The Nomination

by William G. Tapply

  When she left, she’d either take Li An with her—he guessed she drove that big old Wagoneer because it was easy to load a wheelchair into—or she’d leave Li An home alone in her wheelchair.

  Either way would work for Eddie Moran.

  At 4:58 the man and the girl exchanged hugs and cheek kisses with Li An and went around to the front of the house. The blonde went with them. She and the girl hugged each other. She shook hands with the guy.

  Moran noticed that the guy was carrying a white plastic shopping bag. He wondered what was in it.

  MAC HADN’T SEEN Katie so animated and enthusiastic since . . . well, since before that fateful March night over a year ago. Simone was “so interesting” and Jill was “way cool.”

  “Did you realize,” Katie said, “that they don’t have a TV in their house? They don’t even get a newspaper. They listen to music and read philosophy and religion and poetry, and they meditate and eat organic. I think that’s so admirable.”

  And Katie went on in that vein for the first fifteen or twenty minutes of their drive back to Concord.

  Then, abruptly, she stopped, blew out a breath, and muttered, “Well, anyway ...”

  Mac didn’t want it to end. “So what else did you and Jill talk about?” he said.

  “Simone,” said Katie. “She’s dying.”

  Mac glanced at his daughter sitting beside him. Her face was turned to the side window. He guessed she was crying.

  CHAPTER 15

  Eddie Moran was back in his hemlock cave before sunup on Sunday morning. Except there was no sunup. Gray clouds blanketed the sky, and around the time the sun should have come up, a soft rain began to drizzle down.

  He stayed there all day. It was dry and snug under the hemlocks. As long as he kept his back against the trunk, only an occasional drop of rainwater fell on his legs.

  He ate his apples and candy bars, drank from his water bottles, and blanked his mind against the passage of the empty hours. Now and then he peered into the windows of the house through his binoculars. He’d stayed after dark the previous evening so he could watch the house when the inside lights were on. He thought he had a pretty accurate picture of the layout. Li An’s bedroom was downstairs in the corner room. The blonde had the room next to it. Saturday night, at least, each woman slept in her own room.

  He sketched the floor plan, including the location of the interior and exterior doors, in his notebook. It appeared that the women left all the outside doors unlocked except, possibly, when they went to bed. Unlocked doors. That was more than he had any right to expect.

  At 2:23 in the afternoon, the blonde, wearing a yellow slicker with the hood pulled over her head, came jogging out of the house, climbed into the Wagoneer, and drove away.

  She was back at 3:51 and trotted into the house with a plastic shopping bag in each hand. She’d been gone about an hour and a half this time. This was the second time in two days that the blonde went out in the afternoon for about an hour and a half.

  When darkness fell, Moran stuffed all his gear into his backpack and wended his way back through the wet woods to his Explorer. There were still a couple of other vehicles parked there by the stream. It made him smile. These trout fishermen, out there all day in the rain, and they didn’t even know enough to quit when it got dark. How much fun could that be?

  He’d eaten his dinners at different diners each night. He liked diners. They served good, plain food, and they were cheap. Even though Larrigan was covering his expenses, Moran had no interest in extravagance.

  There were a lot of diners in the area. Moran guessed that fishermen favored diners for their fast, cheap food and their long hours. This time he stopped at a place that he’d spotted off the highway about halfway back to his motel. He sat in a booth and had the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, peas, and a slab of cherry pie. Minimal conversation with the waitress. Not too friendly, not too grouchy. Wearing the horn-rims. Keeping his nose in the newspaper.

  No reason why anybody should ever remember him.

  JESSIE DROVE ALL day Sunday, following secondary highways in a northeasterly direction through Illinois and into Ohio. The land was lush and green but flat and uninteresting, and the miles burned away under the big solid Cherokee. She had decided to follow the lakeshore route—Lake Erie through Ohio and Pennsylvania, then Lake Ontario along the northern border of New York state. It was a part of the country she’d never seen.

  Eventually—maybe—she’d turn south into the Catskills and find the town of Beaverkill. She’d come this far.

  She had to give it serious thought, though. It seemed like a big thing, meeting the woman who might have given birth to you after not knowing her all your life, and not caring to.

  In the late afternoon she found a motel outside of Cleveland. She showered and changed and had dinner in an Italian restaurant, shrimp and risotto and two glasses of Chianti.

  When she got back to her room, she flopped down on the bed and thought about calling Simone Bonet again. It had been rude, hanging up on her like that the other night.

  But she guessed that if she called again, she’d probably hang up again. Jessie wasn’t quite ready for this. Not yet.

  MONDAY TURNED OUT to be a warm, sunny day, a few puffy clouds, just the barest whisper of a breeze. Eddie Moran had already been sitting under the hemlocks for about three hours when the blonde, wearing tight-fitting, low-cut blue jeans and a little pink T-shirt, displaying a delicious glimpse of her trim midriff, wheeled Li An out onto the deck. It was 9:03.

  The two of them ate breakfast out there. When they finished, the blonde stacked the dishes on a tray and took it inside. A few minutes later she came back out holding a rectangular black object about the size of a cigarette pack. She placed it on the table at Li An’s elbow.

  Through his binoculars, Moran could see that the object was a mini tape recorder.

  Li An and the blonde talked for a few minutes. Then the blonde flipped the recorder open and inserted a cassette tape. She handed a little microphone to Li An. It was attached to the recorder by a wire.

  The blonde kissed Li An’s forehead and went inside. Moran could see that Li An had begun talking into the recorder.

  “HELLO, DEAR MAC. I promised you I would talk about my movie life, and I will try to do that, although I know you will be disappointed. It was nowhere near as scandalous or glamorous as all the rumors about me would make you think.

  “It was so lovely to see you again and to meet your darling Katie. She is a dear girl and oh, so bright. She is very sad, though, as you know. As you are yourself, dear man. I am sure time will heal you both, but if you and Katie could just find somebody you trusted, somebody to talk with, somebody experienced with grief and skilled at listening . . .

  “I apologize. I should mind my own business. Jill was very charmed by Katie, you know. She suggested we invite her to come and stay with us for a while. I can’t imagine that you’d allow her to do that. Anyway, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. With my illness, it just wouldn’t be much fun for a teenage girl, as much as we would selfishly enjoy it.

  “I think Jill gets lonely sometimes. I don’t know why she stays with me.

  “I didn’t even try to make a tape for you yesterday. It was a rainy Sunday. A bad day for me. Why is it that so many Sundays are rainy? I was feeling quite blue all day. I can’t always tell whether it’s my disease or other things like the weather that affect my moods, but yesterday my medication wasn’t much help.

  “I was thinking about Jessie, of course. My May, my daughter. I woke up feeling gloomy and pessimistic. And yesterday was so gray and rainy that the feeling never really left me. Perhaps it was spending time with your Katie. It made me realize that I have missed my daughter’s entire life.

  “I am better today. The sun is warm out here on the deck, and the birds are singing, and I plan to stay out here all day long. I believe Jessie will call. Maybe today, but if not today, sometime. I believe that.

  “You s
ee? I can only think about Jessie, and I am not telling you the story of my life. It seems so inconsequential. Who would ever care enough to read our book?

  “Well, you are the writer. Maybe you can make it sound interesting.

  “Dear Mac. I intended to tell you stories and recite names and dates and interesting Hollywood facts, and I shall, I promise. But not right now. My mind is on May. Jessie, I mean. Now I am tired. A little nap will refresh me, I’m sure.”

  AFTER SIXTEEN MINUTES by Moran’s watch, Li An put the microphone down on her lap, and a minute or so later her chin slumped onto her chest.

  The blonde came out immediately, as if she’d been watching and waiting for Li An to go to sleep. She moved the microphone onto the table, turned off the recorder, adjusted the blanket on Li An’s lap and knees, then bent down, touched her face, and kissed her cheek.

  An hour later the blonde came out again, this time with a glass of juice or something. She woke up Li An and sat there watching her while she drank.

  Then the blonde pushed Li An in her wheelchair off the wooden deck. Moran had observed that a flagstone walkway completely encircled the house, and now he saw its purpose. The two women went slowly, stopping often to point into the gardens, which were blossoming with flowers of many different colors. A couple of times the blonde picked a flower and gave it to Li An, who held it to her nose. From where he was hiding, Moran could hear their voices, and sometimes a little burst of laughter. The blonde kept touching Li An’s face and hair and hands, and the way Li An looked up at her, it was pretty obvious that they really loved each other.

  They finished their circuit at 12:39, and the blonde pushed Li An up onto the deck and then into the house.

  They came back out at 12:56. Moran figured Li An had to go to the bathroom or something.

  At 1:14 the blonde brought out sandwiches and drinks on a tray. The two of them ate their lunch together, and Moran took that opportunity to eat a Hershey bar and have a swig of water. After two and a half days of watching and remaining still and being stealthy and taking notes and peering through his binoculars, he had it figured out. Eddie Moran knew better than to move prematurely. His patience never wore thin. But now he was ready. He was looking for the right time.

  It came at 2:06, when the blonde got into her Wagoneer and drove out of the driveway. Li An was dozing out on the deck.

  He’d keep it to fifty minutes. It took at least twenty minutes to get anywhere, and twenty minutes to get back, and even if she only bought gas or picked up the mail or bought a gallon of milk, that would take another ten minutes at least. Fifty minutes would be safe.

  So as soon as the Wagoneer disappeared down the driveway, Eddie Moran put his flashlight into his pocket and crept out of his clump of hemlocks. He left the rest of his stuff right there. He’d be back for it.

  He followed the edge of the woods around to the front corner of the house. From there, he could see that Li An was still sleeping on the deck. The way she was sitting, she had her back to the house. It would be best if she stayed asleep, but if she woke up, the way she was facing she wouldn’t see him, and in her wheelchair, she couldn’t come inside to interrupt him.

  So he darted out of the cover of the trees, went to the front door, and turned the knob. It swung open, as he expected.

  The door opened into a single big room that encompassed the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. Eddie Moran didn’t know much about art, but he liked the stuff hanging on the walls. And he liked the looks of the furniture, and the colorful rugs on the wood floors, and the feeling of space and light.

  He noticed those things, but he wasted no time pondering them. He had work to do.

  He went upstairs first. If he should be interrupted, if the blonde should return earlier than he expected, he’d be able to slip away easier if he was downstairs. So he wanted to get the upstairs out of the way first.

  There were two small bedrooms and a bathroom up there. It was pretty obvious that they were hardly ever used. A thin layer of dust covered the windowsills and bedside tables. Moran opened the drawers of the tables, careful not to disturb the coating of dust. They were empty. He rifled through the dressers and found only women’s clothes and mothballs. The closets held winter-weight jackets and pants. Sweaters were piled on the shelves. He rummaged around and shone his flashlight into the corners. No shoeboxes filled with old photos. No shoeboxes at all, in fact.

  He guessed these were guest rooms, and the two women didn’t have guests very often. It appeared that they only used the upstairs for storage. Anyway, Li An couldn’t go upstairs. If she had the photos, they’d most likely be someplace where she could get at them.

  There was nothing in the medicine cabinet or the linen closet in the bathroom except medicine and linens.

  Moran crept downstairs. He was wearing sneakers and soft clothing. He could move anywhere in complete silence. He could slither and slink invisibly and noiselessly though buildings as easily as through forests and jungles. He would have been an excellent burglar if he’d chosen that career path.

  Well, come to think of it, that’s what he was doing. Burglarizing Li An’s house. As he had Bunny’s.

  He went directly to the rear corner of the first floor where, based on his observations, he would find her bedroom.

  The first thing he saw was the snapshot propped up against the base of the lamp on the table beside her bed. He picked it up. He had seen it before. This photo had been in the shoebox in Bunny Brubaker’s closet in Florida. It was one of the dozen or so photos he had come here to retrieve.

  He looked at it. The four of them. Larrigan and Li An, Bunny and Eddie. Plus the baby. Larrigan was holding the baby.

  Jesus, they looked young.

  It wasn’t Eddie Moran’s nature to waste a lot of time pondering the past or speculating about the future, and especially not when he was in the process of searching a house and time was of the essence. But still, he couldn’t help thinking about how things changed. Now Larrigan was about to become a Supreme Court Justice. Li An was in a wheelchair, and Bunny was dead.

  Eddie? Well, Eddie was still doing what he was good at, what he’d been trained for.

  He wondered whatever became of the baby. Doubtful a baby would have survived what happened in Saigon.

  He stuck the photo in his jacket pocket.

  He found a handwritten note and a photocopy of a newspaper clipping—but no more photos—folded up in an envelope in the bedside table drawer. The note was from Bunny. It didn’t mention Larrigan directly, but it confirmed that she’d sent Li An the photographs. The clipping had a photo of a woman kneeling beside a man’s body. He skimmed the story quickly. Something about an assassination attempt. The woman had a Chinese name. He could read it later.

  He folded the note and the clipping, put them back in the envelope, and stuck them in his pocket along with that single photo.

  Then he began a methodical search for the other photos that Bunny had mailed to Li An.

  It took him thirty-two minutes to cover the two bedrooms, the bathroom, the living room, and the bookshelf-lined den. The other photos were not there. Now forty-one minutes had elapsed since he’d entered. He had just nine more minutes.

  He thought it was interesting that there was no TV in the entire house. Lots of books, though.

  He found the portable tape recorder on the counter in the kitchen. Moran popped the recorder open. There was a cassette tape in it, and it appeared to be half full.

  He put the tape in his pocket.

  There was an open twelve-pack of cassette tapes on the shelf. There were three left in the pack. He took one out, slid it into the recorder, and snapped it shut. He hoped they wouldn’t notice that now there were only two cassettes left in the pack, and he trusted that when they went to play back the new tape that he’d put in the machine, and found it empty, they’d figure that Li An had just forgotten to turn it on, or had accidentally erased it.

  A twelve-pack of tapes. Three left in
the pack, one in the recorder. That left eight tapes unaccounted for.

  Moran thought of the bag the bearded guy drove away with. Could’ve been eight tapes in that bag.

  He looked for the rest of the photos in all the kitchen drawers and cabinets. No luck.

  He eased out onto the glassed-in sunporch. From there he could see Li An in her wheelchair. She was facing the valley and the distant hills. She appeared to be still asleep.

  There were some bookshelves and a big oak desk on the sunporch. Moran went to the desk. In the top drawer were files holding bills and tax returns and some legal documents. He rifled through them quickly, aware of the time. The photos were not there. Maybe some of that other stuff was relevant, but he didn’t have time to read everything, and he didn’t dare steal them. What he wanted was those other photographs that linked Larrigan with Li An, that connected him to that time and place and those secrets.

  It was troublesome that she didn’t have them. It meant that somebody else did.

  In the bottom drawer he found a gun. It was wrapped in an oily rag. Without moving the gun, he pulled away the corner of the rag. It was a square, short-barreled little silver automatic, looked like a .32 caliber. As Bond would say, a lady’s gun. Moran smiled. Why not? A couple of women living way the hell out in the sticks ought to have a gun in the house. You never knew when some burglar was going to open the front door and walk in.

  He closed the drawer. He was done. The rest of those photographs were not in the house. Eddie Moran would stake his reputation on it.

  Aside from taking that single photo, Bunny’s note, the newspaper clipping, and the half-filled cassette, he left everything exactly as he’d found it.

  Li An would miss the photo as soon as she went into her bedroom. She obviously kept it propped up beside her bed because it was important to her. She’d figure it must have fallen under the bed or something. The next morning she’d probably ask the blonde to help her look for it, and the fact that they couldn’t find it would be puzzling. But these things happened to everybody, and judging from the way Li An slept all the time, he guessed she was taking medication that would confuse and disorient her and make her doubt her memory.