The hunting wind

CHAPTER 8

The Peach Tree Senior Community was on Cherry Hill Road, just like the man had told us. Randy and I walked through the front door and right into a large room with a fireplace and lots of couches and chairs scattered around. We saw maybe fifty senior citizens in the room, either playing cards at one of the tables or just sitting there talking. Every head turned when we walked in.

“Looks like a nice place,” I said.

“Reminds me of your friend Jackie’s bar,” Randy said.

“I don’t see the resemblance.”

“Bunch of people sitting around by a fireplace,” he said. “You should make your reservation right now, Alex. A couple more years, you’ll be ready for this place. You won’t even have to change your lifestyle.”

I thought about that one while he walked around the place, looking for somebody in charge. He finally found a nurse sitting at a table in the corner. She had the Detroit News spread out under a reading lamp.

“We’re looking for the Meisners,” he said.

“Two seventeen,” she said. “Right down that way.”

We went down the wing she had indicated. It looked like a hotel hallway, with doors on either side. A woman passed us, pushing a walker. She smiled at us.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Randy said.

“Such handsome gentlemen,” she said.

“Hey, she included you, Alex.”

I looked at him. “Two seventeen’s right here,” I said.

We knocked on the door. There was yelling from inside the room, and then finally the door opened. The man who stood there had to be in his eighties. Maybe ninety. Ninety and still standing-I could only hope to be so lucky myself someday.

“Mr. Meisner?” I said. “I’m Alex McKnight. And this is Randy Wilkins. We spoke on the phone.”

“You’re the private guy,” he said.

“Um, a private investigator,” I said.

A voice called out from somewhere behind him. “Who is it?”

“It’s the man from the phone call,” Mr. Meisner said.

“Which man?”

“Muriel, the man who was-” He stopped and rolled his eyes at us. “Come in, gentlemen.”

We followed him into his apartment. It was well furnished, with a small efficiency kitchen attached to the main room, and a separate bedroom. There had to have been at least a hundred pictures in frames all over the place, on shelves, on the coffee table, on the walls themselves. Mrs. Meisner was sitting in a wheelchair in front of the television. She had the remote control in her lap.

“Turn the television off, Muriel! We have company!”

“Who is it?”

“It’s a Mr…” He looked at me.

“McKnight,” I said. “Call me Alex.”

“It’s Alex!” he said. “And…” He looked at Randy.

“Call me Randy.”

“And Randy! Alex and Randy!”

“Pleased to meet you!” I said.

“Stop yelling!” she said. “I’m not deaf!”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Can I get you gentleman something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“We have beer in the refrigerator!” Mrs. Meisner said.

“No, that’s all right,” I said.

“We’re out of beer!” Mr. Meisner said. “I was going to offer them coffee!”

“Men don’t drink coffee!” Mrs. Meisner said. “Give them beer!”

“Really, we’re fine,” I said.

“Of course men drink coffee!” Mr. Meisner said. “I drink coffee every damned day! Will you turn the television off already!”

“I’m sure they’d prefer beer!” Mrs. Meisner said.

“We don’t have any beer!”

“Please,” I said. “We don’t want to trouble you folks. We just wanted to ask you about Leverette Street.”

“We used to live there!” Mr. Meisner said. “Here, sit down already! You’re making me nervous standing around! Muriel, turn off the television!”

We sat down on the couch. Mr. Meisner sat in the chair next to Mrs. Meisner’s wheelchair.

“Mr. and Mrs. Meisner,” I said. “You were living on Leverette Street in 1971, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Meisner said. His voice dropped down a couple notches in volume now that he was sitting down. “We bought that house in 1934, if you can believe it. Right after we got married.” He reached over and took his wife’s hand. “We raised four sons there. Here, you want to see pictures?”

For the next few minutes, we went through all four of the sons, their wives, the seven grandchildren, and the eleven great-grandchildren.

“That old house got to be too much for us,” Mr. Meisner said when we were done looking at the pictures. “We had to sell it and move here.”

“You are so full of crap,” Mrs. Meisner said.

“Muriel, please, we have company here.”

“I hate this place,” she said. “Peach Tree Senior Community? There’s not a peach tree within a hundred miles of this place. And please, senior community? Why don’t they just call it a nursing home?”

“It’s not a nursing home, Muriel. It’s ‘assisted living.’ Would you rather I be back there at the house, mowing the lawn? Shoveling the snow?”

“You pay a kid to mow the lawn! And shovel the snow!”

“The ice used to freeze in the gutters, remember? I’d have to get up there and chop it out in the springtime!”

“Alex’s partner just fell off the roof doing that,” Randy said. “He broke both his ankles.”

“Do you see?” Mr. Meisner said. “Do you see what happens? Do you want that to be me, falling off the roof and breaking both my ankles?”

“Mr. Meisner,” I said, “Mrs. Meisner. Do you happen to remember a family that lived down the street from you? The Valeskas?”

“Valeskas?” Mr. Meisner said. “Muriel, do you remember the Valeskas?”

“They lived over the Kowalskis. They rented the upstairs, I mean.”

“The Kowalskis,” Mrs. Meisner said. “We know the Kowalskis.”

“Mickey Kowalski,” Mr. Meisner said. “And his wife, Martha. We still get Christmas cards from them.”

“I think he’s sick, isn’t he?”

“Who, Mickey Kowalski? He’s not sick.”

“I think he’s sick.”

“He’s not sick. Don’t listen to my wife.”

“How about the Valeskas?” I said. “The people who rented the upstairs. Do you remember them?”

“I don’t remember the Valeskas,” Mr. Meisner said. “Muriel, do you remember the Valeskas?”

“Valeska, Valeska, Valeska,” she said. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She was a spiritual reader,” Randy said. “A fortune-teller.”

That hit them like a bolt of lightning. “The fortune-teller!” Mrs. Meisner said. “Oh my God, Fred! The fortune-teller!”

“Yes! Yes!” Mr. Meisner said. “And that family. What was their name?”

“It was Valeska,” I said. “You remember the family?”

“Oh good heavens, yes,” Mrs. Meisner said. “My, what a time that was. With that family down the street. And that sign she put out on the sidewalk! You remember, with the big hand?”

“Yes! The hand!” Mr. Meisner said. “Mickey rented the upstairs to those people. I think they were only there for nine months, maybe ten months. And then they were gone! Just like that! Mickey, he thought they were Gypsies or something.”

“But they paid their rent,” Mrs. Meisner said. “I remember Martha telling me that. And they kept the place clean.”

“Ah, but they were the strangest people,” Mr. Meisner said. “The husband-what was his first name?”

Here it comes, I thought. This is why we’re here. Randy and I were both hanging on their words now.

“It was an interesting name,” she said. “Something exotic.”

“The whole family was exotic. What were their names? There were four of them.”

“The man’s name was…” she said.

We held our breath.

“Gregor!” she said. “That was his name! I remember wondering what happened to the y at the end!”

“Yes, Gregor,” Mr. Meisner said. “And the woman was… Oh Lord, what was her name?”

“Arabella,” she said. “I remember it. It’s such a nice name, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. I looked at Randy. He was lost in his own world, now that he had those names to think about.

“They had one boy and one girl,” Mr. Meisner said. “The boy’s name was…”

“Leopold,” Randy said. “His name was Leopold, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Meisner said. “That was his name. He was a tough-looking little guy, wasn’t he?”

“Ha! I remember now!” Mr. Meisner said. “He painted that room for us, remember, Muriel? That’s what he and his father did-they were painters!”

“That’s right!” Randy said. “I should have remembered that!”

“They were good, too. They did a good job on the room. Anyway, when they were done, I said something like ‘Thank you, Leo!’ And he said to me-what did he say? He said, ‘My name is Leopold! My name is not Leo! Leo is a name for American men who drink beer and sit on their front porches in their undershirts.’ Lord, how did I remember that?”

“He was a strange one all right,” Mrs. Meisner said. “Ah, but the daughter…”

“Maria,” Randy said. He said it in a way that stopped them. Both of them.

“Yes, Maria,” Mrs. Meisner said. “She was such a beautiful girl.”

“I’m looking for her,” Randy said. “That’s why we’re here.”

They both just nodded. Apparently, it didn’t seem like a crazy idea to them. Of course, they had both seen Maria. So maybe that was enough of an explanation. Or maybe when you live that long, nothing seems crazy anymore.

“Do you have any idea where they might have gone?” I said. “After they left the Kowalskis’ house?”

“No,” Mr. Meisner said. “They just disappeared. They left the last month’s rent under Mickey’s door, and just vanished.”

“Well, we have the names now,” I said. “That could mean a lot. And wait a minute-didn’t you say that the Kowalskis still send you Christmas cards?”

“Mickey and Martha,” he said. “Yes, every year. We don’t ever talk or anything, but every Christmas we get a card.”

“I tell you, he’s real sick,” she said. “I heard that somewhere.”

“Nonsense, Muriel!”

“Would you happen to have their address, then?” I said.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “We send them a card every year, too. It would be kinda rude not to, don’t you think?”

“Could I trouble you for that address perhaps?” I said.

“Yes, of course,” he said. It took him a little while, but he got up off the chair. “You’ll have to excuse me. I turn ninety-two next month.”

“How long have you been married?” Randy said.

He looked down at his wife. He touched her hair. “Seventy years.”

“We’ll get a divorce someday,” she said. “We’re waiting for the children to die.”

“Ha! I love that one,” he said. “All right, now where did you put those addresses!”

“They’re in the box,” she said.

“I know they’re in the box! Where’s the box?”

“It’s where it always is! In the bedroom, on the dresser!”

“No, that’s where you always put it! Oh, never mind. I’ll find it myself!” He disappeared into the bedroom.

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this, Mrs. Meisner,” Randy said.

“It’s nice to have the company,” she said. “I haven’t thought about the old neighborhood in a long time.”

“I found it!” Mr. Meisner called from the next room. “Right where I put it!”

Mrs. Meisner gave us a smile and a shake of her head.

“Here it is,” he said as he shuffled back into the room. “They moved to Arizona. Can you believe it? All the way out there with the desert and the cactuses. Let’s see, Kowalski…” He looked through the index cards in the box. “Here, Mickey and Martha Kowalski. In Tucson.”

I took the card from him and copied down the address. There was no phone number, but I figured we could look that up.

We stayed for another thirty minutes, listening to more stories about the old neighborhood and how wonderful or horrible this new place was, depending on who was talking. Mr. Meisner stood up to shake our hands as we left. We both bent over Mrs. Meisner in her wheelchair and gave her a hug and a kiss. We promised we’d come back and visit them again someday.

On our way back to the motel, Randy kept looking at the Arizona address I had written down for the Kowalskis, even though he could not read it unless we were passing under a streetlamp. Even though he probably already had it memorized.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” he said. “This is them. The people who rented the upstairs to the Valeskas.”

“They may not be much help,” I said. “You heard what the Meisners said about the way the Valeskas left. They probably have no idea where they went.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’ll be good to talk to them anyway. They might help me remember something else. So much is coming back to me now. Like the fact that they were housepainters. It’s like a fuzzy picture that’s coming back into focus, you know what I mean?”

“A picture of the way things were in 1971,” I said. “You can’t forget that, Randy.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “I hear what you’re saying.”

When we were back in our motel room, I sat on one bed, Randy on the other. I called information in Tucson and got the number for the Kowalskis. Before I could dial it, Randy took the phone from me.

“Let me do this one,” he said.

“It’s all yours.”

“What time is it, about nine o’clock? So in Arizona, it’s seven o’clock? No problem.”

He dialed the number, waited for a couple rings, and then said, “Hello! I’m looking for a Mr. Michael Kowalski! Or Mickey, I guess they call him!” He was wearing his killer smile, which doesn’t work so well over the phone. The smile disappeared, and before he could say another word, he was looking at the phone like it had just stung him in the ear.

“They hung up,” he said. “They told me that Mickey was dead and then they hung up.”

“I guess Mrs. Meisner was right,” I said. “Mickey was sick.”

“What am I going to do now?”

“Call them back and apologize?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said. He dialed the number again. “Oh please, please, ma’am, I’m very sorry. Please, ma’am, don’t hang up. I’m so sorry to hear of your loss and I’m sorry to disturb you. I just spent a couple hours with the Meisners up here in Michigan. They were very good friends with, um-I’m sorry, am I speaking to Mrs. Kowalski?

… Their daughter. Oh, I see. If I could apologize one more time, ma’am. The Meisners had no idea about… Yes, in Michigan. With the Meisners. They used to live down the block, on Leverette Street… Yes… Yes… And they told me to give your parents a call, and

… Oh, your mother is there? That would be, um…”

He looked at me with panic in his eyes.

“Martha,” I said.

“Martha,” he said. “Martha Kowalski. Yes, we were all just talking about… Yes… Oh yes, please. If there’s any way I can just speak to her for a moment… Oh God bless you. Thank you…”

I listened to his end of the conversation with Martha Kowalski. It started out pretty simple, with the Meisners and the old neighborhood and Randy telling her how sorry he was to hear of the loss of her husband. When he got around to the Valeskas, a cloud came over his face. “Are you sure about that, ma’am?” he said at least three times. When he was done, he thanked her and then just sat there on the edge of the bed, looking at me.

“What happened?” I said.

“She remembers them very well,” he said. “It was just like the Meisners said. They stayed there for nine months, and then in the middle of the tenth month, they disappeared.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She said that Valeska wasn’t their real name. It was Valenescu.”

“Valenescu?”

“That’s what she said. That’s the name that was on their checks. She said she remembers Maria’s mother using ‘Madame Valeska’ on the sign because it wasn’t such a hard name for Americans.”

“Okay,” I said. “That kind of makes sense.”

“It does,” he said. “It makes sense. And this explains why we couldn’t find her before. Or her parents and her brother. We didn’t have the right name.”

“Randy, this kind of tells you something, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t even know her real name.”

“Yeah?”

“You spent one week with her, almost thirty years ago, and you didn’t even know her real name.”

“Ten days,” he said. He picked up the Detroit phone book. “I don’t see any Valenescus in here. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but Randy-”

“Wait!” he said. The cloud was gone. “Let’s call Leon!”

I let out a long breath, and then I called Leon. I gave him the new name. Maria Valenescu. Her parents, Gregor and Arabella.

“That’s fantastic work!” Leon said. “Now try and tell me you’re not a real private investigator!”

“It wasn’t that hard, Leon.”

“I’ll run these names right now,” he said. “You guys must be psyched down there! We’re getting closer!”

“I’m not so sure,” I said, looking at Randy.

“What’s the matter?”

“Let me take him to dinner and buy him a slinky,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”

“What’s a slinky, Alex?”

“It’s vodka and root beer, Leon. Don’t ask me to explain.” I said good night and hung up the phone.

“Well?” Randy said.

“Leon’s gonna work on those names,” I said.

“Good deal,” he said. “We’re back on track. Come on, let’s go to the Lindell.”

“I’m gonna take you someplace else,” I said. “Someplace a little quieter.”

“It’s your town,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I took him to a restaurant I remembered on Telegraph. I was hoping he’d see it all himself, how ridiculous this whole thing was turning out to be. I kept waiting for it to sink in. It didn’t.

I drove him back to the motel. When I turned out the light, he stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. From outside our room came the sounds of the traffic passing on Michigan Avenue. Then he started talking again. It was just his voice in the darkness, like that first night, the night he flew all the way up to Paradise to find me, waited until he was lying on my couch in the darkness to tell me why he had flown all the way up there.

“The day before the game,” he said, “Maria and I got a hotel room. Maria told her parents that she was sleeping over at a friend’s house. We got this room and we made love. For the first time, really. The first and only time. But then afterward… That’s what I really remember, Alex. I was just sitting on the bed, thinking about the game the next day. It was like my whole future was hanging in the balance, you know? I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep much that night. And Maria, she was just sitting there in a chair. And she was drawing a picture of me. She loved to draw. Did I tell you that?”

“No,” I said.

“She wanted to be an artist. She always had this big pad with her and little canvas box with pencils and charcoal and stuff in it. Sometimes in the afternoons, we’d walk along the waterfront and we’d stop and sit down somewhere and she’d draw something. But she never drew a picture of me until that night. And I was just getting so keyed up about the game the next day, I wasn’t really thinking about it, you know? I was just sitting there not talking and she was drawing her picture.”

He stopped. A big truck rumbled by outside, rattling the pictures on the walls.

“Did you ever see that painting by-who was it? Toulouse-Lautrec, I think. The painting of the girl who’s just sitting on a bench along the wall in a bar? You can tell there’s some kind of party or something going on, and there’re some people right next to her. But she’s just sitting there looking at nothing, like she’s lost in her own world. You know the one I mean?”

“I think I’ve seen it.”

“Well, the thing about that painting is that you just look at it, and you can feel how tired that woman is, you know? How lonely she is. I mean, hell, if they had cameras back then and he had just taken her picture, you wouldn’t have felt it like that. It was the way he painted it. I’m sorry, it’s not like I’m an art critic or anything.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I know what you mean.”

“Okay, so Maria shows me this drawing she did of me sitting there on the bed. And when I looked at it, I was just… My God, I couldn’t even speak. The way she drew that picture, you could feel how scared I was. Just absolutely terrified of what was going to happen the next day. I couldn’t believe it.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Perhaps he was picturing the drawing in his head again. I didn’t say anything.

“It wasn’t just that she was a good artist,” he finally said. “She could draw that picture because she knew me. You know what I’m trying to say, Alex? At that moment, she knew me better than I knew myself. I didn’t even know that I was that scared until I looked at the picture. How many times in your life does somebody know you that well? You wanna know how many times it’s happened to me?”

“How many?” I said.

“Twice,” he said. “There was you. And then there was Maria. Not my wife. Not the woman I slept next to every night of my life for eleven years. Lord knows, not my parents. Not my kids even. It was you and Maria. You were the only two people in this world who could see right through me. All the jokes and the games and the bullshit. I know it was only one season we played together, but when I was pitching and you were catching, it was like you knew everything that was going on inside my head. Everything. Even stuff I didn’t know. You knew what I could throw better than I knew. Which is why I could never be the same pitcher with anybody else. I came all the way up here and found you all these years later and it was like I had just seen you the day before. Am I right?”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Maybe.”

“And Maria,” he said. “I swear to God, Alex, she knew me just as well as you did. It didn’t matter that we only spent a week and a half together. No matter how long ago it might have been. Hell, it doesn’t even matter that I didn’t know her real name.”

Another silence, and then another truck rumbling by in the night.

“No offense, Alex,” he said. “You both knew me just as well, but she wins the evening gown competition.”

I laughed. What else was I going to do?

“Do you think we’ll find her?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t put money on it at this point.”

“Do you think we should stop looking?”

“Don’t ask me that,” I said. “Not unless you want the truth.”

‘Tell me.”

“Randy, I’ve been telling you all along that this is crazy. I know you don’t want to hear that. And I know that if I had stayed home, you would have come down here by yourself. So I figured I had nothing to lose. A couple days hanging out with my old teammate, just to see what happens. But now I think you should stop. I really do. I think this is a bad idea.”

Another long silence. Another truck passing outside, and then the sound of him breathing in the dark.