“Yeah. Six inches.”
“Which bank bought which?”
“Why?”
“Which, please?”
“Chill out. City-something from New York bought First Detroit. So what?”
“And First Detroit owned what or used to own what? Didn’t Kerasopoulos have a buddy who’s a big shot at one of the banks that got bought?”
“Yeah. It’s just called First Detroit now, but it used to be called-”
“First Fisherman’s Bank of Charlevoix.”
“Yeah. So?”
I had to clutch at the slab to keep from doubling over. The paper fluttered to the floor. “Gus,” Mom said. “You’re pale.”
The cell door creaked open. “Time’s up,” Darlene said.
My mother swung around. “Darlene Bontrager,” she said, using her maiden name.
“Two minutes,” Darlene said.
Mom got up and sat down next to me and put an arm around me.
“Gussy,” she said. “What is it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me these things? I asked you about Leo. Why didn’t you tell me about Dad and his job and his movie projector and his investment?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. I do.”
“All right.” She gave me a look I hadn’t seen since the day she told me Dad was gone. “It’s simple, actually. You really didn’t need to know, but even if you did-even when you were asking me-you weren’t ready to know. You were too young.”
“Too young at thirty-four?”
“Thirty-four, twenty-five, fourteen. What difference does it make? You boys, you and Soupy and the all the rest, you got out of high school and you had your chance to grow up but you chose to stay boys forever, playing your little games as if they really matter.”
I fixed my eyes on the floor. “I know they don’t matter, Mother.”
“No, you don’t. You’re still acting like a boy. Running here and there instead of settling down and facing the facts of your life. You left this place, a place you loved, because of a stupid little mistake you made in a stupid little game. Instead of the people you loved”-she didn’t have to look back at Darlene-“you put your trust in silly prizes and sillier superstitions, in, in, I’m sorry, whatever that foolish glove is you wear, as if those things could somehow make you more than what you are.” She put the tissues back in her pocket. “I love you, son. But I was afraid that telling you what I knew would only drive you farther away. You were already far enough away for me.”
I let her words sit there for a minute.
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I came here for you.”
“Give me a fucking break.”
“Gus,” Joanie said.
“It was my fault that you kept secrets? Bullshit. I’ll bet you still know more than Joanie’s been able to wheedle out of you. And you’ve known it for years and years but old Spardell told you not to talk so you didn’t talk, not even to your own son. Was that the right thing to do? Just keep your mouth shut and keep cashing the checks? Why don’t you go see Francis? He paid your damn taxes.”
Joanie stood and reached for my mother. “That’s enough,” she said.
My nerves felt as if they might poke through my skin. What could I tell them that would make them all happy? What did I really know that they didn’t know already? Nothing had changed since Dingus marched me into that cell. Except, perhaps, this thing about Dufresne. I couldn’t get that signature-Francis J. Dufresne-out of my mind.
“You’re wasting your time,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Stop being sorry,” Mom said. “Everyone is sick of it.”
Darlene held the door for Mom. Joanie stayed.
“Remember that priest at my high school?” she said.
“What priest? What about him?”
“Here.” She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and set it on her chair. “Not that any of this matters anymore,” she said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, but Darlene took Joanie by the sleeve and ushered her and Mom away.
I lay back on the slab and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. Soon Joanie and Tawny Jane would be opening those FedEx deliveries. I wondered if Tawny Jane would come to the jail looking to interview me. Maybe I’d be gone to Detroit by then.
I sat up and grabbed the paper Joanie had left. It was a photocopy of a story that had run in the Daily Press of Escanaba, Michigan, three months earlier:
“No way,” I said.
“What?” Darlene said. She was still standing outside.
“Nothing.”
I understood that the suspect was the very same Jeff Champagne who had played for the River Rats. I did not want to believe that the cop was Billy Hooper. There had to be a lot of William Hoopers in Michigan.
Darlene opened the cell door and stepped inside. “Come on, Gus,” she said. “You don’t really want to go back to Detroit.”
“Call off the state boys.”
“It’s not up to us, it’s up to you.”
“I’ve done what I can. You’ll see. What time is it anyway?”
She looked at her watch. “Time to go.”
“Go where?”
“Leo’s funeral.”
“Right. Tell everyone I said hello. And to watch for the Pilot tomorrow.”
“You can tell them yourself. Let’s go.”
She was serious.
“Come on, we’re going to be late.”
“Dingus said I could go?”
She came over and seized me by the elbow. “The hell with Dingus,” she said.
She steered the sheriff’s cruiser along Route 816 away from town and turned north on Ladensack Road. I sat in the backseat and gazed out the window. Darlene had squirreled me out of the jail and grabbed a sheriff’s parka for me out of another car. As we passed Jungle of the North, I remembered turning there to go to Perlmutter’s place and asked where we were going. Darlene didn’t so much as look at me. Another mile ahead, she pulled onto the shoulder, stopped, and shut off the ignition. Seven or eight other cars and trucks were parked there, including my mother’s Jeep.
Darlene got out and came around and opened my door.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” I said.
“Not if you do the right thing.”
She yanked me out and told me to wait on the shoulder. “Darlene,” I said, “what’s going on?” But she ignored me again and got back into the driver’s seat and snatched up her radio transmitter. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but there was something urgent in the way she shook and nodded her head. She hung up and got out and came around to me with a key in her hand.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off for now,” she said. “Don’t blow it.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Maybe I’m giving you one last chance.”
