store.

I had a friend, James Hahn, back in Chicago. He was an ex-cop who got a PhD in psychic studies at Northeastern Illinois University. He claimed that he could conjure up parking spaces, that by simply concentrating, envisioning and believing, he could make a space available when he arrived where we were going. I tried him on it a couple of times. It seemed to work for him. It never worked for me.

I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in the miracles of the Bible. I’d like to. I’d like to believe that my wife is somewhere, that she is some kind of entity, that she is not simply gone, but I can’t. I’ve tried.

There was an early dinner crowd, about twenty, at El Tacito, or maybe it was a late lunch crowd. The air smelled of things fried, sauces hot, and tacos crisp. There were large color photographs on the wall, all of them of hills, mountains, probably in Mexico. Music was playing, guitars and a plaintive tenor almost in tears. I think it was “La Paloma.” The people at the red-and-white-tableclothed wooden tables paid no attention to the music. They talked, mostly in Spanish, ate, laughed and raised their voices.

A harried waitress, thin with long dark hair tied back, hurried from table to table taking orders, delivering orders, giving orders when she went back to the kitchen.

“Sit anywhere,” she said with a smile.

She had a pile of dirty dishes cradled in her left arm. A wisp of dark hair escaped the band that touched the nape of her neck. She brushed the stray strand away with her hand. She looked tired, satisfied, pretty.

“Looking for Arnoldo Robles,” I said.

A trio of men at a back table called to her by name, Corazon. She held up a single finger to let them know she’d be with them in a second or a minute, depending on how much time I took.

“Arnoldo’s busy,” she said, smile gone, starting to turn away.

“Just take a minute,” I said, holding up one finger as she had done.

“You know Arnoldo?” she asked.

I shook my head no. She looked at me from stained loafers to Cubs cap.

“You’re not with Immigration?”

I shook my head again.

“Arnoldo has his green card,” she said.

“Good.”

“Corazon,” called one of the trio in the back.

“Then what do you…?”

“The dead boy,” I said. “I’m working with the boy’s family.”

It was her turn to nod.

“He’s in the kitchen.”

She looked at the back of the restaurant, turned and headed for the three men. I followed and moved past her through a swinging door decorated with bright paintings of flowers, musical instruments and a single word, GUADALAJARA.

To my left was the open doorway to a small kitchen, barely big enough to let the two men in white aprons working in it move. The griddle was sizzling; a red light glowed above the oven in the corner. The air was steamy in spite of an old wall-mounted air conditioner that rattled noisily.

Both men were slightly built, about my height. Both were dark. Both had neatly shaved heads. One man was probably in his sixties, the other in his forties. Both men were moving quickly, hands flying, conducting a kitchen symphony, maybe about to do a juggling act. They were perspiring. The older one quickly reached for a half-full bottle of water and took a few quick gulps. The younger one looked over at me. He had a knife with a broad flat blade in his hand.

“Arnoldo Robles?”

His grip on the knife got tighter.

“Can we talk?”

The older man looked over his shoulder at me.

“What about?”

“What you told the police,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“Not the one who was driving the car,” I said, looking at the blade. “I’m working for the boy’s mother. I could use your help.”

“Busy,” he said.

“He’s busy,” the older man added.

Corazon came through the swinging door, looked at the two cooks and me and then went on through another door where I heard dishes clacking.

“I can wait,” I said.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Arnoldo Robles said.

“I worry about people who want trouble,” I said. “I’m not bringing trouble.”

The two men’s eyes met, and Arnoldo sighed and looked at the ceiling. They said something to each other in Spanish. The older man wasn’t pleased or cooperative. He finally shrugged and went back to work.

“Have a seat out there,” Robles said to me. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

I went back into the restaurant and found a small table near the window. A few people had left. The waitress named Corazon came up to me, hands on hips, but there was no challenge in the move, just a weary resignation.

“Arnoldo can’t sleep,” she said. “He says he keeps seeing that boy in the street and the car… He thinks he should have done something.”

“You’re his…?”

“Wife,” she said. “We’ve got a little boy, eight. My mother watches him when he gets home from school. She thinks some crazy man is out there trying to crash into little boys. She won’t let him out to play. Is she right? Is there a crazy man out there?”

“There may be a crazy man out there, but I don’t think he’s out looking for little boys to run over.”

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“I think he was just after one fourteen-year-old boy.”

“You know this for sure?”

“No, not for sure.”

“Then I think maybe we’ll keep Carlos inside till he’s caught, this driver,” she said.

“It can’t hurt. How are the tacos?” I asked.

“How are the tacos?” she repeated, shaking her head and smiling. “What do you expect me to say? The tacos are terrible? The tacos are good, the best.”

“Two tacos,” I said, “and a Diet Coke.”

“He’s a good man, Arnoldo,” she said. “A very good man and a good father.”

My turn to nod. She walked away and I waited and looked out the window. The clouds were white cotton. The sun was behind one of them heading for the Gulf of Mexico.

I had finished the first taco when Arnoldo Robles sat down across from me still wearing his apron, a bottle of water in his hand. Corazon Robles was right. The taco was good and big.

“I’ve got maybe five minutes,” he said.

“You look tired.”

He shrugged.

“You know this song? The one playing?” he asked.

“‘La Paloma,’” I said.

“Yes, ‘The Dove.’ People think it is a Mexican song, but it is not,” he said, looking at the tablecloth. “It is Spanish and the other famous song in Spanish, ‘Granada,’ about a city in Spain, is a Mexican song. Ironico. You understand?”

“Ironic,” I said. “Almost the same word. You look tired.”

“Bad dreams,” he said. “My wife told you?”

“Yes.”

“I dream about that boy, that car,” he said.

“I have nightmares too. My nightmares are about my wife. She was killed by a hit-and-run driver.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “When?”

“Four years, one month and six days ago.”

I took a bite of the second taco.

“Good taco,” I said.

“You talked to the police?” asked Robles.

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t have anything more to tell you than I told them,” he said after a long drink of water. “I was walking home. I see this kid in the street. There’s a car behind him. Kid runs down the street, right in the middle, you know? Kid turns, holds up his hand, but the guy in the car just…”

“Ran him down,” I said.

“Ran him…?”

“Hit him on purpose.”

“Looked that way to me,” said Arnoldo.

“What was the boy doing in the street?”

“I don’t know. I could see him like I see you now. He turns, headlights on his face, and the guy in the car steps on the gas, screeches the tires. I can hear it.”

“What did the kid’s face look like?”

I kept my eyes on him and worked my taco.

“Look like? I don’t know. Afraid and then another look. Don’t know what it was and he puts up his hand maybe like he wants the guy to stop, but the guy in the car steps on the gas and I’m just standing there.”

“You couldn’t see the driver?”

Robles shook his head.

“In my dream, he’s a big guy, big shoulders, but I didn’t get a good look at him. In his car he was just…”

He held out his hands.

“… like a shape. Like the one in the backseat.”

I put down my taco.

“In your dream there’s someone in the backseat of the car?”

“In my dream? Yeah, but in the real car too. Someone not so big. Maybe a girl. Maybe a kid.”

“You tell this to the police?”

“Yeah, sure, cop named Ralston.”

“Ransom,” I corrected.

“Ransom, whatever. I told him. He said maybe I was seeing things. I said maybe but I didn’t think so. He said maybe the kid who got hit had run onto the street. I said no way. He said maybe the screeching I heard was the driver trying to stop before hitting the kid. I said for sure, no. I could see.”

“Anything else you remember?”

“Blood, maybe brains on the street. Boy was dead when I got to him. Car was driving fast down the street. Boy’s body all twisted. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor. No more. You really working for the boy’s mother?”

I nodded.

“Find the guy,” he said. “Find out what it was all about. Let me know. I need to sleep. My wife and I need to know our son is safe on the streets, at least safe from that crazy guy.”

He got up. So did I. We shook hands. His was damp with cool moisture from the water bottle. He went back to the kitchen and I dropped six dollars on the table and left.

I started across the parking lot toward my car, reaching into my pocket for the car key. I didn’t see it coming. I heard the screech of tires close by and started to look up. I sensed it almost on me. Maybe I held up my hand the way Kyle McClory had done about a week ago. I didn’t freeze. I dived over the edge of the fender, my knee hitting something, maybe the headlight, as the car passed by and made a sharp turn at the end of the aisle onto Lime. I didn’t see it turn. I heard it. I was sprawled on my back, knee throbbing, left shoulder numb, Cubs cap still on my head.

I got up as fast as I could, rubbed my hands against my jeans, picked up the car keys where I had dropped them as I limped toward my parked car.

“Oh my God. Are you all right?” a woman said, rushing across the parking lot. She was small, huge busted with big round glasses, carrying a baby.

“Fine,” I said.

“It looked like that maniac was trying to kill you,” she said, rubbing the baby’s back to comfort him or her, though the baby didn’t seem the least bit upset.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Maybe I should call the police,” she said. “Driving like that through a parking lot. He could have hit my baby or me. I’m calling the police. You wait here.”

“Did you see his license number?”

“No,” she said.

“Make and color of the car?”

“I… no. But a man was driving it. I think he had a beard or something. I could tell the police that.”

The baby decided to cry.

“You could,” I said, going to my car.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, thinking that I was all right until the next time.

I got in and closed the door.

My hands were shaking. I closed my eyes. I had not been there when my wife had died. The police had pieced together a likely narrative in their report, but it left a universe of imagined scenarios. I had tried to come up with one I could cling to but it kept changing. Sometimes Catherine is struck by a huge Caddy driven by a distracted old man. Catherine doesn’t see it coming. She was alive one second, dead the next. Or, sometimes Catherine is frozen in the path of a pickup driven by a drunken, grinning ex-con. Someone she had put in prison.

Now I was juggling three hit-and-run scenarios, Catherine’s, Kyle McClory’s, mine.

My hands stopped trembling. They hadn’t been trembling with fear. They had been trembling because the person who had tried to kill me had opened the curtain, letting in memory.

Since my wife had died, among the things I had lost were fear and a willingness to experience joy.

The woman and the crying baby were back on the sidewalk standing in front of Ace Hardware. I drove slowly. There was a predator on the streets and my knee and shoulder hurt.

I caught what there was of a rush hour as I headed down Fruitville toward Tamiami Trail. The Gulf Coast was in season, which meant lots of tourists, lots of snowbirds. Jaguars, red convertibles with their tops down, a Lexus or two, pickups, SUVs, almost all being driven badly.

Traffic rules in Sarasota: (1) If the light recently turned red, step on the gas and go. (2) If you come to a stop sign, do not stop. Just slow down a little and look both ways. (3) At a four-way stop, it doesn’t matter who gets there first. What matters is how big a vehicle you have and how mad at the world you are that day. (4) If there is just enough room for you to fit, you can speed up and cut off another driver. (5) Checking the rearview mirror before changing lanes is optional and checking side mirrors is to be avoided. (6) The law is wrong. It is the pedestrians who should yield to the cars.

Driving badly is an infectious disease on Florida’s Sun Coast. I think it started with native Floridians in pickups and baseball caps who zipped in and out of traffic in a hurry to win the race that had no winner. A variation, in mutated form, had been imported from the North with little old retired men and women who kept their eyes straight ahead, drove a dangerous ten miles under the speed limit, never looked at their side or rearview mirrors even when they changed lanes as they sat with necks craned so they could see over the dashboard. Finally the disease had been passed on to people angry at the pickups, angry with the ancient drivers. This group drove a few miles over the speed limit and had an uncontrollable urge to curse at everyone who hogged or shared the road.

Someone inside one of those cars on the streets of Sarasota with me that day was even more dangerous than all the rest of the drivers on the road. He was the one who had tried to kill me.