Impersonal Attractions

by Sarah Shankman

  “Well, I hear this from other people, but I don’t know what to believe. Do you really think that a woman like Lola, a woman like either of you”—he looked at both of them—“could expect to meet someone she’d like through a personal?”

  They both laughed.

  Annie apologized. “An in-joke, Sean. I’m sorry. But I sure as hell hope so.

  “Maybe not Prince Charming, maybe not the love of her life, but not someone who’s going to kill her either. Look, I’ve answered ads and I’ve placed one, and the guys I’ve met may be boring, or ugly, or plastic, but none of them has ever been a murderer.”

  “That you know of. I think you’re taking an awful gamble, Annie. In the best of circumstances you can’t be too careful and I think this ad business is foolhardy.”

  “Why is it more dangerous than meeting someone in a bar or a restaurant?” Sam asked him pointedly.

  “You’d already met me. Through work.”

  “I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about the millions of casual ways that people meet. We can’t always wait for our Aunt Penny to introduce us to nice men who are the sons of their oldest friends, you know. And what’s to say even some of those aren’t psychos?”

  Sean pushed back from the table. “Okay, okay, you win. I just think it pays to be as careful as you can, that’s all. Now, I do think this ad business is worth a look. We’ll check into all the letters Lola received.”

  “And Sharder too?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, him too. Again.”

  Sean caught the look that passed between the two women.

  “Okay, what’s going on here?”

  “Nothing.” They were all wide-eyed innocence.

  “Never try to con a con man.” He smiled grimly at both of them. “Listen, dear things. I know that Lola’s death hit close to home. And I know that you think you’re on to something with John Sharder, but believe me, your men in blue get paid to do this job and we will do it by ourselves, thank you. Stay out of it, ladies. You could get in our way and, more important, you could get hurt. I wouldn’t like to see something happen to either one of you.”

  “Yes, Sean.” They nodded gravely as they both crossed their fingers under the white tablecloth.

  *

  After lunch they headed toward Sam’s office.

  “We’ve got to sit down and talk about what we’re doing,” Sam had said.

  The going was slow through the midtown Christmas shopping, with sidewalks that were packed.

  They stopped for a minute before the florist Podesta Baldocchi’s windows. This year, as always, they were filled with a forest of magnificently decorated trees.

  “Oh, let’s go in for just a minute.”

  Annie was easily tempted.

  Sam stood before a tree that was a fantasy of pink and gold. Angels flew, bugles blew, palest pink angel hair floated in a soft veil over it all. The tree took her back to her childhood. She felt six years old again, standing with her nose pressed to the window of F.A.O. Schwarz.

  Attached to a lower branch was a neatly lettered sign that read ALL ITEMS ON THIS TREE FOR SALE.

  “I really want it.”

  “The whole tree? That’s a little extravagant, Sammie, even for you.”

  “No, silly, the sign. Wouldn’t it be funny to put on my tree at home?”

  Despite her engaging manner, the salesman steadfastly refused to sell Sam the sign.

  “But the sign says everything on the tree is for sale and the sign is on the tree. Therefore, it must be for sale too.” Annie tried a little deductive reasoning with him.

  The man couldn’t be budged.

  “I’m sorry, madam, the sign is not for sale.”

  “Is that the silliest thing you’ve ever heard?” Sam sputtered as they fought their way back out onto the sidewalk.

  “You really want the sign?”

  “Of course! What are you going to do? Go back in and break his arm?”

  “Nope, no need. Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

  “Annie…”

  “Uh-uh, guess you don’t want it.”

  Sam did as she was told. Annie laid the little lettered card in her hand.

  “What?!”

  “Remember I told you once that I belonged to a gang of shoplifters when I was a kid? A lift a day at the dime store or you were out? I like to keep my hand in now and then.”

  “Annie, that’s just ter…wonderful!” And she gave her best friend a big hug. “Let’s don’t tell Sean, okay?”

  “Fine by me. I don’t want him to call my mother.”

  A few doors down, Sam stopped and bought them chocolate truffles in the Candy Jar.

  “I really shouldn’t be rewarding such heinous behavior,” she said. They crossed Union Square, where the Christmas lights, the bums, and the pigeons vied for space with the shoppers headed for Macy’s across the street.

  They arrived at Sam’s office red-cheeked and ready to get to work. They both squeezed into the cubicle that bore Sam’s name, barely large enough for more than herself, her computer terminal, and a cup of coffee.

  “He said East Bay, didn’t he?” Sam said, knowing full well he had, handing Annie a stack of telephone books she’d scavenged from a pile in the center of the bullpen. “Let’s start digging.”

  Their fingers flashed past the towns: San Pablo, El Cerrito, Pleasanton, Walnut Creek. They didn’t know how far north or south to go. The western boundary of the area was the Bay, but east could go as far as Livermore.

  Sharder. Scharder. Schaerder.

  There was one.

  No answer.

  No John.

  No Jack.

  No luck.

  They ended up with a small list of maybe’s, which they divided up to work on at home.

  “Have you thought about what we’re going to do when we find him?” asked Sam.

  “Sure,” Annie answered, tucking her list into her bag and pulling on a bright purple beret. “We’re going to be very civilized about it. We’ll ask him for tea.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  The boy had run with the searing pain in his head until he almost couldn’t see for the agony. The old headaches came back when he was upset, blood pounding with no release.

  He didn’t know how many miles he’d run and walked, oblivious to everything but the shame and the pain, when he looked up and found himself in front of a nigger house on the far edge of the Quarters. Parked in front of it, between two old tires planted with petunias, was a dark green Volkswagen with New York plates. Yankee do-gooders, like the ones run off from New Blessings, for sure.

  He’d waited, crouched, for only a minute, pictures of Missy on that front porch replaying in his mind, when the Yankee bitch had come out to her car, calling good nights behind her.

  She hadn’t gotten very far, but far enough, on the tire he’d punctured with his knife, when she had to get out on the dark road alone.

  She was by herself for only a moment and then she was dead.

  He felt a lot better. Now he could only faintly hear the echoes of Missy’s laughter ringing in his ears.

  *

  It was very late. He should have been home hours ago. He sneaked up on his back porch, his boots in his hand, when suddenly his pa reached out of the shadows and slapped him upside his head. In his hand Pa was holding the broken ax handle.

  “Let me be, Pa. You ain’t going to whip me tonight,” he growled, trying to push his father away.

  His father didn’t say anything, but just kept shoving at him, pushing him back into the yard, away from the house and the hearing of his mother.

  “You ain’t going to do this, Pa,” he warned him again. But his pa wouldn’t listen and the ax handle was poised above his head, ready to strike the first blow.

  It was his last. The boy grabbed the handle as it struck home and turned it against his father. He hit him again and again until he was still and there was no sound but that of his own breathing. When he looked down at his feet h
e couldn’t recognize the face in what was left.

  He’d run then. Run the two miles to the Reverend Jones’s house. He didn’t know what else to do.

  The preacher listened gravely to what the boy told him, loaded him in the back of his old station wagon under some blankets, gave his wife instructions not to answer the phone until he got back, and drove southward, straight through the night.

  When they got to Darcy decisions would be made.

  Just after dawn they were welcomed into a warm kitchen where they were fed thick, hot, French coffee and sweet sticky buns. Then the boy was asked to sit in the living room, where he watched pictures on the television with no sound while the men talked. There was a calendar from a gas station on the wall. He looked at it and wondered about the next month and the one after that.

  “Son.” The man who had sworn him in months before in the pasture just outside, who had given him a reason for being, called him in and put an arm around his shoulder.

  “As much as I hate to lose you, ’cause you been doing a hell of a job, we’ve got to get you out of here. We’re going to help you, but you’ve got to disappear.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They were going to send him away? But he’d done everything they ever asked of him—and more.

  He tried to argue, but there was no appeal in this court. After another cup of coffee Reverend Jones stood, shook his hand, and wished him luck. He had to get on back before he was missed.

  A stranger said, “This way, son. We might as well get started.”

  Reverend Jones and the other men nodded somberly at the car as it pulled out of the driveway.

  Jones looked to the man who made the final decisions. “You’re right, we had to get rid of him.”

  “Yep, bring us nothing but trouble. He’s crazy, you know.”

  *

  The first man drove him to Lake Charles. There he’d been passed to another, who took him to Austin. It went on like that, one large, faceless, nameless man after another who just drove, taking the boy to the next stop along the way. Until five days and 2500 miles later, he was alone with $500 in his pocket in California.

  That had been a long time ago. He’d been alone ever since, except for the times his particular appetites had gotten him into trouble and he’d shared space with lots of other men in jailhouse orange. Hard times, they were, very hard times, locked away without his knife to find even an occasional moment of release. But eventually he’d always made it through.

  Eventually they’d always let him out.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  They found John Sharder in Port Costa.

  The phone was listed in his mother’s name. When Sam called Mrs. Sharder was very helpful. She said John would be home at six o’clock in time for his supper.

  *

  Port Costa is a minuscule one-street town perched on the shores of the Carquinez Strait a few miles northeast of the city. Its populace is a loose coalition of independent souls who preserve the best of the spirit of the Old West. They are most famous for telling the federal government to take a hike during a dispute over the town’s water-treatment system.

  Annie and Sam arrived well before six and decided to kill time at the bar in Matilda’s Restaurant. The decor was funhouse kitsch. Dusty Christmas decorations hung permanently. A ticket booth trimmed with garlands of plastic flowers and signs sat in the middle of the room. Mason jars served as glasses. The silver didn’t match. The portions of home cooking were legendary. But the real attraction of Matilda’s was the lady herself.

  As they sat at the bar, they could hear her from the kitchen.

  “Hustle your ass up here, sonny, the potatoes are getting cold.”

  They grinned. This was nothing. They had seen Matilda in action before.

  She stormed through the kitchen’s swinging doors, waving a spoon. Matilda was a very wide, short woman of late middle age. Her graying hair was twisted up in a knot. Her enormous breasts heaved beneath a gaily flowered muumuu.

  As she headed toward the bar, a young couple at a table for two caught her eye.

  “Hey there, son.” Her voice was first cousin to a buzz saw. “Getting enough…” She paused to watch the blood rise up the young man’s neck. “To eat?”

  He smiled nervously first at his date, then at Matilda, who was circling behind him. She leaned over and pressed her mammoth breasts against the back of his head, which slipped into her canyonlike cleavage. He was surrounded.

  When he was sufficiently scarlet and gasping for breath, the crowd at the bar roaring with laughter, Matilda heaved herself off him, cackling, and began to yell at the bartender about a late delivery.

  Satisfied that it had been taken care of, the lady of the house waggled toward another mission, brushing past Annie and Sam.

  Annie would never know what came over her.

  “Excuse me,” she addressed Matilda. “Do you happen to know a man named John Sharder?”

  Sam leaned onto the bar, covering her eyes with one hand. She couldn’t believe it.

  Matilda’s eyes narrowed behind her cat glasses.

  “Of course I do. There ain’t but a hundred or so sonsabitches who live in this town.”

  “Could I talk with you about him for a minute?”

  “What do you want to know? You writing a book? I’ll tell you what you’d better do.”

  Sam had already figured it out. She dropped several dollars on the bar and grabbed her bag and Annie’s arm.

  “That’s right. Pay up and clear out,” Matilda trumpeted.

  Her voice followed them out the revolving door. “And don’t come back.”

  Sam softly socked Annie on the side of the head. “Nice going, Sherlock.”

  Then they collapsed with laughter, Annie leaning against the side of the building.

  “That wasn’t exactly the most subtle exchange I’ve ever heard,” gasped Sam, wiping her eyes.

  “We’ll chalk it up as practice. I’m going to get better at this private-eye stuff as we go along.”

  *

  The Sharder house was small, neat, and old—well kept, though the front porch was sagging. Blue shutters were freshly painted. Smoke curled from a red-brick chimney into the early dark. Low bushes snuggled up close to the front steps.

  The aroma of home cooking drifted toward them as they approached the front door. Pot roast for dinner.

  John Sharder’s white Porsche was parked in the driveway.

  “Ready when you are, C.B.,” Annie said.

  “Okay, this is it.” Sam knocked on the front door.

  John Sharder opened it, beaming. They had thought there was both safety and advantage in surprising him in his own lair. If he were their man, surely he wouldn’t murder them in front of his own mother. But they hadn’t figured on his welcoming them with open arms.

  “Samantha! How wonderful to see you. Please come in out of the cold.”

  John looked as if he had just arrived home and removed his jacket and tie. He was still in the trousers of a navy-blue suit and a blue-and-white striped shirt. He smelled of soap. His hair was dark with water and freshly combed.

  “Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Sharder caroled from the kitchen. She came into the living room wiping her hands on her flowered apron. She was a tiny, white-haired, pinkcheeked, little old lady with blue eyes and a merry smile. John introduced them.

  “How nice of you girls to drop by,” Mrs. Sharder said. “Samantha, I’ve heard so much about you from John. And I follow your writing in the paper. I feel as if I know you.”

  Annie and Sam exchanged a look. Sam hadn’t identified herself when she’d called looking for John. Had Mrs. Sharder guessed who she was? Or was she just as loony tunes as her son?

  “I’m so glad you’re here in time for dinner,” she continued.

  “Oh, no, we couldn’t possibly.”

  “Nonsense. Of course you can. I won’t take no for an answer. Now, you girls just settle yourselves down here with John for a few minutes while
I finish up in the kitchen. It’s pot roast, John’s favorite,” she said, twinkling. “John, give the girls a sip of sherry. I won’t be but a minute.”

  Annie wondered if this little old lady could be the Wolf in disguise. Like Little Red Riding-Hood, were they going to be eaten up?

  This certainly could be Grandmama’s cottage. The living-room floor was covered with a highly waxed linoleum patterned in squares of pink, green, and brown, spotted with braided rag rugs. The rocking chair in which Annie sat was draped with a dusty-rose afghan. Sam was sitting on a pale green sofa embossed with flowers. It reminded Annie of hot summer days during her childhood when a similar sofa at her aunt’s house had prickled the backs of her skinny, bare legs. Heavy swag curtains at the little windows blossomed with pink and crimson cabbage roses. The room was a little too warm and stuffy.

  “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you, Samantha,” Sharder said, smiling widely at both of them. “Halloween. And it’s getting on toward Christmas. That’s much too long. We must get together more often.”

  Annie studied him carefully as he handed them each a beautifully engraved glass half filled with sherry. He seemed perfectly at ease.

  “Well, it’s not as if we’ve had much of a chance to talk together,” Sam replied warmly. She had decided to just play it on through and see where his fantasies took them.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “That’s my fault. I’ve been quite negligent and I apologize. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  For what? Annie wondered. For not tracking her down in the street? Killing her? Smothering her with roses?

  “Come and get it, children. Your supper’s getting cold,” Mrs. Sharder called from inside.

  John ushered them into the large, square kitchen and seated them at a round table covered with dishes. There was the roast, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, a green salad, a quivering, rosy-red gelatin salad, homemade biscuits, and plum jam.

  “And chocolate cake and banana pudding for dessert.” Mrs. Sharder beamed.

  “This is just lovely.” Annie smiled at John’s mother. “It’s like Sunday dinner back home in Atlanta. But,” she wondered, “were you expecting company?”