8
'I don't want you to be scared,' Janet Simmons had whispered when Tina returned home. 'We've located your grandfather-in-law, Milo's maternal grandfather, and I think it's only right you come along.'
'That's impossible. They're all dead.'
'Well, there's only one way to find out for sure.'
Now, in a twin-engine Spirit Airlines flight from LaGuardia to Myrtle Beach, Tina held on to Stephanie, who had insisted on a window seat.
For her daughter, the sudden shift in agenda was exciting. An overnight trip to the beach, they'd called it. Christ, Little Miss was a good sport. How much had she suffered since two weeks ago, when, at Disney World, she'd woken to find a Homeland Security thug in her bedroom, looking for her father, who had suddenly disappeared? Why should she have to deal with any of this?
'How you doing, hon?'
Stephanie yawned into her cupped hand, staring at the leaden clouds. 'I'm a little tired.”
“Me, too.'
'Are we really going on vacation?'
'Sort of. A short one. I just need to talk to someone. After that we can chill out on the beach. Sound all right?'
She shrugged in a way that worried Tina, but said, 'Why's she coming?'
'You don't like Ms. Simmons?' Tina asked while, across the aisle, Simmons punched at her BlackBerry. 'I don't think she likes Dad.'
A good sport, and smart to boot. Smarter, perhaps, than her mother.
Again, she wondered why she had agreed to this sudden trip. Did she really trust Special Agent Janet Simmons? Not entirely, but the carrot was too great: to finally meet a member of Milo's family. It was less about trust than curiosity. Really.
They landed a little before eight, and Tina roused Stephanie as they descended. From the window, they saw darkness marked by pinpoints of light that died out with the coastline. They weren't met by any special agents in the Myrtle Beach airport, and Simmons even had to take care of her own rental Taurus. She got driving directions from her BlackBerry.
It was Thursday evening, but it was also the height of summer, and they passed open-topped jeeps full of horny, shirtless college boys in knee-length shorts and stupid baseball caps, waving tallboys of Miller and Bud. Smiling at their attention, bottle-blondes gave them reasons to holler. Music spilled out from the clubs, though all they heard was the monotone thumpa-thumpa throb of dance music rhythms.
The Covenant Towers, nestled in a lush, wooded area on the north side of town, wasn't far from the beach, and it consisted of two long, five-story towers separated by grass and trees. 'Pretty,' Stephanie judged from her seat.
According to Deirdre Shamus, the pink-cheeked, perky director who had stayed beyond her regular shift to find out exactly why Homeland Security was interested in one of their residents, Covenant Towers was not a 'nursing home,' though medical facilities were on-site. 'We encourage independence here.'
William T. Perkins lived on the first floor of Tower Two, and Shamus brought them all the way to his door, greeting every resident they passed with overwrought enthusiasm. Finally, they stopped at number fourteen, a studio apartment. Shamus knocked, intoning, 'Mr. Perkins! Your visitors have arrived!'
'Hold your fucking horses!' said an angry, rough voice.
Suddenly, Tina worried about Stephanie. What was behind this door? Her great-grandfather, maybe-she still couldn't quite believe that Milo wouldn't have known about him, and if he knew, he certainly would have told her. But what kind of man was he? She pulled Ms. Shamus aside. 'Is there a place Stef can wait? I'm not sure I want her in there with us.'
'Oh, Mr. Perkins is a firecracker, but he's-'
'Really,' Tina insisted. 'Like, a television room?'
'There's one down the hall.
'Thanks.' To Simmons: 'Be right back.'
She walked Stephanie down three doors, and on the right found a room that held three sofas and a La-Z-Boy and seven elderly people staring at a rerun of Murder, She Wrote.
'Hon, you mind waiting here a little while?'
Stephanie waved Tina closer. 'It smells here,' she whispered.
'But can you take it? For me?'
Stephanie made a face to show just how bad it smelled, but nodded. 'Not for long.'
'Any problems, we'll be in room fourteen. Got it?'
On her walk back-number fourteen was now open, both Shamus and Simmons inside-Tina had a flash of paranoia. It was the kind of paranoia she'd lived with ever since Milo fled Disney World, ever since her own world had become populated by inquisitors and security agencies.
The paranoia spoke to her in Milo's voice: 'This is how it goes down, Tina. Listen. They get you to send the child away. When you're done with your chat, the child's gone. Just vanished. The old people, they'll be on medication; they won't know what's happened. Simmons won't actually tell you she's got Stephanie. No. It'll all be inference and suggestion. But you'll be made to understand that she's got this document, a little thing. She'd like you to read it out for a camera. It'll say that your husband is a thief and a traitor and a murderer and please put him away for life. Do that, she'll say, and we might be able to track down dear Stephanie.'
But it was just paranoia, she told herself. Just that.
She paused at the open door and looked in. Shamus was full of smiles, preparing to leave, and Simmons was settled on a chair beside a hairless, shriveled man in a wheelchair, his narrow face misshapen by age. His eyes were magnified by large, black-rimmed spectacles. The special agent beckoned her in, and the old man smiled, showing off yellowed dentures. 'Meet William Perkins, Tina. William, this is Tina Weaver, your granddaughter-in- law.'
Perkins's hand had been rising to shake hers, but it stopped. He looked at Simmons. 'The hell are you talking about, woman?'
'Toodle-oo!' Shamus said as she left them to their privacy.
9
It was hard for William T. Perkins to take. At first he claimed he had no grandson at all, then that he had none named Milo Weaver. His protestations were riddled with curses, and Tina got the impression that William T. Perkins had been a right bastard during his eighty-one years on the planet. He'd had two daughters, yes, but they'd left in their late teens without 'so much as a single how-doyou-do.'
'Your daughter Wilma, sir. She and her husband, Theodore, had Milo. Their son. Your grandson,' Simmons pressed. Finally, as if these words represented incontrovertible evidence, Perkins slumped, admitting that, yes, he did have a single grandchild.
'Milo,' he said and shook his head. 'The kind of name you give a dog. That's what I always thought. But Ellen- she never gave a damn what I thought about anything. Neither of them did.'
'Ellen?' said Tina.
'Trouble from the start. Did you know that in 1967, age seventeen, the girl took LSD? Seventeen! By eighteen, she was sleeping with some Cuban communist. Jose Something-or-other. Stopped shaving her legs, went completely off the board.'
'Excuse me, Mr. Perkins,' said Simmons. 'We're not sure who Ellen is.'
Perkins blinked his magnified eyes at her, confused a moment.
'Ellen's my damned daughter, of course! You're asking about Milo's mom, aren't you?'
