by Marge Piercy
“Sure,” he said amiably. “Regular or black?” He brought the coffee and left her alone with her review cookbook Gladys Vandermeer’s Stunning Desserts. Daria considered that Gladys had a way of taking a simple and rather pure dish and tarting it up with elaboration that preened for the eye but confused the other senses. She always imagined Gladys’s books aimed at women who would hand them to the cook and say, “Make twenty of that.” Créme fraîche on everything this time, never mind the sour muck that usually resulted.
She forgot to look up. When she remembered, there was Lou loitering inside the door, about to take a place in another booth. “Lou!” she called.
He jumped, then came uncertainly forward. “Oh, Silver’s lady. Mrs. Walker. What are you doing here?”
“Mac’s sick in bed with food poisoning.”
“Yeah? He going to be okay? I had an uncle died of that.”
She was puzzled by how to speak to him, this man who had burned her house but to whom she was now linked in the pursuit of justice. “Mac will be fine by tomorrow.”
“It was a lemon meringue pie did for my uncle. They look like something that could make you sick, all yellow.” Lou ordered a draft beer and a hamburger. “I thought maybe you came to heft another brick at me, Mrs. Walker.” He held up his bandaged hand. He was in his work clothes, jeans and a faded green tee shirt.
“I hope it doesn’t hurt,” she said politely, feeling ludicrous.
“I’m supposed to see Petris tomorrow. He’s going to be teed off with me.” Lou shook his long head self-pityingly.
“Tell him the patrols are still in force.”
“Yeah, but I got to come up with something. He’ll hire other talent.”
“They’re going to wire you again?”
Lou nodded morosely, patting his moustache with a paper napkin. “It wasn’t my fault. I did what they told me. How many times I got to go through this?”
“I hope it works! Be careful to let Chuck Petris take the lead. If you suggest too much, it may be entrapment.”
“Yeah, the assistant AG Bloomberg went on about that. But I got nothing to suggest anyhow. What am I going to tell him? He’s getting antsy.”
“So let him get antsy out loud.” Daria had finished her coffee. In the mood of the rendezvous, feeling reckless, she ordered a beer—at eleven-thirty in the morning. In an offhand way, she was proud of herself. “After he’s insisted enough, why not say you have this plan: you’ll start a diversionary fire in the next street. Does he have a particular target he’d like hit? While the patrols are off watching that fire, you can set the other.”
Lou finished his hamburger and sat tapping the plastic ketchup bottle, considering. “A mite risky, Mrs. Walker. You have to set up two fires. Some people might not go see the other. You have to haul all that kerosene around …”
“But would he buy it as an idea?”
“I’ll knock it into shape.” Lou waved his good hand dismissively and summoned another hamburger and another beer. “And I thought when I agreed with you people to talk to the AG, that would be that.”
“They claim it doesn’t make a good case. With you being offered a deal it’s just your word against theirs. But if you have them on tape, they can’t say you’re lying.”
“Well, if a jury won’t believe me, Mrs. Walker, maybe they’ll believe you in court.” Lou grinned into his moustache, looking at her slyly from wide open light brown eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll have to testify. Naturally.” He was enjoying himself.
“Me? I can’t testify against my husband. My ex-husband.”
“Sure you can. You can testify against a husband, if you want to. They just can’t make you. But they’re sure going to subpoena you to be a witness against your ex, better believe it.”
She was horrified. It had never occurred to her she would have to stand up publicly and relate all the details of her surveillance of Ross. She simply could not do it. She would explain to the AG. Then she pictured those busy extremely political men and she tried to imagine explaining anything personal. They could not ask that of her, they could not.
She realized Lou was speaking, sitting across from her aligning the hairs of his moustache with his finger and thumb as he asked, “So is Tony really your brother, Mrs. Walker?”
“He used to be. We’re not speaking. He divorced me when Walker did.”
“Tony’s got class.” Lou said. “I think Rusty envies him. Tony got a new wife and a baby, now your husband’s trying the same thing. Only Tony’s wife is a real fox. Whereas Rusty’s new wife walks around like Night of the Living Dead. You know that movie? I see it sometimes when I’m killing time till I can do a set. They always put it on at midnight.”
She was amused at the notion of Ross trying to keep up with Tony. Ross’s eyes were fixed more on the Petrises, or perhaps on the Abbot-Wisbys themselves. “When did you meet Gail?”
“I know Rolly, her old man. I’m not lowlife, for all you people think. I’m a businessman. Sometimes they have properties they foreclosed on, they’re stuck with. They give me a deal, a good mortgage. I take them on and I get them their money back one way or the other.”
“You mean you rehab or burn—how does that help the bank?”
“They get their money out either way. The insurance company pays them before I touch a penny.”
“You worked first for Tony, didn’t you?”
“It isn’t like I work for them. It’s like I’m a consultant, Mrs. Walker, a specialist. I come in with my expertise to do a job, the way Mac says. Sure I work for Tony. In fact this week I’m doing a little piece for him.”
She felt a spasm of fear, something spinning loose in her chest. “Oh yeah?” she asked casually, she hoped. “Tony’s into the neighborhood just as heavy as Walker.”
“Not in Allston! You think I wouldn’t tell Mac if Tony was paying me to torch something in you guys’ yard? No, not to worry. It’s some spades in Dorchester. Off of Washington, near Girls’ Latin.”
“Tony has property in Dorchester?”
“Him and Rusty bought in there. Now they’re getting out. It didn’t turn the way they thought it would. You know, you win some, you lose some.
“Did you happen to mention this to Mac? Because I know he’d be fascinated.”
“You think he’d want to come along? I can’t use that kid Jay Jay anymore.”
“Ask Mac.” She tried to understand Lou: he was their tool now so he would not burn them, but it was asking a painter not to paint, an auto mechanic to lay down his tools, to expect Lou to abandon the arson business so quickly and blithely. She had a sour moment when she wondered if Mac would in fascination go along, but she knew she was libeling him.
When she was alone, she called the AG’s office immediately and left a message for Bloomberg to call her back. In a couple of hours, she tried again. This time she told the secretary it was important. Finally at four-thirty when she called back, she was put on hold. She sat fuming while Peggy left and Tracy straggled in from job hunting and Sandra María came in with Mariela, toasty brown from a day out at Plum Island, and still Daria was holding the phone.
When Bloomberg, the assistant attorney general assigned to them, finally picked up the phone, he did not remember at first who Daria was. Of course. It took her five minutes to establish the situation, and all the while she felt as if rivulets of electric impatience were streaming through the phone. Bloomberg had a deep voice and he spoke as if addressing a crowd; she held out the phone away from her ear when he boomed replies to her. She had never seen him but imagined him as an ex-football end. When Bloomberg grasped what she was reporting about her talk with Lou, his reaction was succinct. “Shit,” said Bloomberg.
“My sentiments, exactly. When he comes in with the Petris tape; maybe you could explain to him that arson counts in other neighborhoods too?”
“Your brother?” Bloomberg said after a pause. His voice was gentler.
“My
brother. He kills by remote control.”
“A by-product. We do have two possible murder charges in this matter. One, that kid. Two, the other body, never identified.”
“Never? How could that be? I assume nobody cared up to this point.”
“Mrs. Walker, you haven’t looked at burn victims. It could even have been the arsonist. A hazard of the trade.”
“I guess Lou’s too skillful to be in danger.”
“He thinks so. Let’s see if he can manage a miniature mike and recorder this time.”
28
At the moment Daria’s family was in the confusing and overextended position of having two gardens some miles apart: the garden Sandra María and Daria had put in in Lexington, for spring crops—better prepared and with superior soil but overgrown with weeds—and the new garden in Allston, hastily dug but regularly weeded and watered, containing warm weather crops just coming into their own. Daria had gradually moved her day lilies; she was digging spring bulbs as the foliage browned. She was alarmed, then, when she received a phone call from Dorothy telling her that Ross was in the throes of selling the Lexington property to a builder who meant to demolish the old house at once, salvaging what he could, and erect a new house on the lot. Ross said if she came to Dorothy’s office to sign the sales agreement that afternoon, he would write a check for the rest of the insurance money to the Allston Savings and Loan toward paying off the mortgage on Fay’s building.
“I advise you to sign,” Dorothy said. “It’s proving hard to get the money out of him. This beats taking him to court for it.”
Daria trekked down to sign. Dorothy waited for word from the bank that the check was deposited and then sent the papers back by messenger, and the arrangement was consummated.
The next morning, Daria left Peggy dictated instructions for the day’s work and rushed to Lexington. If a builder was commencing at once, she had to dig what she could. She had borrowed Tom’s van for the day. If she dug the rosebushes with enough soil on the roots, she might be able to save them. She was also horrified at the idea of leaving Nina’s ashes in the yard of some new split-level. She had bought a dozen tall plastic buckets used for tofu from the health food store. She wished she could wait for the weekend, when she would have assistance, but she did not dare delay. A wrecking crew could arrive any moment, ending her opportunity.
She had come over often enough to the garden to make her practiced in ignoring the house. Today, however, as she pulled up, the doors of the still intact garage were open and Ross’s Mercedes parked inside. Damn it. She considered simply driving off, but she could not abandon Nina’s ashes. She sat in Tom’s van staring morosely at the house. If at least one of her friends were with her, she would feel stronger. Meeting Ross was always an ordeal, but she could not allow him to thwart her. Knowing she was invisible in the van, she combed her hair and freshened her lipstick. Then tossing her leather feedbag purse over her shoulder, she got a shovel and the first several tofu buckets from the back of the van.
She began at one end of the rose bed with Frau Karl Druschki, a beautiful white hybrid perpetual with two of her flowers open, extremely vulnerable. She worked hard and steadily and within an hour had dug the last rose, Mr. Lincoln. She wished the hose were connected so that she could soak them before loading, but they would have to survive as they were, budded already. Fortunately the day was overcast, had drizzled, might again, an even oyster grey clammy and cool enough so that she was wearing a light jacket. Back in Allston the holes were dug and filled with manure, peat, and compost made in Lexington and moved a month before.
When she had finished, the empty bed yawned, a hole big enough for a grave although not as deep as they were traditionally dug. She sat in the grass grown tall and neglected, brooding on the trench. She saw Nina in the kitchen of the East Boston house, pushing her coppery brown hair back with her left hand as she stirred a sauce with her right, tasting, an expression of sensual concentration Daria could easily identify with.
She was so startled when Ross spoke—momentarily she had forgotten him—that she had to ask him to repeat, reluctantly rising and turning to face the house. He stood in the door to the kitchen. From the back the house looked almost intact. From the street, anyone could see that part of the roof was missing and the scorch marks were evident; but this side could almost fool the eye, except for the boarded-up windows and French doors.
“I asked if you were going to leave that gaping hole?”
She had forgotten how resonant and carrying his voice was. She must answer him. She could not, as she wished, simply turn her back. “The builders will make a mess anyhow. There won’t be any landscaping left by the time they finish demolishing this and putting up a new house.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said reluctantly. A new highly polished leather attaché case leaned against his calf like a faithful dog. “What are you doing?”
“Digging up my mother.”
“Oh.” He shifted in the doorway. He seemed smaller to her than he had in the past. Perhaps she was used to Tom’s size. Perhaps she merely experienced him as shrunken in stature. “An excellent idea. Can’t have someone turning up bits of human bone.… Are you really planning to live in my house in Allston?”
“It’s mine now.” There was something rodentlike about the way he moved, in short rapid jerks. Surely his eyes had not used to bulge slightly. High blood pressure?
“That’s beside the point. Why are you living there?”
“I like it. Why are you living in Hamilton?” She felt absurd bellowing at him from twenty feet, and besides, she saw Annette at her window peeking out. She picked up her purse and walked over.
“Why wouldn’t anyone live in Hamilton, if they could? I presume you know I married Gail.”
She felt weary of the exchange. “Sure. What are you doing here today? They say the criminal always returns to the scene of his crime.”
“I had to leave you! Can’t you see that yet? I was being smothered. I was choking to death.
“Actually I meant the arson. You know we have the proof.”
“What you call proof is a matter of circumstantial evidence, and has only to do with whether or not arson was committed, not whether I committed it.”
“As a lawyer, you know that evidence for arson is always circumstantial. And the usual proof of intent involves motive, as well as opportunity.”
They stepped into the sad kitchen. All the old cabinets were present but everything else had been ripped out and hauled to Allston. She could sense in him a great eagerness to talk. She felt some fear at being alone with him, but Annette had seen them together and Ross was not a violent man. He could hire violence, but she could not imagine him performing it. Now he had her where he had wanted for months to get her, forced to listen to him, without lawyer, without friends. He was going to justify himself, she guessed. Casually she dropped her hand into her purse and discreetly fumbled with the buttons until she depressed record and play simultaneously. The little cassette recorder was quiet and would continue recording for half an hour. She could halt it by touching the pause button on the top.
“You don’t understand! Gail is going to have a baby.”
“That’s your usual pattern—”
“It would have killed her,” he rushed on over her interruption, “simply destroyed her, to have an abortion. We had to be married at once. She’s a fragile, gentle woman, very sheltered. Vulgarity, brutality, scandal, noise, those things aren’t something she just sloughs off.”
“You’re saying you tried to have me killed because Gail would be distressed to find herself pregnant out of wedlock?”
“You have a hard side to you, Daria. How can you imagine I tried to kill you?”
“You had … your arsonist disconnect the smoke alarms.”
“I know nothing about what went on that night.”
“How would he have known where they were—in the dark—if he wasn’t following your instructions? No, you meant to kill me.”
“Look at you. You’re healthy as a cow. You needed the cash out of the house too, but you were being vindictive and holding me up.” He glared around, his blue eyes glinting scorn. “You insisted on living in this pile.”
“You hated the house,” she said with abrupt insight. “You actually wanted to destroy it. It wasn’t just for money.”
“This ancient relic, sucking up money like a big yellow sponge!”
She sat down as comfortably as she could on the floor. The kitchen still smelled burnt, giving her a slight headache. “The house was too big and I was too fat. The house was too old and I was too old. Both were too demanding—fascinating.”
“Spare me the analysis. You forced me into it, Daria. You woudn’t give me a divorce on terms I could live with, and you wouldn’t put this monster on the market.”
“Didn’t get much out of your fire, did you?”
“Everything’s sorted out. I’m refinanced, and although I’m hurting for the money you held me up for, I’m on a sound footing again.”
“The pattern is interesting. I was pregnant, you were sure it was a son, and you insisted on saving me. Now Gail’s pregnant, I’ll bet you’re convinced it’s a son, and you’re saving her.”
“She’s a sensitive person and she needs me. Far more than you had for years and years,” he said with bitter resonance, facing her and braced against the cabinet. “You don’t want to be really involved with a man. You just want to run around to women’s clubs telling them how to make whipped cream desserts.”
“How’s Tony? You still in the burn and rehab business together?”
“You stopped liking Tony when he had the energy and willpower to change his life—”
“His wife, you mean.”
“My detective said you had Gloria living here. You never wanted to be that thick with her till Tony left her. You saw the writing on the wall—if Tony could throw over a dead marriage and try again, so could I.”
“You ought to be glad I took my new house off your hands. After little Bobbie Rosario died in your fire, you must have felt it was under some kind of curse. Or didn’t you care at all?”
