Must be, Corky’s expecting this. Giving the girls a wry-resigned smile, already halfway to the door, “Sorry, you’re mistaking me for some local shithead politician, it’s always happening. I’m a private citizen.”
And so right out the door, toothpick in his mouth. And these sweet dumb broads blinking after him now really not knowing what to think.
Then, this: at 8:25 A.M. finally arriving home at the house on Summit Avenue he’s been dreading, a tightness in his chest as he exits from the Fillmore west a mile on Seneca and across Ninth Street into Maiden Vale—that abruptly, you’re in it: this old prestigious neighborhood like an island in Union City where the houses are large and stately and many of them of “historical” significance, the lots too large, deep, artfully landscaped, and the property and school taxes reflect these facts—and so along Summit Park which is looking brilliantly green, sumptuous after a season of rain, Corky passes the Museum of Fine Arts, the Annandale Foundation for Medical Research, a Congregationalist church all white floating like something in a dream this misty-porous morning, then Corky’s “neighbors” whose names he barely knows, these handsome old houses overlooking the park, each with ten-foot wrought-iron fences or brick or stone walls and state-of-the-art security systems just like his own. Homesick, Corky’s coming home. Seeing his home, the home that’s his, he feels a stab of angry melancholy like he’s been cheated, only doesn’t know why, or by who. I want my real home, where the fuck is it!
And pulling into his driveway he sees a UCPD squad car parked in front of the house—“Oh, Christ.”
Something has happened to Thalia.
Corky brakes to a lurching stop, climbs out of the Caddy sick and shaking and there’s Budd Yeager looking at him, hand raised in greeting, a guarded smile like you’d give somebody you like well enough but might have to hurt. Corky sees that Yeager isn’t just in the act of descending the front steps like he’s rung the doorbell and given up waiting for an answer, he seems to have been just standing there beneath the portico, waiting. No reason for him to assume Corky will be pulling into the driveway, he’s just waiting.
Yeager calls out, “Hey Corky, how’s it going?” giving a forced-cheery tone to this encounter but Corky’s unable to smile back, anxious eyes snatching at Yeager’s. Corky can hardly stammer, “What’s w-wrong?”
They’re shaking hands. Corky’s begun to sweat. He knows, just knows, it’s Thalia: she’s killed herself. With his Luger. That’s it.
Yeager’s volunteered to come over personally to tell Corky the bad news. They’re poker buddies, that’s the connection? Corky stares seeing this bullet-headed guy staring at him calculated and regretful and Corky’s thinking he’s never hated anybody’s guts more than he hates Yeager’s. “—What’s wrong?”
Thinking, even in this panic, If he doesn’t want us to go inside, sit down, it might not be bad news. Not the worst kind of bad news.
And there’s a younger cop, in uniform, in the squad car, behind the wheel. Listening to the radio, not looking at Corky. What’s this mean? They don’t expect him to faint? Have a bad reaction?
Seeing how scared Corky is, Yeager lays his hand, warm and meaty, on Corky’s shoulder to comfort him. His smile’s more quizzical now, bemused. “I don’t know, Corky,” he says, “—you tell me. Some friends are a little worried about you lately, that’s all.”
“Worried about me? What the fuck? Who?”
“They think you’ve been acting strange, the last couple of days. Not yourself, y’know?” Yeager shrugs to indicate he isn’t one who’s concerned. Doesn’t know anything about it.
Corky’s asking. “What the hell do you mean, Budd?” like this is a preposterous exchange. Like he’s close to being seriously insulted. “What’s going on?”
Yeager’s looking thoughtfully at Corky. Outweighs him by forty pounds at least. A chesty bull-necked guy with pewter-gray eyes and pewter-gray hair so short it looks almost shaved, and that blunt hard head he could use, like a pro wrestler, for ramming an opponent in the gut and feeling no pain. You’d think a UCPD detective wearing an off-the-rack brown suit from Macy’s, cheap flashy fake-leather shoes, would be intimidated by a big Georgian Colonial house on Summit Park but Yeager isn’t, much. Don’t bullshit me, Corcoran. Come clean.
At the same time, Corky wants to think they’re friends. That sweet way, the other day, at the U.C.A.C., his hand clamping down on Corky’s shoulder, he’d slipped $900 into Corky’s pocket for a $780 debt. One man to another. Cutting Greenbaum out. See?—we’re brothers.
But Corky is scared. A cop can pull his gun and shoot you dead and who’s to say it wasn’t self-defense? or he thought it was self-defense, seeing you reach inside your coat to pull your gun? and maybe providing the gun for you, fingerprints and all, after you’re dead? and a history of the gun? And two cops make one eyewitness to what happened.
Budd Yeager laughs as if he can read Corky’s mind. Strolls away casually to look at Corky’s car, it’s a cop’s second nature to examine things without even seeming to know he’s doing so, and a car like this Cadillac De Ville naturally draws attention—the windshield cracked like a spiderweb, the crumpled front fender and part of the bumper, numerous scratches and scrapes on the elegant cocoa-and-cream finish. Corky’s shamed as if he’s dropped his trousers in public. Yeager says conversationally, “—Looks like you’ve had some bumpy rides lately, Corky, Eh? And flowers—” he’s peering into the back seat, “—for Marilee Plummer, maybe? I heard you were out there yesterday.”
“Out where?”
“At the cemetery.” Yeager pauses, glancing over at Corky. “At the funeral, then the cemetery. Were you invited by the family?”
“No.”
“You just went?”
“I just went.”
“You were at the morgue, too? Asking about the coroner’s report?”
“What’s this, Yeager? An interrogation?”
Corky’s getting pissed. He’s scared, and excited, and sweating inside his clothes. Now he knows it isn’t Thalia, and he isn’t going to be arrested—if they’d come for that, the other cop wouldn’t just be sitting on his ass in the squad car—the sight of Budd Yeager just looking at Corky’s car, standing there in Corky’s driveway, sets him off. Now he realizes people have been spying on him, reporting on him to one another, maybe laughing at him!
“Hey c’mon, Corky,” Yeager says, surprised, smiling like Corky’s the one being unreasonable, “—why’d anybody interrogate you? This is just a visit. Don’t be an asshole.”
“I’m an asshole? What about you, Yeager?”
Corky’s so nervous by now, lighting a cigarette he lets the burning match get blown from his fingers to the ground. Fuck it, he’s losing it. He’s having a caffeine reaction, all that black coffee. Must’ve drunk six cups.
Yeager says, protesting, “I’m just an intermediary. Hell, I’m a friend. You’re in some kind of trouble, or hassle—I’d like to know.” He’s back beside Corky, eyeing him curiously. Six feet tall, with that bull neck, pitted cheeks, gray eyes—a man who makes you want to know what’s on his mind. Just the fact he exists in proximity to you, you want to know. But saying unexpectedly, frowning, “Hey, I thought you gave up smoking, Corky?”
Corky’s surprised at this remark then remembers how, a few years ago, at one of Oscar’s Friday-night poker games, he and Yeager got to talking seriously about giving up smoking: Yeager’d given up too, after twenty years of three packs a day. He’d seen his father die of lung cancer.
Jesus, the guy remembers: maybe he is my friend?
“Yeah, well. I started again. Temporarily.”
“Something going on? You’re worried about something?”
“I just don’t like being interrogated, Budd. You can relate to that, right?”
“It’s just a friendly inquiry, Corky. Some things we’ve been hearing—”
Corky says, “Fuck it, what things? I feel sorry for the girl, I go the funeral, I don’t even go to the
funeral I sit outside in my car, in the street! I go to the cemetery—so what? I didn’t know her but she was a friend of my stepdaughter’s and I felt sorry for her, that’s all. That’s all.”
“Corky, why’re—”
“I wasn’t fucking her, or any of them,” Corky says angrily, “—I have my own personal private life, I’m maybe going to get married—remarried—sometime—it’s my own business, right?”
“Sure, Corky. That’s fine. But—”
“Whatever that asshole at the morgue told you—what a creep! what a grade-A jerk-off cocksucker creep!—don’t believe it. He wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. And your buddy Beck—what’s he been saying? I stopped at Pendle Hill Village to see what was going on, I didn’t know whose place it was, for sure I didn’t know Marilee Plummer lived there—I didn’t know her. It was just an accident, me stopping there. I admit, I was poking my nose in where it wasn’t wanted—a dumb-fuck thing to do, but I was curious. I’m an elected city official, you guys are accountable to me. I might be the next president of the City Council. I’m fucking interested in what’s going on in this fucking city.”
Corky’s been advancing on Budd Yeager who’s been staring at him bemused and mildly apprehensive as a German shepherd might be mildly apprehensive, if only out of disbelief, of a feisty little dachshund snapping at his knees. Yeager says, “Why’re you getting your back up, Corky? This is in your own best interest. You seem a little excitable.”
Corky says, “Fuck you, I’m not excitable! These are my premises. This is my private property you’re on. What’ll the neighborhood think, I’m being arrested? On my front lawn? You saw me come home just now, I didn’t get home last night, I’m under a lot of pressure, it’s a family crisis and nobody’s business—” A new, infuriating thought occurs to Corky. “—This bitch Kiki, she’s in on it, too?”
“Who?”
Corky thinks better of this. Fuck it you never give a cop information unless he already has it. He says, quickly backpedaling, “The thing is, Budd, I’m in a rush right now. I’ve got appointments. Those flowers in the car—no, they’re not for who you said, they’re for an aunt of mine in the hospital. A fucking nun. In Holy Reedemer. You want to check? You doubt me, you want to check? I’m going to see my uncle who lives in Irish Hill, right now—Sean Corcoran—and take him to the park, to the Memorial Day service. That’s a crime?” Corky’s speaking so loudly, the young cop in the squad car is watching him now. “You want to give me a fucking Breathalyzer test?”
Even in the midst of the running at the mouth Corky’s thinking how in other circumstances he’d welcome Yeager, invite him and the young cop in, offer them something to drink—beer for Yeager if he’s off duty, coffee for the kid if he’s on. The Corky Corcoran Yeager knows, or thinks he knows. This nerved-up unshaven guy with the shakes, bloodshot eyes, all but ordering a police officer and old poker buddy off his property, who’s he?
Guilty as hell. Guilty of what?
Guilty, and needing to be punished.
So Corky tries a new tack, relenting, half-apologetic, as frank as he can manage, he knows it’s going O.K. when the young cop turns back to the radio, and Yeager nods, frowning and sympathetic—“Budd, it’s true I’m a little rattled right now. You caught me at a bad time. A family crisis—my stepdaughter, my ex-wife. Nothing to do with any kind of police business, absolutely not. This stepdaughter of mine, my ex-wife—” telling Yeager a vague confused incredulous hurt resentful story meant to evoke shared indignation; man-to-man stuff—my stepdaughter, my ex-wife—the cunts are wearing us out, doing us in; isn’t Yeager a veteran of the divorce court himself, for sure he can relate to this. And, Christ knows, the essence of what Corky is saying is true. “My ex-wife, did you ever meet her?—no?—Charlotte Drummond, Ross Drummond’s daughter—God-damned confused bitch wanted the divorce, now she thinks it’s a mistake, I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t think it’s a mistake, I can’t figure her—I’m a shit whatever I do, or don’t do—” Once Corky gets talking, talking and gesturing, it’s like this other self takes over, he’ll be O.K. now he’s more in control, and bullshitting another guy always gives pleasure. Like making a political speech, you shuffle around truths and part-truths and what comes out is true, yet isn’t—just talking, gesturing, grinning, and “making eye contact” makes it phony somehow.
Still, Corky wonders how much Yeager knows. Yeager and anybody else. He did break into Thalia’s apartment the other night—maybe it was reported? Maybe Esdras or his wife did get a look at him, could identify him? Is that possible?
And vindictive Kiki—Corky wouldn’t put it past her, to make trouble for him. Maybe she has reported him to the police, for attempted rape? Actual rape? Is that possible?
But Yeager seems to be listening to Corky sympathetically, uncritically. With a poker player, even a medium-level player like Yeager, you never can tell absolutely. But Corky thinks it’s O.K. They talk for maybe twenty minutes, out on Corky’s front step. It’s one of those misty spring days, a silvery sheen to the air, low visibility but a wind picking up off the lake—the sky could be blown clear of rain clouds. Rain’s predicted for this afternoon, for the parade, but this is western New York, weather can change from hour to hour depending upon the wind. Corky’s feeling better now, and hopeful. Seeing that Budd Yeager who’s got a reputation as a hard-nosed son of a bitch is treating him with respect. That bemused edge to his smile, like he knows more than he’s letting on, and knows Corky knows—but, hell, that’s Yeager’s style. You don’t get to be UCPD chief of detectives for being a Boy Scout.
Corky’s feeling good too about the house, the lawn—he might look like hell at the moment, and his car a bit beat up, but this is a terrific Maiden Vale house he isn’t inviting Budd Yeager inside of, proof if further proof’s required, that Corky Corcoran has really made it in this town. Even his lawn, his lawn, that he’s never so much as walked across to the sidewalk, let alone mowed, or raked, or fertilized, or planted things in, or trimmed them—Luigi’s Lawn Service takes care of all that, and not cheaply—looks terrific. Budd Yeager, a lieutenant on the force, drawing a salary of under $50,000, living probably in some tacky neighborhood like Mount Moriah, can appreciate Corky’s achievement, right? And his rank?
Corky isn’t going to ask, though, why Yeager slipped him $900 instead of $780. Why the careless-seeming generosity. There might be a purpose, and there might not. It’s small potatoes. Don’t push it.
Never ask a cop a question to get him thinking.
Nor ask who’s been worrying about Corky enough to enlist Budd Yeager to drop by off duty. Must be Oscar, who else but the boss hearing from Vic Corky Corcoran’s been behaving strangely lately—two nights in a row he didn’t show up at Vic’s and Sandra’s where he’s never missed an invitation in all their years of friendship.
Nearing nine A.M. and Yeager’s on his way. Corky’s affable enough now he’s calmed down considerably, and the men have been joking together, they’re going to part on friendly terms but Corky wants to get on with the morning, needs to get inside the house. (Needs to use the toilet, for one thing. Jesus!) So he shakes hands with Yeager, each says he hopes he’ll be seeing the other soon, it’s time for another poker night, right? And Corky like the lord of the manor is walking Yeager to the squad car. And Yeager’s about to climb inside but pauses, shaking his head, a sudden grin signaling Corky this is a joke, this is far out, don’t blame me. “One more thing, Corky.”
“Sure.”
“You’ll laugh like hell it’s fucking weird, Corky.”
“I will?”
“—Not a charge or anything, not even a complaint just a—what you’d call a rumor. I don’t even remember who I heard it from exactly but it’s making the round of the Department, you know how news travels—”
“What news?”
“People saying there’s this spade down on Welland making out like you were down there yesterday—impersonating a UCPD undercover detective.” Yeager
laughs a hoarse phlegmy cough but isn’t looking at Corky.
For a beat Corky isn’t actually sure he’s heard this.
“I was—what?”
Says Yeager amiably, “Like I said, Corky—it’s not a charge or anything. It’s nothing anybody’s taking seriously except it got passed along, I thought you might like to know. Weird, huh?”
“I was impersonating a UCPD undercover detective?”
Now Yeager does glance at Corky, steely ghost-eyes the color of his crewcut and that kind of skin that looks like beneath the surface layer it’s metal. “Hell, just some spade shooting off his mouth,” Yeager says, “—proprietor of a nigger dive called ‘Zanzibar.’ You ever heard of it, or him?”
2
The Kiss
Those years. He believed mystery inhabited her body and that she like the priests was the custodian of secrets no words could express. And then when he was older, after his father’s death, he understood that the mystery was her very body and that she, whom others called Theresa but whom he called Mommy, was as helpless in the face of that mystery as he who was her son born of that body. And that the words they were obliged to speak—Theresa, even before the death, had a way of talking in wild skittering rifts punctuated with laughter like icicles breaking that made you shiver: you laughed with her not knowing why—were inadequate to convey or even to suggest that mystery. As that afternoon she came to take Jerome out of school offering no explanation to the startled nuns except it’s time and by Greyhound bus they fled to the countryside north of Indian Lake rural scrubland in those days where there was at first the vague hope of staying with relatives Theresa trusted not to betray them, then did not trust, the fear that these relatives (whom Jerome did not know, was never even to glimpse) would call the Corcorans or worse yet the police or even the men who pursued them to murder them. Don’t show your face, Theresa warned him—you have your father’s face. And there was a day and a night of hiding. By day at the rear of the Indian Lake Free Library in an aged clapboard house where there were rust-stained toilet facilities mother and son could use and where the elderly wall-eyed librarian was too frightened of Theresa’s hard bright lipsticked smiles and stony serenity to eject them except when the library closed at 5 P.M. of a windy thunderous April day. Theresa whispered to the old woman All right: but if you tell them we’ve been here you’ll regret it! By night yet more vividly as the boy was to remember on top of a roof, out-of-doors as in a child’s dream where wishes come true but are not as you’d expected—They won’t find us here, nobody will find us here, but hurry! From somewhere, a quart bottle of syrupy-sweet Mogen David wine, a crackling bag of potato chips, and what Theresa called her “meds”—the chunky pills that, taken several times a day, kept her bright, alert, optimistic and serene yet at the same time suspicious of all strangers and cunning with the logic of the desperate-doomed thus capable at least temporarily (even Theresa did not imagine their escape would be permanent) of eluding the murderers who pursued not so much Theresa the widowed wife of Tim Corcoran as twelve-year-old Jerome who was Tim Corcoran’s only child. The building to which Theresa brought them by chance, it had to be by chance since she knew nothing of Indian Lake so far as Jerome could determine though pretending otherwise for his sake, was a derelict warehouse of three floors with a fire escape that swung like an amusement ride as they climbed, Theresa pushing Jerome up before her Hurry! Go on! It’s safe for us! The roof opened up flat, puddled with rainwater, encrusted with the bird droppings of decades. A harsh wet rain blew. But it was already dusk, and they could not be seen, Theresa was right, they were safe. She claimed to have been in this place before claiming that Daddy had brought her here to prepare her and there was a shelter atop the roof which in fact there might once have been, for rotted boards with protruding spikes, torn strips of tarpaper, crates, barrels were strewn about. A rich fecund smell of rotting leaves, the wind in the trees roaring like a freight train. Its loudness hypnotic, reassuring. Theresa laughed and scolded cajoling Jerome into helping her fix a makeshift shelter for the night out of the debris. An upended barrel, propped-up boards. Tarpaper softly pliant enough to be, if not torn, bent by hand. Overhead high clouds were blown wild, scattered like strips of bright rag. Rain came in gusts but sometimes the moon was visible, like a staring eye. Theresa prayed rapidly and carelessly as if saying the rosary to get the rosary said and held Jerome warning Don’t let the cold get inside you, honey! She drank from the bottle of Mogen David then pressed it to Jerome’s lips and he lifted it and drank from it thirstily seeming to know when in the morning the world returned he would tell Theresa frankly and bluntly and unpityingly she was crazy, there was nobody after them, he would himself make the telephone call from town (the phone to be answered at once by Aunt Frances, sleepless with worry about them) to bring them back to Union City but that night he believed, he understood completely and unquestioningly Don’t let the cold get inside you hunched beneath the tarpaper as Theresa moaned and rocked from side to side holding him in her thin, strong arms, and kissed him wetly, hotly, with a terrible hunger, on the mouth, and he began to fight her as always he did at such times but then abruptly ceased, it was to be the last kiss between them and thus the last struggle and she wept over him Don’t let it happen! if it does I can’t save you! I’m not strong enough! and a single heart beat between them.
What I Lived For Page 57
