want this beer, young Valentina?”
She thanked him and asked about his own work, claiming his attention, his affection, like she always did. She was the most instinctively generous person I knew, curious about everyone. She rarely talked about herself, except to a few close friends, never dropped names; in spite of her height and beauty, she was a modest girl.
“What are you looking at?” She grinned at me, and went back to the books.
I drank some beer. “Go on, Dubi. You said you were going to call me?”
“This was a peculiar visit yesterday,” said Dubi, rubbing his hand over the high forehead, the large hawk-like nose. “This skinny guy in western boots comes by to look at books, he says, and makes conversation about you, tries to make it casual, like how good is your Russian, do you buy Russian books? I get this impression this is why he comes.”
“He gave you a name?”
“He used a credit card to pay for some stuff. R. Pettus,” Dubi said.
“Yeah, he’s nobody, Dube. Just a guy, an FBI agent I knew around 9/11, we worked some stuff together. He retired.”
“He buys a Russian-English dictionary, and says give Detective Artie Cohen my regards, if you see him.”
“Right.” I wondered, for the second time that day, what the hell Roy Pettus wanted. “It was probably nothing,” I said, but
I didn’t believe it. A cold hand seemed to brush my shoulder, like a ghost. Except I don’t believe in ghosts.
“I’m just going outside to make a call,” I said. “Val? You okay?”
She put her head up over the boxes. “Happy as a pig in shit,” she said. “Dubi has the most wonderful photographic books. I’ll be a little while longer.”
Nobody except a security guard at the desk in the FBI office answered when I called. It was a holiday. I called a number I had in Wyoming. All I got was a machine. I remembered Pettus had a daughter somewhere, New Jersey, maybe it was. There was a Cheryl Pettus listed in South Orange. A man who answered said she had moved. Finally I got her.
Cheryl told me sure, she was Roy Petttus’ daughter, and as it happened her dad was in town for her wedding. I told her who I was and she was okay with it, but said she had to go over to Seton Hall, the Catholic college where she was teaching a summer course. She said she’d get her dad to give me a call. Said she didn’t want to give out his cellphone. I said congratulations on the wedding, but it was urgent, and we hung up.
A few minutes later, Pettus phoned me back. Wanted to see me, he said, know how I was doing. I said fine, come on over, and he said I can’t tonight, rehearsal dinner, wedding tomorrow. What about Sunday, and I said, fine, what’s up, Roy, I thought you retired. He said, can you meet me Sunday morning?
There was nothing out of the ordinary in his voice, and I didn’t mention that I was pissed off the way he’d been going around asking my friends about me. That could wait until we met. Instead, I made a couple jokes. I said, so what’s with you, Roy, you back in the spook business?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“So what’s the favor?” I said to Val.
“Tell my dad not to go to London. Will you tell him? You will, right?”
“Why?”
“It’s not good for him, just trust me, okay?” She had come out of Dubi’s shop, her arms full of packages. “Artie? He’s going over to London. Soon.”
“Yeah, he told me he was going, but so what?”
“When did he tell you?”
“This morning. How come you’re so edgy?” I took her packages
“I worry about him, he’s such a big baby sometimes, he’s so like unbelievably ready to believe people.” She kissed my cheek. “You’ll talk to him tonight, okay? I’m sorry to keep nagging, but thank you, Uncle Artie,” she said, half mocking. “Well, you’re like an uncle. My dad and you, you’re like brothers, right? He always says. He’ll do what you tell him, he will.”
“You won’t go for his birthday?”
“No.”
“What’s up with London? You used to go a lot, you used to spend weeks and weeks there,” I was surprised by how urgent she sounded.
“I hate what London does to him, my dad, ever since he opened his club there. He behaves like one of those dumb-ass oligarchs, you know? He buys big-time art. You know the joke about the oligarch who says I just got a tie that cost four hundred bucks and the other oligarch says, I paid six hundred for the same thing. Daddy buys and buys and buys. It’s like he’s addicted, like he wants to be one of them.”
“He always bought a ton of stuff, he loves it.”
“Just listen to me, okay? I’m telling you, this is different. He hangs out with ugly people. Greedy, bad people. Russians. Crooks. They think they’re respectable, they put on this front, but they’re crooks. When it comes to money, they’ll do anything it takes.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t like London anymore.”
“It’s not a joke, okay?” she said, sounding bitter. “I don’t want to ever go back.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” We walked up onto the boardwalk.
“Just please trust me, okay, and don’t ask. You have to love me and my dad enough not to ask,” said Val. “Tell him I need him here. Lie if you have to. Promise me? If you love me, do this.”
I promised her. I would have promised her anything, much more than she knew.
“You still want to swim?” I said to Val a few minutes later when we were on the beach, sand warm underfoot. I put her packages on the ground.
She shook her head. “Too many rip tides this summer, Artie, too many people going under. I’ll wait for you. Go on. I’ll watch,” she said, and held up her camera. She watched while I took off my shirt and jeans. I felt shy.
“You look cute in those swim shorts,” said Val, and held up her camera. “Smile for me, Artie, darling. I’ll take your picture.”
The water off Brighton Beach was cold as hell, and I swam hard as I could, and it ran over me, waking me up, the sun deliciously hot on my head even late in the day.
I dove back in, tasted salt, spat out the icy water. I turned over on my back and felt the water slide over me, and buoy me up; I squinted into the sun and blue sky.
For a while I floated on my way back, then swam towards the toy-size ships on the horizon as far as I could. When I turned around, I saw Val on the beach, watching me, waving. As I ran towards her, she pulled a towel from my bag.
Around us families were picking up babies and plastic buckets, shaking out their towels, getting ready to go home. A pretty girl in a little yellow halter-neck top and a bikini bottom was sunbathing on the beach near me and she glanced over and smiled. I smiled back. I’m not dead yet, I thought.
We walked up to a restaurant on the boardwalk where the owner let me change my clothes in the bathroom. When I came out, Val was sitting at a table and we sat and drank and the day seemed to have spilled golden light over Brighton Beach, turning it into an Impressionist painting. Two elderly women, arms linked, held green and lavender nylon umbrellas over their heads, like parasols; a red-headed girl in pink sweats pushed an old lady in a wheelchair, while a dachshund, tied to the chair, trotted behind them; two old Russians sat on a bench in checkered caps playing chess.
People were settling into the cafes along the boardwalk. “Castles In The Sand”, an old Stevie Wonder number from an album called
I watched Val. So intent was she on what she was doing, she didn’t see me. She took a picture of three old men in wheelchairs playing cards. She snapped them just as one guy won the game with a triumphant slap of the cards on the fold-up table where they played.
