'It's a nice thought, Morris, but I got a meeting with my parole officer tomorrow. But I'll be thinking about it.'
'I hope you do more than think about it. I'd hate to see you back here.'
'Don't worry, you won't.'
Morris walked me out of the building and we shook hands again before parting. I walked over to my car and sat inside, not sure what to do next. There had to be a way out, I knew there had to be, but I couldn't come up with it. If only it could be as simple as driving to Florida.
I tried picturing what it would be like living in Florida. Having white sand beaches and the ocean and hot weather. Drinking nothing but margaritas and daiquiris, and eating fresh key lime pie, stone crabs, and shrimp the size of my fist. I tried to imagine what it would be like living somewhere where nobody knew me and where nobody had any vendettas against me. The idea of it sounded so damn nice. If I took off I'd probably have six months, maybe as much as a year, before they caught up to me. I thought about it. It was tempting, but then it hit me how useless my life would end up being. And then I started thinking about my daughters. After a while they were all I could think about. More than anything I needed to hear their voices. Five minutes, that would be all I needed. It just didn't seem too much to ask for. I sat for a while longer and then drove to downtown Bradley, parked in front of the drugstore, and got five dollars' worth of change.
When I had gotten Elaine's address I had also gotten her phone number. There was a payphone outside the drugstore. I walked over to it, took out Elaine's phone number from my wallet, and stared at the jagged scrap of paper until I made up my mind. I felt jumpy inside as I dialed the number. While the phone rang I felt as if my heart was going to bust out of my chest.
A girl's voice answered, 'Hello?'
I tried to ask if she was Melissa but my voice cracked.
She asked again, 'Hello, who's calling?'
This time I was able to get my question out. My voice sounded odd to me. I realized I was trembling.
In a guarded voice, she said, 'No, I'm Courtney. Who's this?'
'I'm your dad.’
‘Who?'
I cleared my throat and tried to talk louder. 'I'm your dad, sweetheart,' I said, my words sounding hollow as they echoed through my head. I know it's been a long time. And I know you probably don't remember me, but I wanted to call to tell you that I've always been thinking of you and that I love you.'
She must've put down the phone. I don't think she heard most of what I said. I heard her yelling, 'Mom, there's a strange man on the phone who says he's my dad.'
I heard a more distant yelling, probably from Elaine. I couldn't make out what she was saying. Only that her voice sounded frantic. Then I heard a rumbling noise, probably somebody running.
Elaine had picked up the receiver. I don't want you calling again,' she said.
'Elaine, all I want to do is talk to my daughters-'
'You're not going to.' Her voice had become deadly calm. It kind of surprised me how calm it was. 'Tomorrow I'm going to get an unlisted phone number. I'm not going to let the girls answer the phone until we have the new number, so don't bother wasting your time.'
I heard a click as she hung up.
I stood there feeling as if I barely had the strength to move. Somehow I hung up the receiver and got back into my car. It hadn't fully hit me how important my girls were to me until I tried talking to Courtney. I had to find a way to live for my two girls. I had to give my life meaning for them. Otherwise, what the hell was the point of anything? The thought of that overwhelmed me. I sat still and forced myself to concentrate. Eventually I came up with a plan. It was a long shot, but given that Phil was off limits, it was the best I could come up with.
Chapter 12
I stopped off at the information desk to ask whether Charlotte Boyd was working. The woman at the desk seemed familiar. She was about my age, attractive except for some small red blotches around her nose and premature gray hair. I saw from her name tag that she was Alice Cook. I remembered an Alice Harrison from high school and was pretty sure it was the same person. Fortunately she didn't recognize me. She couldn't have – she was being too nice. After she checked the hospital work schedule, she told me that Charlotte had this Sunday off.
Are you a friend of Charlotte's?' she asked.
'I only met her the other day,' I said. 'We had coffee together and I was hoping to see her again.'
She gave me a smile as if to say isn't that sweet. 'Charlotte's such a nice girl. Quiet, but very nice. If she used some makeup and did something with her hair, she'd be quite pretty.'
That was stretching it. She'd still have those nervous eyes and a mousy look about her. Still, I appreciated the effort. I agreed with her and asked if she could give me Charlotte's home number and address.
'I'm sorry, but that's against hospital policy,' she said. I could tell she wasn't happy with the policy. Her eyes brightened. 'Charlotte might be listed in the phonebook.'
She found the Bradley phonebook and started searching through it. 'Here it is.' She pointed the listing out to me. I borrowed a pen from her and wrote the address and phone number on the back of the scrap of paper on which I'd written Elaine's phone number.
'I hope she's home,' she said.
'I hope so too,' I agreed. 'She's all I'm able to think about right now.'
She gave me another of those isn't that so sweet smiles. I nodded to her as I headed off in the direction of the terminal patient ward. She looked a little confused. I guess she had expected me to run off and try to find Charlotte. But there was something else I needed to do first.
When I got to Manny's room, I found him alone. He was propped up on his bed watching TV. His eyes shifted to the side as he noticed me, but he didn't say anything.
'Jesus Christ,' I said. I thought you'd be keeled over and dead by now. So much for wishful thinking.'
He scrunched up what was left of his face and made an expression as if he had tasted something foul. 'You kiss your ma with a mouth like that?' he asked. His expression shifted to something ill tempered. 'And don't worry about me,' he added. I got two months left and I'm going to be here every goddam second of it.'
I walked over to his bed and sat on the side of it. I could tell he didn't like me sitting there, but he didn't say anything. 'What are you watching?' I asked.
'Pats-Jets game,' he muttered, half under his breath. Then his body started to convulse with what must've been laughter. It sounded more like a broken garbage disposal. 'You want any action on it, call my son,' he said when he could. 'Any amount you want to put down.' Then he started laughing some more. When he finished, he asked, 'What the hell you want?'
'Nothing much. I just thought I'd visit an old friend.’ I got news for you, I never thought of us as friends.’
‘Yeah, well, neither did I.'
'What do you know? You're not as dumb as I thought you were. So what you here for?'
'It kind of bothered me the way we left things the other day,' I said.
He didn't respond. He just shifted his cold, dead eyes sideways so he could watch me.
'After all,' I said, 'I have no right to tell you what you can and can't do. If you want to confess all your sins to Phil that's your business. I just don't see what good it would do you. I'm curious, why not make a confession to a real priest? Phil's not even Catholic.'
'Who says I want to confess jack to anyone?'
'Come on, Manny, I'm just talking hypothetical. I don't blame you for wanting to unburden yourself. But why not do it right and use a priest? I can help you find one if you want.'
His wasted face puckered up into something akin to aggrievement. I never liked priests much,' he said.
'Look, Manny, have you talked this over with your son? He's not going to be happy with this. Even if Phil honors the deal you make, Manny Jr. is going to lose everything he's got. And he'll be watched by the law every second of the rest of his life. You'll be forcing him into a mundane, blue-collar existence. He
'll probably end up having to bag groceries at Food Mart.'
As I stared at him, as I watched him shift uncomfortably in his bed, I realized that he wasn't just trying to save his own soul. That part of his rationale for making a deal with Phil was to force Junior out of the business. That he was trying to save Junior's soul also.
I started laughing. I couldn't help myself. As Manny stared back at me, I could see in his eyes that he knew that I knew what was really going on. There was no kidding each other anymore.
'You should think about getting your affairs in order, Joe.' I appreciate your concern.'
We were both quiet then, both deep in our own thoughts. After a while Manny announced that he was feeling tired and he wanted me to leave.
'And don't bother blabbing your ideas to my son,' he warned me.’
‘Cause I admitted nothing.'
As I looked at him, I felt a blind fury overtake me. This sonofabitch was all set to ruin me because of some bullshit notion of saving his psychotic lunatic son.
'It's not going to be as simple as you think, Manny,' I said.
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'You don't, huh? You think everything a criminal like you says is going to be taken at face value?'
'Look Joe, you're the convicted felon here, not me. And I'm not saying I'm confessing anything. But if I do, it's going to be the truth.'
'The truth according to who? A piece of scum like you?'
"The truth, Joe. Like how you were the guy who beat Billy Ferguson to death.'
He showed me that 'go screw yourself smile of his that I knew so well, and as I watched him gloat I could feel a hotness flush my face. He got to me. That was still no excuse, but he got to me.
'So that's going to be your story?' I half heard myself asking. "The thing is I remember playing poker that night and I'm sure I can line up friends who'll vouch for me. So who did you really send to collect? Junior? Is that what this is all about?'
His body started convulsing again, making that same broken-down garbage disposal noise. When he was done laughing, he looked me straight in the eye. 'What friends you got these days, Joe?' he asked, and then he started laughing again, his body convulsing harder than before.
I had to get out of there. I knew I made a mistake talking about
Billy Ferguson with him, but as I had said, he got to me, and the words just slipped out. I couldn't help myself. Everything was a haze as I made my way towards the elevator and then down to the main lobby. I could sort of make out Alice Cook as I walked past her desk. I think she said something to me, but I'm not sure. I just had to get out of there. I had to get that noise of his convulsing laughter out of my head. When I got to my car I sat for a long time. There was no doubt about any of it anymore. There was no longer even a tiny glimmer of hope. If I didn't shut Manny up I was going to be spending the rest of my days in prison.
Charlotte Boyd lived in the Maple Farms apartment complex off of Route Two. The apartment complex was built in the early sixties and was an eyesore. A four-story concrete structure housing close to eighty apartments. Each unit had its own balcony where the outer wall was made up of colored sheet metal, the colors ranging from purple to lime green to a dull yellow. I don't know what the architect could possibly have been thinking.
I found Charlotte's apartment number and dialed it up on the intercom system. After about a minute I heard some static and then what I thought was her voice, but I wasn't sure. I pressed the talk button and announced who I was. Another thirty seconds and I was buzzed in.
When I got to her door I knocked. I heard some movement from behind it and could tell she was using her peephole. The door opened a few inches and I heard her soft voice asking me to come in.
'I have several cats,' she explained in what was barely over a whisper. 'I don't want to leave the door open because they might run out.'
I squeezed through the opening and shut the door behind me. Charlotte was standing in front of me, her large hazel eyes holding steady on mine. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was dressed in jeans and a University of Toronto sweatshirt. She looked younger than when I saw her the day before. She also looked prettier. Her nurse's uniform had hung on her like a curtain. With her jeans on, I could tell her body had more of a definition to it than I would've thought. Also, her eyes didn't seem all that nervous anymore.
'Hi, Charlotte. I was hoping to find you at home.'
'Would you like to sit down?'
Off to the side of the entranceway was a small living room. There wasn't much furniture in it-a small antique-looking chair and a matching loveseat, a coffee table, and a stereo bench with a TV. A neatly arranged stack of magazines lay on the coffee table, and there were books and small knick-knacks on a few built-in shelves. While there wasn't much to the room, it had a nice feel. Charlotte took the antique chair and I sat on the loveseat. On the coffee table was a photograph of three very odd-looking cats, all with pushed-in faces and dour expressions.
Are these yours?' I asked.
'Yes. That's Lady Margarite in the middle. Next to her on the right is Princess Anne, and on the left is Simone.'
For the life of me, I wouldn't have been able to tell one from the other. All three of them looked like carbon copies of each other.
'Three ladies, huh?' I said. I looked around to see whether I could spot any of them.
'They're skittish with strangers,' Charlotte said. 'Could I get you something to drink?'
'No thanks.' I showed her an apologetic smile. 'I've been thinking a lot about you since yesterday. I was hoping I could talk you into taking a ride with me to Burlington and joining me for a late brunch. I know I'm putting you on the spot by showing up like this.'
From the way she hesitated I knew she had already eaten lunch. But she nodded. 'I'd like that, Joe. Let me change clothes and I'll be right with you.'
She disappeared into her bedroom. As I waited I flipped through the magazines on her coffee table and found a couple on cats, one on antiques, another on knitting, and a final one on travel. I thumbed through the travel magazine until I came across an article about Italy. I wasn't entirely kidding Scott Ferguson about wanting to see the world. I was forty years old and had so far seen almost none of it. It struck me that I had never even been in an airplane. As I looked at pictures of the Colosseum in Rome and the canals of Venice, I started daydreaming. With some effort I shook myself out of it and put the magazine down.
I got up and took a look at what she had, on her shelves. There were a number of porcelain figurines; mostly either ballerinas or cats, with a couple of birds mixed in. As far as her books went, there were half a dozen on Victorian England, a handful of what looked like medieval romance novels, and a couple on the Diana and Prince Charles wedding. There were a few other miscellaneous books that you'd probably classify as literary. Out of boredom I had actually read most of them while in jail.
I noticed one of my eyes had started itching like crazy, and as I rubbed it, I saw one of her cats peeking at me from around the corner. I guess it was trying to decide whether I was worth the trouble. Its expression looked even more dour in person. It must've made up its mind that I wasn't, because it darted back around the corner and out of sight.
By this time both my eyes were tearing and my nose had started running. Then I started sneezing. It came out almost like machine-gun fire. Charlotte came running into the room. She had changed into a sweater and a skirt and had pulled her hair out of its ponytail, but with the sneezing and the way my eyes were swelling up I couldn't pay much attention to her. I could tell, though, that she had a worried look on her face.
Between sneezes I told her that I thought I was allergic to her cats.
'I'm so sorry.'
"There's nothing for you to be sorry about.' I stopped to fire off a couple more sneezes. 'I was the one who dropped by out of the blue.' I had to stop again. When I could continue, I told her I was going to buy some allergy medication and that I'd meet her out
front in fifteen minutes.
'If we go to the hospital, I can pick you up a sample of a prescription allergy medication that will be more effective than what you can buy over the counter.'
'Okay, sure.'
I was anxious to get out of there. She still needed a few minutes so I told her I'd meet her in the lobby. I just couldn't catch a break. I actually found myself feeling comfortable in her apartment, but it couldn't be that simple – I couldn't be given a few minutes of peace. Something had to screw it up, so of course I had to find myself allergic to her cats. And of course she couldn't just have one. She had to have three of them spreading dander throughout her apartment.
I found a rest room in the lobby and splashed cold water on my face and in my eyes, but it didn't help much. My eyes still felt itchy as hell and my nose was running like a faucet. I went through a dozen paper towels before my nose started to dry out. I forced myself to look in the mirror and couldn't help laughing at what I saw. I looked pathetic. My eyes were almost swollen shut. As it was, I could only keep them open to narrow slits. My nose looked raw from blowing it out with all those paper towels. Here I needed to win Charlotte over in a quick whirlwind romance, and I looked like this? As I said before, I couldn't catch a break.
I found Charlotte waiting for me in the lobby. The concern in her face seemed to have deepened and there was some nervousness back in her eyes.
'I didn't know where you were,' she said. I was trying to wash out my eyes.' I forced a laugh. 'I'll tell you, that hit me pretty hard. I never knew I was allergic to cats before.'
She seemed deep in thought as we walked to my car. When we got there she asked whether she should drive. 'Do you know how to handle a stick shift?' She shook her head.
'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'll be okay driving.'
I put the top down and we headed off towards Bradley Memorial. With the way my eyes had swollen up, it was a struggle keeping them open against the sunlight. They just kept trying to force themselves shut. The fresh air, though, felt good against my face. Somehow, even though I could barely keep my eyes open, I got us to the hospital in one piece. Charlotte got out of the car and told me she'd be right back.
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