“Yeah, I got that the first time. Do you have any new material or are we going to follow up with that original line about me paying for what I’ve done?”
Click.
Myron shrugged it off. Back in the days when he used to play superhero, he had been a rather well-connected fellow. It was time to see if that still held. He checked his cell phone’s directory. The number for Gail Berruti, his old contact from the telephone company, was still there. People think it’s unrealistic how private eyes in TV can get phone records with a snap. The truth is, it was beyond easy. Every decent private eye has a source in the phone company. Think about how many people work for Ma Bell. Think how many of them wouldn’t mind making an extra buck or two. The going rate had been five hundred dollars per billing statement, but Myron imagined the price had gone up in the past six years.
Berruti wasn’t in — she was probably off for the weekend — but he left a message.
“This is a voice from your past,” Myron began.
He asked Berruti to get back to him with the trace on the phone number. He tried Aimee’s cell phone again. It went to her voice mail. When he got home, he headed to the computer and Googled the number. Nothing came up. He took a quick shower and then checked his e-mail. Jeremy, his sorta-son, had written him an e-mail from overseas:
Hey, Myron—
We’re only allowed to say that we’re in the Persian Gulf area. I’m doing well. Mom sounds crazy. Give her a call if you can. She still doesn’t understand. Dad doesn’t either, but at least he pretends he does. Thanks for the package.
We love getting stuff.
I got to go. I’ll write more later, but I might be out of touch for a while. Call Mom, okay?
Jeremy
Myron read it again and then again, but the words didn’t change. The e-mail, like most of Jeremy’s, said nothing. He didn’t like that “out of touch” part. He thought about parenting, how he had missed so much of it, all of it really, and how this kid, his son, fit into his life now. It was working, he thought, at least for Jeremy. But it was hard. The kid was the biggest what-could-have-been, the biggest if-only-I’d-known, and most of the time, it just plain hurt.
Still staring at the message, Myron heard his cell phone. He cursed under his breath, but this time the caller ID told him it was the divine Ms. Ali Wilder.
Myron smiled as he answered it. “Stallion Services,” he said.
“Sheesh, suppose it was one of my kids on the phone.”
“I’d pretend to be a horse seller,” he said.
“A horse seller?”
“Whatever they call people who sell horses.”
“What time is your flight?”
“Four o’clock.”
“You busy?”
“Why?”
“The kids will be out of the house for the next hour.”
“Whoa,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Are you suggesting a little righteous nookie?”
“I am.” Then: “Righteous?”
“It’ll take me some time to get there.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And it’ll have to be a quickie.”
“Isn’t that your specialty?” she said.
“Now that hurt.”
“Only kidding. Stallion.”
He brayed. “That’s horse-speak for ‘I’m on my way.’ ”
“Righteous,” she said.
But when he knocked on her door, Erin answered it. “Hey, Myron.”
“Hey,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed.
He glanced behind her. Ali shrugged a
Myron stepped inside. Erin ran upstairs. Ali came closer. “She got in late and didn’t feel like going to drama club.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry about that.”
“No problem.”
“We could stand in a corner and neck,” she said.
“Can I cop a feel?”
“You better.”
He smiled.
“What?” she said.
“I was just thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“Something Esperanza said to me yesterday,” Myron said.
“Is that German?”
“Yiddish.”
“What does it mean?”
“Man plans, God laughs.”
She repeated it. “I like that.”
“Me too,” he said.
He hugged her then. Over her shoulder, he saw Erin at the top of the stairs. She was not smiling. Myron’s eyes met hers and again he thought about Aimee, about how the night had swallowed her whole, and about the promise he had sworn to keep.
CHAPTER 10
Myron had time before his flight.
He grabbed a coffee at the Starbucks in the center of town. The barista who took his order had the trademark sullen attitude. As he handed Myron the drink, lifting it to the counter as though it were the weight of the world, the door behind them opened with a bang. The barista rolled his eyes as they entered.
There were six of them today, trudging in as though through deep snow, heads down, a variety of shakes. They sniffled and touched their faces. The four men were unshaven. The two women smelled like cat piss.
They were mental patients. For real. They spent most nights at Essex Pines, a psychiatric facility in the neighboring town. Their leader — wherever they walked, he stayed in front — was named Larry Kidwell. His group spent most days wandering through town. Livingstonites referred to them as the Town Crazies. Myron uncharitably thought of them as a bizarre rock group: Lithium Larry and the Medicated Five.
Today they seemed less lethargic than usual so it must be pretty close to medication time back at the Pines. Larry was extra jittery. He approached Myron and waved.
“Hey, Myron,” he said too loudly.
