by James Siegel
“Oh yeah.”
“Does dripping it on myself count?”
“I don’t know. Were you practicing self-abuse at the time?”
“I was filling bottle caps for scully. I was 7.”
“Then I’d say it doesn’t count. What’s scully?”
“A New York street game. You fill bottle caps with crayon wax, draw this chalk square on the sidewalk, and try to knock the other guy out of the game-it’s like bocci with soda caps.”
“New York, huh?”
“Yeah, New York-you mean you didn’t spot the accent?”
“I thought it was Lithuanian. Stupid me.”
I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t stupid at all. Even though I knew she was just being funny. I wanted to tell her that she was the most dazzling, most special, most alluring woman I’d ever seen. Of course, that’s something I’d told other women at other Violetta’s Emporiums. I had the unfortunate habit of falling desperately in love after two drinks. Just seeking massive and extreme pats on the back, Dr. Payne.
“What’s a New Yorker doing here?” she asked.
“Working on my tan.”
“No, really. Why are you here?”
“I needed a break.” It was one of those answers that a government commission might term deceptive, though not actual perjury.
“From what?” she asked, not letting go. Her cheeks glowed with matching wine-blooms, creme brule topped with raspberry swirl.
“I had a rough time on my last newspaper job,” I said. I needed to change the subject.
“So, do you have a boyfriend?” I asked.
“Boyfriend? What’s that?”
I felt a sudden surge of sweet, seductive hope. “Been awhile?”
“A long while. I’m married.”
“Oh.”
Hope said see ya, exploded into flames like that car on Highway 45.
“Don’t look so depressed,” she said. “I’m seriously thinking of dumping him.”
“You are?”
“Well, he’s living with a 24-year-old Pilates instructor. So, yeah, it has crossed my mind.”
“So, are you going to get a divorce?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Eventually. Sure. It’s not that easy. We have a son.”
“Really? How old?”
“He’s 4.”
“What’s his name?”
“Cody. Can I be a boringly cliche mom and show you his picture?”
“Do I have to be boringly cliche and ooh and ahh over it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
She pulled out her wallet and held it open for me. “Go ahead-ooh.”
A blond munchkin pumping away on one of those toddler pedal bikes, with Anna hovering right behind.
“What’s that thing you’re holding on to?” I asked her.
“You haven’t seen the newest contraption for instilling self-confidence and independence in your preschooler?”
“Guess not.”
“It’s a push-and-pedal. Your kid pedals while you push. They think they’re charging down the open road like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, but you’re the one really steering. Dirty trick, huh?”
“Yeah. Can I get one?”
“The next time I hit Toys ‘R’ Us, it’s yours,” she said. “So, what about you?”
“Me what?”
“Single? Married? Divorced? Divorcing?”
“Number three.”
“Ahh. What’s it like? Getting a divorce?”
I hesitated just long enough for Anna to apologize for being nosy.
I answered her anyway.
“It was pretty much my fault. I kind of fucked it up.”
I remembered something. I didn’t want to-someone starts talking about their failed marriage and the toxic memory drifts over you like secondhand smoke. My sweet and stalwart bride going out for some Starbucks and never coming back. Muttering something about vanilla frappuccino and needing to figure this thing out just before she went through the front door of our apartment. This thing being the very public fraud I’d perpetuated on a major American newspaper-on my marriage too, I guess, since she’d said I do to a bona fide investigative journalist who wasn’t. My ex, an architect specializing in high-rises, tended to see life in structural terms-the blueprint for a good relationship being a foundation built on trust. I’d put too many cracks in the retaining walls, and the structure would not hold.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Anna said.
“Me too.”
I asked her why she just hadn’t given me her phone number that night in the parking lot.
“I did. Kinda.”
“You wrote your screen name on my transmission. How’d you know I’d even look?”
“I didn’t. But if you did look, maybe it’s because you were supposed to.”
“Like fate?”
“Maybe. Your engine’s beat to crap-I mean, have you ever changed your oil even once? I thought you’d be under that hood again. By the way-I wrote it on your carburetor, not your transmission.”
I laughed and she laughed back and when I reached for my wine glass, I knocked it over onto her lap.
“Shit,” I said.
We both sprang up, Anna trying to shake off the excess wine, while I grabbed for a napkin, dipped it in water, and lamely wiped at the lap of her clearly ruined dress.
Which is when she did something kind of lovely. Other than not calling me Shrek and storming out of the restaurant.
She said: “If you wanted to sexually assault me, all you had to do was ask.”
SEVENTEEN
Nate informed me that some lady had called.
He swirled his finger by his ear, the universal gesture for certifiably off the wall.
The reason Nate had answered the call from this crazy person was that I’d overslept and wasn’t there.
I’d woken up with what felt like a stupid grin on my face. It was confirmed when I stared in the shower-fogged mirror and didn’t see Mr. Dour staring back. Instead it was Mr. Stupid, back from enforced obscurity. I’d kind of missed him.
When I waltzed into the office, Norma took off her glasses and squinted.
“You look different,” she said.
“Who was it?” I asked Nate the Skate.
He was on his cell, probably conversing with his nudist girlfriend.
“I don’t know. Her number’s on your desk.”
I found the number-Mrs. Flaherty. Probably wondering what progress I’d made, which was zero. I felt a sudden pang of pity for the lonely downtrodden of this world, a social stratum I’d once called home.
I didn’t call her back immediately. No.
I savored my morning coffee, blessed the poor Colombians who’d toiled in the bean fields in order to bring it to me. I suppose if you get enough love and approval, you begin spreading the excess.
To Hinch, for example.
He came out of his office with a vacant look in his eyes. His gray stubble had reached near-beard level. His wrinkled shirt was partially untucked.
“How’s your wife, Hinch?”
Norma began shuffling some papers on her desk.
“What?” Hinch stared at me as if I were a Jehovah’s Witness who’d shown up at his front door on his day off.
“I was just curious how your wife is doing.”
Suddenly Hinch’s eyes became red-rimmed. Just like that. First bland and unfocused, then harbingers of a coming maelstrom. Call it the Aurora Dam Flood Two.
He clumsily wiped at one eye, looked down at his shoes, murmured something under his breath.
“What, Hinch? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“How my wife is doing… how my wife is doing is none of your business,” he said. He didn’t say it meanly. More sadly.
“I’m sorry. I hope… well, that everything, you know…” I said, letting my stab at consolation stumble into incoherence.
Hinch went back to his office.
There was an embarrassi
ng silence. Nate, who’d held his phone call in abeyance, resumed with a whispered got to get off, baby. Norma peeked at me sideways and sighed.
“She’s back in the hospital, Tom,” she said softly. “God knows, it doesn’t look good.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
My expansive mood had pretty much dissipated. I thought I might as well call Mrs. Flaherty back.
“You want to talk to him?” Mrs. Flaherty asked me after I said hello.
“Talk to whom, Mrs. Flaherty?”
“Dennis.”
“Dennis? What are you talking about?”
I should’ve known what she was talking about. My son came back to say hey, 100-year-old Belinda had told me.
It was getting to be a trend.
We had a nice conversation.
Dennis and me.
It was a tad one-sided, since Dennis Flaherty wasn’t big on conversing, and seemed to be speaking underwater. I slapped the receiver against the desk in an effort to clear the foggy reception. It wasn’t the reception; it was Dennis.
“It’s the drugs,” Mrs. Flaherty told me after Dennis relinquished the phone to her and went to his childhood bedroom to nap. “They make him sleepy.”
What drugs were those?
The ones the VA psychiatric hospital used to keep Dennis docile and happy.
“Do you know you were in a fatal car crash?” I asked him after I’d introduced myself.
“Uh-huh,” he answered, in a lugubrious monotone that would never waver.
“How do you think that happened?”
“Dunno.”
“Someone had your wallet.”
“Yeah.”
“Dennis, you understand what I’m telling you? You were buried.”
“Right.”
“Where did you lose your wallet?”
“Dunno. On the street.”
“On the street? You mean, you were living on the street?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when was the last time you saw it?”
“Dunno. Didn’t have it in the hospital.”
“What hospital?”
“VA.”
“You were in a veterans’ hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you in the hospital for?”
“My head’s not right.”
“Your head’s not right. What’s that mean? You have… mental problems?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you ever in Littleton, California, Dennis?”
“Where?”
“You weren’t in California a week ago, right?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. You understand someone died in the accident. It wasn’t you-it was somebody else who, for some strange reason, had your wallet.”
“Yeah.”
“But you don’t know how he got hold of it. How you lost it? Somewhere on the street, you think?”
Nate had strolled over to my desk as if following the tantalizing aroma of moo goo gai pan. Even half of the conversation must’ve been kind of irresistible. Someone dead was alive and kicking. How often did that happen?
Dennis hadn’t answered my last question. It sounded like he was snoring.
“Dennis? Dennis, are you there?”
“Huh?”
“I said, you think you lost your wallet on the street?”
“I’m tired. Oh man, I’m tired.”
“Just a minute, few more questions, okay?”
“What time is it? Is it nighttime?”
“It’s 1 in the afternoon, Dennis,” I said, allowing for the difference in time zones. “Just a couple more questions.” I didn’t have any more questions. Dennis was drugged up and stupid. He’d had his wallet and then he didn’t. It had eventually shown up in the pocket of an accident victim burned beyond recognition.
Dennis must’ve passed Mrs. Flaherty the phone; the next voice I heard was hers.
“You were right, Tom,” she whispered. “After we talked, I actually went to church. First time in forever. I lit a candle. I prayed Dennis was still alive and would come walking through the door. He did.”
“How long was he in the hospital?”
“Who cares? It’s a miracle, don’t you see? I have my son back.”
“Yeah, it’s a miracle.” I took a second to motion a hovering Nate away from my desk. “Can I call you back, Mrs. Flaherty? I may have some other questions.”
“Of course, Tom. You can call me anytime you’d like. Thank you.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything. Your son wasn’t dead. Someone stole his wallet or found it. Whoever was driving that car. Dennis would’ve come walking back into your house whether I’d called you or not.”
“Oh really?” she said. “I know better.”
EIGHTEEN
I resisted the temptation to enlighten anyone.
I kept the inquisitive-looking Nate the Skate out of the loop.
I walked outside after borrowing a smoke from Norma, who chided me for revisiting a forsworn habit. Just one, I told her, for old times’ sake.
I lit up under the overhang that sheltered Foo Yang Chinese takeout from the broiling sun as Mr. Yang’s 13-year-old daughter stared at me listlessly through the dust-coated window.
The jolt of nicotine gave me an immediate buzz.
The accident.
Two people had collided on that road.
Dennis Flaherty and Ed Crannell.
Only they weren’t Dennis Flaherty and Ed Crannell.
There was no record of an Ed Crannell. Dennis Flaherty was demonstrably alive.
Let’s play editor.
Pretend the story-the story so far-has been placed on this editor’s desk. You know which editor too, the one wearing bifocals and a world-weary expression he’s justifiably earned. This particular story’s been offered up for approval by a journalist who’s seen better days, okay, whose reputation is less than crap, who’s literally disgraced his profession.
Let’s watch the editor wearily pull out his tooth-marked pencil as I tell him that Dennis Flaherty was never in that car.
Okay, he says, so that doctor was right. The dead man was black. He stole Dennis’s wallet, found it, bought it from some street hustler. Anyhow, he ended up with it. So what?
You’re forgetting about the other car. Nobody’s heard of Ed Crannell.
So the man lied about his identity. Ed Crannell lied about who he was. People lie about their identity all the time. Maybe he was driving with a suspended license. Maybe he had a record. Maybe he owes back alimony in the state of California. Or maybe he is Ed Crannell, just not a pharmaceutical salesman. And he doesn’t live in Cleveland. Maybe all he did was lie about that. It happens.
There were no skid marks.
Haven’t you been listening? Ed Crannell lied. You’re familiar with lying, aren’t you, Tom? The accident was his fault. He was changing radio stations, chatting on his cell. He was admiring the scenery, daydreaming, glazing over. Next thing he knew, he’d caused an accident. He was the only survivor, so he concocted a story-the other car drifted into his lane, the other driver noticed him too late, jammed on the brakes. No one jammed on the brakes. He made it up.
The editor is clearly smirking at me. Worse. He has that tired, defeated look you offer in the face of a habitual liar. Don’t insult my intelligence, the look says. Enough.
It’s not just the accident, I offer tentatively.
He sighs, shakes his weary head.
It’s not just the accident, I repeat myself. It’s Belinda.
Belinda, the editor says. Oh boy.
She said her dead son came back to say hello. I know, she was 100 years old. She was maybe dotty. Only there was that note from Benjy. Happy hundred birthday. Mr. Birdwell said no one had visited Belinda, but Benjy had. What other Benjamin would’ve come and written her that note?
Her son died, the editor says. You understand what died means, right, Tom?
Mrs. Flaherty’s son died, too. Only he’
s alive.
Have you even checked to see if there’s another Benjy in the home? It’s New York all over again, isn’t it? The editor has clearly had it with me. He’s pointing to the door; he wants me gone. There’s no connection. You’re offering me two things with no connection to each other.
And then I say it. I don’t know why I didn’t say it before. I do now. I take my worn pencil and place it against the place mat in the Acropolis Diner. I draw a shaky line from Belinda’s dead son to the incinerated driver-to him.
My father smiles, reaches across the table to tousle my hair.
Good boy.
I know what you’re thinking, Dr. Payne.
My dad. My editor.
I’m not listening.
NINETEEN
I suppose I’ll have to call Iowa and ask them to exhume the corpse.”
Sheriff Swenson sounded as if he were going over his shopping list. I’ll have to pick up some milk and margarine, grab some frozen french fries and six cans of Bumble Bee tuna, and, oh yeah, call Iowa and ask them to dig up the body from whatever cemetery they’d buried the fake Dennis in. That is, if they’re interested, which he himself clearly wasn’t.
I was back in the sterile air-conditioned confines of the Littleton sheriff’s office. Not like an urban police station at all, more like an insurance office in your typical neighborhood mall. Everything neat, tidy, and prefabricated.
No crime had been committed. That was pretty much Swenson’s point of view. No crime had been committed, at least as far he could tell. Maybe stealing Dennis Flaherty’s wallet was a crime, but that would be out of his jurisdiction, wouldn’t it? Maybe the accident hadn’t happened the way Crannell related it, but it was still an accident. Not a crime. And if Crannell had lied about his identity, okay, score one for him. It didn’t warrant a task force.
“What are you so interested in?” he asked me, not as if he wanted an answer, more as if he was dismissing me so he could get back to more important police matters like issuing parking citations.
I didn’t enlighten him about the note I’d discovered in Belinda’s picture frame.
“Two people are in an accident and neither one turns out to be whom they were supposed to be. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really.”
