To The Power Of Three

27

In the thirty-five years since Thornton Hartigan had first fixed his gaze on the farms and undeveloped acres that would become Glendale, civilization had marched toward the area just as he had prophesied. Roads were wider and smoother. Several large grocery chains now vied for customers, and there were two Starbucks. The nearest mall, after a flirtation with bankruptcy, was retooling itself as an upscale shopping destination. Just adjacent there was a multiplex with stadium seating and enough screens to allow the occasional art film to lose money.

But decent restaurants continued to elude this part of the valley. The usual suspects-the fried-cheese franchises, as Dale thought of them-were represented. But the only high-end places were old-fashioned relics, throwbacks to a day when people took Sunday drives in order to stuff themselves on crab imperial. When Dale had lived here, the lack of good restaurants had not bothered him so much, but after four years in the city, when Baltimore was suddenly enjoying a mild culinary renaissance, he was spoiled. Dale regretted every meal he was forced to consume in Glendale. And given that he had come out every week, sometimes twice a week, for dinner with Kat, he had logged more than his share of time at Applebee’s and Chili’s and Bertucci’s. He knew it was decadent, caring so much about food. An educated palate actually increased one’s ratio of disappointments, for as one grew more sophisticated, fewer meals met one’s expectations. Still, Dale could not bear eating crap.

Which was how he rationalized making Peter Lasko come to meet him in the city for breakfast at the Blue Moon Café in Fells Point, one of Dale’s favorites. The fare was wonderful, old-fashioned comfort food with a twist. But Dale also wanted a meeting on his own turf, a place where the waitresses knew and fussed over him. Three years ago, when he had tracked Peter down at the Glendale pool and taken him out for a sandwich at the local Dairy Queen, he had felt old and pasty, out of place among all those tanned young people. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

Yet it was apparent from the moment Peter Lasko sat down that waitresses did not need to know him to pay special attention. Apparently he was that good-looking, although Dale would never be able to see it.

“Nice,” the boy said, glancing around the narrow rowhouse. Man, Dale corrected himself. He was a man now. Technically. Old enough to drink and vote, and more than old enough to go to war, although the Peter Laskos of the world didn’t have to worry about that.

“You can’t get in here on the weekends,” Dale said. “But I think it would lose a lot of its charm if it expanded to a larger space. It has only one flaw.” He lowered his voice. “The coffee’s the usual overscorched brew. That’s why I bring my own, from the Daily Grind.” He tapped his thermal cup. “Technically not allowed. But I’m a favored customer.”

“Outlaw coffee, huh?” Kat had made a similar joke about her father’s fussiness when he brought her here. Shit-Dale again felt the waves of grief, not unlike nausea, except these seemed to get stuck in his throat and stay there. He did not want to break down. Not here, not in front of this boy.

“I hear,” he said, moving to a subject that he knew the boy would like, “that you’ve scored quite a success for yourself, right out of the gate. A major motion picture.”

“Well, it’s a Miramax film. They don’t carry the artistic cred they once did, but it’s still a big deal. Of course, I’m not the star, far from it. But it’s twelve days’ work, and I play the star’s brother.”

He threw out a name that meant nothing to Dale, who nevertheless widened his eyes as if impressed. Dale couldn’t remember the last time he had been to a movie theater, or even watched a film straight through on cable. Who had two hours to sit in one place doing only one thing? That was one of the unexpected sides of Susannah, her devotion to certain programs, and, stranger still, her belief that they connected her to others. Television was church for her generation. She and Kat had bonded over that HBO show Sex and the City, which Dale found appalling. It was porno without the money shots, although the girls incongruously kept their bras on while fucking.

“Will you film around here or in Pennsylvania?”

“ Toronto. More bang for the Canadian buck. Besides, even though it’s called SusquehannaFalls , it’s supposed to be set in some vaguely generic city, like in Miller’s Crossing. We don’t want the audience to know exactly where they are, or even what year it’s set in. The sense of dislocation is key to the experience.”

Dale imagined a director or writer or someone else connected to the movie saying these exact words to the boy, who had absorbed them earnestly and now repeated them on faith. Yes, he was just the kid for the job Dale had in mind.

“So you’ve got the world by the balls and you decided to kill some time in little old Glendale?”

“I had four weeks off. It’s not really enough time to do anything. Besides-” There was that raffish grin again. “The money hasn’t started rolling in yet. My rent in New York is manageable, but it’s an expensive city, just sucks the ducats out of your pocket, so I went ahead and sublet my place. And my mom’s the best cook I know.”

Ducats. Even Dale was pretty sure this was outmoded slang. Kid would probably be talking about “benjamins” in a minute, or drawling a-ight, as if he were some street-corner drug dealer. Dale knew he was being cruel, but such outward pettiness helped keep other, darker feelings at bay. It was easier to feel contempt than think about Kat. Easy yet unnatural, too.

“Do I know your parents? What does your father do?”

“He’s at Procter & Gamble, manages people or something. I’ve always been a little hazy on the details.”

The conversation stalled out, but their food arrived before the awkwardness became too obvious, allowing them to busy themselves with forks and salt shakers. Dale was having one of the Blue Moon’s specialties, the huevos rancheros, and he had assumed that a twenty-two-year-old boy would order something even heavier-the chocolate chip pancakes or Belgian waffles. But Peter was eating an egg-white omelet, no toast, minus the hash browns.

“They hired me for my lean and hungry look,” he said when he caught Dale eyeing his plate. “I’m not doing low-carb, exactly, but when I’m away from my mom’s table, I try to keep it light. I can say no to a waitress, but I can’t say no to my mom.”

“Yes, it’s hard to say no to one’s mom, no matter one’s age.”

“Does your mom still expect you to eat when you see her?”

“My mother passed away ten years ago.”

He lowered his head, embarrassed. “Oh, yeah, I should have noticed. I mean, yesterday, in the cemetery…I mean-sorry.”

“It’s part of the natural order of things, losing one’s parent. Sad, but logical. Losing one’s child, however…” Such clichés were inextricable from grief, Dale was discovering.

“I know, it must be awful. I still can’t believe it’s Kat. Everyone liked her.”

“Well, someone clearly didn’t.” He let that sink in. “Did you know Perri very well?”

“Not at all. I mean, I must have met her, the summer I dated Kat. I think she was in Carousel. But she wasn’t, like, someone I talked to. Her older brother was ahead of me in school, but I knew him a little better. Dwight.”

No matter how things end, they have a child left, Dale thought. It’s so unfair. And the Patels have all three of theirs. Again he felt that impulse to pound the table, to throw his own untouched plate across the room, to succumb to a tantrum.

But all he said was, “So you stay plugged into Glendale, after all these years?”

“It’s home,” Peter said with a shrug. “You hear stuff, almost without trying. Truth is, I feel a lot closer to my college friends than my high-school ones. I mean, I have so much more in common with them. Whereas in high school, it was just, you know, being in the same place.”

“Propinquity.”

“Sir?”

“The mere fact of being in close physical quarters. It’s that way for most people. I seldom see my high-school friends outside reunions. And I wouldn’t even go to those if I still didn’t live in the area. My brother never goes.” Because he doesn’t want everyone to see how Mr. Most Popular turned out. Those whom the gods would destroy they first elect most popular. Then again, Kat was most popular. Most popular, first in her class, prom queen. Yes-and she was dead.

“Yeah,” said Peter, clearly just being agreeable, but Dale started, thinking the boy was affirming Dale’s unvoiced thoughts.

“The thing that bothers me,” Dale said, growing impatient, as he always did, with the small talk endemic to business, “is the idea that I might never know why this happened. If Perri doesn’t recover, we won’t find out. Even if she does, it will probably turn into some variation on the insanity defense. Either way we lose. And not just my family. I think everyone in Glendale has a stake in what happened.”

“I just assumed Perri was jealous or something.”

“But do you know that? Is it based on something someone said, or is it just your conjecture?”

“Um, well…I don’t really know anything. Giff, the drama teacher, said Perri was really burned when they subbed Oklahoma! for Anyone Can Whistle. Even though he said Perri could be Ado Annie, which is the kind of part that actors salivate for.”

“What did any of this have to do with Kat? I mean, I know she had the lead in Oklahoma!, but why would Perri care about that, especially if the drama teacher told her the other part could be hers?”

“Beats me. Girls get crazy over weird shi-stuff. But, Mr. Hartigan, won’t the police figure this all out? I mean, isn’t it their job?”

Dale took a gulp of his coffee, willing himself to slow down, reel the boy in gently. This was the part Susannah played in his company, the gentle, gracious hostess. But he couldn’t use Susannah for this bit of liaison, for Susannah would not have approved of what he was doing.

“It should be. But I’m hearing about, um, some irregularities in the investigation. They’re nice fellows, very professional. But it’s a job to them, nothing more. They’ll be satisfied with far less than I ever will-a straightforward exegesis of bullet trajectories, where everyone was standing.”

Vocabulary was clearly not the boy’s strong point. How had he ever gotten into NYU? Oh, yes, the Cuban mom. “Well, what about Josie Patel? Can’t she tell you what you need to know?”

“As I understand it, Josie’s story doesn’t exactly track.” Dale hated to admit it, but his father had been right, calling in all those political markers, making sure they were kept up to speed on the investigation. It was like getting private title insurance-the lender’s interests and your interests overlapped only up to a point, and then you were on your own. “And her parents have hired a lawyer now.”

He made eye contact with the boy and held it. Why did women think he was handsome? Yes, his features were even, his skin pleasingly smooth, his eyes puppy-doggish, his hair floppy in the retro style that girls seemed to like. But those lovely eyes were a little vacant, his manner as floppy as his hair.

“Do you know Josie, Peter?”

“A little. She and Kat were tight. She did flip-flaps in the opening of Carousel, the one where I played Billy Bigelow.”

“Right,” Dale said, although he certainly hadn’t seen the show. Kat wasn’t in that one. He remembered Kat’s asking him to go with her, however, to see Josie and Perri. And Peter, he realized now. She had wanted her father to see her boyfriend as something other than the predatory college creep he was. Whatever regrets he had about Kat, he would never feel bad about getting this kid out of her life. He was just sorry that Peter hadn’t finessed it better.

“You know, Peter, the people who loved Kat-we need each other more than ever right now. And we have to pursue the truth as…a memorial to her. We owe her that much, don’t you think?”

The boy wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, and the seconds passed. Finally, finally, however, Peter said, “I could talk to her. Josie, I mean. If you think it would help.”

“Really?” Dale replied, as if the idea had never occurred to him. “Why-of course, that was never my intent, but if you did find out something, it would be…a comfort to me. Whatever you found out. From anyone, not just Josie. I mean, you have a lot of influence with that high-school crowd. People who wouldn’t dream of talking to the police might talk to you.”

Peter brushed his hair out of his eyes, sat up a little straighter. Dale could not say for sure, but he believed that what he saw then was the dreamy aspect of an actor trying on a part.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I could definitely do that.”

Dale pushed his business card across the table. “Between us. I know I can trust you.”

“Because…”

“Because you’re an honorable sort.” No point in reminding Peter how dishonorable he had been, how abruptly he had dropped Kat three years ago, when he thought there might be some advantage in it for him.

“You know, I kind of loved her. Kat, I mean. I really did. But we were young, like you said.”

“I’m sure you did care for her.” I’m sure you think you did.

“I really want to help, in any way I can. Josie, anybody. I’ll talk to anybody.”

The boy felt guilty, Dale realized with a thrill. Guilty and obligated-as well he should. If he had really loved Kat, Dale wouldn’t have been able to scare him away. He hated him now, just a little, for doing exactly what Dale had wanted. Even if it had been in his daughter’s best interest, it had hurt her. Even Dale could see that.

“That’s great, Peter. Once you do, check in with me on my cell. I’ll be interested in hearing what Josie has to say when she can talk to a friend, instead of strangers. Now-you sure you don’t want a Blue Moon cinnamon roll? They’re homemade.”

The boy puffed out his cheeks and shook his head in regret. Only he wasn’t really regretful, Dale realized. Peter Lasko was glad to give up cinnamon rolls for the privilege of being handsome and buff. There would be time enough, to paraphrase Prufrock, for cinnamon rolls and whatever small treats he denied himself now. The waitress topped off Peter’s coffee, although it was barely down an inch, brushing her breasts against his arm as she leaned forward.

Dale’s water glass was empty, but no one seemed to care. And all the water he had downed in between gulps of his private coffee now seemed lodged somewhere in his chest. These days it was as if he could never get enough air, as if he were always in danger of suffocating.