Marked Man

by William Lashner

  “I remember.”

  “She was murdered by Teddy because she saw them with their stuff from the robbery. Charlie didn’t do the killing, but he knew about it. It was why things turned rotten for your son, why he ended up with the Warrick brothers and ended up on the run. And it is why he’s going to be spending some time in jail now. He knows you’ll find out about it, and he wanted me to tell you first.”

  “And for this my Charlie spoiled his life?”

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  “He’s even bigger fool than I thought.”

  “What I’m asking, Mrs. Kalakos, is that you be especially gentle with your son.”

  “What you think I am, Victor, monster?”

  “No, ma’am, just a mother.”

  “Okay, you told me. Now, Victor. No more delay. Let me see my boy.”

  I stood up from the chair, went to the door, opened it, and nodded to the little group standing outside.

  Thalassa, gray and tense and stooped, came in first. “Mama,” she said. Mrs. Kalakos lay unmoving on the bed, her eyes now closed as if she had been unconscious for days instead of talking to me just an instant before. “Mama, can you awaken? Mama? Are you still with us?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Kalakos with a voice weak yet rich with the drama of the grave. “I am still here. What have you for me, my child?”

  “It is Charles,” said Thalassa, speaking her words as if speaking to the mezzanine far in the distance. “My brother, your son, Charles. He has come home to say good-bye.”

  “Charlie? Here? My Charlie? My baby? Bring him, dear Thalassa, bring him to me.”

  Thalassa stepped back, the door opened wider, and Charlie Kalakos, his hands cuffed in front of him and McDeiss close behind him, entered the room. He stepped hesitantly forward, knelt before his dying mother, clasped his cuffed hands together and laid them on the bed.

  “Mama?” he said.

  Without opening her eyes, she raised her hand toward Charlie. When it reached the top of his bald head, it dropped there and then moved down to feel his forehead, his eyes and nose, down and around his chin, and then up to his mouth.

  “Is that my Charlie?” she said.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “You’ve come back to me.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “To say good-bye as I requested.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Come closer, my child.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Charlie as he leaned forward so that his lips were almost touching his mother’s cheek.

  Her left hand rose from his face, reared back, and slapped him. Hard. The sound was as loud as a shot in that room.

  “What kind terrible fool you?” she said, her eyes now open and trained on her son. “How you run away so long? How you leave us scrape to save the house? How you let your friend kill that girl? You weak, you always weak. When will you stand up, Charlie, and be a man?”

  “Mama,” he said, his cuffed hands rubbing away the tears from his cheek.

  “Why wait for them to kill you? I ought kill you myself.”

  “Mama. I came to say good-bye.”

  She sat up in her bed. “Why good-bye? Where am I going? You never good enough, Charlie, that was problem. You were never smart enough, never strong enough.”

  “Mama?”

  “Your life nothing but failure.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” said Charlie, bursting out in sobs.

  “Now you cry for all you’ve done to me? Now you cry? You think crying, it help? Come here, you failed little fool,” she said, raising both her hands. “Come to your mother, come to me, my little one.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Charlie.

  “I know you are.”

  “Mommy.”

  “Yes, my son. Yes. Shush now and come to me.”

  And Charlie, weeping unabashedly now, lay his head on her thin, withered breasts, and she enveloped him with her arms, hugged him and held him close and squeezed him to her as if squeezing the life out of him. Charlie was crying, and Thalassa, off to the side, was crying, and Mrs. Kalakos, with her son now at her breast, was crying, too.

  This whole sordid story had started with a plea from a mother to bring her son home, and now the Kalakos family was together again, the scary old woman with her vile, grasping power, the old man who never grew up, the sister off to the side as she seemed always off to the side. I had brought them together, and I was glad. Despite the Kabuki drama we had just passed through, I couldn’t stay dry-eyed at the scene before me. Whatever lay between this family, lines of attraction and repulsion and betrayal that would strangle Freud if he tried to untangle them, the emotion on display right then in that strange, dark room was shockingly pure. I don’t know if there is such a thing as redemption, but when I see something that pure come from a history that rotten, I begin to have greater hope for the fate of the world.

  70

  They buried Chantal Adair beneath a bright summer sun on a sparklingly clear day. The papers said the family wanted a small, intimate ceremony at the cemetery, but the Adairs’ wishes were ignored. The neighborhoods of the Northeast turned out, Frankford and Mayfair, Bridesburg and Oxford Circle, Rhawhnhurst and Tacony, all races, all religions, those too young to have heard the story and those old enough to have forgotten, they all came out to bury a child of the city, one of their own.

  Philadelphia has always been better at mourning a child than caring for one.

  I stood on the outskirts of the crowd while a priest spoke, and then some guy that looked like Ulysses S. Grant spoke, and then Monica Adair spoke. I was too far away to catch everything, just the rising and the falling of the voices and the occasional punctuated word, but the sense was as clear as the sky that day. Chantal was a gift from God, what had happened to her was a crime that affected the whole of humanity, and now God, who had already wrapped her in his warm embrace, had sent her body home to her family.

  I suppose there were oblique references to her murderer in those speeches, but nothing more was necessary. The photographs of Theodore Purcell being led from his Hollywood home in handcuffs were in all the papers and all the tabloids. The producer of Tony in Love and The Dancing Shoes had hired a famous lawyer and was getting the full celebrity-on-trial treatment. His spokesman, one Reginald Winters, stated that Mr. Purcell expected to be acquitted and to produce a fabulous script he had recently acquired. You could almost see the glee in Teddy’s face as the paparazzi snapped his photograph. Was he in trouble? You bet he was. But he was also back in the game, baby.

  Charlie Kalakos couldn’t attend the funeral because he was in protective custody. Joey Pride decided against attending, saying that after what he had done, and the quiet he had kept, he wasn’t entitled to mourn with the family. But I wasn’t alone among the crowd as they lowered the tiny coffin into the ground. Zanita Kalakos had insisted on coming with me. She had risen like a specter from her bed, had been carried down the stairs by her surprisingly strong daughter, and was now in a wheelchair by my side.

  “Take me to the family,” she said when the ceremony was over.

  I glanced at my watch. “I can’t, I’m late,” I said. “This took longer than I thought.”

  “You be good boy and take me, now. I need speak to family of that girl. It is obligation.”

  I tried to protest, but she shut off my protestations with a wave of her hand. I didn’t even pretend to be strong enough to stand up to that old lady and her obligations. Slowly, I pushed her wheelchair down the path toward the tent.

  There was a line, of course there was. I glanced again at my watch and tried to push my way ahead—cripple coming through—but it didn’t work. We were forced to wait as young and old and strangers and friends, as a cascade of mourners paid their respects.

  Finally we were under the tent, crossing between the still-open grave and the row where sat the Adairs. I had expected to see dark glasses and reddened noses, I had expected to see the faces of a family deep in mourning, but that�
�s not what I saw. The Adairs seemed calm, almost cheerful, as if the cloud of sadness and uncertainty they had been living with for more than a quarter of a century had suddenly dissipated and let the sun inside. Mrs. Adair seemed calmer, with some bloom to her cheeks; Mr. Adair’s posture had changed, as if his shoulders had suddenly grown lighter.

  “Oh, Victor, there you are,” said Mrs. Adair, standing to greet me and give me a bright hug. “We’re so glad you came. Thank you for everything. Monica just keeps talking and talking about you.”

  “I bet she does,” I said.

  “It’s going to be hard maintaining a long-distance relationship,” said Mr. Adair as he shook my hand, “but I’m sure you kids will work it out.”

  “Long-distance?”

  “Introduce me,” said Mrs. Kalakos, interrupting our conversation.

  I stepped back at the order. “Mrs. Adair, Mr. Adair,” I said. “I’d like you to meet Zanita Kalakos. This is Charlie Kalakos’s mother.”

  Mrs. Adair looked down at the withered crone, and her face went slack as it decided which emotion to display. After a long moment of indecision, she smiled warmly and bent to take the old woman’s hand.

  “I wanted to say,” said Mrs. Kalakos, “that I am so sorry that my son, he was part of what happened to your lovely daughter.”

  “How long was your son away, Mrs. Kalakos?”

  “Fifteen years I not see my boy.”

  “I know how hard that was.”

  “I know you do, my darling.”

  “I’m glad for you he’s back.”

  “Yes, I can see that. But I want you should know, part of my son, maybe best part, is in grave with your daughter.”

  “I think I understand, Mrs. Kalakos,” said Mrs. Adair. “And thank you for coming, it means more than you might know.”

  “Be at peace, both of you,” said Mrs. Kalakos.

  When they were finished, I slowly pushed Mrs. Kalakos down the line of family. Richard Adair was sitting next to his father, his face set in some strange fixed expression while his eyes bounced like Superballs in his skull. He was pale and out of place in a suit way too tight, but he was out of the house, which I suppose was a start.

  “Richard,” I said with a nod.

  “Yo, Victor.”

  “How you doing?”

  “How you think?”

  “It gets easier.”

  “What the hell do you know about it?”

  “Only that it gets easier.”

  “Well, doesn’t that just make it all worthwhile,” he said.

  When we reached Monica, she threw her arms around my neck and whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” in my ear. She was dressed that day in her scrubbed, college-girl look, and I must say it felt entirely too good to feel her so close.

  “This is Mrs. Kalakos,” I said. “Charlie’s mom.”

  “Thank you for coming,” said Monica.

  “Of course, dear. You pretty one, aren’t you? You have house for Victor?”

  “No, ma’am. Just a dog.”

  “Too bad, though it means Thalassa still has chance.”

  “What’s this about our fake relationship becoming a long-distance one?” I said.

  “I’m moving. Going out west.”

  “Hollywood?”

  “Why not? You keep on saying I need a change. Maybe I do. And there was a vibe out there that felt right for me.”

  “You have a place to stay?”

  “Lena said I could stay with her and Bryce for a while.”

  “Lena?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lena?”

  “I know, it’s weird, but we’ve been in touch. Even after I knew, we somehow felt like sisters. I really needed that. So did Lena, and I think so did Chantal. And Lena said she could help me get a job out there. Maybe with a law firm for real. And maybe, while I’m out there, I could do some auditions.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Acting. Commercials and stuff.”

  “You’re going to be an actress?”

  “Why not? You know me, I’m never one to shy from attention. And I feel, in a strange way, suddenly light, as if I can just float away and do anything. Victor, it’s like this whole thing, you, the tattoo, the trip to California to meet Lena, Charlie and that horrible woman with the gun, everything was Chantal’s way to show me the truth. When they dug up my sister, they buried a chain that had been wrapped around my neck. What do you do when the whole point of your life disappears?”

  “You go to L.A. and make soap commercials,” I said. “You’ll be a smash, Monica, I know it. Like Teddy said, there’s no telling what a Philly kid can accomplish so long as you get her out of Philly.”

  “You’ll keep in touch?”

  “Of course I will,” I said.

  “Victor, have you ever met my Uncle Rupert and my cousin Ronnie?”

  She gestured over to Ulysses S. Grant in the front of the line. Put him in a blue uniform, give him a bottle of whiskey, and he could have led the charge at Cold Harbor. But it wasn’t Uncle Rupert who caught my interest, it was the woman who had been by his side but was now slinking away. I hadn’t noticed her before, but when she glanced back worriedly, I caught her face and my heart seized.

  I had seen her before. We had shared drinks. I had made an awkward pass. Son of a bitch. It was the woman in Chaucer’s the night I ended up with my tattoo. The motorcycle blonde with the ponytail and the eau-de-Harley had been Chantal’s cousin Ronnie.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  “What?” said Monica.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said as I left Mrs. Kalakos at the graveside and headed sprightly after Ronnie.

  When she saw me coming, Ronnie started rushing off faster, and then she stopped and wheeled and faced me down. She was cute and was wearing a skirt, but her eyes were suddenly hard and I had no doubt but that she could have pounded me into the dirt with one hand.

  “What did you do?” I said to her. “Drug my drink and then waylay my ass to a tattoo parlor to scrawl your cousin’s name on my scrawny chest for all eternity?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “So someone would remember,” she said. “Detective Hathaway had told my father long ago that he believed there was a connection between those five guys and Chantal. And then there you were, on the television, looking so smug and clever as you tried to get Charlie the Greek a sweetheart deal. I thought someone needed to remember the little girl who disappeared. My friend Tim runs a parlor on Arch. He agreed to do it.”

  “And you couldn’t have sent me a letter?”

  A smile crossed her wide, pretty face. “I thought this would be more effective. And with that stupid smile of yours on the television, you looked like you deserved it.” She dropped her chin. “But Monica’s been saying nice things about you, and I sort of feel bad.”

  “You should. I could have you arrested for assault.”

  “I know.”

  “And I could sue you for everything.”

  “All I’ve got is a motorcycle.”

  “Harley?”

  “You think you’re man enough to ride it?”

  “It was a really rotten thing to do.”

  “I know. I’ll pay for the laser to get it removed if you want.”

  “You bet you will,” I said. I glanced back at the grave site, the family together under the little tent, the small hole in the ground in which the tiny coffin had been lowered. “If I do remove it.”

  She tilted her head at me.

  “Well, he did a nice job,” I said. “And I’ve sort of gotten used to it.”

  “I’ve always liked a man with a tattoo,” said Ronnie.

  I looked at her, the wide, pretty face, the shoulders of a field-hockey player. “You want to maybe get a drink sometime and talk about it?”

  Yeah, I know, I am so pathetic it hurts.

  71

  Due to the funeral, I was late for Beth’s clos
ing, obviously later than I thought, because when I charged into our conference room, expecting to see the sellers and the real-estate agents, the title guy with his stamps and stacks, all I saw was Beth, sitting alone among a welter of paper.

  “Did I miss it all?” I said.

  “You didn’t miss much,” said Beth.

  “How’d it go?”

  “It didn’t,” said Beth. “I backed out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I backed out. I didn’t buy. I remain unencumbered, unmortgaged, utterly homeless.”

  “You decided you didn’t like the house after all?”

  “No, I loved it, really. It was perfect for me.”

  I sat down next to her, looked into her eyes. I thought she’d be upset or distraught or something, but she seemed happy, almost giddy. “Then why, Beth?”

  “Do you think people can really change?”

  “I don’t know. Charlie gave up a boatload of cash to do the right thing with the painting, even though it didn’t quite work out. That seems like a real change for him. But then again Theresa Wellman lapsed right back, didn’t she?”

  “I was devastated when I found her that night, drunk and high, totally oblivious to the fact that her daughter was in the next room. I was so wrong to take her case.”

  “You saw a need in her and tried to fill it.”

  “I saw a need in myself and tried to use her to fill it. But when I saw her lolling and insensible, for the first time in a long time I saw my life clearly.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I’ve been miserable to be with for the last couple of years, haven’t I?”

  “A little.”

  “More than a little. I’ve been whiny and dissatisfied and paralyzed, everything I never wanted to be. And buying a house with all my little plans to fill the little rooms would only make it worse. I love being your partner, Victor, but the firm has become something I never expected it to be. I think I need a break.”

  “Take a few weeks.”

  “I need more than that.”

  “I’ll stop doing criminal law.”

  “But you love criminal law, and you’ve become great at it. You’ve found your place, I’m still looking for mine.”