Past Due

Chapter 67

THE JUSTICE, HUNCHED over one of the journals, stared at his wife with the same exotic expression I had spied when I first visited his chambers, the admixture of passion and fascination, of fear and disgust and abject love, but there was something else, something that hadn’t been there before but which came through with stunning purity: hate. With everything else now, there was hate on his face, and the strength of that emotion seemed to startle Alura Straczynski, though just for a moment, before she gained again her brilliant self-possession.

“What are you reading, dear? Anything interesting?”

“Not really,” he said, closing the journal in his hand.

“Then put it down.”

The justice trembled a bit, as if trying to gain control of his very muscles, and glanced my way before he carefully placed the journal atop one of the piles.

“Good,” she said. “Now, tell me, why have you broken into my studio.”

“I was just-”

“This is my private place, as private as my soul. You have no business meddling here. I made that clear many years ago.”

The justice gestured to the suitcase on the bed. “Mr. Carl says this is Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. Is he correct?”

“Our Mr. Carl is quite a pain in the ass, don’t you think so, Jackson? I told you we had to watch out for him.”

“How did you get Tommy’s suitcase?”

“That is none of your business.”

“What did you do, Alura?”

Her anger took control of her for a moment, anger at being forced to justify anything in her life, but then her gaze cast about the room and she took in the situation, my presence, the closets emptied, the clothes scattered about, her husband asking questions that he had never dared ask before. She stepped forward toward her husband, stepped forward until she was standing before him, only a pile of journals between them, standing before him like a penitent, and then she bowed her head so it touched his chest.

“Long ago I decided to stay with you, my love,” she said.

There was a moment when it appeared he was going to reach out his arms and embrace her, accept her, tell her all was right. It was what he had always done, what he was about to do, but then something seized him, perhaps the anger, perhaps some sickness at the heart. He stepped back, away from her, leaving her standing there, head bowed, in the middle of the room, alone.

“What did you do?” he said softly.

“Tommy was about to be indicted. He was running away. There was a boat. He had a plan. He wanted me to meet him at the dock and leave with him.”

“And you couldn’t just have told him no.”

“He was leaving. There were things he had possession of with which I couldn’t let him leave.”

“And so you brought in my brother.”

“No, Jackson, dear. You brought in your brother. But when he came to me, angry as a beast over what he considered my betrayal of his precious brother, I told him the truth.”

“The truth?”

“Yes, Jackson. You must believe. The truth. That I loved you. That I couldn’t live without you. That I was staying, that it was over between Tommy and myself. But there were some precious things of mine that Tommy still possessed. They would be in a suitcase. And I told him where Tommy and his precious suitcase would be found.”

“You let me think it was me. All this time.”

“I let you think what you wanted to think. You wanted to bear the guilt, so be it. If it was to be borne, you were better able to handle the burden.”

“You’re a witch.”

“Why such a frown, Jackson. I chose you. You should be grateful.”

“You were all I ever wanted.”

“I know, dear.”

“And you’re a witch,” he said, and then he seemed to totter. He reached out his arm, braced himself on the writing desk, clutched his gut. The whole of his marriage was coming clear to him in a way I would never understand and it was enough to send his stomach reeling.

She rushed to him, reached out for him, pulled him close. “ Jackson,” she said as she held him. “Oh, Jackson, my darling, Jackson.”

I stepped over to the charming scene and took hold of the keys she still held in her hand. She gave me a bitter glance before she released her grip. I went through them quickly and found the smallest ones. It only took me three tries to fit one neatly into the suitcase’s lock. With a quick click I opened it, unlatched the latches, pulled up the top.

A few old shirts, old socks, a yellowed undershirt thrown into the suitcase with haste, and then, within the fabric, three bundles of cash. The bills were old, the denominations varied, the bills like the shirts packed up in haste. I went through them quickly. Twenty, thirty thousand maybe. I took the bundles out of the suitcase and showed them to her.

“Those are mine,” she said, staring at me even as she clutched at her husband. “Put them back.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How dare you?”

“I dare. How much was there when you first opened it up. Enough to pay for this room of your own for twenty years, along with the drinks, the clothes, the affairs, all the former lovers you continued to support. Lovers like Curtis Lobban.”

“Remember what I said about being too clever, Victor? Give me the money.”

“You stole enough,” I said as I slipped the bills into my jacket pocket, along with the suitcase key.

She let go of her husband. “So now you’re taking your cut, is that it?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s it. But it wasn’t the money you were really after that night, was it? That was just a lucky pull. You were looking for something else. Something that’s been gone since then. Until now. The photographs.”

“Yes.”

“And your damn notebooks.”

“You found them?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“You have my notebooks?”

“Yes,” I said, but when I said it I noticed something muted in her reaction. Before, whenever she mentioned her missing notebooks her eyes had lit with excitement, and the need to seduce them from me. Now the excitement had been dimmed, the need weakened, as if she already knew that I had the notebooks, as if she already knew how she was going to get them.

“Your notebooks?” said Jackson Straczynski, standing straighter now. “You had my brother kill Tommy for the notebooks?”

“I foolishly gave some to Tommy for safekeeping. I didn’t want you to find them. But then I realized without them there was a gap.”

“They’re just words.”

“They are my life’s work, Jackson. Don’t minimize what you don’t understand.”

“So you used my brother to fill the gap.”

“He wasn’t supposed to kill him,” she said.

“All for you precious notebooks.”

“They are my life,” she said. “You know that.”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

He traced his fingers gently over the cover of one of the journals perched high on a pile. “Your journals,” he said as he caressed another, gently touching the skin of the cover as one would touch a lover, brushing it with the tips of his fingers, stroking it with the softest touch. “Your precious journals.”

And then he gave the pile a light shove.

The stack teetered for a moment, teetered, and then collapsed, the notebooks falling one upon another, some skidding across the floor, splayed open.

Alura Straczynski gasped, as if it was she who had been pushed to the floor.

He pushed another pile to the floor, and then a third.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He turned to stare at her as he gave another pile a quick kick, sending a stack of books sliding and then collapsing onto the floor, the volumes spreading open in the air, their pages flapping from the force. The sight of the books sprawling open was almost obscene.

Alura Straczynski rushed to her husband and called out “Bastard,” as she shoved him away from the journals. She fell to her knees, picking up the notebooks, her notebooks, and placing them carefully in her arms. She picked up as many as she could possibly hold and clutched them to her chest, rocking them almost as if she were easing their pain.

“They’re a curse,” he said.

“They’re my life’s purpose,” she replied, without looking at him.

“They should be burned.”

“Touch them again and I’ll kill you,” she said, her lack of affect positively chilling.

“Alura?”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Alura.”

“Shut up,” she said.

And he did, and they stayed there for a moment in the pathetic tableau, she mothering her journals as if they were a child, turning her back on the husband who loved her far too foolishly and far too well. And he, trying to explain himself to a woman who cared not a whit for anything but the jottings of an inner life that was warped by the very process of its saving. The unexamined life might not be worth living, but the examined life is pure murder.

“All right,” I said, finally, “are you guys through with your marital drama here, because any more and, frankly, I’m going to puke all over the bed.”

The justice stared at me for a moment and then at his wife, still kneeling with her journals, still holding them tight to her chest. Then he looked around at the whole of the studio, the scattered books, the photographs of his wife taken by her lover, the mess of clothes I had thrown about in my search, the great bed sitting like a lurid whale in the middle of the space, and on top of the bed, Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. This is my private place, as private as my soul, she had said. You have no business meddling here. She was wrong about him having no business there, but it seemed clear, as he looked around, that he couldn’t bear to stay there any longer.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Carl,” he said, his face twisted with disgust. “I am finished here.”

And then he walked out of the studio, passing by his wife as if she were made of stone, slamming the door closed behind him, the rusted metal banging shut with the solid echo of a cell door.

Alura Straczynski seemed to slump at the sound, and then, without looking my way, started placing her notebooks back in their stacks, checking each one for the date, sorting and arranging. I looked again at the pile of folded book cartons in the corner.

“Where is he?” I said.

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you are a cynic, Mr. Carl, as well as a coward. I want my notebooks.”

“You’ve made that clear to me, and to him too, I’m sure. Are you going to leave with him this time?”

“I’m a married woman, Mr. Carl.”

“Not for long, I figure.”

“Oh, I’m not so easily rid of.”

“Sort of like syphilis. But still you are packing.”

“I haven’t yet decided my future path for certain.”

“Can I ask you something? One thing that’s still not clear to me.”

“Ask what you want.”

“Were you the one who bashed Lonnie in the head that night?”

“The motorcycle man? I only found out at the last moment that he would be guarding Tommy and the suitcase. There was no telling what could have happened had he spotted Benjamin’s men at the meeting place.”

“So you cracked his head open.”

“I was a switch hitter in softball.”

“Oh, I bet you were.” I closed the suitcase, pulled it off the bed. “Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Do you want to tell me where you’re meeting him?”

“No.”

“He’s a selfish psychopath out to further his own rotten ends.”

“He always was.”

“Okay, then,” I said as I walked toward the door. “Just tell him if anything happens to my partner I’ll never stop until I destroy him.”

“That’s between the two of you.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “You’re smack in the middle of it and so I’m holding you responsible too. You know, I must say, Mrs. Straczynski, I look at you and I am stumped. I have no idea of what makes you tick.”

“I’m a simple girl, Victor, with a simple view of the world. Everything on this earth exists only for the purpose of providing either for my pleasure or my art.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess that explains it.”