The soreness had spread out from where Nardo had laid the telescoping metal baton across his legs. Joe could only imagine the kind of damage old Moon-face could have done if he was really mad and not tethered to his master’s leash. His only consolation was that he was sure Paco’s ribs hurt a lot worse than his legs.
It was time to shit or get off the pot, as Joe’s dad had loved to say. Joe got the recliner in an upright position, braced himself against one of its arms, and pushed himself up. Standing was not nearly so bad as he anticipated. Walking, however, was worse. But Mulligan was meowing his head off to be fed and Joe really had to pee. As he stiff-legged across the linoleum, Joe was sure he looked pretty ridiculous.
He took care of Mother Nature’s calling, showered without disturbing Marla, then threw some dry cat food in Mulligan’s bowl. If his cat had possessed a middle finger, he would have flipped Joe the bird. As disenchanted as the cat was, at least he shut up. The shower had loosened Joe up some and his walk back over to the convertible sofa was somewhat less of a struggle. He climbed onto the foldout bed as stealthily as possible. Marla stirred a little, but not to full consciousness. Joe was glad of that. He just wanted to be near her and watch her sleep. It had been several lifetimes since he’d gotten pleasure from watching a woman sleep.
So much for sound sleep. Insomnia had reinserted itself into Bob Healy’s life. That was why he felt such relief to have drifted off, even for a few brief moments. His eyes closed just before Jean Michel Toussant’s face had appeared on screen.
Sunday, February 29th, 2004
H is lids may have risen before the sun, but sleep had retaken him. When he opened his eyes again, Marla was gone. His heart sank. Then he found her note.
Went to get us some proper breakfast and the Sunday papers.
Be back soon.
Love,
M
His heart, which only seconds before hovered down by his ankles, was now lodged in his throat. He knew that people used love to mean all sorts of things. Some folks threw the word around like spare change. Not Joe. It had been so long since he’d even entertained the possibility of love that he was startled to see it mentioned in relation to him.
For a few months after the divorce, he’d received letters from his son signed, “Love, Joey.” By the end of the year the letters stopped coming. Eventually, so did the love. They barely spoke anymore. There was a call at Christmas, one on his son’s birthday. Both of which Joey managed to unskillfully avoid. Tell him I’m not home. Joe Serpe could not remember the last time they had shared meaningful words. Yeah, sure, it was his ex-wife’s fault, but it was his fault, too. His wife may have started the amputation, but Joe finished the operation. He had cut himself out of Joey’s life as much as he had been cut out of it. His stomach was in a knot over an issue he hated thinking about and all because a woman he hardly knew had written the word love in a note.
Joe rehearsed all sorts of things to say to Marla when she returned, none of which were ever going to reach his lips. Sex was always easier to share than feelings. Feelings take time to make sense and he hoped he would have the time. But when Marla came through the door, dress rehearsal came to an abrupt end. Joe sensed something had changed, something big.
“What is it?” he asked, seeing the strain in Marla’s expression.
At first, she said nothing, needing time to collect herself. She put the coffees, bag of bagels, and papers down on the little kitchen peninsula that was the only table-like thing in the apartment. She took a big breath.
“I know you don’t want to discuss it,” she said, “but I have to ask. How did you get those video tapes?”
“Of the rapes?”
“Yes.”
“Like I said last night-”
“Joe, you can tell me anything. I can always claim I was treating you and that our discussions would be considered priv-”
“Wait a second, here,” Joe said, hobbling over to the kitchen. He softly placed his hand on Marla’s shoulder. “What’s going on? I feel like I’m in one of those movies where the world changed while I was sleeping.”
“Maybe the world did, Joe.” She reached over and picked up the paper. “Look!”
Bob Healy collected the paper, but only to toss in the doorway before heading off to mass. The few hours of contiguous sleep he had managed had come after sunrise. He’d shut the TV off and finally made his way up to the bedroom. Maybe it was the bed itself, he thought. Since that Saturday morning he’d rolled over in bed to find Mary’s side of the sheets so cold, Bob had felt ill at ease. Sure there was the stuff with Serpe, but there was more to it. Without Mary, without the kids around, without his job, Healy felt like a stranger in his own home.
That’s what he was thinking about as he drove west down Main Street toward Church Street. The radio was tuned to a local news station. He paid the anchorman little mind. Just before Church, a fireman stepped out into the road to stop traffic. Two trucks pulled out, sirens wailing. Something told Bob to pay attention to the radio. He turned the volume up full blast, but it was moot against the sirens and screaming horns. The trucks pulled past him, the din fading in the distance. He turned down the now blaring radio. Whatever he’d wanted to listen to had, like the sounds of the fire engines, come and gone.
“The Doppler Effect,” Healy said to himself, slapping the steering wheel in a gesture of self-congratulation. That’s what his high school science teacher had taught him, always using sirens as an example of how noise changes from when it’s coming at you to when it’s moving away from you. He was quite pleased with himself, waiting at the red light to turn. An electronic version of Beethoven’s Ninth was coming from his inside jacket pocket. Last week his ring was Pictures at an Exhibition. Next week Danny Boy. Yes, Danny Boy, most definitely.
“Healy,” he said, wedging the little phone between his ear and shoulder as he turned. “It’s George.”
“Like I wouldn’t recognize my little baby brother’s voice.”
That little baby brother line was fraternal button-pushing at its finest. George’s standard comeback was a profanity-laced tirade interrupted by the occasional reminder of how much taller he was than his older brother. Bob Healy winced in preparation for George’s assault. It was not forthcoming.
“You really haven’t heard?” is what he said instead.
Healy was confused. “Heard what?”
“You better come over here for breakfast.”
“I’m on my way to mass.”
“Forget Mass, big brother, this is more important.”
Healy turned left onto Indian Head Road toward Commack instead of right toward the church.
George, his wife, and their two kids had a neat colonial along Townline Road. It wasn’t an especially big house, nor exceptionally pretty. But on the market it would sell for about six hundred grand. Commack had good schools and on Long Island, the quality of the school district and the value of your house were bound together like strands of DNA. George stepped out the front door the minute Bob pulled onto the blacktop driveway.
George, in his late thirties, was six-foot-three, two hundred thirty pounds, and while he didn’t tower over his brother, he did make Bob feel old when they were together. George, even in his bathrobe, looked the part of the lawyer. It was something about how his brown hair was so neatly cut and parted and how his face was perpetually clean shaven. He and Bob didn’t look much alike, but they did share their father’s bright blue eyes.
“Where’s Beth and the kids?” Bob asked.
“Church.”
“So I had to miss Mass, but-”
“So you really haven’t heard?”
“This again! Jesus, little brother, just tell me. What I haven’t heard.”
“Toussant.”
“What about him?”
