“It’s an old section of the town, narrow streets, lots of turns and twists. It’s raining lightly, there’s a mist, I see her go down one alleyway, I catch a glimpse of her turning down another. I have no idea where she’s going, but I’m curious, right? Who the hell is she, right? This ain’t no yuppie like I ever saw before. Another turn, across a bigger street and into another alley. All the time I’m seeing just bits of her, never the full thing. I catch just the flash of her heel as she turns down a narrow cobbled street. I make the turn, and next thing I know I’m on the ground, a knee in my crotch, a knife at my throat, and the bull dyke staring down at me with a look that lets me know she’d do it, she’d do it, and damn if slicing my throat wouldn’t be the most fun she could ever have with a man. And behind her, calmly leaning against a wall, smoking, stands the girl.
“‘What do you want?’ she says.
“‘A word, is all,’ I says.
“‘Go ahead,’ she says.
“‘Let me up first,’ I says.
“‘No,’ she says, and the dyke presses the knife a little harder at my throat.
“‘Fine,’ I says. ‘At my age I can use a little time off my feets.’
“And then I tell her, I tell her about the husband coming into my office, about the missus and the lawn boy, about the pictures of the two of them in the Bellevue. When you’re in a situation like that, it don’t pay to hold nothing back. You give it all, the whole of it, and hope they get so lost in the details they don’t know what to do. But this bird, she knows what to do. She starts to laughing.
“‘Is that all?’ she says. ‘I hope you caught my good side.’
“‘From what I could tell,’ I says, ‘that’s all you got.’
“And the bull dyke, she stares down at me and says, ‘Don’t make me puke.’
“‘All right, Tiffany,’ says the girl. ‘Let him up.’
“The bull dyke lets me up. I look at her in her leather vest, shoulders bulging, Doc Martens, and all I can say is, ‘Tiffany? You gots to be kidding.’
“The dyke snarls, the girl laughs, and the next thing I know the girl and I, we’re in that lesbo bar, downing vodka martinis, trading cigs, laughing like we was the oldest of old pals. I ask her if she wants to get married to the lawyer. All she says is ‘Please.’ I ask her why and she shows me her pinkie. Then she turns her face away and says in the saddest voice I ever heard, ‘Besides, it would end up bloody.’ I asks her to explain. She shakes her head. Then she writes a name on a napkin and tells me before I meet with either husband or wife I oughts to find out what I can about it. For her. The only requirement is that no one knows it was she what set me on the name. And right there she writes me a check for my retainer. My third retainer.
“You would think it would be a trick with just a name to go on, figuring what there was to learn. You’d think. But I look up the name and then knocks on a door and some old lady, she just invites me in, pours me a cup of herbal, puts out a plate of biscuits, and starts chatting off my ear. Nice old lady she was, old for sure, what with her skin like tissue paper and me being able to see the blue veins pulsing in her neck. Never had no children, she tells me, but she was married for forty years to Morty. I hear a lot about Morty. He fought in the war, occupied Japan, through no fault of his own came down with some tropical disease transmitted by the mosquito that left him sterile. A senseless tragedy, she says, though I’m thinking that if Morty can convince her that the clap is transmitted by the mosquito, then what couldn’t she be convinced of? So I asks about her estate and she tells me it’s all taken care of, handled by a very sweet young man who calls her every day. She’s going to give it all to the nunnery, that’s what she plans, and every day the sweet young lawyer calls and tells her how the market moved that day. It’s going to be a tidy sum, yes, it’s going to raise some eyebrows, oh, yes. There’ll be a building at the nunnery named after Morty, oh, yes, oh, yes. Won’t that be something?
“No, it won’t. Because there’s nothing left in the trust account, is there? Nothing left, the sweet young lawyer has taken it all. Except he’s not so sweet, not so young. All he is is a frigging lawyer. And, of course, he’s the husband.
“So’s I go back to the chippy, though by now I know she’s no chippy, and tell her what I found, and she’s not the least bit shocked. And here’s the tripper, she tells me to give it to the wife, the name and the story, to let the wife do with it whatever she wants. I toss her a look like she’s crazy, like she can do a lot better for herself with the information, but she just tells me to shut up and do what I’m told. Well, that’s what she’s paying me for, and so that’s what I do. I give the pictures of the wife and the lawn boy to the husband. I give the pictures of the husband and the chippy to the wife. And with those pictures I give the name, address, and story of the old lady.
“Now, I can’t say for sure what happened in the meeting with the lawyers once the husband told the missus he wanted the divorce. I wish I was there, it must have been something. But in the end the husband and wife, they stayed married after all. In fact, they went on a European holiday for three months after. The north of Italy, the South of France. They would have gone to the coast of Luxembourg, excepting Luxembourg’s got no coast. It must have been lovely, and it was quite the shopping spree if my sources were right. And funny thing, I ran into the missus a little while after she got back, and she was happy as an oyster, had even lost some pounds and was looking rather svelte. Rather svelte. I’d of done her myself, I would, but now she was happily married.
“And the chippy that wasn’t no chippy? Listen to this. The wife, she insists, insists that the chippy leave the husband’s firm. And the chippy, she balks. No way in hell she’s leaving without a little something to remember him by. The husband, now desperate to keep the wife happy, gives the chippy a slew of cases, some profitable ones, too, I might add, and some money if she’d just leave. And so she does. Starts her own place, turns those cases into cash, begins to make a name for herself. She did quite well, didn’t she? Lost a arsehole and gained a practice all in one swell foop.
“It was my kind of case, it was. Three clients, three retainers, and the outcome, in a rough sense, was just. But the best thing was meeting the chippy. We became partners of a sort. I did her investigations, working on the sly mostly, helped those fees of hers roll in. And she, she was something, she was, special, and far too smart for the likes of me. Wheels within wheels within wheels.”
“Hailey,” I said.
“She was a hell of a girl, and I miss her.”
“So do I.”
“I believe you do.”
“I thought you might have killed her,” I said.
“I knows you did. I could see it in them peepers of yours. And me, I was wondering what kind of man represents the killer of the girl what he’s doing the old Friar Tuck to every chance he gets? I thought you was going to use some insider knowledge to get him off the hook and get your face all over the papers. I didn’t like that idea, wasn’t so happy with that. I figured I owed the girl enough to not let that happen. That’s why I came on so hard over my oatmeal. But after watching you for the last couple days, I gots a different idea.”
“Go ahead.”
“This is what I thinks.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “I thinks at first you weren’t taking the deal because you thought it too sweet. You thought the bastard did it, and you was standing by your Guy just to be sure he paid the ultimate price. That was what your meeting with Peale was all about, wasn’t it? Setting him up to tell the coppers all about our Mr. Gonzalez. You’re taking our little murder all personal like, playing at being being the Lone Ranger.”
“And you’re not?”
I stared at him, he stared back.
“You’re a piece of work, ain’t you, Vic?” he said. “But you don’t think he did it no more, do you?”
“Nope.”
“Something switched in your head.”
“Like a light turning on.”
“What changed your mind?”
I picked up my wine, stared into the deep crimson before taking a drink. “Hailey changed my mind. I finally learned the whole sad story of her and Guy. She was in control. From the very first, when she met him in that hospital room, to the very last, on the night of her death, when she told him it was over, she was in control. Total control. Guy never had a chance.”
“Not much a one, no.”
“And you helped set him up, didn’t you? Hailey needed to know all about the man defending the Gonzalez case to lay her trap, and you gave her what she needed. And when Guy thought you were threatening her, you were really just giving her little tidbits to help her scheme.”
Skink didn’t answer.
“Well, if she was so much in control, how could she have ever let it happen? How could she have miscalculated so? Unless she didn’t and he didn’t. Tell you what I think, I think he was in thrall to her to the very end. I think he was too whipped to kill her.”
“Or maybe he fooled her like he fooled you. He’s a harder piece of work than he lets on. You should a seen how viciously he cut down the claims of the poor injured wretches what fell in his path. Not an ounce of mercy. He left his wife and kids at the drop of a skirt and stole a million in the process. That bastard is capable of anything. You was right from the first. It was Guy what done it.”
“Nope, it was someone else. And I have a pretty good idea where I need to go to find who.”
“Where’s that?”
“You much interested in history?”
“Julius Caesar?” said Skink. “The bloody fall of the bloody Roman Empire?”
“No, the recent past. Hailey Prouix’s past. I’m taking a trip, and that’s where I’m headed.” I stared at his ugly mug for a moment, thought of his story and the tenderness behind it, and then said softly, “You coming?”
Skink tilted his head.
“I was looking through what you left me in the briefcase,” I said. “Keepsakes from her past. I have some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“The usual. An idyllic childhood that might not have been so idyllic. An accidental death that might not have been an accident.”
“And you think all that has something to do with what happened to Hailey?”
“Now that you’re no longer a suspect, maybe I do. That’s what I’m taking the trip to find out. You coming?”
“Where to?”
“Pierce, West Virginia.”
“Her girlhood home.”
“You coming?”
“You won’t find nothing.”
“Sure I won’t.”
“It’s been too long.”
“Far too long.”
“Nobody no more knows nothing.”
“You coming?”
Skink sucked his teeth for a moment. “I charge two-fifty a day.”
“A hundred.”
“Two hundred.”
“One-fifty. Plus expenses.”
“I’ll need a retainer.”
“You got thirty thousand already.”
“Did I?”
“I need to settle a few things first. Take care of Beth, do some trial prep. But then it’s West Virginia ho. You coming?”
He paused a moment, reading my face as if reading the newspaper, and then he broke into a gap-toothed smile as wide as the Mississippi and reached out his hand.
I took it and shook it, but before I let go, I turned it over and checked the knuckles. Rough and hairy, each as ugly as a slag heap, but no scrapes, no bruises. Still holding on, I said, “How’d you know the safe-deposit key was missing from her house?”
“Private sources.”
“You weren’t the lug in black who beat the hell out of that police technician?”
“Me? Nah, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“You understand if you work for me, your mouth stays shut. Our little secret remains our little secret.”
“Vic, sweetie, if we’re going to be partners, we need to trust each other.”
“I already have a partner,” I said as I finally let go. “And the idea of trusting you is enough to get my stomach roiling.”
“I seem to have that effect on you, don’t I?” said Phil Skink with a laugh. “Don’t worry, Vic, I’ll play it your way, all buttoned up, while you convince yourself that your friend really done it and deserves whatever he gets. Now, take care of the check and we’ll go on up and have ourselves a time. What say I teach you how to play craps?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not to worry, Vic. We’re sporting our lucky jackets. How can we lose? And better than that, I gots myself a system.”
Part Four
Black Holes
29
I HAD never imagined, before driving into it, how amazingly beautiful was West Virginia. The steep mountain faces, the slender valleys carved by winding rivers, the roads twisting like snakes, the lovely white churches sitting beyond every bend. When Skink and I dropped south out of the long left arm of Maryland into West Virginia, it was like dropping into the landscape of a purer age. Even the sound track was purer—all we could get on the car radio was gospel stations. There were houses all along the route, some fine, some trailers beautifully maintained, some out-and-out hovels, but all seemed to flow naturally from the contours of the landscape. We followed the main road as it crossed a green metal bridge and twisted low through a fertile valley dotted with livestock and then turned off onto a smaller route that started a slow, inexorable climb into the mountains.
The car struggled until it reached the top of Point Mountain, with its inevitable white church just off the peak, and then fell as the road switched back and forth down, down. After a few minutes, to our left, we could catch glimpses through the leaves of something green and narrow and far beneath us, something that seemed, from that distance, more legendary than real. A valley, busy with farms and houses and lumber mills, isolated and lovely in its crevice in the western reaches of the Appalachians. We shared the road with pickups and beat old logging trucks as we continued down into the heart of that valley. Here and there, where the map showed a town, were mere scatterings of houses, a church, a lumber mill, clouds of sheep, another lumber mill, a collection of commercial buildings, a food mart, a Laundromat, a Chrysler-Dodge dealership. This was not a wealthy county, and there was the occasional shack, the rusted-out frame of a swing set, the boarded-up store, but still it was undeniably beautiful.
And then the valley widened and the road rose from the tumbling river and we saw a wooden frame, studded with the signs of the Lions Club, of the Kiwanis Club, of the Chamber of Commerce and the VFW and the various and sundry churches. On the frame, beneath the signs, the following words were affixed:
WELCOME TO PIERCE, POPULATION 649.
H.
I don’t want you to be thinking to all the crap that Tina she spits out. She’s just that way, always stirring up the pot once it stops a boiling. I like you, sure, like I like a lot of others, but I don’t think you’re like special or nothing, not like she says. Everyone knows that you’re with Grady and he’s with you and I don’t want you thinking nothing like what Tina says. I like hanging out with you, is all. It’s bad enough with Grady always on my ass. I don’t be needing you to get all weirded out too or anything. You looked at me yesterday like I was some alien from Mars or something and that’s why I’m writing this.
I maybe have a hard time talking about things. I find it easier sometimes to say what I feel when I’m alone with my mom’s old L. C. Smith. Face to face it’s harder, it’s like my tongue twists in on itself and I get all stupid. I’m not the sharpest spade, I know, as Mr. Perrine makes sure to tell me in front of everyone, but I’m not as dumb as I sound when I talk which is why I’m writing this instead of talking to you at school or on the phone or something.
That time in the quarry I wasn’t leaving cause I was sad or anything. I was just tired, I don’t know. And I feel weird when ever
yone starts lighting up. I know you say it’s cool that I don’t and no one says they mind but I feel weird. It’s like suddenly everyone’s at a party that I’m not invited to. And when everyone starts to laughing I don’t like that I don’t see nothing funny. I feel less alone sometimes when I’m alone, if you know what I mean. That’s why I up and left. And Grady saying all them things and making jokes about my leaving, that’s all right. I know Grady, he’s just like that, but I only wanted to be alone. Which is why when I first saw that you were following me maybe I wasn’t so nice and all. But I was glad finally that you did.
I didn’t know someone else felt as different and out of place as I do, though I have a hard time thinking you really do. I mean you’re so pretty and you’re with Grady and it’s like you fit in more than anyone. But I guess that goes to show. Some people think because I play ball I’m all this way or that way but I’m not any way like that, I’m my own way, which is, I guess, the problem.
Anyway, thanks for walking and for asking about Leon. I didn’t say much, I guess there’s not much to say, but it still was nice. It’s like now that he’s dead and with what happened and all it seems now no one wants to talk nothing about him. Maybe they’re trying to make it easier on me, I don’t know, but in a way it just makes it worse. Like he’s some huge secret when all he was was a kid. I miss him every day, but if I mention him now my dad just yells at me to put it behind me and move on. Move on to where, I want to ask. Where the hell am I going? He was my best friend, more I guess, and I feel real lost still without him even though it’s been already two years.
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