“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you want to know ‘who’?”
“No, I’d prefer ‘why.’ It saves a step.”
“Because I’m coming too close.”
“To what?”
“Damned if I know,” I said.
“Interesting thing to say,” Ann said, fishing out the last of the raisins. “Why would this knowledge lead to your damnation?”
“I didn’t mean…”
“An automatic response from inside, a protective cliche, but one that bears meaning for you. You could have said, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘beats me,’ or…”
“I’m lost,” I said.
“Yes, that is why you came to see me in the first place. Do you know what happened to Henry Hudson?”
“He designed a fat car back in the forties,” I said.
“We’re close to something,” she said with glee, throwing the empty bag in the nearby trash can. “You are dodging. I am throwing. Perhaps you’ll stop and I’ll hit something.”
“Henry Hudson,” I said.
“Hudson Bay. Hudson River,” she said. “Searched for the Northwest Passage. Got lost, frozen on the massive bay that bears his name. There was a mutiny. The crew was getting sick. The ice was closing in. Hudson was determined to go on. The crew sent Hudson, his son, and others adrift on the icy water and sailed for home. Hudson was never found. No one knows if he made land. There are Indian stories about white men who lived for years on the shore, of Indians they traded with, of remnants of bones or a shack. But never found.”
“Interesting. There’s a point here?”
“History always has a point,” she said. “Historians always make a point. Often they disagree with each other over the point. What is the point of Hudson’s story for you?”
“If you keep looking for something that isn’t there and you’re too stubborn to admit it, you might get yourself killed,” I said.
“Or, you might find the Northwest Passage. Samuel Hearne tried and failed.”
“Samuel Hearne?”
“Lewis and Clark tried later with more success,” she said.
“I’m looking for a truckload of novels and short stories,” I said. “Not the Northwest Passage.”
“Henry Hudson found the Hudson River and Hudson Bay,” she said. “Not unimportant discoveries. Maybe you should… what?”
“Look around at what I’ve found and guard myself from mutineers,” I said.
“Close enough,” she said. “Session’s over.”
She rose and so did I. I paid her twenty dollars in cash that I could afford this week.
“One last thing,” she said as I went to the door.
I stopped and looked back at her.
“Can you say her name?”
“Catherine,” I said immediately.
I stood amazed. I had nurtured, protected my dead wife’s name and memory, held it as my own not wanting to let go of my grief, feeling the simple utterance of her name would be a kind of sacrilege to the mourning I did not want to lose. I had spoken her name aloud only to Ann and to Sally.
“You know why you were just able to do that?” Ann asked.
“No.”
“Because we talked about life. Because you are slowly rejoining the living, building new friends, a family.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” I said.
“And that,” she said with an air of conclusion, “is what we must work on.”
She went back to her chair, picked up the phone, and gave me a small smile of encouragement as I went out the door.
When I got back to my office, Ames was standing against a wall, arms folded. Mickey was sitting in the folding chair holding a see-through bag of ice against his face.
The blood was off the wall and everything was in place. Ames had cleaned up. I would have been surprised if he hadn’t. There was no sign of the supposedly adult Merrymen.
“Got some calls,” Ames said.
The little red light on my answering machine was blinking and the counter showed three phone calls.
“Any sound important?”
He shook his head “yes.” I got my pad and Nation’s Bank click pen and pushed the PLAY button.
A man’s voice came on, young, serious.
“This is John Rubin at the Herald-Tribune. We just got a call from someone who wouldn’t leave a name. Caller said that Conrad Lonsberg had all of his manuscripts stolen and I should call you. Please call back.”
He left his number, repeating it twice. I wrote it on my pad.
The second voice was Flo’s, not quite sober but contrite and possibly coming out of it. In the background I could hear Frankie Laine singing the theme from Rawhide. I didn’t think it really qualified as country or western, but it wasn’t an issue I wanted to take up with Flo who said, “Lewis, Adele called again, said she was all right. Said she was sorry for what she was doing to me but she had to do it if she expected to have any respect for herself. Said she’d come back to me if she lived or didn’t get locked up by the cops. I think, overall, that’s not a bad sign, is it? I couldn’t get her to listen to me. If you want details, give me a call. You know where to find me since my wheels are gone.”
The third call was from Brad Lonsberg and he was calm, level-voiced, and mad as hell.
“Fonesca, I just got a call from the Herald-Tribune. A man named Rubin asked me if there was any truth to the story that my father’s manuscripts have been stolen. I did what I always do when I get calls from people who track me down trying to get to my father. I told him I had nothing to say. He said he was about to get confirmation on the story from you. I don’t use foul language. If I did, I’d be using it now. If you’re trying to gain fame and a little fortune from my father’s relationship to that girl, I’ll use whatever power I have in this town to have you… Let’s just say I would be very displeased if you are talking to the press. I don’t like publicity related to my father. It’s my rear end I’m trying to protect, not his just so you know this is personal. My guess is if this Rubin has called Laura, he got her number from you. There aren’t many people who know who or where she is. So, simply, shut up.”
There was a double beep and the tape rewound.
I looked at Mickey whose jaw was swollen and at Ames who stood in the same position he had been in.
“Who do I call first?” I asked Ames.
“Flo,” he said. “I’m thinking about paying her a visit. She might be up for a little company.”
I nodded and punched in the buttons for Flo’s number. She came on after two rings with an anxious “Yes.”
“Me, Lew. Ames is going to pay you a visit. You up for it?”
“Ames? Anytime.”
I put a thumb up for Ames. The melting ice in Mickey’s bag shifted with a tiny clack. Mickey groaned.
“Adele say anything else? I mean besides what you put on the machine?”
“One or two things. Just talk about going back to school if she could. Something about not looking for her. She was in a place no one would look. That’s it. What’s going on?”
“I’m working on it,” I said. “If someone from the Herald-Tribune calls you, and I don’t think they will, just hang up on them.”
“I always do,” she said.
“This guy’s not selling subscriptions. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up, put a little check mark next to Flo’s name on my pad, and hit the buttons for Brad Lonsberg. There were four rings before Lonsberg’s voice on the answering machine came on and said, “Lonsberg Enterprises. I’m sorry I’m not available at the moment. Please leave your name and telephone number.”
