Nobody Runs Forever

there was no nonsense about doctors’ offices. Dalesia knew that Beckham lived in a mobile home park near the motel where he worked, so they drove there, this time in a Saab from the long-term parking at Bradley International Airport, north of Hartford, less than an hour away.

They pulled in at the parking lot in front of the mobile home park office just as twilight was settling in. Behind a large wooden sign reading Riviera Park were several rows of mobile homes in pastels and silver and white, like a cross between a lineup of Monopoly houses and a display of beehives. The office itself was a similar structure, but smaller and simpler; if it still had its wheels instead of those concrete blocks, it would be called a trailer.

They went into the former trailer through the metal-and-glass door under the red neon OFFICE sign, and a very old and very wiry woman in jeans and gray sweatshirt looked up from the crossword puzzle book she had spread open on her counter, to say, “I hope you fellas aren’t lookin for a place to park. I’m full up.”

Dalesia said, “An old pal of ours is a tenant of yours. We thought we’d come by and say hello.”

She put down her pen and straightened up. “Who would he be?”

“Jake Beckham.”

She smiled, pleased at the name. “Oh, Jake! Very nice fella.”

“Sure is,” Dalesia said. “We know he works over at that motel, so we didn’t know if we should look for him here or there. What is it now?” He looked up at the round clock on the wall above and behind her. “Almost seven-thirty. I think he works days, doesn’t he?”

“Lemme call him,” she said, “see is he in.”

“Thanks.”

She had to look up the number in a ledger book from under the counter, then dialed it, listened, and perked up when she said, “Oh, Jake! There’s a couple fellas here for you.”

Dalesia said, “Tell him it’s Nick.”

“He says it’s Nick.”

Dalesia said, “Could I talk to him?”

“Hold on, Jake, he wants to talk to you.”

Dalesia, full of good-fellowship, said into the phone, “Whadaya say, Jake? We’re in the neighborhood, we thought we’d come by, say hello. If this isn’t a bad time? Great. Nah, we’ll come back to you, we’re just driving through. See you in a minute.” Handing the phone back to the woman, he said, “Thanks.”

“Any time.” She put the phone away and said, “You can’t drive back there, though, we don’t have room for cars inside. Even the residents, they park out here and walk in. Some keep little wagons behind here to carry their groceries.”

“We don’t mind walking,” Dalesia assured her.

She turned and pointed at the wall behind her. “You go out there and walk straight, you’re on Cans Way. First you cross is San Tropays Lane and the next is Nice Lane.” She pronounced it like “a nice day.” “Nice Lane is what you want,” she said. “Go down there to the right, Jake’s house is second on your left, a very nice pea green.”

“Thank you,” Dalesia said, and they went back out the door they’d come in, around to the back of the onetime trailer, past a bunch of rusty red wagons chained to a long iron bar fastened to concrete blocks in the ground, and past an ordinary street sign, white letters on green, reading Cannes Way.

The road was not much wider than the mobile homes parked to both sides. Dalesia said, “They must get themselves a river pilot to bring these things in and out.”

“Maybe so.”

“Or airlift them.”

They passed a cross street signed St. Tropez Way, then turned right on Nice Lane, and there was Jake Beckham waiting for them, standing in the open doorway of his pea-green mobile home.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” he said as they approached. “And don’t say it.”

Dalesia went on inside, but Parker stopped in the doorway, looked at Beckham, and said, “I was going to say, the job works just as good with you dead.”

Beckham blinked, and Parker walked past him into a long, narrow living room with dark paneled walls and, on the small windows, red and white checked curtains like tablecloths in a French restaurant.

Dalesia had gone off to the right, to look in the bathroom and both bedrooms, while Parker turned left, to look at an empty small galley kitchen, the brushed-chrome built-ins neat but the dirty dishes piled on them not.

Dalesia and Parker both returned to the living room, shook their heads, and turned to Beckham, who had shut the door and stood with his back to it, warily watching them. Parker said, “Tell us about it.”

“You didn’t have to say that,” Beckham told him. The usual boyishness that was such a misfit on him had been rattled now. He was acting his age. “That was unnecessary,” he said, “you didn’t have to say it.”

“So far,” Parker told him, “you’re putting yourself at risk, and you’re putting the job at risk. Is there any way you can put me at risk? I don’t think so, but now I’ll wait and see.”

Pursuing his own thought, Beckham said, “And it isn’t even true, what you said. You don’t need me? Of course you need me. If I’m dead, Elaine gives you nothing. If Elaine doesn’t give, what’ve you got?”

“Jake,” Dalesia said, sounding sad for his friend, “what Parker was saying was, you disappointed us. You disappointed me, Jake, and I’m the one told Parker you were all right, the job was all right. He counted on me, Jake, and I counted on you.”

“It’s all figured out,” Beckham said. Still with wary looks toward Parker, he took a step into the room. “Why don’t we all sit down?” he suggested, and fluttered a hand at the plaid-and-maple furniture.