Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2)

by Noel J. Hadley

  Elise kept quiet on her end, but I suspect she didn't want to let me hang up either. She finally said: “I won't ask you to tell me anything incriminating.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “That being said, I already have a brother behind bars. I don't know if I can handle it if you were to join him.”

  “I'm giving an old friend one more shot at redemption, that's all.”

  This time even Penny and Richie joined Leah in a gasp of disapproval.

  Elise thought about it. “That sounds very much like the man I know and love. You and Benjamin really are a lot alike, caring and compassionate. I think a lot more people would be in trouble with the government if they followed their moral convictions. If I still have any tokens to cash in, I may ask for the same thing in the future.”

  “I'm not exactly trying to overthrow the government, here.” There was more sighing from the others, so I rephrased my response. “Is that what you want, redemption?”

  “Doesn't everybody?”

  “No,” I concluded. “I don't think they do. Salvation is foolishness to the self-appointed wise.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sounds like you got that from the Bible.”

  “I guess so. We'll talk about this later, when I get back. Goodnight, Elise.”

  She said: “Goodnight,” and waited for me to hang up the phone.

  And that's what I did.

  10

  ABOUT 87 MILES and who knows how many toll booths later the sign read (all caps): WALT WHITMAN SERVICE AREA 1 MILE. I immediately said to Leah: “Pull over.”

  Leah's eyelids were only a couple of blinks away from clamping shut into a permanent mold, which meant she was more than willing to make an unplanned turn-off. The Walt Whitman Service Area in Cherry Hill was a little island unto itself, nestled comfortably between the north and southbound NJ Turnpike travel lanes. Pronounced on the sign was a Sunoco gas station and a food court which included Nathan's, Roy Rogers, and a Cinnabon, but Leah kept as far away from the unknowable crowds and street lamps as possible. She looped around to the edge of the parking lot, where rumbling diesel trucks kept to their own vagabond business and the darkness struggled for dominance, and shut off Albino Cave Dweller’s engine. I thought about Walt Whitman, the perfect person to name a rest stop after, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was happy with the food selection. I would have wanted a Chili's.

  Richie exited the car before I did, karate band still wrapped around his balding skull. He had been seated in the front (where Arnie the Hammer attempted his dramatic bear-like break-in) and I the back, but it was when Richie closed the door behind him that we heard a clang-clang. Richie went ghostly white (his skin was already rather pearly), he grasped his chest and made a little jump, and said, “Oh my god.”

  The hook was still latched onto the handle.

  “What is it?” Both Penny and Leah simultaneously matched those identical words as they exited from the other end of Albino Cave Dweller.

  “Nothing,” Richie and I collectively said, syllables mostly matching up.

  Leah yawned. “Richie, you look like a hitchhiking ghost was staring back at you in the rearview mirror.”

  “Girl, don't be ridiculous.” And then he whispered at my side. “Because then I'd be crazy, right?”

  “Any tricks of the trade for staying awake?” Leah welcomed the crisp chill of the pre-dawn hours with a deep inhale and stretch of her limbs, making her way around the front of the rusted clunker and to my side. A yawn finished off the ensemble.

  “First off, stop yawning. It’s contagious. The stretching is good though.” Richie had attempted to remove the dangling hook, but he was too slow at the task. I stood in front of it now, hoping the girls wouldn't notice, dug into my pockets and retrieved a twenty. “Here. Go buy yourself a Red Bull and a coffee. Take turns swigging them.”

  “Red Bull is gross.” She made a wrinkled face. “I'll drink Rock Star though.”

  “Fine, go buy yourself a Rock Star and a coffee. Same instructions apply.”

  She took a step or two towards the flooded light of the food court and then stopped, considered the matter, and wearily turned around; another failed attempt to remove the hook. Richie did manage to jump in front of it though and stand at attention, which only drew more attention to the item he was attempting to hide. Leah glared at her roommate with suspicion and then turned to me. “You actually do that?”

  “It's how I've stayed alive all these years on the road.”

  “Aren't you worried about your heart exploding?”

  “When I get especially tired I hang my head out the window and sing Tiny Dancer at the top of my lungs.”

  Leah yawned. “But Albino Cave Dweller only plays Shania Twain.”

  “Then we're in trouble. And stop yawning.”

  Penny desperately needed to pay her respects to the porcelain bowl. In case anyone had their doubts, she pressed her legs together and twitched her upper torso in uncomfortable patterns, but stood by regardless of anyone's lack of enthusiasm and waited for her female companion. Recent rules of the road stated that nobody went anywhere alone, not even to the bathroom.

  To Penny's excitement, Leah started up across the lot in the direction of Walt Whitman's honorary crapper, except she turned around again, thus delaying Penny's inevitable appointment. Richie had attempted a third retrieval, a no-go, so managed another blockade of military-like attention. Leah stared at him with ever growing suspicion. “Why did we stop? We're so close to our destination.”

  “Because I've got....to.....go.....”

  “What Penny said, and I've got some questions I need to ask Alex before we release him,” I said.

  Leah started walking in my direction, head lowered and arms folded over her breasts to keep the warmth from escaping, much to Penny's frustration and horror. Her jittering accelerated.

  “Alone.”

  “Got it, it's a bro thing.” She turned around and started back towards Whitman's porcelain memorial (but not before granting Richie one more suspicious glare), shivering. Penny decided not to wait and charged ahead. Leah moved her legs in an accelerated scissor motion to keep up. She even said: “Hold your horses. I'm coming.”

  “I've got a black stallion to drop, honey.” Penny's voice was distant but discernible as I went for the trunk.

  Richie said: “Can I stand guard, just in case Captain Hook shows up again?”

  “Yes, but let's keep thee, um, present whereabouts of that accessory of his just between us boys.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper.” Richie finally lifted it off the handle. He barely craned it between two fingers, his thumb and index, making icky expressions with every member of his face. I couldn't blame him. I would have considered screaming like Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom.

  Richie gave it the old college try and hurdled the hook with an overarm pitch, and with about as much sportsmanship as a t-ball league, towards the tree-line. Only it managed to slap the side of a semi-truck instead, bounce off, and clang miserably across the parking lot, a pitch that would have lost him try-outs even at t-ball.

  He waited until it stopped clanging, held both hands over his nose and mouth, and started to speak, except for the fact that it continued clanging about. As soon as it was completely clanged out, he said: “Sorry.”

  “Next time let’s try not to bring attention to ourselves.”

  We thought we might have heard the hook make another miserable clang. Richie tightened his jaw together but separated his lips, revealing two rows of stressed out teeth, and returned both hands to his nose.

  I said: “How about you keep a lookout while I talk with my friend. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yes, Sensei.”

  Opening the trunk, Alex was disoriented, so I forcibly helped him out. He wrapped both arms around his chest to fend off the onslaught of cold, squinting at the floodlights. I ushered him across the grass towards the tree line in sloppy hurdles. He must have been exhausted, and almo
st tripped several times. Of course, sleep wasn't exactly in my favor either. I wondered if his nightmares were anything like mine. The trunk, with its claustrophobic darkness and heat (only memory and despair to fill what space was available in his skull) must have been hell for him. Then again, if we're on the subject of hell, maybe I was just preparing him for his eventual arrival to its unknown address if Creepy Urinal Guy or any of Parisi's thugs caught up to us.

  He scrunched his face together and said: “Where are we?”

  “Rest stop; it's called the Walt Whitman Service Area.”

  “Figures. You would pull over for anything paying homage to a poet.”

  Reading Alex was always a difficult thing. I rarely could figure out if he was being sarcastic or spiteful. Perhaps his dualistic nature allowed for a simultaneous nurturing of both. One observation stood out, however; this was no longer the A. Parker that I'd known for so long, whom I'd once so affectionately referred to in college as Meat-Duck. Whoever fumbled before me now was a frightened animal, sapped of soul.

  “Shut up.” I pushed him into the privacy of our tree-line.

  He fell forwards, barely catching himself with the palm of both hands, and the right side of his face scooped up a pile of earth. I turned around nervously to see if a trucker or casual traveling businessman like me had caught sight of my deed. The parking lot was mostly empty. Richie remained fixed at attention where the grassy lawn met pavement, arms crossed and back turned to us, keeping a careful watch for Creepy Urinal Guy as Leah and Penny bundled up together, locking arms, on the final sprint towards the food court. For a moment Alex gazed up at the trees, the soft wind rustling through their branches, and at the teeth of the Cheshire cat for a moon, illuminating us with blue light. If only the man on the moon had the consciousness to exist. If only it watched us and scribbled the things it saw into a little notebook. What stories could be written if it had the hands to write them?

  “Are you gonna just leave me here?” He scrubbed wet earth from his cheeks.

  “You don't get to ask the questions. You've lost that right. Now tell me about the night of your father's murder.”

  “You brought me all the way here to ask me that?”

  “I'm not letting you slip away again without finishing our little interview. Did you or did you not see Shaggy murder your father?”

  “Who’s Shaggy?”

  “Never mind that; the homeless man.”

  “What does it matter?” His voice had a nauseating whimper to it.

  “It matters to me. It's personal. When you attacked that man on the corner of Haight and Ashbury you made it personal in more ways than you can ever possibly know.”

  It was the first time I ever saw Alex break down into tears. “Everyone in my life is dead; my father, Gracie, and now Nick Turino. Those bastards keep striping them from me.” Snot played mischief with his nose. He took the time to wipe it using one arm. There was no doubt in my mind that I was staring down at a pathetic, broken man, but how much of this was calculated on his part? I thought first about Doctor Barbara Kennedy, how nothing escaped that woman's movement that she didn't want me to see, and then Leah, with her faker than boob-job expressions of Hollywood.

  “A shame, forgive me for not sympathizing. Did he do it?”

  “I...yes and no,” his mouth looked parched, “I was probably wrong about that.”

  “Probably?”

  “That entire night was a total eclipse for me. One minute I was sitting in a reclinable watching Denver beat the Giants, Monday Night Football, and then it was Tuesday morning, September f-ing Eleventh. Blood everywhere, on the rug, on the walls. My clothes were soaked in it. Airliners were crashing into buildings on the television and there I was sopping up my father's guts on the floor. When the police arrived they even pulled a chunk of his brains from my hair.” Talking about it was all he could do to keep from crying. He probably would have continued rambling endlessly had I not interrupted him.

  “And you don't remember a thing.”

  “Imagine waking up with the television on and the World Trade Center under attack while your father is wielded into some sick abstract sculpture at your side.”

  “Why didn't the police suspect you of it?”

  “My ribs were cracked. And my left kneecap was fractured. The same blunt object that crushed his skull had been used on me, not to mention the residue on my fingernails. It all pointed to a struggle. They found a crowbar on the driveway like some sort of announcement or Easter egg waiting to be found. That sick artist was leaving his calling card.”

  “Alex, if you can't remember anything....”

  “I....I didn't always remember it. Things change. Memories change.”

  “What do you mean, always?”

  “A couple of years ago Gracie and I were having some marriage issues. A little alcohol had gotten between us, nothing that couldn't be fixed. So her cousin sent me to a rehab center up in Malibu.” I'd met one of Gracie's cousins. His name was Dino. Certainly not a confirmation of identity, but I rubbed my cheek anyways at the memory of Dino's slaps. Then again, Gracie had slapped me too, not my favorite declaration of goodnight in the Mancini household. I would have preferred Dino’s kisses had he offered them. Alex continued: “Anyways, I partook in a recovered memory exercise.”

  I said: “Hypnosis?”

  “Mm-hmm, that's when I first saw him. The man I jumped last weekend.”

  I tried not to laugh. I'd learned much from Elise during her doctorate program, and recovered memory was one of them. The academic types usually kept away from this method for a number of reasons. One, it was scientifically unsound. The problem with hypnosis, Elise once told me, is that the mind doesn't work like that. It's not some recorder that you can just play back after a classroom lecture. Unfortunately what happens, she said, is that your mind creates memories of their own, sometimes based merely on the hypnotists suggestions, and they're almost always bad.

  I summed it up by saying: “Your conscious isn't the Nixon tapes, Alex.”

  He understood immediately what I meant by it. “I saw that man in my memory recovery exercise years before I ever spotted him on the streets of San Francisco. Explain that!”

  He had a point, but his weariness had produced an unwanted agitation now. Richie used hand signals that I took to mean shush down or shut up.

  I said: “Keep your voice down, or someone else is bound to notice and start asking questions. I'm the only one that can help you right this moment. Okay, so let's go over this again. You saw that same homeless man in your state of hypnosis.”

  “That's what I said. I don't subscribe to coincidence.”

  “Me neither. What was he doing?”

  “I was clawing at the bastard. And I put up one hell of a good fight too.”

  “Yes, but did you see him do it, in this so-called recovered memory of yours?”

  “What, are you studying up on your private eye license? This has nothing to do with anything. Every question you ask only allows Arnie the Hammer to inch closer.”

  “Just shut up and answer my question. Did you see him kill your father?”

  Alex didn't want to answer the question, and I knew why. Indeed he didn't see the Shaggy Man kill his father. One suspicion on my part was that the cosmic homeless man was never physically present to begin with. Perhaps he was there on some emotional or spiritual or maybe even subconscious level, one that was burned into his brain, if that makes any sense. But I chose not to say that out loud.

  “Jeez, you're persistent,” he finally said. “And I told you, I was probably mistaken about that. For years I've been looking for the man who killed my father. Hell, even the Mancini family's been hunting him down. He's been a no-show, a phantom, until this week.”

  “The man with a hook for a hand…”

  “Arnie the Hammer, is it any coincidence that he showed up the week after I beat on the old man?”

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  “I thought you didn't subscri
be to....”

  “They're not related, Alex.”

  Alex shook his head. “And how would you know that?”

  “I just know.”

  “Sure, whatever, that homeless man that we saw up in San Francisco, he was at the scene of the crime. He had to have been. Maybe he wasn't swinging the hammer, but they were in it together.”

  “He and Arnie the Hammer…”

  “What are we, a broken record? That's what I've been trying to say, man.”

  “Alex, do you remember the last time we were together?”

  “Of course, you drove me to LAX.”

  “No, not that; I mean the last time we were really together, long before we reconnected this summer at that biker bar outside of Vegas. Think back. It was the summer of 2001.”

  Parker's eyes drifted into the not-so distant past. “Yeah, we had dinner at Hoff's Hutt on PCH, Long Beach. That was back when they were still open twenty-four hours. Elise was there.”

  “Uh-huh. Our relationship was strained even then, yours and mine. And what did we talk about?”

  Alex sighed with an ever growing impatience. “My father's gambling debts. It was a week or two before his murder, and his fingers had been busted earlier that summer; his kneecaps too. I remember Elise showed some real concern. She said she could help. I laughed it off and asked her if she had a hundred grand in spare change, which she didn't.”

  My eyes lit up. I said: “My point exactly. It was Elise.”

  Yes, Elise sent him, I thought to myself. It was truly a revelatory moment. Her imaginary childhood friend rescued dumb-ass from receiving the punishment reserved for his father. That's why he was there, not to kill anyone, but to look out for him, to save the wild ass from destruction.

  There was no use asking my wife about it. She'd deny everything, but only because she probably didn't believe it herself. I had to remind myself that a logical thinker in the western tradition couldn't possibly believe in something so far-reaching. I wasn't even sure I believed it. But I was well beyond self-doubt about my own sanity, and it was a working theory, anyways.