low. Lying didn’t mean he was guilty of what the blackmailer claimed. People lie for many reasons-because they are ashamed, because they like to seem to be more or less than they are, because they want to protect themselves or others, or because lying was automatic. I didn’t know what kind of liar Blue Berrigan was.
Throughout the ride home I was sitting on the CD in my back pocket and hearing its plastic cover crack. I took it out and drove with it in my hand. The photographs were tucked inside my shirt. It did rain, not hard at first but coming down in a heated, pelting shower by the time I hit Tamiami Trail and Webber.
No one tried to kill me, either intentionally or inadvertently.
When I hit Laurel, I did not look at the building that had replaced the Dairy Queen where, had it still been there, I would have stopped for a chocolate-cherry Blizzard and a few minutes of conversation with Dave, who had owned the place, about the call of the Gulf as we sat under a red and white umbrella. No more. Dave had been forced out by what passed for progress. Dave had also made over a million on the DQ’s death.
I felt wet and was not filled with a sense of merriment as I went up the steps to my new rooms. My pants clung heavily to my legs and, not for the first time, I considered buying a cheap car, leaving a cheap note, and going to Key West to sit for a decade and look toward Cuba as I cheaply lived out my life.
When I opened the door, Flo and Adele were there with Catherine in Adele’s arms. Ames was there, too, and by the sound of the toilet flushing I figured Victor would soon make an appearance. The people in front of me were all reasons why I wanted to leave. They were also reasons I wanted to stay.
“Nice place you have here, Lewis,” said Flo, her silver earrings tinkling if you listened quietly.
“We’ve got a ride to take, Lewis,” Ames said.
Adele put Catherine down so I could see that she could now stand on her own with arms outstretched. I looked at Ames.
“Darrell,” he said. “Doing poorly. You’d best put on something dry.”
Catherine took a lone baby step toward me.
“Ain’t that something?” asked Flo in her best Western drawl, which decades ago had replaced the twang of Brooklyn.
Victor appeared and looked at Catherine, who looked up at him and smiled. Victor knew the baby was named for my dead wife, the woman he had run down while he was drunk. Victor tried to smile back.
“Lewis,” Ames said, “we’d best go.”
Darrell’s mother, dark and angry, came out of the intensive care unit at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. She said nothing to me or Ames. She didn’t have to.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
For an instant, her anger seemed about to turn to fury. I waited for the outburst. I would welcome it. But just before the anticipated attack, something changed. The tightness in the lean woman let go and her shoulders dropped. The anger turned to pure sorrow.
“You didn’t do it,” she said. “I know that. Fault’s mine for letting Ms. Porovsky talk me into letting Darrell spend time with you. I should have known what kind of business you were into. I should have asked. And then Darrell started liking you, talking ’bout you, changing, gettin’ better in school and such. You find the man who shot my only boy. You find him and shoot him back before you give him up to the police. You hear?”
“I hear,” I said, acknowledging that there was nothing wrong with my hearing but not that I was agreeing with her order for me to commit murder. I owned no gun and wanted none. As long as Ames was nearby, I wouldn’t need one.
“How is he?” asked Ames.
“Poorly,” she said. “Poorly. That BB or whatever it was infected him. Poorly.”
Victor had driven Ames and me to the hospital. It was not the car he had driven when he had killed my wife, but he was the driver. Once again I searched for anger. Ann Hurwitz had urged me to find the anger, to purge it, to deal with it. Though she couldn’t tell me, I had the distinct impression that she would have considered it a step forward if I suddenly attacked Victor in a bitter rage. It wasn’t in me. The hate button in my psyche didn’t seem to exist. I had witnessed much in my life that would put others into squinting anger. I should probably have felt that way about whoever had shot Darrell. Nothing came except a sad determination to confront the person who had put Darrell in that hospital bed.
It was still raining. Flo, Adele, and Catherine went home, and I promised to stop by the house and report.
Darrell’s mother went back into the intensive care unit with us. Darrell lay on his side, knees up near his chest, hands under his face on the pillow, eyes closed. Curled up, he looked like a dark, peaceful baby. The usual machines were blinking and beeping in the darkened room.
“She’s right,” Ames whispered. “We should shoot him when we catch up with him.”
Darrell’s mother couldn’t hear the whisper, and I chose not to respond.
The rain was down to a steady shower with a full bright sun shining round, red-orange, and happy when we got back to the place I was now expected to call home. Victor parked on the gravel path next to the stairs.
All three of us got out slowly, ignoring the rain. A clump of small white and yellow flowers yielded to rain drops and then popped up again for another gentle assault. Before I hit the first step, I heard her.
Parked on the street was a familiar car. When the window rolled down I saw Sally Porovsky looking at me. She didn’t call out or wave. She just looked at me.
“You’ve got work to do,” Ames said.
“I know.”
Victor stood silently, a thin trail of rain wending its way down his nose. Ames nodded at me and said no more. My door was open. Ames knew it. He led Victor upward, their shoes clapping on each wooden step.
I went to the street and moved around Sally’s car to the passenger door. It was open. I got in and sat.
“You’re wet,” she said.
I nodded.
“There’s a beach towel in the trunk. You want to get it?”
“No.”
Her hands were tight on the steering wheel as if she were about to peel into a drag race. She looked forward. The shadow of rain rolling down the front window danced against her face. She looked pretty. She was pretty. Her skin was clear and pale, her hair dark and cut short. She was slightly plump and normally totally in control of herself, but not at this moment.
“I was going to call you,” I said.
“I remember,” she said. “I decided not to wait. How is Darrell?”
“I don’t really know.”
“His mother won’t answer my calls.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She went on. “I think she blames me for getting Darrell involved with you.”
“She does.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes.”
We went silent for about half a minute and then she said, “Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”
I could have said, “What’s wrong with right here,” but I sensed that she wanted to talk about something other than Darrell.
“FourGees?”
FourGees is a coffee shop, a decent place for lunch and late-night live music, at Beneva and Webber. It was dark in the daytime, with amber shadows and places to talk quietly.
“I can’t stay long,” she said as she drove. “I have to go back to the office.”
The office was children’s services, about ten minutes from FourGees.
I nodded. She drove. I like company when I drive alone. I’ll listen to conservative talk shows, ball games, religious evangelists, but not music. I want no music. I want company. When I’m with other people in a car, I like to listen to them talk, which they seem to do whether or not I’m doing the driving.
Look at your watch or the time on your cell phone and count off a minute, then two, then three. Minutes become interminable when you count them. Silences become an anticipation of bad news.
We said not a word as Sally drove to FourGees and found a space directly in front of the shop.
