Final Target

CHAPTER 22

O ceanside’s Pleasant Acres wasn’t near the ocean, wasn’t pleasant, and had no acreage beyond the legally required ten-foot strip between it and Good as Gold Pawnshop on one side and Nguyen’s Nail Salon on the other. And it didn’t strike Gage as the sort of place a stockbroker would expect to spend his declining years.

“Albert will be so pleased to have another visitor,” the receptionist said to Gage. “And you are?”

She was a fleshy middle-aged black woman wearing a yellow shift. Reading glasses hung from a “What Would Jesus Do?” lanyard. Her off-kilter name tag, riding high on huge and structurally supported breasts, said “Dolores B.” She seemed thrilled to have outside company.

“I’m Mr. Ward’s nephew. This is my first chance to get to this part of the country in years. How long has he been here?”

“He came right about my birthday. So about twenty-three months.”

“Then happy birthday.”

Dolores beamed. “Thank you kindly. I hope he remembers you. Even if he doesn’t he’ll be so pleased to have a visitor.”

She turned a sign-in book toward him. Gage wrote in the name Gary Ward.

“He’s out in the patio,” she continued. “Just go down that hallway.” She pointed to her left. “There’s a sliding glass door near the end. He’s dressed. We get them dressed every day, you see.”

Gage walked down the corridor, counting six rooms and a nurses’ station, unattended. Two patients per room. The wall next to room four bore a handwritten label: “A. Ward.” The roommate was dressed, and asleep. The room smelled of urine, cigarettes, and instant coffee. Gage slipped inside, then quickly searched Ward’s closet. The elderly man stirred in his bed, rolling first toward the wall, then back. Gage froze until the man started snoring again, then checked the chest of drawers. There wasn’t a scrap of paper, even a wallet, to show that Ward had any life at all before his abandonment at Pleasant Acres.

Gage found Ward sitting alone in the patio but for a shriveled woman propped in a wheelchair at the far end. He was staring up at metal chimes, rusted and silent. A glass of orange juice rested on a low wrought-iron table, untouched. Standing, he would have been five foot ten. Good complexion. Still had most of his silver hair. Looked his age, seventy-two.

“Mr. Ward?”

Ward squinted up at Gage. “Am I supposed to know you?”

“No.” Gage adopted a sympathetic but respectful smile, as if he’d come to learn from an elder. “But I’d like to ask you about the great work you did with Northstead Securities.”

Ward looked down and repeated the name to himself, then back up at Gage, his face scrunched up in puzzlement.

“What’s that?”

“Aren’t you Albert Ward, the stockbroker?”

“Me?” Ward’s face reddened in frustration and in anger, as if he could no longer bear to walk down memory’s path only to find himself at an abyss. “If I’m a stockbroker, I would know it. Wouldn’t I?”

“Yes,” Gage said, reaching out and squeezing the bewildered man’s shoulder, “you would know it.”

Gage walked back to the reception area where Dolores was seated behind the reception desk.

“Dolores,” he said, “I don’t think it’s a good day. He didn’t even remember my father.”

“Unfortunately”-Dolores sighed-“most days are like that now.”

Gage watched her fondle the cross on the chain around her neck, as if seeking strength to bear nature’s ruthless unpredictability that revealed itself daily in the ossifying mind of Albert Ward. He felt a tenderness for her, a righteous woman trapped by her own history in a job with no future, tending for people with no past.

Gage glanced down at the sign-in book. “You mentioned other visitors?”

“Mr. Kovalenko comes once a month, of course, just for the paperwork and to pay the fees. And…” Dolores stood up, then leaned over and glanced down the hallway. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you.”

“If it’s something important, someone in the family should know.” Gage took her hand and looked into her eyes. “If you can’t rely on family and our Lord Jesus, who can you rely on?”

“You’re right, of course.” She glanced around again. “You see, an FBI agent came to visit Albert. Zink, his name was Zink. I remember because our old pastor at Love Temple Church of God in Christ was named Zink. It was such a tragedy when he died. We almost renamed the church after him. A saintly man. Except he was black and this Zink is white. But that was on another of Albert’s bad days.”

“Did Agent Zink say what he wanted?”

“No. He just talked to Albert for a few minutes just like you, then he got a box from Albert’s room and left.”

“Do you know what was in the box?”

“Just papers. There was a time when Albert liked to look through them. I’m not sure now he even remembers it.”

“Has Mr. Kovalenko visited since then?”

She shook her head.

“Dolores, I think the family would appreciate you not telling Mr. Kovalenko about Agent Zink until we can look into the matter.”

“Of course. If I was Albert, I’d want that, too. And…” She looked around again. “I don’t like that Mr. Kovalenko. You know how some people have a feature that’s just scary. You know, like eyes, especially eyes. But with Mr. Kovalenko it’s not his eyes. You can’t see nothing in his eyes. But he’s got these big meaty hands, ugly and sweaty. Like…like…”

“Like he could crush your neck with just one of them?”

“Yes. Dear Lord. Yes.”