Please?
“I see.” I keep my tone neutral. I do not want her to realize that this sudden lapse into supplication is more terrifying than anything else she has said. But Maxine detects my mood; I can see it in her intelligent face; and I can see her decide to let it go.
“I don’t think we’ll see each other again, Misha. That is, I don’t think you’ll see me. Not if I do my job right. I’ll be watching you, but you won’t know when. So just act natural, and assume I’m there to help.”
“Maxine, I-”
“I’m sorry about the money,” she hurries on. “That was clumsy. And it was insulting. It wasn’t to fix your bumper. And I had a lot more of it in my bag, just in case. I still do.” Her tone is wistful.
“In case what?”
“We heard somebody else was trying to buy the arrangements from you. Disguising it, maybe, as fees for speaking engagements, something like that.” I feel a chill but do not say a word. “So, anyway, I was actually supposed to… well, I was supposed to bribe you, Misha. I’m sorry, but it’s true. We know you’ve had certain financial pressures. And, um, domestic pressures, too. I was supposed to bribe you with money or… or, well, with whatever else it took.” Now it is her turn to blush and drop her eyes, and mine to feel a rising warmth I would rather keep at bay.
“Bribe me to do what?” I ask after a moment. We have arrived back at our cars. She takes her keys from her pocket and presses the button. The Suburban’s lights flash, the alarm bleeps off, and the doors unlock. I grab her arm. “Maxine, bribe me to do what?”
She stiffens at my touch. She is suddenly quite unhappy. I do not know whether it is just coincidence that every woman I meet seems to be depressed, or whether I make them that way.
“Bribe me to do what?” I ask a third time, dropping my hand. “To give whatever it is to you instead of Uncle Jack?”
Maxine has the door open and a foot on the running board. She answers me without turning around.
“I know your life has been difficult lately, Misha. I know some scary things have happened. A lot of people would decide to give up the hunt at this point. We heard you might be thinking about it.” She hesitates. “I guess the best way to put it is that I was supposed to do whatever it took to get you not to give up. To convince you to keep looking. But I don’t think you need to be bribed. I think you’re the kind who can’t let go. You’ll keep looking for him because you need to.”
“Looking for whom?”
“For Angela’s boyfriend.”
“And then what? Maxine, wait. Then what? If I find him, and if he tells me what my father wanted him to tell me, what am I supposed to do? I mean, suppose I agree with you? How do I get the information to you?”
Maxine is up in the seat of the Suburban now, ready to close the door on me. But she turns and looks straight into my eyes. I can see the mixture of exhaustion, irritation, even a little sadness. This day did not go precisely as she planned.
“First, handsome, you have to find him,” she says.
“And then?”
“Then I’ll find you. I promise.”
“But wait a minute. Wait. I’m out of ideas. I don’t know where to look.”
The roller woman shrugs and turns the key. The engine explodes into life. She looks at me again, her gaze clear and direct. “You might start with Freeman Bishop.”
“Freeman Bishop?”
“I think he was a mistake.”
“Wait. A mistake? What kind of mistake?”
“The bad kind, handsome. The bad kind.” Maxine closes the door and throws the Suburban into reverse. The car accelerates up the hill toward Vineyard Haven. I watch until the taillights vanish around the bend.
I am alone.
CHAPTER 34
I wake early the next morning, alone in Vinerd Howse, ashamed of how much of the night I spent tossing restlessly, unable to sleep, wishing for company but not my wife. I pull on my robe and step out onto the little balcony off the master bedroom. The streets are empty. Most of the other houses on Ocean Park are closed for the season, but one or two show signs of activity, and a jogger, out early in the crisp air, waves cheerily.
I wave back.
Down in the kitchen I toast an English muffin and pour some juice, for I did not fill the larder when I arrived, expecting to be here only a day or two. I carry my breakfast into the little television nook by the front hall where, three decades ago, I saw Addison and Sally tussling away. Simpler times.
You might start with Freeman Bishop… I think he was a mistake.
A mistake? What kind of mistake? Whose mistake? Mine? My father’s? Questions I throw at the roller woman, even though she is not present to answer them.
And how can a dead man help me find Angela’s boyfriend?
I cannot sit still. I wander from room to room, poking my head into the guest room, done up in red wallpaper and red fabric on bed and chairs, the room where my mother died; and into the bathroom that doubles as a laundry room, with the cheap linoleum floor that was already old when my parents bought the house; back into the small kitchen, where I pour more juice; and, finally, into the dining room, where that blowup of my father’s Newsweek cover still hangs over the unusable fireplace. THE CONSERVATIVE HOUR. The way it was before, as the Judge would say. When life seemed golden. I remember how my father’s nomination tested the unity of the Gold Coast, how lifelong friends stopped speaking to each other as they came down on opposite sides. But perhaps splintering was more common than I suspected in our happy little community. Didn’t Mariah tell me that the congregation at Trinity and St. Michael split down the middle when Freeman Bishop’s cocaine use came to light? And if-
Wait.
What was it Mariah said? Somebody who would have left except-except-
I hurry back into the kitchen, snatch up the telephone. For once I reach Mariah on my first try. Battling back her efforts to fill my ears with the latest conspiracy news gleaned from the Internet, I throw in the crucial question:
“Listen, kiddo, wasn’t there somebody you said would have left the church over Father Bishop’s drug use, except she had her reasons?”
“Sure. Gigi Walker. You remember Gigi. Addison used to date her little sister? Of course, Addison used to date everybody, so I guess that isn’t much of a-”
“Mariah, listen. What did you mean when you said she had her reasons?”
“Oh, Tal, why are you the last to hear everything? Gigi and Father Bishop were an item for years. This was after his wife died, and after her husband left, so it wasn’t quite the scandal it could have been. But, still, Daddy said he didn’t think a man of the cloth-”
Again I interrupt. “Okay, okay. Listen. Gigi. That’s a nickname, right?”
“Right.”
“And her real name is…”
Even before my sister answers, I know what she is going to say. “Angela. Angela Walker. Why do you want to know?”
Mariah babbles on, but I am not listening. The telephone is trembling in my hand.
No wonder Colin Scott, according to Lanie Cross’s tale, gave Gigi Walker such a hard time that she cried. He knew what I now know, but he knew it first.
