by Lila Shaara
Maggie stood off to the side, saying nothing, staying out of the way. She wasn’t crying any longer, but she had her arms tightly crossed, staring with enormous, tired eyes as the gurney was wheeled out the front door. The youngest of the officers asked Harry if “his girlfriend” was going to be okay. “She looks pretty pale. You want one of the EMTs to take a look at her?”
“No,” said Harry. “She’s shook up, but she’ll be all right.”
The policeman looked at Maggie longer than Harry was comfortable with, then said, “You’re a lucky guy. You keep her warm tonight.”
Harry stood on his front porch for a moment as the emergency vehicles pulled away. Serge was next to him; Harry thanked him, told him he’d call tomorrow, and got his friend to go home. He walked back into his quiet house. Maggie sat at the kitchen table, her head on her arms. For the first time since Jonathan Ziegart had been thrown across his living room by a bolt of lightning, Harry could feel the alcohol in his system. His eyes would open only halfway, and he wasn’t sure how well he could talk. But he sat down across the table from Maggie while water dripped and gurgled in the coffee machine. “What the hell happened here?”
Her head rose slowly. “I don’t know.”
“Was he going to attack you?”
“Yes.”
“And you happened to have brought the stun gun thingy into the house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Maggie wasn’t looking at him now; instead, she watched the coffee plop in dark blobs into the glass carafe. “I could see it in his aura,” she said.
“He made a pass at you? Back at the party?”
“Sort of.” She shook her head. “I know you don’t believe me. I don’t want any coffee. I’m going to go.” She stood up, bracing herself against the table as though her legs still weren’t working right. “Should I take it with me?”
“I guess. I don’t know. If there are any questions later, maybe it shouldn’t be here. Have you zapped anyone else with that thing?”
“Josie has.”
“Oh God.” He stood up, not any surer of his footing than she seemed to be.
“I’m sorry for all this,” Maggie said.
“It wasn’t your fault. Was it?” He reached for her, but she pulled away.
“You shouldn’t come walking with me anymore,” she said. “If I was your wife, I wouldn’t like it.”
“Don’t go.”
She found the flashlight-shaped stun gun in the drawer. “I’m sorry I can’t be Emily Timms for you, Harry.” Then she added, “You should think about going to AA. Good night.” She was quicker on her feet than he was and was out the door before he could stop her.
Josie could tell by the sound of the car in the driveway that it hadn’t gone well. Part of her had known from the beginning it wouldn’t, had known that all those rich college folks weren’t likely to be kind. Josie was ashamed at how much of her had been glad about this, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, and now that the shit had hit the fan, now that poor Maggie was crushed and crumpled by the weight of all that snobbery and blindness, Josie could at last feel the pain of her sympathy. Maggie came in the door, shrouded in black mist dotted with specks of brown, stinking of misery. As Josie put her arms around her, she remembered the little blond girl coming home from school, eleven years old, having been beaten up by a big farm girl named Tyrena because Maggie had made a drawing of the layers of the skin in health class that was too nice. It was so strange, how the poor girl was spat upon by the low and the high. Maggie had cried then as she was crying now. “Everything is ruined, I am a retard, I can’t do anything right,” while Josie once more shushed her and called her “my baby” and told her how beautiful she was.
35
PAGE OF CUPS
REVERSED
Seduction, but the truth is soon revealed.
His son was so skinny, he thought. He looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten for a week. “What the hell’s wrong?”
Dusty shrugged and said, “You know. Nothing. Same old same old.”
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Dad. Good to know I can always count on you for a boost to my self-esteem.”
Harry had had only two hours of ugly sleep peppered with quasi dreams of Maggie drowning in a sinkhole and Jonathan Ziegart frying in the electric chair. He’d gotten up at six and drunk a pot of coffee, packed his bag, and driven to Orlando. He’d thought about calling Maggie on the road but realized it was Saturday, which meant that she was already at work. Instead he’d called Ann at about eight while at a rest stop, hoping that she was up. His cell phone worked only intermittently, but well enough to warn her of his imminent appearance. He hadn’t been able to gauge her reaction through the static. He had cursed the pimply clerk at the cell phone store out loud.
Now Harry pestered Dusty until the fourteen-year old put up his hands in a gesture of silent denial, after which he put on headphones attached to a white wire that disappeared into a jeans pocket and walked away. A moment later, Harry could hear the door to a bedroom close. He went to the kitchen to find Ann.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Have you taken him to a doctor? Is he sick? He looks like a junkie.” Harry began to pace. “You didn’t tell me that he’s falling apart.”
Ann stood by a metallic refrigerator, her arms folded across her chest. There were no magnets on the refrigerator, and so there were no photos, notes, lists, or examples of Dusty’s artwork. “Calm down,” she said. “He’s just moody. Teenagers are like that.”
Harry said, “It’s only been a month since I’ve seen him. I know he hasn’t been all that happy here with you.” At her look, he added, “I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying, he doesn’t like it here. It’s not your fault.” He thought, But maybe it is. I always try to be nice to her, he added to himself. Why is that? She’s seldom that nice to me. He tried to focus on the issue at hand. “He looks like he’s lost weight, like he’s not sleeping. Do you know his friends? Have you talked to any of their parents?”
“What am I supposed to say to them? ‘I’m sorry, but is your son doing drugs, and giving them to mine?’ And anyway, the problem isn’t that he runs with a bad crowd. It’s that he doesn’t run with anyone at all. He’s too much of a loner.” She pointed at his chest. “He takes after you, obviously.”
When he called Maggie, Josie told him that she was out. Her tone was cold; he remembered that he’d wanted to ask her more about Emily Timms, but she hung up on him when he asked when Maggie might return. Then he called Serge, who told him that Jonathan Ziegart was “resting comfortably” in the hospital but was being kept a day or two for observation. “Frank Milford says he seems fine, just confused.” Serge wanted to talk longer, but Harry cut him off, although less rudely than Josie had him.
The three of them had dinner together, Chinese takeout that was wasted on Harry. He picked at it and watched Dusty do the same. Ann talked all through the meal. Later, Harry couldn’t remember anything she’d said.
That night, Ann seduced Harry, and he let her. He knew that later it would haunt him with shame, that he hadn’t put her off, hadn’t been honest enough to tell her he wasn’t going to live with her again, that he was going to leave as soon as he could get Dusty packed to come with him. But she was so beautiful, so good at seduction, and he’d been abstinent a long time. The sex was shockingly good, but his shame started the moment they were done. He lay next to her, sweaty and tired and suddenly hungry. He thought, When is the appropriate time to tell your ex-wife that you just fucked her because you’ve been so horny for so long and had no one to service you, and thanks a lot and good-bye, you’ve got a thing for a psychotic cook with no social skills? They lay there for a half hour, Harry thinking that Ann had fallen asleep. Presently, however, she moved, leaned over and pressed her breasts to him. She whispered, “You look good, you know. You’ve lost weight. You’re almost hot now.”
The oddly repellent compliment freed
him in a way that he thought nothing else would have. “Ann, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But it’s not going to be the way you said.”
Ann startled him by laughing. “It’s not going to be anything. Now that you’re here, I can see that. You piss me off. But you haven’t been hot in a long time. I wanted to find out if it was any better. It is, but not so good that I want everything that comes with it.”
And that was when Harry finally heard the little voice that had been trying to get him to listen for weeks. She’s always been like this, it said. She just wanted you to want her back. Ironic, isn’t it, that you were never in any danger. It was a relief, but it nevertheless made him feel like shit. He left her alone in her bed and took a shower. While the water ran over his newly acceptable body, he remembered the last night they’d lived together. Lawrence had been in his grave for three weeks. Ann had said, “Maybe you’d be enough for someone, but you’re not enough for me.” She’d added, “You need someone unsophisticated, uncomplicated. I think you could handle that.” He hadn’t written a word since. He lay in the guest room for the rest of the night, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
As soon as it was light, Harry used Ann’s desktop computer to print out a map of the location of Todd Greenleaf’s house. He wrote a note and put it on the kitchen counter before he left.
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t called first. The traffic was already thick, even this early on a Sunday. Thousands upon thousands of people made the journey each year to the hot, tax-free South, either to live in condos by oily canals or to visit the man-made attractions, Disney World and all the gaudy fun it had spawned around it. Once the land had seemed endless with orange groves and marshes; now it was jam-packed with people and buildings and roads and cars in astronomical numbers. Harry felt a profound relief that at last the question of whether or not he should move here for Dusty’s sake was answered.
He ate breakfast at a café that had outdoor seating. His table was on a deck that overlooked a large holding pond. He watched an egret spear a small fish in the tall grass at the opposite edge of the water. He suddenly missed Maggie so terribly his chest hurt. He could smell moisture tinged with diesel fuel, and wondered if the tainted air would make her sick.
· · ·
Todd Greenleaf lived in a well-maintained trailer park by a canal. The “modular homes” were set on cinder blocks and were neatly aligned at forty-five-degree angles from the road that afforded everyone a view of the water. A small concrete walk led to each front door. The muddy canal made the top of a T at the end of the little road. It smelled of algae and brackish water; Harry wondered fleetingly how often neighborhood pets were eaten by alligators.
He left his car on the edge of the road in the narrow space between the road and the storm ditch. Number 615 was only a few feet away, a yellow single-wide with plastic geraniums in a long planter that hung neatly under the bay window on the short side. An aluminum porch with a moss-colored awning was tacked to the side with the door. The lanai, Harry thought. A man was sitting in a green lawn chair on the porch, a can of something in his hand. Harry looked at his watch. It was 9:14 A.M.
He walked to the porch, his hand raised in greeting. Greenleaf was around seventy and was wearing white shorts over skinny white legs and running shoes on oversize feet. His belly was so distended he looked pregnant. He had on a Florida Marlins cap, and the bristles on his loose cheeks were so white Harry couldn’t tell that Greenleaf hadn’t shaved in a while until he was on the porch itself.
“Mr. Greenleaf?” He spoke loudly, remembering that the man was hard of hearing.
“Yeah,” Greenleaf yelled in a harsh, familiar voice.
Harry introduced himself and extended his hand. The old man lifted the can and said, “Wanna beer?”
“I better not, thanks.”
They wasted some time in chitchat about living in Florida. Greenleaf said, “You moved down here to get away from income tax, too, eh?” He shook his head. “In Pennsylvania”—he pronounced it “Pennsivania”—“the taxes are so high all you got left are the people who are too poor to move. Main thing I miss are the sports teams. The Stillers and the Iggles.”
Harry bore it as best he could, then directed the conversation where he wanted it to go. He went over the same ground he’d covered many times now: Had Greenleaf heard any allegations of foul play in the death of Charles Ziegart or had he remembered anything more about Emily Ziegart or her suicide.
“No foul play,” Greenleaf said. “Why would anyone want him dead? No motive at all. Her least of all. He was her meal ticket.”
“If he stole her work, she might have been mad about that.” Harry didn’t like making the suggestion himself, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility.
“Nah. She was a broad, right? He made her rich, got her a place at the university, got his big name attached to hers. What’s wrong with that?”
“But he didn’t ‘get her a place’ there,” Harry said. “She got accepted at Cantwell as a student before he met her.”
“Whatever,” Greenleaf said. “You know what I’m sayin’. You wouldn’t want to kill the fatted calf.”
The goose that lays the golden egg, Harry thought, but he didn’t bother correcting the man’s cliché out loud. “What do you know about Doug McNeill? Ziegart’s student who died not long before he did?”
“Oh yeah. Fat guy who choked to death. That’s what I know.” Greenleaf took a gulp of beer.
Watching his Ping-Pong-ball Adam’s apple bounce up and down made Harry a little queasy. Thank God I don’t actually want a beer, he thought. “What about the scholarship?”
“What scholarship?”
“The one in Doug’s name. At Cantwell. It’s funded by one of Ziegart’s patents.”
Greenleaf scratched his shoulder and stared at the canal. He had little, watery eyes with tiny brown crusts at their edges. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m remembering this.” He absently massaged his left arm with his right hand. Uh-oh, Harry thought. Angina. I hope he’s got a good cardiologist, but I bet there are thousands of them down here, making a killing, no pun intended. Greenleaf went on. “I interviewed the widow, a year or two after Charlie died.” Harry’s pulse quickened. “They were naming something after him at the school and there was a big to-do about it. Features weren’t normally my thing, but I was helping Bella out. Our features gal. The subject of the scholarship came up, I think because Bella had written it down that she wanted me to ask about it. The wife says that Ziegart himself started it before his death, and what a great man he was, blah, blah, blah.”
“So you actually interviewed Emily Ziegart? Why didn’t you tell me this before? I never saw that piece in any of the archived material online.”
“Not Emily. The real wife. What’s her name. Pamela. I didn’t tell you because I forgot. The piece never made it to press anyway. I told you, 9/11 took all the space in the paper for a long while right around then. Lots of other stuff never got ink.”
“Did Pamela tell you why Charlie started the scholarship?”
“Not really. He was a great humanitarian and so on, honoring a dead student, blah, blah, blah.”
“You never wondered if there was more to it than that?”
“Of course not. Why? Do you think something was up there? You think Charlie was having some gay-type affair with poor old Dougie? The Brainiac and the Blimp?” Greenleaf laughed, phlegm rattling like a pair of maracas in his chest. He coughed a few times, making Harry fear he would project mucus onto his shoes, but mercifully it stayed put. Greenleaf wiped his eyes. “I’da loved to be able to print something like that. Woulda made my career.”
“So you never met Emily?”
“Nah. Went to the hospital after the accident. The first wife was there, along with the pip-squeak son. She wouldn’t let me see the second wife. Said press were ‘banned’ from speaking to her.”
“I doubt she had any legal standing.”
“Didn’t matter. The docs weren’t enthusia
stic about having strangers in her room either. Besides, Pamela had a lot to say and stood in front of all the cameras. Her and that son. It was a little creepy, if I remember right, how much he seemed to enjoy all the attention. I saw him pose for a picture once, the saddest teenage boy-face you’ve ever seen, and as soon as the flash faded, he was all grins. Maybe shock or something. Grief does all kinds of weird shit to people, especially kids.”
“Yes, it does,” Harry said. “You still have any of your notes?”
“Nah. All in storage. Probably couldn’t find ’em anyway.” For the first time, he looked Harry in the eye. “What exactly is this book of yours about anyway?”
“I have no idea,” Harry said.
After leaving the trailer park, he stopped at a chain bookstore and bought a biography of Nikola Tesla. When he got back to Ann’s house, Dusty was still in bed, although Ann had left, apparently for church. Harry went online again, made rental car reservations, and bought round-trip airplane tickets for two to Harrisburg. Then he made some more coffee.
When Dusty woke up, he told him to eat breakfast and pack. As his son grumbled off to his room, he checked the time. When he saw that it was late enough for certain people to be home from church, he called a number in Downesport, Pennsylvania, that he hadn’t dialed since the night before Lawrence’s funeral.
