“Leo, what’s all this about lawyers? What is it you want to do?”
There’s a pause. “I don’t think I can talk about it,” Leo says, dragging the sentence out as if he is removing a really sticky Band-Aid.
“Okay,” says Evan, but it’s a long way from okay. “You need Griff on side, right?”
“Yes. But it’s . . . it’s complicated.” More Band-Aids.
“I get that,” says Evan. He can’t help sounding peevish.
“Evan, listen. Griff ’s got his own lawyer in on this. His latest curveball is that the book actually belongs to him — to Griff. That he only sent the diaries to my father for him to have a look at, and my father had no right to publish the thing, in the first place, without written permission.”
“Yeah, but only twenty copies.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So what is?”
“Griff claims that when he sent the diaries, his cover letter said, ‘I thought you’d like to see this,’ not ‘here, I’m giving you this.’”
“And that makes a difference?”
“It does to lawyers. We don’t have that original cover letter, if there even was one. It’s nowhere in my father’s files. So we’re on shaky ground.”
Evan tries to sort out what this means. Can’t. “Okay, so how did you want my father to help? Like getting Griff to talk to you? Maybe I could —”
“Evan.” Leo’s voice is firm. “I’m sorry to cut you off, but I don’t think Griff would be pleased that you have a copy of the book — that there is one in the house. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I mean I hear you, but I don’t get it.”
Leo sighs. “Don’t worry about this, okay?”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“No, really. I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable about you getting involved.”
“I do,” says Evan, and surprises himself with the urgency in his voice. “I mean I’m not comfortable with it, but . . . It’s hard to explain. It’d just be good to have something to think about other than, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“And my dad — this was on his mind.”
“He talked to you?”
“No, not really. It’s hard to explain. He was pissed about something . . . confused, I guess. And I think this was it.”
The line goes quiet. Evan wonders if he’s lost the connection.
“Hello?”
“I’m still here. And I won’t lie to you; we could use some help. But if you don’t mind me saying this, your grandfather doesn’t strike me as someone to mess with. I only talked to your dad once. It was a good long call, but it was before he’d received the book. Then there was an e-mail or two. Anyway, he certainly didn’t have anything good to say about Griff. My own father admired Griff — was grateful for Ōshiro’s papers. But he didn’t like the man. Sorry for being so blunt.”
“Hey, you’ll get no argument here.”
“Gave Dad the heebie-jeebies,” says Leo. “And he was damn sure Griff wouldn’t have sent the diaries to him if he’d known what was in them.”
“I get that. I mean Griff isn’t even in the story yet, but —”
“Do you think Griff knows your father had a copy of the book?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because I’m wondering why he’s there.”
“Like I said, I asked —”
“Yeah, Evan — and sorry to keep interrupting — but think about it.”
“What are you saying?”
Leo doesn’t speak, but there is a whole freight load of unsaid words in the silence. And Evan wonders about Griff arriving early, like that — a whole week early. The earlier the better . . . Wasn’t that what he said?
“Evan, Griff does not want this to go public.”
“But there’s only, like, twenty copies. How public is it ever going to get?”
“That’s the whole point of the exercise.” Evan waits as if there is more — has to be more. He can almost hear the wheels turning at the other end of the line. And then, “The thing is, Evan, I’m not supposed to be talking to you about any of this. Your grandfather has had his attorney draft up a letter demanding that we, quote, ‘cease and desist with any further allegations.’”
“Allegations of what? I still don’t understand all these lawyers getting involved.”
Leo chuckles. “Wherever there’s money, there are lawyers.”
“Money?”
“Yeah. Potentially.”
“Okay,” says Evan with a sigh. “I totally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
It’s Leo’s turn to sigh. It’s a sigh-off. And when Leo speaks again, his voice drops to the level of a secret. “The cease-and-desist letter from Griff ’s people didn’t come until after I’d contacted Clifford, so I wasn’t in breach of any regulation. But talking to you with him around — Griff right there in the house . . . It’s just not a good idea. For us. And most certainly not for you.”
Evan can hear the finality in Leo’s voice. Don’t fight it, he tells himself. The truth is this whole thing is freaking him out. But there’s one thing he can do — has to do. “Got it,” he says, reluctantly. “But in case you need to reach me, can I give you my cell number? I mean it’s best you don’t phone the landline.”
“Right. Good.” Leo sounds relieved. Like he wouldn’t have asked for it but was glad to get it. So Evan gives him his number. Then he gives him his e-mail address as well, just in case. He says good-bye and is about to hang up when he hears Leo say something else. “Pardon?”
“I wanted to say that your father sounded like a really nice guy.”
Evan feels the stricture in his throat, overcomes it. “He was,” he says.
“So was Derwood. My dad. He died back in . . . Oh, it was over five years ago. The thing is . . . what’s happening with the Ōshiro book — what we are hoping to do? It’s supposed to be a kind of testament to him. That’s why I went ahead with it.” What? Evan wants to shout. What? “That’s why we’re at loggerheads with Griff — at this impasse. It was something I wanted to do for my dad. I still miss him a lot. You know?” He waits for a reply, but Evan can’t speak. His whole head is suddenly filled with nothing else in the world but missing his father. “I am sorry for your loss,” says Leo, as if he has tasted Evan’s loss at the end of the phone. “You look after yourself, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Evan stands for a good long moment in the dark, thinking about the call. Then slowly, slowly, as he lets the world back in on his thoughts, something dawns on him. He becomes aware of something he hasn’t noticed until just this moment. The TV is no longer blaring.
Quietly, he makes his way along the hallway to the top of the stairs and, kneeling on the broadloom carpet, sees Griff standing in the kitchen. From this angle, he’s headless, but Evan doesn’t need to see his face. His hands are enough. They’re clutching the back of the blue ladder chair pressed up hard against the cluttered little kitchen table he and his dad never ate at. It’s littered with notes, rubber bands, and stumpy pencils; the kinds of things you pull out of your pocket and leave there for no reason when you come home. There’s also a cordless phone. Griff ’s hands hold on to the chair back so tightly that even from this distance Evan can see the knuckles are white.
Back in his room, Evan races to his bed and drops to his knees. The book is still there, nestled in a herd of dust bunnies. He needs a better hiding place, fast — a less obvious hiding place. He grabs the book, blows the fluff off it, stands up, and looks around. His eyes land on the closet door. There’s a poster of Albert Einstein there with the quote “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Thanks for that, Albee,” Evan says, and heads to the closet. On the shelf there are boxes. Neat containers of past obsessions, and he knows the one he wants. He puts down Kokoro-Jima, and then, on his tiptoes, he pulls down a black box big enough to ship a cat in, if you had one.
He opens it.
Ah, yes. Pokémon.
He’s forgotten now how many cards he’s got, approximately a gazillion, all neatly stacked in piles, organized in some order that was intensely important to him once upon a time. Neat piles bound with rubber bands. “Winner and still champion of the Tidiest Kid Ever competition,” he murmurs to himself. On his knees, he unpacks the cards, then shoves the book in and piles the cards back on top of it. He looks to see if any yellow shows through. He’s about to close the box when paranoia jabs him in the gut, and he stops. He takes off the band holding one of the piles and sifts through the cards until he comes to one he wants. He puts it on top of the pile, rebands it, and then places the pile right in the middle. Slowking, with his headgear: one of the cards banned from general competition. What’d they call that head thing? Right, “Shellder,” not a hat, but a symbiotic creature latched on to the head of — Hell! He doesn’t have time for this now. He straightens up the cards. Done.
Just in time.
The knock on the door is sharp — expected, but it still makes him jump.
“Just a minute,” he says, shoving the box as quietly as possible onto the shelf. He closes the closet door, steps back. And the bedroom door opens.
“Jesus!” says Evan. “I said I was coming.”
Griff stands in the entranceway, his hand on the doorknob. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yeah, well, then, you shouldn’t have come in!”
“Keep your shirt on, soldier.”
“And stop calling me that!”
Griff nods, stiffly. But the look on his face says he’s not a man used to being ordered around.
Pull in your horns, Evan.
“Sorry,” says Evan. “What do you want?”
The old man scans the room. Evan sidles away from the closet until he’s near enough the desk to lean on it, about as nonchalant as a terrier on speed.
Griff is nodding appreciatively. “You keep this place spick-and-span.”
“Thanks. Is that all?”
Griff ignores the question — the surliness, despite Evan’s promise to himself to play nice. “You must have gotten that from your mother,” says Griff. “Your daddy’s room was an eyesore when he was your age.”
“So, I’m borderline anal. I just like to know where stuff is, you know?”
“I do know,” says Griff, and stares at him hard. “So maybe you got this trait from me, after all. Skipped a generation.” Evan just stares. How do you tell a man that if you thought you shared a trait with him, you’d rip your own DNA apart, by hand, helix by helix?
“I like to know where stuff is, too,” says Griff, his eyes hardening.
He knows!
“It’s a lesson you learn living in barracks. You want everybody around you to know that what’s yours is yours.”
Evan looks down. Can’t match the deep blue hardness in those eyes. He leans his backside against his desk, rubs his hands down the front of his jeans, in case there’s any Pokémon magic dust on his fingertips. He looks up. “Is there something you wanted?” He tries to make it sound casual.
Griff turns off the killer death ray. “We’re out of coffee,” he says.
For a moment Evan wonders if this is some kind of really weak joke. “You burst in here to tell me we’re out of coffee?”
“Out of butter and eggs, too. A lot of things: salt, ketchup.” From the look on his face, patience is the main thing Griff is out of. “I thought I’d take the car up to that all-night place I saw on Don Mills. If you don’t have further plans for it.”
Good, thinks Evan. And as soon as he’s gone, lock him out and call the cops.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Anything you need?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Well, then. I shouldn’t be long.”
Griff closes the door with a feigned salute. Evan doesn’t breathe until he hears the click of the latch.
Evan sits at his desk, his legs apart, his elbows on his knees, the iPhone cradled in his palms, waiting for Leo to text him or phone. Waiting for more. Nothing. He sighs and puts the phone down, turns to his computer and Googles “Kokoro-Jima.” He’s not sure why, but when in doubt, ask the mother of all search engines.
There is lots of stuff in Japanese, some drumming group, a mail server for a domain called kokorojima.jp that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything Evan can comprehend. There’s also a TV show, which catches his interest for a moment, before he realizes it’s not Kokoro-Jima; the search engine is just riffing on the word “kokoro” by now.
So he Googles “Leo Kraft.”
Turns out to be a real estate agent. Nice face, sort of chubby, losing his hair, tanned, dark features, dark eyes, and high-quality real-estate-agent teeth. There are letters from happy home buyers and sellers. Evan scrolls through them, looking for . . . what?
He sits back in his chair, the fingers of both hands raking his hair, scratching at his scalp. Dandruff sifts down, a minor July snow flurry. Right. He should have asked Griff to get shampoo.
Money. Lawyers.
Maybe Leo is building a resort on the island? Evan imagines people lounging by a pool surrounded by ghostlike children in bathing suits. He imagines jikininki as hotel bellhops and waiters. Lifeguards.
Not satisfied, he returns to Kokoro-Jima and scrolls through several pages before remembering what the words mean in English. So he quickly types in Heart-Shaped Island and . . . well, there are lots of them. Angelina even bought one for Brad for his birthday, or so it says. There are heart-shaped islands in Polynesia, Turkey, Australia, Germany — even Canada.
But not Isamu’s island. Nothing that big.
He scrolls on, because what else has he got to do? And then on page six, finally something:
“The Heart-Shaped Island: A Story of War and Healing.”
Breathlessly, Evan opens the site but there is nothing there but a message:
404. That’s an error.
There’s a cartoon drawing of a discombobulated robot trying to put himself back together and the explanation that the URL he was looking for cannot be found on this server. “That’s all we know,” says Ma Google.
Evan shakes his head. What does it mean? Was there a site called “The Heart-Shaped Island: A Story of War and Healing”? Was it closed down? Was that because of Griff ’s lawyer? But if there was a site, what was it about? Evan wants to smash the desk, have himself a good hard two-fisted tantrum. He holds off. No need to break stuff.
Then his phone dings. A message. He grabs it.
— Phined yet?
It’s Rollo.
— *Phined*?
He waits.
— Phoned, douchebag.
Did Evan tell him about Leo? No. Hmm. Then it comes to him. The girl. The girl who didn’t think he was entirely a douchebag.
— Yes. We’re getting married. Invite is in the mail.
— Ha ha ha. do it!!!
Evan goes to respond and stops himself, closes the window. He doesn’t have time for this right now. He’s exhausted. And it’s not just that. He senses that Rollo is trying too hard to bring him back from the dead. That’s what it is. He wants him to think about girls and music and the stuff that makes Any Place go around. Except he doesn’t know that Evan has washed up on this desert island instead, where he is surrounded by dead people . . . and one person who should be dead.
He thinks about the story. Griff hasn’t made his entrance yet. He would have been a million years younger. Evan tries to imagine him as ever having been so young — Evan’s own age from what he said.
And then an image comes to mind.
He jumps up from his desk and heads to his father’s room. He turns on the light, blinks. Fights down the lump in his throat, the tears pricking at his eyes. He will never be able to unlearn this room. He’ll have to do something with it. Turn it into something else. Get in a lodger. Sink the fucking place. He takes a deep breath, wipes his eyes.
Get a grip, he tells hi
mself. He’s got one more year of school. Then college. He won’t keep this place. No, he will. He’ll rent it out. No . . . oh, it doesn’t matter. He takes another big breath. He doesn’t have to decide anything right now. Right now he just needs to concentrate on what is going on. Concentrate on the stranger in his house. He feels like Ōshiro discovering the downed plane and realizing there is this missing navigator — someone sharing his private island.
On the dresser there is wooden cigar box covered in dust. Neither he nor his father was ever much for dusting. Now there is dust on everything in the room, but the layer on the cigar box is thicker, older, white with age. In the box are some pieces of jewelry, stuff Evan’s mother chose not to take when she left. She left in quite a hurry, the way his father tells it. Evan was only three; he didn’t see her go. His father set her up in a catering business, and she took off with some rock star. That was the story. Evan was never sure if it was true. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. He digs through the shadowy stash in the box, sniffs the faint tang of perfume that is as old as he is. Finally, he finds what he is looking for: a velvet jewelry box. He opens it. There is a silver chain inside with a heart at the end, a locket. Yes! He leaves the room, flipping off the light, enters his own room, and closes the door softly behind him. Mission accomplished.
He sits on the side of his bed and, using his index fingernail like a tiny crowbar, opens the locket’s silver clasp. There are two tiny pictures inside: on the right, a soldier; on the left, a girl. The girl is a brunette with a big twisty hairdo and a flirtatious smile; the soldier’s face is certified grade-A macho, hair mown short into a high and tight. You can’t see the regulation blue of his eyes because the photographs are black-and-white. But this is him all right: the infamous Griff. Except before he got the scar above his right eye. The woman must be Evan’s grandmother, Mary. Evan never met her, as far as he can recall. Never heard from her, either. Evan isn’t even sure how his mother ended up with this necklace; there must have been some communication between her and Mary.
Anyway . . .
He stares at the young face of his grandfather. This is the man who disowned his only son when “the traitorous lout” bypassed the Vietnam War by dodging to Canada. That was what Clifford used to say to him with a certain amount of pride, as if he’d fought in a different kind of war and won.
The Emperor of Any Place Page 9
