Midas w-2

by Russell Andrews

  The question was: Where the hell did that life go from here and how much control could he have over it?

  As the first cut began, he went to his Compaq, turned it on. He was anxious to take a look at the FAA site and see what he could dig up, but before he could even sit down he noticed that the message light on his phone machine was flashing.

  Justin sighed. He disapproved of phone machines. He disapproved of anything that made him more accessible to the outside world. But his job required it. Somehow, his life required it, too, which he couldn’t quite figure out, but there you had it. So he went to the machine, pressed play, and heard the voices of two people he didn’t want to talk to.

  The first message was from Marjorie Leggett, Jimmy’s wife. No-widow. He immediately made the mental correction. “Jay, it’s Margie,” she began. Then there was a pause, as if maybe she should give her last name. Which she did. “Marge Leggett.” There was another silence, a brief one. Justin could all but see her timidity, her confusion at having to do something for the first time without her husband’s guidance. Then she found her resolve and continued speaking. “I’m just calling to see if you’ve. . done anything. . after our conversation. Please call me. I need to know. Thank you.”

  Justin’s face softened at her final instinctive politeness. Then he thought about her message. He had promised her he’d find out what Jimmy was doing in the restaurant. Why he’d died such an ignominious death. But he hadn’t done a thing. He’d been a little busy. He had a murder case on his hands. A murder case that no one knew was actually murder.

  And now he had to add something else to the list of things that belonged in his life: his promises.

  How much control would he have over them?

  The second message was from Leona Krill, the mayor of East End Harbor. She wanted him to call the moment he got her message. It was urgent.

  He erased both messages. Decided he’d wait an hour or so to call Margie back. So he could figure out what he could actually say to her. Decided he wouldn’t call the mayor back at all.

  Justin went back to sit at his computer, began to go online, then the phone rang. He got back up, answered it.

  “Justin, it’s Leona Krill.”

  “Hello, Leona.”

  “I’m assuming you got my message and didn’t call me back. Everybody I talked to said that’s exactly what you’d do. So I’m calling again.”

  “I just walked in the door. Got the message ten seconds ago. And who’d you talk to who said that?”

  “Were you going to call me back?”

  “Eventually.”

  “I need to see you right away. At my office, please.”

  “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m afraid it can’t.” When he didn’t respond, the mayor said, “Justin, this conversation isn’t about anything bad. It is urgent, but it’s not going to make you unhappy.”

  “Leona, almost all conversations make me unhappy.”

  “Can you be here in fifteen minutes?”

  He told her he could and hung up the phone. Then he reluctantly flicked off Arlo Guthrie and went back outside, wondering what he was going to hear that she thought he wasn’t going to hate hearing-and wondering exactly how much he was going to hate hearing it.

  The mayor’s office was in the oldest building on Main Street, a town house built in 1839. It was four stores down from Deena’s yoga studio and five stores away from her apartment above Norm’s Contemporary General Store. Justin parked right in front of the studio, walked by the plate glass window that let passersby look in on classes of people stretching and contorting themselves into odd positions. He automatically sucked in his belly, which wasn’t nearly as large as it had been a year ago, but was a little larger than it had been three months ago. He’d stopped taking his yoga lessons the same time he and Deena had stopped seeing each other. He also realized it had been a couple of weeks since he’d been to the gym. Maybe three weeks. Shit, he thought. A month.

  He glanced into the yoga class as he passed by. Deena happened to be looking his way, saw him and smiled. He gave a half wave and thought about stopping in, seeing if he could take Kendall, Deena’s nine-year-old daughter, out to dinner. Maybe a movie. Then he thought better of it-his stomach was suddenly pierced with a familiar ache when he spotted Deena; the uncomfortable pang that comes from dissipated love-and just kept walking.

  Leona Krill greeted him warmly. Justin thought that she was probably looking for a friend. She needed one. Leona was gay and had just gotten married, quite publicly, to her longtime girlfriend. The weekenders who inhabited East End Harbor were fairly liberal by nature. But the full-time residents-the voters-tended to be blue-collar and more conservative. The mayor’s wedding had caused quite a stir. A lot of people thought it would cost her when the next election rolled around. Personally, Justin didn’t care who she slept with or who she married. His idea of a good mayor was anyone who was reasonably honest, didn’t screw up too much, and left him alone. Leona had scored well on all three points up to now. Now the third part of the equation was up in the air.

  They spent thirty seconds asking how they each were, then she said, “Let me get right to the point, Jay. People do call you Jay, don’t they?” He admitted that some did, and was impressed that she’d done some homework in the few minutes it had taken him to arrive at her office. “I’m sure this has occurred to you, and I know it might seem a bit indelicate to bring it up so soon after Jimmy’s death, but we need another chief of police.”

  It actually hadn’t occurred to Justin. Things had been moving too quickly. And everything at the station was proceeding smoothly. But he nodded, as if he’d done nothing but think about such a need.

  “Well, I’d like you to take the job,” Leona Krill said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m appointing you the new chief of police. On a temporary basis. I’m hoping you’ll agree on six months. That seems fair. And at that point, we can review the situation and, I hope, mutually agree on whether you should continue or not. It makes perfect sense. You have the background, the experience, people seem to respect you-in a strange sort of way. There’ll be a nice pay raise, of course.”

  Justin realized he was standing there, probably looking dumbfounded. It shouldn’t have been such a shock, it was the logical move for her to make. If he accepted, it made her life easy. No outside search, no unknown quantity. But every voice inside him was screeching for him not to do it. He didn’t want the responsibility. Or the pay raise. He didn’t want the bureaucratic dealings. Didn’t want people working for him. He didn’t want the extra ties to the community. Didn’t want to attend the social events or the town meetings or see any public-spirited liaison who would want to talk to him about whatever public-spirited people talked about. He didn’t want anything about this job. Nothing at all.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  She thanked him profusely, told him how glad she was, thanked him again. She set up a meeting with him for two days hence, on Friday, so they could discuss various details. She even kissed him on the cheek before he left.

  Walking back down Main Street toward his car, Justin wondered what the hell he’d just done.

  He thought, My life. My choices.

  Shaking his head, he got in the car, drove home, called Marjorie Leggett, told her he was working on keeping his promise. Then he made a second call, this one to Billy DiPezio, the Providence, Rhode Island, police chief. Billy was the reason Justin had become a cop. And he’d been Justin’s boss for several years. Billy was also the most crooked honest man Justin had ever met. Or maybe he was the most honest crook. Billy was a cop who walked a fine line between right and wrong, sometimes crossing over, not always knowing when he did. And rarely caring.

  “I’m calling to get your permission for something,” Justin said when he got Billy on the phone. Billy was, as usual, not at the station or at home with his wife. He was in a bar somewhere, probably sharing a booth with
someone he shouldn’t be sharing it with.

  “Well, that’s a first,” Billy said.

  “I’m trying to do a favor for a friend and I need to do a little research.”

  “There’s a new thing,” Billy said. “It’s called the Internet. It’s amazing, I’m told. You can look stuff up, just like it’s a real library. In fact, they probably have a whole library building in that weird little beach town you live in. The Billy Joel Library or something, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not that kind of research. I need the human kind.”

  “And you’re calling me, Jay? I’m flattered.”

  “Don’t be too flattered. I want to talk to Chuck Billings.”

  Justin could sense Billy’s demeanor-jaunty, unconcerned-shift slightly. Nothing major, Billy was too good an actor to be obvious. But his tone changed a bit, and there was a split second more thought before he began to banter.

  “Local cop decides to get involved in terrorist bombing, Jay?”

  “I’m not getting involved,” Justin said. And he quickly told Billy the truth about Jimmy and Marjorie Leggett. “If Chuck’s still your bomb guy, all I want is to pick his brain a bit. I just want to understand what really happened so I can tell Margie. Maybe it’ll help.”

  “Of course he’s still my bomb guy. Probably the best bomb squad captain in the country.”

  “So can I talk to him?”

  “It’ll be easier than you think,” Billy told him. “The Feds called him in as a consultant, to take a look at the restaurant.”

  “Harper’s?”

  “I told you he’s good.”

  “Is he here already?”

  “Right in your neighborhood,” Billy said. “Staying at some motel, Chuck said not the classiest place in town. Something about fish. . the Fish Bowl. . the Fish Net. .?”

  “The Fisherman?”

  “Sounds right. He got in this morning.”

  “Thanks, Billy.”

  “Buy him a good dinner, that’s all I ask. You can afford it and he can’t, not on what I pay him.”

  “Done.”

  “You coming up anytime soon?”

  “I’ll be up,” Justin said.

  “You can also take me out to dinner.”

  “Billy, you haven’t paid for a meal in twenty years. What the hell do you need me for?”

  “I’m hanging up on you now. Make sure you send my regards to your very rich parents.”

  “I’ll quote you exactly.”

  Justin hung up, immediately dialed the Fisherman Motel. Billings wasn’t in his room so Justin left a message on voice mail. He took a deep breath, looked around his house, happy to be alone and isolated from the world for at least one more night, then he rolled a big fat illegal joint, got as stoned as he’d been in several months, and fell asleep listening to R.E.M. blaring from his speakers.

  It seemed as good a way as any to spend his first night as police chief.

  5

  Justin Westwood had experienced many disturbing dreams in his thirty-eight years. Particularly since Alicia and Lili had died. Dreams that floated through his consciousness. Dreams that were filled with violence and inflicted waves of guilt and regret. Dreams that made him twist and turn and hurt and wake up drenched in sweat and dread. But very few of his dreams were as disturbing as what he was watching on television at eight o’clock the next morning, soon after he’d awakened and made himself four cups of very strong drip coffee.

  He was halfway through his second cup, black, when he turned on one of the morning shows on TV and was greeted with images of the aftermath of the explosion at Harper’s. It was all very frantic and ragged. Some tourist had been making a video document of his trip to the Hamptons and had been half a block away when the bomb went off. He had the actual explosion on camera. It was from a skewed angle, but there it was and it was terrifying. Even on this nervously shot amateur tape, the force and devastation were apparent. The tourist had kept taping but it hadn’t taken long before he was no longer allowed in the thick of things. Then the news coverage took over. This footage was at least as disturbing. Viewers were able to see things they never wanted to see. The blood, the mutilation, the bodies. The tape ran for a good ten minutes, with occasional voice-over narration and explanations given by the show’s host. When it ended, the attorney general of the United States, Jeffrey Stuller, was on camera, appearing from Washington, D.C., speaking to the normally perky-but now extremely somber-host.

  “While there will continue to be a more detailed investigation, we have concluded the initial stage of our investigation into the devastating bombing of Harper’s Restaurant in East Hampton, New York,” Stuller was saying. “And I’m not going to mince words. All indications are that this was a terrorist suicide bombing. It is the kind of incident that has, tragically, become far too common in Israel and Iraq and other locations around the world. And now it has reached American shores. This is something we have dreaded for quite some time, ever since the events of September eleventh, but I want to assure the American public that it is not something that has been unexpected. Nor is it something we are unprepared for. Most important, it is not something that will go unpunished.

  “No one has claimed responsibility yet for this heinous act. But, as the president said in his speech last night, we know the evildoers who are responsible. They are the same evildoers we have been battling and battling successfully. We have, ever since 9/11, been winning the war on terrorism. We defeated the Taliban and we defeated Saddam Hussein. We have been beating back and defeating those who place no value on human life and who, misguidedly, use their God to promote hate, destruction, and the deaths of innocent, good, and truly God-loving people.”

  “Mr. Attorney General,” the host said. “If you know who is responsible for this latest act, what will the government’s next step be?”

  “I have already met early this morning with the president, the vice president, the heads of the FBI and CIA, and my own deputy attorney general, Ted Ackland. Many details of that conversation must remain confidential for national security reasons. But I can assure every single person in our strong and resilient country that those responsible will be caught and punished very quickly.”

  “Mr. Stuller,” the host said, but the attorney general cut her off.

  “I’d like to make one other point, if I may,” he said. “Then I’ll be happy to take one or two questions. And I can’t stress this point strongly enough. We are at war. We have been at war for several years now, whether certain people in this country want to acknowledge that or not. And in times of war, security must become a priority and strong measures must be taken. Measures that some members of Congress and the Senate, as well as some members of the media, have questioned. I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again: Such questioning can only do this country harm at this point in time. Quite possibly irreparable harm. Terrorism must not be politicized for personal or political gain. I can assure everyone listening that no innocent people, no law-abiding American citizens, have anything to fear from their government. No rights will be abridged for those who deserve and value those rights. But I want to make this absolutely clear: Those responsible for this act. . those who support this act. . those who support any groups whose desire is to harm or destroy the United States of America. . those people have much to fear. Those people will find that we will stop at nothing to make this world safe from the evils of terrorism and the ruin that would result from such lawlessness and godlessness. I know the American people support us in such a proclamation and in such a goal. And we will not let those people down.”

  “Mr. Attorney General, may I turn to something a bit more personal?” When Jeffrey Stuller nodded, the host continued. “The names of the victims of the recent bombing are being released as their identities are confirmed. I know that you and the vice president lost a very dear friend in the tragedy. Bradford Collins. .”

  Stuller didn’t wait for the question to be asked. “Brad Collins was one of my
closest friends. And Vice President Dandridge would, I know, say the same. Our personal loss will not, of course, influence any decisions when it comes to our actions or retaliations. But, at the same time, being human, there is no question that when justice is served in this instance, it will be all the more satisfying. Brad Collins was a great businessman, a great family man, a great man. Speaking for the vice president, I’d like to use this opportunity to send my condolences to his wife and children and all his friends and colleagues. It’s an extraordinary loss for them, for all of us, and for this country as a whole.”

  “You and the vice president were more than friends with Mr. Collins, sir. You were both on the board of his company, EGenco. Would you care to comment on the burgeoning scandals that have recently enveloped that company? And do you think your involvement might cause a problem with your campaign against terrorism? With the vice president the almost certain presidential candidate next year-”

  “No, Katie, I would not care to comment. And I find that question reprehensibly tasteless and inappropriate at this moment. A human being was murdered. Many human beings were murdered. Don’t desecrate their memories by trying to ask ridiculous, ratings-motivated questions about insignificant matters.”

  “Mr. Stuller-”

  “That’s the end of this interview. Thank you and God bless everyone.”

  As the attorney general stood and walked off camera, Justin pressed the power button on his remote control and clicked the TV off. Strange. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t allowed himself to focus on the wider-ranging implications of the bombing. Since it had happened he’d been concentrating solely on the immediate impact, on his personal involvement-Jimmy’s death and its ramifications-and then he’d been distracted by the plane crash and the beginning of that investigation. He suspected that much of the country had had the same lack of focus. Understandable. What he’d just seen on tape was not something one wanted to think about and focus on. If this were indeed a suicide bombing, then daily life was, unquestionably, about to change. And change drastically. People had said that post-9/11 the country was going to be altered forever. But Justin found that the alteration had lasted only about three months. For that period of time, there was a cautiousness in the air. And, oddly enough, a certain gentility and politeness. People were more aware of their own mortality. Then, human resiliency-or denial; it could be called either way-took hold and things returned to normal. No one talked about Afghanistan’s future. Bin Laden was the subject of comedians’ jokes. Other enemies, like Saddam Hussein, leaped to the forefront and were either dispatched with ease and trumpets of patriotic fervor or ignored. Airport security lines moved much faster as impatience won out over fear. Anthrax disappeared. Irony didn’t disappear. The urge to live for the moment subsided. And even as our troops kept dying over in the Middle East, corporate greed, devastating bankruptcies, and the plummeting economy once again dominated conversations. And people started hating New York again, just like in the good old days.