Godsend

by Barry Knister

  Still looking at the lithograph, Rachel had started laughing. She had coughed and pounded her chest. I like it, she said finally. Put up the one Chester likes best.

  They walked back outside the beam of light, holding hands.

  It was after eleven. “I don’t like leaving you with all this housekeeping,” Brenda said.

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Chilly now.”

  Sweeney let go of her hand and settled the blanket over her shoulders. They resumed walking. “Old Paint,” she said. “Cool her down before walking her back to the barn.”

  He took back her hand and shook it—stop, no more jokes. Her clothes must look exactly as they should, the skirt an accordion, her blouse plastered to her shoulders. Sweeney, too, looked the worse for wear. She wondered if James Rivera knew the expression.

  Anything to avoid thinking about what had happened. What happened, she thought. As though what happened could be grouped with falling meteors, or passengers on planes flown into buildings. Every step of the way you were here, she thought, watching her feet. Making up your mind. Just the way Teresa Sweeney made up hers.

  “Do you have a lead yet for your article?” he asked.

  “I gave up on it this morning,” she said. “But yesterday I was thinking of tile. Tile and nostalgia.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Brenda closed her eyes and opened them. I’m all ears was a Charlieism. So was worse for wear.

  “Everywhere the realtor took me, tile was a big deal,” she said. “I have never thought about tile in my life. Tile or Montgomery Ward.”

  “Ward went belly up years ago,” Sweeney told her.

  “Yesterday, one of the salesmen I met had worked for Ward,” she said. “A nice senior citizen from St. Paul. He rode us around in a golf cart to look at condos.”

  Sweeney raised her hand and kissed it as they scuffed over the coarse grass. “You just love us old guys,” he said.

  “Patrick—”

  “There’s no need,” he said. “It was plain wonderful, but don’t worry about the phone ringing. That’s a promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  She felt relieved, but this was the easy part. The hard part would come later. You will have to tell him, Brenda thought. The certainty of it caught her, that she would keep calling Charlie until he picked up the phone. Please come here, she’d say. And if he wouldn’t, she would go to him.

  Picnic litter was visible ahead. It was like real life to her, and the disorder made Brenda feel stupid. Clean break, she thought. All her life, that had been her approach to intimacy. Her grown-up, real-world approach to staying safe. There’s not going to be any clean break, she thought. Now, she wanted no break at all. She thought that having sex with Pat Sweeney had to do with gratitude. Sympathy. And with the sense of release that followed her telling him her story. From the age of thirteen, she had never cared for anyone so much. Charlie Schmidt had seemed too good to be true, so how could she be worthy of him? But if they were to have a chance, she would have to tell him. And he would have to forgive her.

  “I wish I’d seen you in action with all those legislators,” she said.

  “I was poetry in motion.”

  They reached the house. Very quickly she straightened up inside. When she stepped from the bathroom, he was waiting to walk her to her car. Outside, she used the keyless-entry button, and he opened her door. She got in, and Sweeney slammed it as she started the engine. She put the car in gear and looked up through the glass. He patted the roof to release her, and stepped back.

  Chester Ivy’s brightly lighted bedroom still held the sour smell of surgical rubber and bottled oxygen. A stripped hospital bed with motorized lift and side rails extended from the outer wall.

  Rivera looked up. Some of the pictures Ellen Ivy had painted were small, others large. She had died before All Hands on Deck, but Rivera knew from her husband just how important painting had been to her.

  The bird hanging over the bed looked to be the same size as the 5 picture. He hopped up and lifted the frame free of the hook. Back down, he carried the picture out and down the hall. The bird was a toucan, black with brilliant colors on the wings and bill. Ellen Ivy had posed it standing on the hood of a shiny pink-and-white Chevrolet Impala.

  In the great room, he rested the frame against the console, then looked out at the deck. He crossed and cupped the glass. On the far side of the fairway, twin beams formed an arc of light. People sometimes had parties. He stepped away and pressed the button to close the curtains.

  Once they had tracked shut, Rivera moved back to the heavy console and kicked off his boat shoes. He jumped up and lifted down the Jasper Johns lithograph. He leaned it against the wall, got the toucan, hung it carefully, straightened it. He liked it. Toucans lived in southern Mexico. Riding with him in the truck to Cozumel, along with crates of bookends and fake Mayan statues, had been boxes of small ceramic Toucan and parrot souvenirs.

  Rivera jumped down, worked into his shoes, and carried his 5 picture to the front entrance. He retraced his steps and turned off the light in Ivy’s bedroom. The curtains had been open when he came, and things should be left the same. He returned to the front, turned off lights, and pushed the button.

  Once the curtains were open, he moved through darkness and took up his picture. He stepped outside, clicked shut the door, and moved along the circular drive. The picture measured about two feet square. It would easily fit lying flat in the van’s cargo area.

  “Hello, James.”

  “Hello.” He said it naturally, turning with the lithograph.

  “Did I surprise you?”

  “You did, that’s a fact, sir, you sure did.” It was the man from Friday. The one with the redhead. “Mr. Sweeney, right?”

  He lowered the frame and held out his hand. Sweeney shook it slowly, looking down at the picture. “Mr. Ivy was a client,” Rivera said. “He passed away the same day you flew in.” Sweeney let go. “The family asked me to see to some things.”

  “What happened?”

  Sweeney sounded suspicious. “An accident,” Rivera said. “Our attendant was with him the whole time. He went inside to bring out lunch, it happened that quick. He was a very fine old gentleman.”

  “Right.” Sweeney was still looking down at the picture. “I didn’t know him,” he said. “How exactly did he die?”

  Something was definitely wrong. “Well, he was playing with his model car.” Sweeney looked up from the picture. “It’s radio-controlled,” Rivera said. “Out next to the pool. When the attendant went in to bring out lunch, Mr. Ivy was fine. Sitting on the pool steps. They did it that way every day. He thought Mr. Ivy might have reached for his robe on the chair. It must have caught and pulled the chair with it.”

  Sweeney stared at him. “Don’t you think that’s negligent?”

  “Well, sir, what I just told you is what we told the police and family. His daughter-in-law said she understood. I don’t think they consider us negligent. But we certainly won’t be leaving anyone alone like that again. Not for lunch or anything else.”

  Sweeney continued staring at him, hands in his pockets. “Hard cheese for Ivy, but you win a few, you lose a few,” he said. “Is that it, James? Learn as you earn?”

  Hard cheese. Rivera had never heard the expression, and felt uncomfortable. Win a few, lose a few, he knew that. “I’m sorry,” Rivera said. “You can ask—”

  “Yes, I’m going to,” Sweeney said. “I’m going back to my house to check the club directory for the family’s out-of-state number. What’s that you’ve got there?”

  “A picture.”

  “Whose picture?”

  It had never happened before, being challenged this way. Be agile, Rivera thought. Able to adapt. “It’s mine,” he said, holding it up for Sweeney to see. “It’s a gift. Mr. Ivy’s family is grateful—”

  “Bullshit.”

  He lowered the lithograph. “Pardon me, sir?”

  “No one gave
you that. The club newsletter did a piece. The art in this house is supposed to be worth over two million dollars. No one gives an attendant that kind of gift. Not to someone eating lunch when his father drowns.”

  “You’re mistaken, I wasn’t here.”

  “Whoever it was, he’s your responsibility. And let’s stick with the picture,” Sweeney said. He pointed again. “You closed the curtains, but they’re sheer. I saw you bring in something else, some picture of a bird. You took this one down, put that up. Then you opened the curtains and left.”

  Adapt, he thought. Be flexible. “I don’t know how much it’s worth,” Rivera said. But it wasn’t true. He had looked up the artist’s name. Jasper Johns was famous, but the money value didn’t matter to him, just the number 5. The toucan was much nicer, that was why he’d chosen it.

  “I told Mrs. Ivy I wanted it,” he said. “She told me I could have it.”

  “Not a chance, James. Or is it Jim? You pick a name people feel comfortable with. Something besides Quinto Colon. Never mind how I know that’s your real name. You’re on the east coast, fresh off some cruise ship. Working in landscaping, at nursing homes. What’s a good Spanish name everybody’s familiar with? Who are they watching every night in the day room? Geraldo Rivera. There you go, James Rivera, everybody’s favorite gofer. Everybody’s favorite flunky.”

  Rivera leaned the picture against the van. “I think I understand,” he said. “I see how this looks to you.”

  “Good. Let’s go inside and call George Ivy.”

  “We can do that. But first let me show you something.”

  “Sure, James. You show me something, then we’ll call.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Rivera turned away and moved around the front of the van. He opened the door on the driver’s side, leaned in and popped open the glove compartment. He rustled service and auto-parts receipts as if looking for something before grabbing a folded sheet. He snapped closed the lid and turned on the van’s headlights. Before backing out, Rivera reached under the driver’s seat. Kept there was the onyx bookend from Cozumel. A tourist had thrown it away or dropped it, and a drunk crew member had used it to kill someone. Months later, working the ship’s loop cruises in the dead man’s place, Rivera had gone ashore and looked in the weeds at the end of the dock. He had found it, the face of a Mayan god or king staring up, waiting for him.

  Left-handed, he held it against his hip and moved to the front of the van. “Read this in the light,” he said. “If you still want to call Mr. Ivy, we’ll go inside.”

  Tall and skeptical in a black shirt, Sweeney stepped forward. Rivera remembered how it had been on the dock, all the blood on the planks. He glanced at the man’s pure white hair, then handed him the paper. Sweeney leaned down to see in the headlights, and in that moment Rivera saw it was a receipt for new tires.

  “This is just—”

  No blood. He swung, aiming for the center of the spine as Sweeney raised his head. The blow made a thud and Sweeney gasped, eyes wide as Rivera whipped his arm and struck again with all his strength at the same point, and again. Be agile, he thought, and again. Able to turn on a dime, light on your feet.

  Sweeney dropped to his knees, trying to reach back, choking, now falling flat. Rivera went on pounding, changing hands for greater strength, still pounding, knowing it was enough but it was good to be sure, better safe than sorry, penny-wise, pound foolish, a stitch in time—Coming here, he thought, pounding, paying my dues, pulling myself up by my bootstraps—and no white man is fucking with my success!

  Monday

  8:40 a.m.

  “Lemme see now,” Officer Buddy said. “Let’s do it again. You’re in the back here with the mother-in-law.”

  “Every minute,” Stuckey said. “Like a skin graft. You remember at Ivy’s? OK, from that, James said no leaving. Stay with her the whole time. If you go to the kitchen, take her with you. That’s what I did. All night until she went to sleep. She eats this cheese that comes in a can. She wants some of the cheese, I stop the movie so we can go together. I’m outside with the door half open when she takes a leak. The whole time.”

  Officer Buddy saw the attendant was now wearing a plain white short-sleeved shirt with a collar. No more titties or OSAMA SUCKS, but he still had on the Jesus sandals. Over the weekend, Officer Corey Lynn had phoned in sick. Buddy had agreed to take his shift.

  “You didn’t hear shoes in the hall?” he asked. “Hell, his TV’s still on down the other end. He must’ve gone to the kitchen some time.”

  “Nothing.” Stuckey looked up from the chair. “And I was awake the whole time, James said no sleeping. I was drinking ginseng tea all night.”

  “Ginseng.” Buddy shook his head. “I don’t know, Dennis. They’re droppin’ like flies on your watch.”

  “I can’t help it if somebody wants to off himself.” Stuckey was seated in one of the rocking easy chairs that faced the set in Mrs. Fenton’s TV room. Still fixed on the screen was the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where robot fighting machines advance across a frozen plain. Mrs. Fenton’s bedroom was connected, the door closed. She was asleep with Pinky.

  Voices sounded down the hall. Buddy stuck his head out and saw James Rivera had arrived. He was in the foyer, talking to the morning nurse and one of the detectives.

  The nurse now turned away and entered the living room. Grim-faced, Rivera came down the hall. “You’re gonna have to go to spot commercials pretty soon,” Buddy called. “This is taking a chunk out of your customer base.”

  “It’s not funny, officer.” Rivera stopped in front of Buddy. “Give us a break, okay? We certainly don’t need our name in the paper again. I was out fishing. Ray called my cell.”

  Buddy stood aside and followed. Rivera stepped in front of Stuckey.

  “Where were you, Dennis?”

  “Bossman, come on.” Stuckey looked up from the chair. “You saw me, we came together. I was right here like you told me. Every minute.”

  Rivera sat down in the other chair as Sergeant Buddy folded up the hide-a-bed Stuckey had opened for Mrs. Fenton to sleep on. Buddy sat, and Rivera turned to him. “I knew Mr. B was depressed,” Rivera said. “We were on the boat Saturday. He did some drinking.”

  “Heavy?”

  “Some beer with lunch. Two or three vodka tonics later. Not a lot, but at that age the metabolism slows down.” As he spoke, Stuckey began rocking in his chair. He looked away and stared at the image freeze-framed on the screen.

  “You say he was depressed,” Buddy said.

  “He talked on the boat, but I didn’t understand. It was something financial.” Buddy said “shit” under his breath, and Rivera shrugged. “All I know is, his wife tied up her estate with legal details. Mr. B wanted control but couldn’t get it. Something in her will meant he had to stay here with Mrs. Fenton. You can check that with the lawyer.”

  “Control,” Buddy said. “Sort of like Stuckey here.” They both looked at the attendant. He had the VCR remote in his lap and had silently resumed watching the movie. “So,” Buddy said turning back, “you’re on the boat.”

  “All day Saturday. Until about eight.”

  “Why’d you come back here last night?”

  “To drop Dennis and make sure he understood what to do.” Now Stuckey looked over. “I’m sorry,” Rivera said. “It’s not your fault, but this is no good. I’m giving you two weeks’ notice. You can do filing in the office or shop for people for the two weeks, but no more contact with clients.”

  Hands on the chair arms, Stuckey stopped rocking as laser beams raked across the TV screen. “You’re shit-canning me for this?” he said.

  “I don’t have a choice.” Rivera turned to the officer. “If you keep filing police reports with our name, we’ll go out of business.”

  Buddy considered it a moment. “Somebody drowns on Friday, somebody else hangs Sunday,” he said. “Bad for business. Now, let’s see. Last night, you brought Stuckey to spell the nurse. You dropped him
off, then you took off.”

  “Not right away. We came in, the nurse left, then Dennis took over.”

  “Everything I was supposed to do I was doing,” Stuckey said. Sullen now, he was back to watching with the sound off. “What am I supposed to do? Carry her around and check rooms to see if anyone hung himself?”

  “I always say hello,” Rivera said. “I went down, he was in the home theater.”

  “What was on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hell, the screen’s eight feet tall. You were there.”

  “I didn’t pay attention, sir. He was talking about his wife’s will. He was very upset.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Five or six minutes. It would be on the surveillance tape in the garage.” Rivera snapped his fingers and shook his head. “No, that’s wrong. The cameras aren’t yet hooked up.”

  “So, this is about eight, then you left.”

  “More or less.”

  Sergeant Buddy considered it. “Then you drove home?”

  “No, sir,” Rivera said. “I went to the Bellissima. To take down the Haileys’ Christmas tree. I was there about an hour and a half, Mrs. Hailey filled out a time sheet. Then I drove to Donegal to collect equipment at the Ivy house. This was about eleven or eleven-thirty. Then I drove to Immokalee. I stopped off at El Lucero for a Coke.”

  “That’s a bar in Immokalee?”

  “On Boston, just off Main.”

  “So you were seen there, too.”

  “I was there about thirty minutes,” Rivera said. “Then I went home.”

  “Anything on the tube?”

  “On the tube? I don’t understand.”

  “On TV,” Buddy said. “You mean there’s no set in the bar, or you didn’t watch?”

  “On the picture tube, I get it,” Rivera said. “They have TVs inside, but I was outside in back. At a picnic table.”

  “I bet Stuckey would’ve been inside watching,” Buddy said. The attendant didn’t look over. He was rocking again, still sullen.