He crossed his arms and was aware of the envelope in his pocket. He could almost hear God laughing.
He didn’t recognize Jay at first, but that was because of the girl. Dave rose from the chair and walked toward them. Jay took him in his arms, a big bear hug, but Dave’s eyes were on the girl. Did Jay realize how much she looked like his mother? Jay had never stopped mourning her loss. What would he do if he knew about Mame Childers? What would Wilfrid Childers do?
11
THE HOUSE WAS NORTH OF TURTLE Beach on Siesta Key, on stilts, with parking space under the first floor, which was a large rectangle with a kitchen and dining area at one end. Taking up roughly half the space was where Casey Winthrop worked, his computer on a trestle table, books all over the place, some in orange crates stacked along the wall, his own output ranged above those of the competition—one hundred and fifty titles, all of them paperback originals. One of the bedrooms upstairs had become a kind of sitting room where he and Peaches watched TV in the evenings, sipping wine, still camping out, at least in their own minds. Peaches was a wizard in the realty game, and Casey, well, Casey was a fiction machine and had been bringing in money like crazy for fifteen years. How much? He didn’t really know. He didn’t want to know, just as he didn’t know for sure how many novels he had published. Who cares? It was the one he was working on currently that counted.
“I’m a hack,” Casey would say proudly, and that is what it was, pride.
“Quit bragging,” Peaches advised.
He was what he had set out to be. His idol even while he was still at Notre Dame had been John D. MacDonald. MacDonald had lived on Siesta Key, which was why he had settled here. At Notre Dame, Casey had been on the board of the Sophomore Literary Festival and tried in vain to get writers someone had heard of invited, writers who were read. The resistance to that sensible suggestion had been the seed of his vocation. Classmates were enrolled in writing courses turning out opaque stories that began nowhere and ended in the same place. Art? Literature? Being readable was apparently a crime. Caring about the reader was selling out. Casey began to send out things to the pulp magazines, of which there were still a few around then, and he collected Gold Medal Books, Ace Books, other paperback originals. He found an article about John D. MacDonald, all of whose titles he eventually collected. He sent the author a fan letter. It was never answered, but his stories began to be accepted. The die was cast. A year out of Notre Dame, he came to Siesta Key, for the winter. He never left. He rented at first and then, when he began to make real money, bought this place. The fact that Peaches loved it from the first time she saw it was a plus.
It was a throwback, the kind of place that had been built along the southern end of the key before the developments began. The owner who had slapped up the house would sell only when Casey convinced him he wasn’t fronting for some developer.
“It’s what I’ve always wanted,” Casey assured him.
“The view of the gulf?”
“That, too.” It reminded him of MacDonald’s place, now the site of a gated community. He was regularly offered a fortune for the house—for the site, not the building; that would doubtless be knocked down and replaced by some high-rise monstrosity. MacDonald had seen the beginning of this and dealt with it in his novel Condominium. It was the first novel of his that came out in hardback, which Casey regarded as a kind of betrayal. Then MacDonald was written up in Time. His work suffered. Hack writers flourish in anonymity, if not neglect. Casey felt that he was picking up a fallen flag, like Prince Andrei.
He and Peaches lived the way he had when he was poor, keeping the trestle table and the orange crate book shelves and the cruddy comfortable furniture. At the beginning he had worked on an electric typewriter, but that, of course, had given way to a computer. What would MacDonald’s generation have done if they had been able to write on computers?
“We’re radical chic,” Peaches said, one finger in an Edith Wharton, her glass of wine held before her as if she were checking for impurities. Well, it was a cheap wine. Never pay more than ten dollars for a bottle of wine. Casey seldom paid as much. He had bought some bummers, but basically wine was wine.
“I’m the chic of Araby.”
He knew what she meant. He bragged about being a hack, and their lifestyle was based on little more than the pittance they’d got by on when they first married. Of course, they bought more books now that it wasn’t really a luxury for them. What Peaches called the library was on the second floor, filling two of the three bedrooms. Hermione Lee’s life of Wharton had sent Peaches back to the novels.
“It’s better than I remembered,” she said of The Age of Innocence.
“Innocence is always better.”
He had met her on one of the upper floors of the Main Street Bookstore in Sarasota, since closed, another sign of the last times. In Biography. One thing about bookstores, you can make a pest of yourself with impunity. Or with a pretty girl. She was wearing a baggy sweater that went below her hips, what used to be called pedal pushers, open-toed sandals with her nails bright with polish. He went around her several times, humming, scanning the shelves. He went into the next aisle so he could peek through and see her squinting at the books. When he came into her aisle again, he cried out. How had he missed the legend on her sweatshirt? Notre Dame!
“You a Domer?” he asked.
“What’s a Domer?”
“Your sweatshirt.”
“This old thing.”
“I went to Notre Dame.”
She squinted at him. It was the first time he noticed the chevrons that formed on her forehead. “Did you play football?”
“Without a helmet. I still have these hot flashes.”
Careful, careful.
“Someone gave it to me.”
“Your husband?”
“Not likely.”
“Stingy?”
“I don’t have one.”
That was round one. He dallied and went to pay for his books while she was still at the counter.
“What did you buy?”
She turned the pile of books on the counter so he could read their spines. The top one was a life of Edith Wharton. Other lives of writers.
“I’m a writer,” he told her.
“Come on.”
“Where? There’s a nice little place up the street.”
The sepulchral clerk followed this with interest. Her glasses slipped off her nose but bounced on her bony chest thanks to the chain that held their bows. The girl in the Notre Dame sweatshirt shrugged, looked at her watch. “Okay.” The clerk was getting her glasses back on her nose when they left.
“What do you write?”
“Fiction.”
“Would I have read anything of yours?”
“My biography hasn’t appeared yet.”
They went up the street and had beer at an outside table. It was her day off.
“What do you do when you aren’t reading?”
She sold real estate.
“What’s unreal estate?”
Apparently he couldn’t be too corny for her. He told her he lived on Siesta Key.
“So you’re not a snowbird?”
“Hey, I’m practically a native. You’re too young to know the Anne Murray song.”
To his delight she began to sing it.
“Perfect pitch.”
“I was going to say the same thing to you.”
Marriages are made in bookstores; at least theirs had been. They went out; they lolled on the beach; he showed her his place.
“I live in town, a dumpy little apartment.”
“This will be an improvement.”
“Ha ha.”
It was fate, they both knew it.
A month later she asked, “How old are you?”
“Two.” Chevrons in response. “Life begins at forty.”
She was twenty-eight. She wanted to hear about Notre Dame. So he told her about Mame and Beth and the trinity.
“The trinity?�
��
“It’s what we called Pat Pelligrino, Tim Quinn, and Dave Williams.”
She was from Toledo.
“One winter I said, that’s enough of this, so I headed down I-75 and there was Sarasota. I liked the name, don’t ask me why.”
“So we could meet.”
They were married in St. Michael’s on Siesta Key. Where do Floridians go for a honeymoon? Chicago. They drove down to South Bend, and he showed her around the campus, explaining his life to her.
“When you’re here, all you think about is getting out, but it’s like getting a tattoo. Indelible.”
She had put in two years in a municipal college and hated every minute of it. There was a houseful of siblings; her parents thought her move to Florida made sense. At the wedding, they were dressed for the North. Nice people, but illustrating the mystery of genetics. How had they produced Peaches? She told him later that her father hated Notre Dame.
“I thought I noticed the mark of the beast on him.”
“He’s gentle as a lamb. Too gentle. My mom runs the house.”
On campus it was clear that she had not inherited her father’s genes. She loved Notre Dame.
“All our kids will go here.”
“They’ll wear helmets if they do.”
Their passion was the nineteenth century and early twentieth, American and British. All those popular writers who had become classics. Casey knew Trollope’s autobiography by heart. A craftsman, a writer, burning it out. Like Dr. Johnson when he went to London and hacked for years. Of course, in those days hack writers had known Latin and Greek and based poems on those of Juvenal. Even so, Casey felt that he was carrying on in a noble tradition. Dave Williams had been curious to know what kind of money he made writing, probably unimpressed by the house. Dave had a regal place over on Longboat Key. Or did he? Peaches had learned it was on the market through multiple listing.
“Because of his wife, I suppose. That’s been a while, though.”
Peaches shrugged. “I’m glad we didn’t invest with him.”
Dave had never pressed him on that, no doubt thinking there wouldn’t have been enough money to bother about. When Bridget was still alive, they had gotten together several times while the Williamses were wintering at their place on Longboat Key. Of course the main topic had been Notre Dame, and their old friends.
“A Trappist monk?” Peaches had cried, when she first heard about Pat Pelligrino.
They heard from Brother Joachim at Christmas, just a card, but it was nice of him to keep in touch. Nice, too, to think that they had an advocate in a Trappist monastery.
It turned out that Dave was selling his boat, too, and that looked bad. On the other hand, he had got a lot of publicity about his twenty-million-dollar donation to Notre Dame. Then Dave called to say he was coming down.
“I may be closing on the house.”
“We’ll get together.”
“You couldn’t put me up, could you?”
“If you don’t mind roughing it. You’ve seen this place.” There was a cot in the third bedroom, and it sure wouldn’t be Longboat Key.
There he was, bragging again.
12
DAVE WILLIAMS FLEW INTO SARASOTA-Bradenton Airport, came into the waiting area, went past the aquarium surrounded by kids, and took the escalator down to baggage claim. He got his bag, picked up a rental car, and crossed University Parkway to a motel and checked in. Since it was before noon, he had to wait for his room to be ready.
When Della told him that Larry Briggs was going out to Notre Dame, Dave had been Mr. Cool on the phone, but he didn’t like it. Briggs had been hit hard, no doubt about that, but so had lots of other people. Briggs needed someone to blame, and who better than his financial adviser? It wasn’t much of a defense to tell Briggs he had lost a lot himself.
“I am in your hands,” Briggs had liked to say.
“I always consult you first.”
“What do I know about the market?”
A good attitude in a client, he would have said. “You don’t have to follow my advice, Larry.”
“Ha. You’re a magician. Philippa can’t believe how well we’re doing.”
Dave had taken that occasion to issue the standard warnings. Briggs had waved off the suggestion that he go maybe fifty-fifty on safe and sorry, even sixty-forty, but Briggs was hooked on higher returns. At the first shiver in the market, he had again told Larry it might not be wise to have everything in the blue chips.
“What else is there?”
“Municipal bonds.”
“What’s that, sewer systems, bridges?”
“It’s a small but safe return.”
“Where would I be now if I’d done that a year ago?”
Dave gave him a guess.
Larry snorted. “Let’s go on the way we are.”
So why was he blaming his adviser when he hadn’t taken his advice?
Flying off to Florida, he almost felt that he was fleeing from Larry Briggs.
He called Casey and listened to the phone ring six times. He was about to hang up when Casey answered.
“Yo.”
“Dave Williams, Casey. I just got in. When can we get together?”
“I’m still working on my daily stint. How about you and me and Peaches having dinner on St. Armand’s Circle tonight?”
“Great. Any chance of you and me talking before then?”
“You got wheels?”
“I’ve got wheels.”
“Think you can find this place?”
“If I can’t, I’ll sue Garmin. Two o’clock all right?”
Two o’clock was fine. It also gave him time to reconsider his idea of telling Casey what had happened at Notre Dame. Not the money, no need to go into that unless he had to, but Roger Knight had shown him Pat Pelligrino’s odd story and his claim of responsibility for the disappearance of Timothy Quinn.
“He can’t be serious.”
The bequest was more ominous than the annual card. During their senior year, they had drifted apart, he and Pat, even though they continued to be roommates. There was an accusative look in Pat’s eye. It was as if he were blaming Dave because Tim had decided to disappear.
“See much of Beth?”
“Do you?”
Answer a question with a question when you don’t know what to say. Beth’s changed attitude was more difficult to take than Pat’s. It was clear that she had written finis to their going together. Did she blame him for Tim, too?
Blurting out that he couldn’t take the money Pat left him had surprised Father Carmody, but what else could he say? Even before he read the confessional story, he had suspected that Pat was up to something. Over the years, his enigmatic messages on his Christmas card had been vaguely disturbing. Of course, they had to refer to long ago, when they had known one another, when they had been roommates at Notre Dame, when they had been close as brothers. They had dominated student drama in those days, with Pat’s spooky plays and with himself and Tim and Beth hogging the best roles. Casey and Mame had only got the crumbs. After the meeting in the Knights’ apartment, when Dave had decided to stay another day on campus, he went to Washington Hall, whose stage had been the scene of their triumphs, but the door was locked. Maybe just as well. His memory had kicked in already and didn’t need any further prods.
He walked past the Main Building and went into Sacred Heart, thinking he might just sit there and try to figure out what Pat was up to, but an officious little fellow with silver hair accosted him and wanted to know if he would like to be shown around. A guide. It made the church seem a museum. Dave shook him off and went up the left aisle, turned toward the sacristy, and went outside again. He hadn’t even breathed an Ave.
Breathed an Ave. He remembered Bridget singing “Danny Boy,” substituting “Davy,” a nice lugubrious song. The lover returns to the grave of his beloved, and she hears his footsteps above her. “For you will bend and whisper that you love me, and I will rest in peace until you come
to me.” How hauntingly her voice had risen on those last notes. So long ago. Everything seemed so long ago.
He went down to the Grotto again, sat for a while, but his mind was too full of too many things. Of course he knew where he was going.
Flags flapped from Old College on the side of the building that faced the lake as Dave walked along the road. Then there was the Log Chapel. He slowed his pace, trying to feel nonchalant. Would a boulder still be there after all these years?
It was.
He felt drawn toward it, but he stopped himself, filled with dread. What in hell was buried there? Was anything? He beat it back to the Morris Inn, checked out, and headed for the airport. Sufficient for the day are the evils thereof. He had enough problems in the present without brooding over events of twenty years ago.
Casey was in shorts and a T-shirt, barefoot, hair wild as if he had been running his fingers through it. The place hadn’t changed a bit.
“What a dump,” Dave said, but he said it with a smile.
“Yeah? What does your office look like?”
“Good point.” His office. He didn’t want to think of his office. He could work anywhere with his computer and cell phone. Mame Childers had sent an e-mail telling him that Briggs was trying to get her to take part in a class action against him, treating it as a joke.
The printer was rattling away, spilling out Casey’s morning stint.
“What is it?”
“I agreed to do some Westerns.”
“Westerns! What do you know about Westerns?”
“About as much as Max Brand when he started.”
“Let me see it.”
“Not on your life. I don’t even let Peaches read work in progress.”
“This place is a step up from a dorm room.”
“Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
He had forgotten asking if he could stay here. Following Casey upstairs, he felt it would be rude to tell him he had taken a motel room.
The second floor was livable, even comfortable, if you liked living in a library.
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