Having spent two years in the Army, I knew what a .45 could do to on the pistol range. I didn't want to know what it could in the front seat of my Bronco.
“You Peter Talbott?” he asked, glaring at me.
“You want the Bronco? It's yours.”
“No, I don't want the freakin' Bronco.”
“It's yours, really,” I told him as I reached for the door handle.
“Look, Ace, this ain't no carjack, and if it were, I'd pick something better than an old piece of shit like this,” he said as he raised the .45 a few inches higher and I stopped moving. “Now, you Talbott, or not?”
“Yes, yes, I'm Talbott.”
“Peter Emerson Talbott? 33 years old?” I nodded, ready to agree to anything. “From California? Went to freakin’ UCLA? UCLA?” His eyes narrowed as he repeated the name of the school. “You know, I lost two large on those dumb bastards in the NCAA tournament last year. I oughta ...”
“Yeah,” I kept nodding. “They're real dumb bastards, really dumb.”
“But you weren't there then, were you? Says you graduated back in ‘98.” More nods, wondering where this was heading. “I guess I can't blame you then, can I?”
“Uh, no, I wouldn't.”
“Shut up! You were in the Army and then you went to work for something called Netdyne out in LA. Right?”
“Yeah, software and aeronautical engineering computer stuff,” I kept nodding as the feeling of stark terror was beginning to wear off. After all, he hadn't shot me yet.
“You moved here to Boston two months ago and you're living in that little suck-ass apartment over in Lexington? So where's your wife?”
“Where's my wife?” Now it was my turn to get pissed. I sat up and glared. “She's dead. She died a year ago back in LA.”
“Yeah? You freakin’ sure about that?”
“Yeah, I'm freakin’ sure about it!” The .45 or not, I'd had enough.
“Okay, Ace, then how do you explain this?”
He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a bad Xerox copy of an old newspaper story, and dropped it in my lap. One glance and I knew exactly what it was:
TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, died last Tuesday in a tragic automobile accident in Baja California. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and former lieutenant in the US Army Transportation Corps, he was a software engineer with Netdyne Systems in Long Beach and the husband of Theresa June Talbott who preceded him in death here last month following a lengthy illness. A memorial service will be held at the Montane chapel in Long Beach at 2:00 PM on Thursday.
“Oh, not this again,” I laughed and shook my head, recognizing the old obituary from the LA Times.
“You see something funny, smart guy?”
“That obituary, it was all a big mistake.”
“A mistake?” He raised the .45. “I'm all freakin’ ears.”
I tried to explain to him about the trip to Tijuana, the 350-Z, the semi, the dead Mexican kid, and the memorial service in Long Beach.
The guy sat and listened, as he said, he was all ears. When I finally finished, he sat there for a minute as if he was studying me. “Okay, then how do you explain Columbus?”
“Columbus?”
“Yeah, Columbus. In Ohio. You never heard of it?”
“Sure, I've heard of it.”
“So what were you doing there? Having more funerals for the hell of it?”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I‘ve never been there.”
“Never?” he glared, looking deep into my eyes. “What about that dip-shit accounting office of yours down on Sickles?”
“Accounting office? I'm a software engineer, a computer programmer; I don't know anything about accounting. Look, whoever you're looking for, I'm not him.”
“Okay, if that's the way you want to play it, how do you explain these?” he said as he dropped two other slips of torn newsprint in my lap.
They were two more obituaries. I picked the first one up and read:
TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. President of Center Financial Advisors. Formerly of Los Angeles. A 1998 graduate of UCLA and a lieutenant, US Army Transportation Corps. By authority of Ralph Tinkerton, Executor. (See also TALBOTT, THERESA JUNE, wife, accompanying). Funeral services for both at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Greene Funeral Home, 255 E. Larkin, Peterborough, Ohio. Internment, Oak Hill Cemetery, following.
“You making a fuckin’ hobby out of these?” he asked, but all I could do was stare at it. Coincidence? How many 1998 graduates of UCLA were there? How many were thirty-three years old and from Los Angeles? How many of those were alumni of the “Fighting” Transportation Corps, “an officer and a gentleman by Act of Congress” named Peter Emerson Talbott? Only one that I could think of. I had never heard of a company named Center Financial Advisors, much less owned one, and I had never heard of the Varner Clinic or a man named Ralph Tinkerton, either.
Worse still, I looked at the other one. It was the companion piece for Terri:
TALBOTT, THERESA JUNE, age 33, of Columbus, died Sunday at Varner Clinic following a tragic automobile accident. Loving wife of Peter. (See also TALBOTT, PETER EMERSON, Husband, accompanying). Formerly of Los Angeles and a 1999 graduate of Berkeley. By authority, Ralph Tinkerton, Executor. Funeral services for both at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Greene Funeral Home, 255 E. Larkin, Peterborough, Ohio. Internment, Oak Hill Cemetery, following.
This was no mistake. That couple in the newspaper was supposed to be Terri and me, no doubt about it. It was a lie and in that instant I got very angry. They could do what they wanted to me. My name and my reputation meant nothing, certainly not after Baja, but when they dragged Terri into it, something inside me snapped. This was worse than identity theft. It was memory corruption. They were stealing her, stealing my memories of her, wrapping their greasy fingers around them and warping them. Something snapped inside me and I knew that was something I couldn't let happen. I didn't care about this Bozo with the Soprano suit and the .45, and I didn't care about the odds. I was going to stop them. It's funny how when you have nothing to lose, as I did back then, it's easy to think really stupid thoughts like that.
He stared at me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“More than you'll ever know. Where did you get these?”
“This morning's Columbus
“Today? I don't get it.”
“Yeah, neither do we. You ever heard of Jimmy Santorini?”
I shook my head.
“How about Rico Patillo? Bayonne? East Orange?”
“In New Jersey? You're kidding, right?”
His eyes grew hard. “Do I look like I'm freakin’ kidding? I don't suppose you ever heard of Ralph Tinkerton either?” He stared at me, trying to read my eyes as I shook my head again. “Ah, shit,” he finally said in disgust, then opened the passenger side door and started to get out. He turned and looked back at me, pointing the .45 at my old blue jeans and the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge World Tour T-shirt. “Freakin’ California. Ain't you a little old for that shit?”
I looked at his gaudy chain and the sharkskin “lounge-lizard” jacket and replied, “Freakin New Jersey. Ain't you a little young?”
“A smart ass, huh?” he answered with a glint of humor in his eye as he got the rest of the way out. “I like that, but you be real careful, Ace. Keep both hands on the steering wheel, drive straight out of the parking lot, and don't look back until you reach that “suck-ass” dump you're renting in Lexington. You got that?”
“But what about...”
“Forget about it. Tinkerton may have made one mistake, but he won't make a second one, and neither will I.
