their marriage three years ago, but there was something else going on.
I turned to Sherry, passed the beer to her, and changed the subject.
“What about Booker?”
“His parents are coming down from New York to claim the body. His father is an ex-cop,” Sherry said. “Not a good situation. He’ll lose his pension. Probably be buried with no recognition from the office. I know some deputies who thought he did the world a favor by taking out Carter, but there are at least a few knuckleheads over at the Oceanside Gym who are sweating bullets right about now.”
“You p-put in your report on what Booker told you?” Billy asked.
“Damn straight,” she said. “Hammonds will roll some heads.”
“And all without so much as lifting a finger,” I said.
Sherry took a sip of the bottle and laughed.
“That’s what he has you for, Max.”
“He played me,” I admitted.
“That’s what a good manager does when his manpower is down in a bad economy. He uses good freelancers-doesn’t have to pay benefits.”
“Law enforcement follows a b-business model,” Billy said, tipping his martini glass.
“Damn straight,” I said, mocking Sherry.
“You’re both full of shit,” Diane said, but she was smiling.
“That may be true,” I said. “But since we’re on the subject, what happens to the other criminals in this entire cluster that started the whole thing-the guys running the Medicare scam? The guys making the big bucks behind their computers and paperwork and licensing and stolen social security numbers…”
We all looked at one another, trading eye contact, avoiding the fact that we had no ready answers.
“The wheels of justice grind slowly, M-Max,” Billy finally said.
“Hah!” I sputtered. “Some things never change, eh?”
But Billy’s eyes went over to his wife, the judge.
A hush fell over the room as I got up to fetch another beer. When I asked Sherry if she’d share it, she declined. So I opened a bottle from Billy’s big stainless fridge and eased outside onto the patio.
“Can I get you anything, Ms. Carmen?”
Luz Carmen was quiet. I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I thought she might have fallen asleep. But then she said, “The ocean tides, they change every day, but then, they never really change year after year, do they, Mr. Freeman?
I stepped forward and put a hand on the railing. It was dark to the east, but if you listened carefully, you could hear the soft surf below.
The feds never did show up at the ranger station to put Luz in protective custody. Billy had instead taken her to his place. When I called him after the arrest of our “assassin” at Sherry’s, the threat was deemed to have been minimized. After we found out about the murder of the Brown Man and suicide of Deputy Booker, we had to reluctantly agree.
Two days later, Luz arranged a cremation of her brother’s remains, held a simple service, and prayed, I supposed, to her own private god. Afterward, she told Billy that she would be returning to Bolivia.
I didn’t know how to respond to her rumination on the human lack of change.
She was emotionally wounded, unsure what direction to take, beaten down by the turns her life had taken. It was familiar territory for me. I’d been there a few years ago when I chose to pick up and leave Philadelphia for South Florida.
“But you know, the tides also go in and out, Ms. Carmen. They rise and fall, just like life.”
“Ah, the philosopher Mr. Freeman,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice for the first time since I’d met her.
“No,” I said. “The realist.”
She let that sit for a moment. “Fair enough,” she finally said. “I will be returning to my true home.”
“Bolivia?”
“Yes, to Rurrenabaque,” she said. “The short time out in your Everglades has convinced me that I might find peace there. I may have relatives who will help. I may be able to teach there-maybe English to the children.”
Only one side of her face was illuminated in the darkness. She was again looking out at something I could not see.
“The place of the pink dolphins?” I said, and this time she actually smiled.
“Yes. It is the one place where I remember my brother being a true child, an innocent.”
If all she had left were memories, I wasn’t going to deny her that respite. I did not respond and drifted quietly back into the apartment. Two steps in, I looked up and was instantly aware of a thickness of anticipation.
Sherry turned to me, smiling as if she’d been missing me for days. Billy was looking askance, as if some joke had gone awry. But his wife was glowing, her eyes bright, and her complexion somewhere between an embarrassed flush and deep pride. They had all frozen with my entrance, as if they’d popped a bottle of champagne, and were waiting for the cork to hit something.
“Diane and Billy are having a baby!” Sherry said.
I suffered the instant of silence such a statement deserves, and blurted out something like, “What? How?”
Sherry waved her fingers at me the way she does when I make a bad joke, and then performed an impressive, one-legged stand-up to meet Diane in a hug.
I strode across to Billy and took his extended hand. “Congratulations, Counselor,” I said, hoping the tone in my voice did not reveal the question that next rang in my head: Is this something you really want?
The ensuing gush of conversation was of due dates and maternity time and the clearing out of an extra bedroom, and then a belated, in my opinion, call for real champagne. Crystal flutes appeared and a chilled bottle, and whether in deference to Luz Carmen, or simply because Billy’s particular taste doesn’t not call for exploding corks, the wine was carefully opened and poured.
Diane accepted half a glass. “For celebration only,” she said. “I’ll have to get used to giving this up.”
After the toast, the ritualistic separation of the genders occurred. The women huddled together in their particular sharing of stories and questions, and the men drifted off under the confident gaze of the Moorish guard mounted on the wall.
“This is what’s been bugging you lately?” I said, not bothering to list the times Billy had shown uncharacteristic anger during the last few days, and the profound disappointment on his face when the circumstances of young people, children, had been revealed.
“It is a difficult w-world today, Max,” Billy said. “I would not tr-try to deceive you b-by pretending that I haven’t given thought to bringing a child into it. Children who grow up without direction, children who grow up without any worthy role models; worse, children who are actually taught the kind of selfishness and manipulation, and outright lawlessness by the ones they depend on most.”
I could not argue with him. Billy had grown up without a father. I had grown up in the shadow of domestic violence. But somehow we made it out, hadn’t we? Still, it was a different time.
“I have heard the argument, my friend, that if people like you and Diane, smart and carrying people of high morals and strong ethics don’t bring children into this world, then we are all lost,” I said.
I raised the edge of my glass to his and lightly touched them together. “At this moment in time, Billy, I think we need you.”
– 27 -
The ride home was quiet, as you might expect after the resolution of a case, the Manchesters’ announcement of a child on the way, and the simmering non-resolution of something that still stood in the way of my relationship with Sherry.
“Isn’t that great about Billy and Diane?”
