by Alan Lee
“You remember Rose? Every day?”
He smiled and looked up at the doorway, though she wasn’t there. “Rose is a lifesaver. She was my housekeeper before the accident. So yes.” He kept tapping the note about Rose promising to help him remember the dog. “My past self left no further clues. So…I’m trusting him that this is worthwhile. Think of the dog as an itch I need to scratch, but most of the time I don’t pay it much attention. Even so, satisfying the need will bring a measure of peace. But I need an able-bodied and able-minded person to do so. In my notes, you are listed as competent and trustworthy from a source I respect.”
“Okay. I’ll find the dog.”
“Excellent, thank you.”
“What then?”
He shrugged. Almost looked dismayed. “I don’t know.”
“I bet you don’t often get bored.”
“You’re right. The whole day feels like a revelation. Tomorrow will be the same, I imagine.”
“While I look, your job is to determine what to do once I find it.”
He didn’t reply.
“Let me hazard a guess. I have to find the dog without reading through your journals.”
He nodded. “Yes. These are as precious and private to me as are your own inner thoughts and emotions.”
“Except,” I pointed out. “I remember my thoughts and emotions. Whereas you have to worry about secrets you don’t know exist.”
“Precisely. Mr. August, let me congratulate you on your adaptability and perception. I retain a vague frustration with people’s inability to cope or understand my limitations. You work around it naturally.”
“Well,” I said. And shrugged. Brilliance being par for the course.
“Rose will provide you with a check.”
“Are there budgetary limitations?”
“Um,” he said. He placed his hands on the journals. Thought a moment. Glanced at both white boards. Said, “You know, I’m not positive. I used to be rich. I still work. So…I doubt it?”
“I’ll ask her.”
“Perfect,” he said again and he wrote in his journal.
Rose and I drank tea in the gourmet kitchen. I had a kitchen like this, I’d have two Michelin stars by now.
She blew into her china cup, the kind with thin blue designs. “Budgetary limitations, Mr. August? I don’t know how to answer. I keep his checkbook, so… Can you keep it under twenty-five thousand dollars?”
I did not spill my tea. “I can.”
“Good.”
“Tell me about him. I need a place to start.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll try.
“You know him well, I assume.”
She nodded. “I’ve worked for Ulysses seven years, including the three since the crash. First as a housekeeper, then as a caretaker. He’s lived here for maybe fifteen?”
“Anything I should know about the car wreck?”
She looked unhappy. “He drove off a short cliff. Late at night, he was exhausted. No other cars involved.”
“Family?”
“He is divorced. Happened around the time of his accident.”
“That have anything to do with the car crash?”
She set down her mug. Didn’t look at me. “I hope not.”
“Where does the ex-wife live?
“Here, in Roanoke. I’ll write down the address.”
“Any children?”
“Yes. A daughter. The great joy of his life. That’s her there.” She indicated a framed photo near the light switches. Blonde girl smiling next to an Audi with a big red bow on it. “Alex is at Virginia Tech. I’ll get you her number.”
“Any idea which dog he wants to find?”
“I have an educated guess. He bought a puppy a month before his accident. That’s the only dog he’s ever been around, as far as I can tell. After the crash, we lost her.”
“Has he previously tried finding it?”
“Yes. It’s difficult to search for long when you can’t remember what you’re looking for. Or why. The police laughed us off. A year ago he hired a different private investigator and, well…”
“You had a bad experience.”
“We did.”
“He took your money and a week later said he’d looked everywhere and couldn’t find anything,” I said.
“Yes. That’s what happened.”
“Which is why you looked nervous in my office.”
“I did?”
“Who was he?”
She told me. I knew the guy—a clown. I said, “Understandable. This time will be different, Rose.”
She looked like she wanted to be relieved, like she wanted to believe me. “That’s what we heard.”
“Would Ulysses remember about the dog if it wasn’t for the journal?”
“I think so. It nags at him, vaguely. He doesn’t remember details, but ideas and…themes get lodged. And recently, he’s waking up preoccupied with something and when he looks at his notes he remembers that it’s the dog. And then remember it again later in the day. I know that’s weird.”
“Tell me about the puppy.”
“He brought the dog home just before the accident. A puppy. But he hated dogs, Mr. August. Isn’t that strange? It had been wounded somehow at the breeder, but quickly recovered. Then, after the accident, one day it was gone.”
“What kind of dog?”
“A boxer.”
“Short hair,” I said.
“Yes. He hated dog hair. Even so, the puppy was a great surprise.”
“What kind of wound?”
“I don’t know. It healed quickly, but perhaps seeing the wound stirred his paternal instincts?”
“His journal said the dog was the key. To what?”
She picked up her tea cup. “I don’t know.”
“Have you checked the pounds? I imagine they keep records.”
“I assume the previous man we hired tried? But, Mr. August, I don’t think the puppy simply ran away. It was a puppy, and I had to pay her close attention. Remember, he got it just weeks before his accident. While he was in the hospital, I moved in here and I took care of the dog and house at the request of his family. When he came home, he had a nurse tend the burns and check his vitals, and an occupational therapist help with memory loss coping strategies, and he had other visitors. In and out, in and out. And it was during this time that the puppy, well, it vanished. She had a collar, so I don’t think…I mean, if she ran away or was hit by a car, we’d have been notified.”
“So,” I said with keen perspicaciousness. “Someone took it.”
“Maybe? I think so.”
“Why’d you move in?”
“The family asked me to.”
“What’s the dog’s name?”
“Georgina Princess Steinbeck.”
“Jiminy Christmas.”
“It’s a lot.” She said it with a laugh.
“For a man who hated dogs.”
“Yes. Isn’t it silly?”
“So, the dog, the divorce, and the car wreck. They all happened…what, within a month?”
She looked as though she wanted to cry. “He got a dog, he wrecked, and the divorce finalized three days after he returned home from the hospital—in that order. His ex-wife isn’t a heartless woman, though. That’s simply the way it played out.”
“Was the divorce contentious?”
“A little. He…well, he squandered much of their money when they separated. Very out of character for him, and she was understandably upset.”
“Yikes.”
“It was a hard time for everyone. Especially their daughter, Alex.”
I said, “Can you generate a list of everyone who visited him around the time the dog disappeared?”
“I’ll try. It was three years ago, however.”
“The details are hazy.”
“Hazy, yes.” She nodded into her tea.
“That’s how he feels, I bet. All the time.”
“Oh. What a very clever point, Mr. August.”
“There are many kinds of stupidity, Rose, and I’m afraid cleverness is the worst.”
“You’re quoting someone?”
“Yes,” I said. “But botching it.”
4
I was married. Technically. Kinda. My marriage had been imparted to me.
I was married to a prostitute. Or, she had been. Kinda. Against her will.
It was complex.
But she quit the lifestyle and angered people. The people were angry at her and angry at me. And angry at their parents for rearing them in such a way they’d become reliant on prostitutes for affection. She asked for our phones to be linked so I could see her location at all times. She got kidnapped, I’d know immediately. Not a bad idea. Creepy, but not bad.
Long way of saying, I knew she was at her office because a map on my phone told me so. I called Roxanne and asked her to keep Kix an extra hour, and I drove to Veronica’s office, off Salem Avenue downtown Roanoke, and nestled into the long galley parking lot among the panoply of lower tier luxury cars. She worked on the second floor of a renovated brick building with several law offices, great view of the trains.
Her receptionist was gone for the day.
Ronnie sat at her desk. If angels could look weary, that’d be her expression. She saw me and smiled and I didn’t levitate but almost.
My old pal Ruben Collier took his ease across from her, his appearance incongruent with the upscale decor—he wore muddy work boots, Dickies, thick Carhartt jacket, unadorned ball cap, knife clipped inside his pocket. Large eyes, friendly smile.
“Ruben, you ol’ prolific grower of marijuana, you.” We shook hands. Mine were stronger. His were tougher. Call it a tie. “How’s business.”
He grinned good-naturedly. “S’the winter, Mr. August. I’m recuperating. Bout to take the wife to Florida for a week.”
“Rubes, can I call you Rubes? Rubes, what’ll happen when the entire nation legalizes weed? You go out of business? Or start making even more?”
“Got no idea. After all, ain’t my business. It’s hers.” He nodded at Veronica Summers, my wife. Kinda.
Veronica blew a strand of blond hair away from her face. “That’s what we’re discussing.”
“Trouble afoot? Other than you producing and distributing enough ‘Schedule I’ narcotics to go to prison forever?”
She groaned and laid her head on the desk. “Yes. Other than that. One of my wholesale buyers was arrested.”
“You have wholesale buyers?”
“Apparently.”
Ruben Collier said, “He’s gone. Prison for the next twenty years.”
“Can he rat on either of you?”
“No. Everything I handled was through drop-offs and the phone, Mr. August. Trouble is, I got bushels of weed just a’sitting there.”
“Sorry, bushels?”
He nodded. “Bushels, Mr. August.”
Ronnie groaned. Head down, she gripped a pen in both hands and absently twisted. “I don’t want to sell marijuana. Or grow it, or whatever. Even if it makes me rich.”
“Does it make you rich?”
She raised up. Eyes wide. Slow nod. “More than I make as an attorney. A lot more. And I love being rich. But still, I don’t wanna.”
“So crime does pay. I suspected it might. Maybe Ruben would like to own the land he tends? And the inherent business?”
“Oh no.” He raised his hands, palms out. “No sir, not for me. I like things the way it is.”
“Ruben is helping me brainstorm. We need to move the marijuana. A lot of dealers south of here are without product. Unhappy buyers and unhappy dealers, but we don’t know who they are or how to contact them. Only my wholesaler knew them. It’s all run through relationships. But apparently,” she said and she pointed at Ruben. “They know how to contact Ruben. And they’re making threats.”
I said, “So send them the bushels.”
“We’ve heard from two dealers so far. But I bet there are…I don’t know, dozens? Hundreds? Waiting and angry? I don’t want to anger the Kings either. They get a small cut, I think. This is a mess, Mackenzie.”
Ruben winked at me. “See? I don’t want to be in charge, sir.”
“Where are the bushels now?”
“Got’em in a climate controlled storage unit, Franklin County.”
“Ruben, you’re the tops.”
“Anything worth doing, Mr. August, better do it right. Even if I can tell you don’t approve of her being in the business.”
“Okay.” Ronnie stood. Set her hands on the table and leaned on them. “I’m tired. Let’s make a decision. Here’s what it is. Ruben, thank you for letting me know. I’ll have answers for you within a couple days. Mackenzie, you’re taking me to dinner. I need alcohol and maybe lobster. And then we’re arranging a meeting with Marcus. I bet he knows a buyer. Maybe he’ll buy me out himself. Sound good to everyone?”
Ruben chuckled and nodded. “Absolutely, Ms. Summers.”
I nodded also. “Absolutely, Ms. Summers.”
We ate at Table 50. She ordered low country shrimp and grits—not lobster, which was overrated anyway. She didn’t eat much but it looked good next to her two dirty martinis. I had a rack of lamb with polenta and a Fat Tire. The lights were down, the candles lit, the waiters pious. Our table was in the corner, giving us freedom to wholly express ourselves.
“Mackenzie, would it hurt your feelings if I slept at my place tonight?”
“It would not.”
“That’s one of your many baffling characteristics.” She ate a shrimp thoughtfully. “You aren’t easily offended. Or offended at all.”
“The world needs fewer people getting offended, you ask me. Love is patient. And does not take offense.”
“Most of the girls I know use taking offense as a tool to manipulate. Are these girls not in love?”
I drank some beer. “Doing their best at it. Failing a lot. Love is not an easy thing to do. Are you such a girl?”
“I’ll try not to be. It will require practice. But, about tonight, life has been a whirlwind. I’m behind on work and I haven’t been home recently even though that’s where all my beautiful clothes are, and…and I think there might be two girls still living there. I forgot about them.”
“Prostitutes?”
“Whores, prostitutes, call girls, whatever they are, yes. But, no, I just remembered, they left last week. That’s good. I miss my bed.”
“Two prostitutes you’re rescuing?”
“You can’t rescue people, Mackenzie. You taught me that. I gave them a safe place for a while.”
I said, “You’re doing a lot.”
“It is a lot.” She nodded. She wielded her fork to delicately slide a shrimp into the pile of grits. Slid it out and pushed it in again, not watching. She looked out of place here, as though the ambiance hit her differently than us mortals. She carried movie star lighting with her. Her articulation made me realize I mumble, her posture made me realize I slouch. “And it all happened so fast. My father dying, the showdown with Darren, your abduction, the trip to Italy, your recovery…”
“Not to mention our sudden and unexpected marriage.”
“Right.” She smiled. “That was a larger surprise for you than me. Do you think we should get it annulled?”
“Maybe.”
She sucked in air. Dropped her fork. Knocked over her empty martini glass. The candles caught in her eyes, turning a shade of hurt. “Oh. Oh wow, I didn’t…”
“Hear me out.”
“Oh Jesus, I was just joking. You want…?”
I placed my hands on hers. Squeezed so she couldn’t pull away. “Ronnie. Relax. What I meant was, I never got to propose. We didn’t do it right.”
Her fingers trembled.
I said, “One of the things about me, I keep my word. I keep promises. And we never made them.”
She nodded. Not looking at me. “Okay. So then…so?”
“I think we should.”
“You want t
o have a real wedding ceremony? Me in a white dress?” She snorted. “Walk down the aisle, throw flowers, eat fucking cake?”
“I couldn’t care less about ceremonies and flowers. But the vows seem important. And the cake.”
She nodded. Still shaken and unconvinced.
Mackenzie August, leaping before he looks.
“Ronnie—”
“I switched counselors,” she said. Eyes on the candle. Resembling a lost, scared teenager girl. “Total Life Counseling.”
“Like it?”
“I confessed everything. In the first thirty minutes, I mean, I just… I told her I killed my dad. Told her I killed a woman in Italy. That somehow I’m the biggest marijuana producer in western Virginia. Used to be a prostitute. It simply spilled out. She was very kind. As she listened, she grew pale. She started perspiring and drank an entire bottle of water. She prescribed anti-anxiety meds. Recommended we meet next week, and often thereafter. On her note pad, I bet she wrote, ‘Bitch is a hopeless mess.’”
“That is some elite psychotherapy jargon.”
“My point is, Mackenzie, I’m a wreck. I cover it up well with mascara, but…it’s there.”
“I think—”
“And you know what? You are too. A wreck, I mean.”
I nodded. “No question. For example I’m late picking up my son.”
“No, I mean it. For a long time, I thought you were a whole human being. The most complete person I knew. But…you aren’t, are you.”
“Sooner you realize that the better.”
“I phrased that incorrectly. You’re still the best person I know, I think. I still adore you. But you have a significant character flaw.”
I frowned. “Okay. Easy. Flaw is a little harsh. I have…creases.”
“Want to know what your character flaw is?”
“Heavens no.”
“You’re dedicating yourself to the wrong woman. And you can’t stop.”
I didn’t reply. We proceeded on thin ice and I detected deepening cracks. Everybody be cool. Also, Lancelot though I may be, I didn’t like my flaws highlighted.