by Chris Knopf
“What the hell am I doing?” I asked Geordie as he set the glass of wine in front of me.
“Drinking, which is what any sane human being ought to be doing at this hour.”
Geordie wasn’t his actual name; it was a nickname relating to his English roots. He came from a place, as he told it, of limitless masculine courage and mythical consumption of warm beer.
“I’m being stupid,” I said. “I need to go back to title searches and petitioning for variances and learn to be realistic about my place in the world.”
Geordie considered that line of reasoning.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, love, but I’m not sure I like it.”
“Which part?” I asked.
“Never been a big fan of realism. Waste of time.”
“And you’ve never gotten yourself in something over your head?”
“Ah, that’s it, then. Bit off more than you can chew?” he asked.
I nodded and took a sip of the wine, not a gulp like I wanted.
“I think I messed up on something, and I want to fix it, but the harder I try, the more messed up things seem to get. I’ve got a real talent for digging a hole, jumping in, and pulling all the dirt back down on top of myself.”
Geordie wiped a section of the bar with a wet dishrag.
“That’s your problem,” he said. “You’re trying too hard.”
“Don’t start going all Zen on me, Geordie,” I said, putting my head down on my folded arms.
“I’m a barman. What do I know? Except that you can’t make truth reveal itself. You have to let it come out on its own. Create the necessary environment.”
“That’s pretty damn philosophical. No wonder you’re a barman.”
“You need to stop thinking for a while,” he said. “Distract yourself. Take polka lessons. Go sit on the beach. Jump in the ocean. Get in a bar fight. Just not here, if you wouldn’t mind. Management frowns upon it.”
“No worries,” I said, my voice muffled by the soft pillow of my arms.
I spent another hour in boozy repartee with Geordie, increasingly interrupted by incoming clientele. I knew what I was doing—beating all my hopes, fears, and self-recrimination into a type of putty that I could mold to my liking before trying to get some sleep. When I thought that was achievable, I got up and left, not even saying good-bye to Geordie, who was happily engaged in further nonsense with a crowd of big tippers at the other end of the bar.
I stopped at the convenience store on Montauk Highway to buy coffee for the ride home and milk for the next day. The place had been there since I was a kid, and there was never a time when it wasn’t jammed with people of every description and social standing. Which was true that night. There were four guys working the registers, and the lines led to the back, where the coolers held all the dairy products. I politely cut between two guys in muddy T-shirts buying potato chips and bent down to grab a quart. Then I heard someone call my name. When I stood I saw Ray Zander, equally muddy, standing at the end of the line.
“Whashya doin’?” he said. “Don’cha know milk’ll kill ya?”
Though slightly tipsy myself, I could see right away that he was thoroughly plastered. He proved this by nearly tripping on his own feet. He grabbed on to a display to steady himself and knocked off a row of potato chip bags.
I moved closer and watched as he negotiated the difficult task of picking up the bags and returning them precariously to their rightful place. I stood about four feet away, just inside the cloud of fumes that billowed around him.
“So, Ray,” I said, “been doing a little partying?”
I hadn’t the right to be terribly critical, given what I’d been up to myself, though the sight of him was disturbing. His face was a mottled purple-red. His hair, a thin collection of gray-brown curls in the best of times, was sticking out in all directions. I realized that the rest of the dirty workers were from his crew, and they weren’t in much better shape.
“You’re not driving, I hope,” I said to Ray, and then to his boys, “You’re not letting him drive, I hope.”
They grinned at each other as if I’d reminded them of an old joke. Which I guess I had.
“Shit, no,” said one of the them. “Not unless we’re enterin’ a demolition derby.”
“Or goin’ on a suicide mission,” said another.
“Where did you go drinking looking like that?” I asked.
“You mean the cooler in the back of Ray’s truck? Not that choosy far as we know.”
“He got that drunk on beer?”
“Ray likes a whiskey chaser with every beer. Says it helps smooth a path.”
“Fuckin’ yeah,” said Ray, executing another ragged stumble, which one of the crew got in front of before he completely toppled over.
I drew promises from the younger men that they’d not only get him home but into bed, with his keys hidden in a safe place. I’d defended more than one drunken construction worker who’d tried to prove his sobriety by sneaking back out for a joyride.
I was reluctant to leave the parking lot until I saw the men lead Ray to the passenger side of his pickup. Unfortunately, he saw me, too. He broke free of the other guys’ grips and staggered over to my car.
“I been meanin’ to tell ya something,” he said, in the sort of Long Islander’s southern drawl he affected.
My curiosity, as usual, got the best of me.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“You’re a mighty fine example of a woman,” he said. “In the looks department. I’ve been thinkin’ that and now feels like the right time to be sayin’ it. No need to thank me.”
I looked across the parking lot for a little help.
“Yo, Ray’s handlers, come over here and get him,” I yelled.
Something dark and alien traveled behind Zander’s eyes.
“That wasn’t the nicest thing I ever heard from a woman,” he said, moving closer to me. “You was mine, I’d backhand you for that one.”
“Stop right there, while you’re almost ahead,” I said as sternly as I could. Then I yelled again for the crew. A guy came over looking embarrassed and took hold of Ray’s arm. “Sorry, ma’am. What’d he say? Is he getting out of line?”
I just stuck with the compliments.
“No offense,” said the guy, “but when he gets like this every woman seems like a mighty fine example.”
“Including his wife?” I asked.
“Probably not.”
“Does he get like this a lot?”
“Like what?” asked Ray, trying to pull out of the guy’s grip.
“Not really,” said the guy. “Won’t touch a drop for weeks at a time, but when he does, can’t stop. The more he drinks, the nastier he gets. Don’t worry, he won’t remember anything.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”
By the time I finally got home and into bed, I’d had fully enough of that particular day. The only good thing was a lesson in the sins of immoderation, courtesy of Geordie’s merlot and Ray Zander’s drunken foolhardiness, an object lesson sent to me by the agents of my fickle but resolute conscience.
Contrary to every expectation, I fell into blissful sleep, where I stayed, like a good Dead Girl, till well into the next morning.
A gift from Joe Sullivan was waiting at my office the next day, much to my astonishment. The big envelope was leaning against the door with ANONYMOUS TIPSTER written on it.
I apologized aloud for calling Sullivan an asshole, though I didn’t promise to never do it again.
Inside the envelope was a summary sheet of Betty and Sergey’s financial assets, along with supporting bank statements. There was also a copy of Betty and Sergey’s win/loss statement from the casino. The first sheet recorded plenty of losses, but over time, their luck reversed, and ultimately they got way ahead of the game. By about forty-five thousand dollars.
“Why?” I asked when I got Sullivan on his cell phone.
“I’m authorize
d to release the bank records to the estate administrators. Consider the casino info a police special of the day.”
“You are the same cop who called me yesterday and yelled at me? I thought I was the one with the split personality.”
“I’m the cop who had his boss standing next to his desk when he made that call. I meant most of it, by the way.”
“So, how ‘bout that win/loss statement?” I said, eager to move on to better things.
“Not what we expected. I called over to the casino. Table games supervisor told me he was glad they liked poker—wins come out of the other players’ pockets, the house just gets a cut.”
“Get out of here. Good old Sergey,” I said.
“Wasn’t Sergey. The wife was the shark. Played blackjack, but the real action was Texas Hold ’Em—girls on the floor called Betty Hamptons Holdup. Both were big on the drink tray, but Betty switched a year ago to straight tonic and lime.”
I started to feel the way I used to feel at amusement parks. Only this time it wasn’t the vertigo or bad food choices. It was the feeling that an important truth was there in the shadows, mocking me, lurking defiantly just out of reach.
“Any of this tell you anything?” Sullivan asked.
“What do you call an old lady who curses at the gardeners, chain-smokes, drinks like a fish—at least some of the time—has a habit of filching merchandise, and plays cards like the Cincinnati Kid?”
“A four-square crazy old bitch?”
“No,” I said to him. “A librarian.”
I hadn’t been to the East Hampton Library since leaving home to go to college. I wasn’t all that crazy about the library environment. It was too quiet. People ghosting around the narrow aisles gave me the creeps, and I was afraid all the noise in my head would leak out and bother people.
I did like the books, however. If I hadn’t loved to read I’m not sure I could have made it through college, much less earned a law degree. A book was the only thing I could sit still for, even a bad book. So I got to know a lot of librarians, and in my experience, they were nothing like the stereotypical pinched old matrons but rather very smart and witty if you gave them a chance to be.
As if to disprove my theory, the woman at the checkout desk told me tersely that it was against library policy to discuss employees, living or deceased. She was a pinched young woman, wearing an unmatronly top and more red lipstick than her pale complexion could withstand.
“Is that in the library employee manual? I’m an attorney. I’d like to see that passage, which I’m certain is in violation of EEO statutes,” I said, and even though that didn’t make any sense at all, it got me past her to the next librarian up the chain of command, who looked more the type and was as pleasant as punch.
“We don’t have a library employee manual,” said Head Librarian Ruth Hinsdale, looking disappointed in herself. “Should we?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking her hand. “The woman I’m here about was a volunteer. Elizabeth Pontecello. She died recently.”
Ruth’s disappointment turned to sorrow.
“Oh yes, she certainly did. What a pity. Would you mind if we talked in my office? We don’t want to disturb our readers.”
“We certainly don’t,” I said, and followed her through a fleet of wheeled carts stacked with books awaiting the return trip to the shelves.
We’d already run through introductions, so I dropped down in one of the visitor seats in her completely uncluttered and thoroughly comfortable office. I looked around admiringly, stifling the urge to say, “Gee, that’s what horizontal surfaces look like.”
“And your interest in Betty?” she asked from behind her spotless, paperless desk.
“It’s more about her husband, Sergey. He was a client of mine. He died, too, but was probably murdered.”
She nodded.
“I read something in the newspaper. I’m just grateful Betty went first, if she had to go. I already miss her terribly,” she said. “She was much more than a volunteer around here.”
“A patron?”
“That and more. There was hardly a book in this building she couldn’t find without resorting to the card drawers. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire reference section, if you’ll forgive the pun.”
See, I said to myself, like I thought. Witty.
“I guess twenty years among the shelves will do that,” I said.
Ruth’s gray-brown hair, in loose beauty-shop curls, bobbed when she moved her pleasingly round face.
“I made sure all of that was in her obituary,” said Ruth. “She asked me to write something a week before she died. I was a little aghast but honored that she’d think of me.”
“So you knew something about her life.”
“Betty was not only my colleague, my comrade in arms, but my best friend, if you want the truth of the matter.”
“I do, Mrs. Hinsdale. The truth is what I very much want to hear.”
“Truth can be a fungible commodity,” she said. “Even when it’s what we’re trying to express or wishing to hear.”
That was when I realized Head Librarian Hinsdale was made of more complicated stuff than you’d think just looking at her plump little self. And me an enemy of stereotyping.
“So Betty looked after the reference section, helped fund the library, was a good friend and partner to you. Sounds like an amazing lady. What else did she do?”
Ruth took off her plastic-rimmed glasses and worried her temples while considering the question. It gave me a better look at her eyes, which were the palest, colorless gray.
“Do you know what they mean when they say a person has a photographic memory?” she asked.
I told her I did—the extraordinary ability some people have to remember things they see in near-perfect detail for long periods of time. Where the rest of us have to rebuild the memory from associations and with elaborate mnemonic triangulation, these people literally saw a photographic image.
“Betty not only cataloged and shelved about a million books, she read almost the same number and remembered everything. And I mean everything. It took me years to fully appreciate this about her. Testing her—subtly, mind you. She never missed a trick.”
“That would come in handy around here,” I said.
“Naturally, though my point is she was an uncommonly knowledgeable person. It seemed there was little she didn’t know, or when she didn’t, where to find the answer.”
That’s how I regarded the World Wide Web. I expressed as much to Ruth. She liked that.
“I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Oh dear, now every time I Google something I’ll think of Betty.”
“Not so bad. I wouldn’t mind being remembered like that.”
She smiled with more warmth than our time together deserved. I smiled back as warmly as I knew how. And then to build on the good feelings, I asked her about Betty’s drinking problem.
Ruth was undeterred.
“People like Betty do everything more intensely than the rest of us. I suppose that includes personal excess. I do know she’d made great progress combating her addiction. She was blessedly sober in the final year of her life.”
“She was?”
Ruth looked slightly annoyed for the first time.
“Friends know a lot, but not everything,” she said. “All I know for certain is she looked better and seemed livelier on Mondays than she had in years. She told me herself she’d been less afflicted, and I believed her. There was no reason why I shouldn’t.”
This made me feel lousy, of course.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I’ve heard different opinions on that score. I’m sure you’re in the best position to know the truth.”
Her face relaxed, her restored beneficence matching the shot of bright sunlight that came in over her shoulder through the tall colonial window.
“That’s right. The fleeting, ephemeral truth.”
18
On the way back f
rom East Hampton I managed to call Harry before he had a chance to call me. I wanted to prove to him that he didn’t have to do all the work when he was in a relationship with me, even though we weren’t really in a relationship at this point. But maybe in the beginning stages of a renewed relationship, even though we’d never talked about that as a possibility, which I knew he wanted, even though there were plenty of times I wondered what he wanted, exactly.
And people wonder why romantic engagements are so complicated.
“If you found any more body parts, I don’t want to hear about it,” I said when he picked up the phone.
“No, but I found their tax records. Apparently Betty did the returns herself. Nice handwriting.”
“Really. Are they handy?”
I had him read me the critical figures from the last three years.
“For destitute people, they’re pretty rich,” I said when he was done.
“They had a lot of nice stuff, I can tell you that. In fine detail.”
He then went through a complete inventory of the Pontecellos’ belongings, read from a manifest he’d prepared using a program normally used to track freighters filled with tons of materiel.
“You didn’t have to do all that, Harry. It’s wonderful, but I didn’t mean to impose.”
“I might be an idiot, but I liked doing it,” he said. “It’s what I do. I can’t help myself.”
Now I felt like an idiot.
“I don’t deserve a friend as thoughtful and kind, and considerate, talented, engaging, handsome, and—” I paused.
“And?”
“Tall as you.”
“Hah. The truth revealed. Size matters.”
“The truth matters, big boy, even if it’s fleeting and ephemeral. Size is worthless if there’s nothing to back it up.”
“So when are you coming over for a demonstration of my materiel-handling expertise?”
“Tonight. Promise. Don’t expect the dazzling Jackie. I’m deep in stress mode over this whole thing. You’ll have to be patient and understanding and indulgent with me.”
