Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  Then, her face held sideways against the cold wet steel of the van, she felt one of them move close, hot breath at her ear.

  “Where do we go next?” said the low voice.

  She thought the voice was meant for someone else, one of them wondering where to take her, or where to go with this. But the voice repeated more loudly into her ear, “I said, where do we go next?”

  She was pulled sideways, her face sliding along the cold metal of the van’s rear doors. When her face reached the corner of the van she heard a buzzing sound, and when she opened her eyes she saw a platform had emerged from the side of the van like a huge tongue and that someone in a wheelchair was emerging from the van onto the elevated platform.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it, Legless,” said one of the men holding her, his voice firm but calm as if giving a parental warning. “You’ll get those skinny wheels stuck in the mud and end up on your stumps.”

  As the legless figure in the wheelchair sat on the platform, appar ently considering what had just been said, the only sound besides the in and out of her breath was the gurgling of exhaust from the Audi as it sat idling in the deep puddle.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The sky to the west was brilliant orange above the Everglades. Not that he could see the Everglades from where he was. What he could see, from his apartment on the fifteenth floor, was mostly city, being that his building was near the ocean. At dusk, on a clear night like this, the orange sky and city lighting combined to create one hell of a view. It was almost enough to make a man forget about the past and imagine that his wife, her health intact—his wife of thirty years who had originally wanted an ocean view but acquiesced to his desire for a sunset view, his wife five years dead this past win-ter—awaits his return inside so she can be at his side.

  Valdez was out on the patio of his downtown Miami apartment when the phone rang. The wine that afternoon at the airport had made him hungry. He had grilled his dinner, a chicken breast and some vegetables, and had just put it on a platter. He shut off the grill and carried his dinner inside. As he put the platter down on the island he could tell, because of the light on the phone, that it was the secure line, which meant a call routed through the Miami office communication center. He went around the island, sat on a barstool, and, while staring at his steaming platter, picked up the phone and heard George Skinner’s familiar voice.

  “Valdez?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Sorry I’m calling so late.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “When we were young men we might have contacted one another over the air waves on an evening like this.”

  “Yes, times have certainly changed. No more Morse Code, no more worrying about the atmospheric skip.”

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “I’m just starting.”

  “Well, go ahead and finish. But after you’re done, Hanley will be calling from the condo. It seems things have come to a head in Chi cago. I’ll give Hanley the details, but I wanted you to know so you’ll be prepared to do whatever needs to be done.”

  “So you’ve been contacting both of us all along?”

  “Yes, but Hanley’s unaware of our relationship. As far as he’s con cerned, I’m his contact at Langley. More importantly, my old friend, I called you first. You and I and Tom Christensen were old ham buddies together. After that we inherited certain obligations. You understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, go ahead and finish eating so you’ll be ready when Han-ley calls. And Valdez?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “It’s for the sake of future generations.”

  “I agree.” “All right. You’ll both be wearing golf jackets with deep pockets,

  so be careful.” “I will.” “Then seventy-threes, my old friend, and take care.” “I’ll do that.”

  At the condo, Hanley had Valdez wait in the living room while he finished dressing. Against the far wall, Valdez could see the two golf bags that had been sent over by the main office. Valdez stared down at his shoes. White sneakers, the only pair he owned. He felt odd wear ing white sneakers as soon as he left his apartment, especially when he exited the elevator and headed through the lobby. He also felt odd wearing the “I’d rather be Golfing” cap he picked up on his way to the condo. The odd feeling that he’d stick out in a crowd didn’t leave even when he got back into his car after buying the cap and no one else could see him. The only time he’d worn the sneakers was the rare oc casions when he went to the pool. The sneakers were part of his past, purchased when his wife was still alive. They’d gone to the Keys for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It seemed so long ago. His wife rubbing aloe on his sunburn in the hotel room. If only she could be here again. If only she’d been able to share in this so-called retire ment that was just around the corner.

  Hanley glanced at his watch as he came out of the bedroom with his carryon bag. “We’ve got time,” he said. “They’ve got to file the flight plan and there’s no need to get there too early. I like your cap.”

  Hanley was also wearing a golf cap, but his had a golf club logo on it and Valdez wished he had purchased a different cap.

  Hanley placed his carryon bag on the floor next to the golf bags and joined Valdez on the sofa. “Thank God we’ll be able to sleep on the plane. It’s been a long day for both of us.”

  “I guess we should thank God for something,” said Valdez, turn ing to stare at Hanley. “And now, what is this all about?”

  “The situation in Chicago has deteriorated,” said Hanley. “That’s why our friend at Langley called me directly. Our number one contact at the rehab facility has managed to get himself taken to the hospital, apparently having been confronted by one of Lamberti’s men. And the other contact …” Hanley smiled. “Maria. Well, she seems to have lost track of Mrs. Babe.”

  “They’re sending two old men to Chicago because a couple of rookies couldn’t cut it?”

  “Not exactly,” said Hanley. “We’re going to Chicago because Mrs. Babe may have stumbled onto something from the Gianetti past, and because Lamberti and his men are loose cannons. In the process of going after the money, they’ve managed, in a single day, to kill the son and his attorney, beat up one of our contacts, and throw the other contact off the track. We can’t allow this to go forward because of the possible ramifications.”

  Valdez looked down at his sneakers. “And what exactly are those ramifications?”

  “I thought I made it pretty clear in one of our earlier conversations.”

  “Not exactly,” said Valdez, turning to Hanley. “All you said was that it was political and had to do with two past Presidents, Reagan and Carter. That wasn’t much to go on.”

  Hanley smiled. “Yes, I guess, since we both have to go, it’s time to make it clearer.”

  Valdez looked at his watch. “You want to talk here or on the plane? I’m not a very fast driver.”

  Hanley looked at his watch. “All right, on the plane. It has to do with politics and political talk always has a way of becoming long-winded.”

  Hanley and Valdez stood slowly and went to the door. Valdez was already wearing his golf jacket and watched as Hanley put his on. Golf jackets, thought Valdez, which meant jackets with deep pockets. Too bad it had to come to this.

  When the two men hoisted their golf bags onto their shoulders, they both grimaced and looked at one another.

  “Damn arthritis,” said Hanley.

  “Damn arthritis,” repeated Valdez.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Immediately after the stroke, lying on his back in the hospital, Steve had felt as if a great weight pressed down on him. He had not been able to move and, more importantly, had not been able to think. The weight affected him not only physically, but mentally as well. The weight had a life of its own, because when a flicker of memory showed itself in the
distant darkness, the weight redistributed itself to make certain the memory remained just that, a flicker.

  Immediately after the stroke, lying on his back in the hospital, the first thing he’d seen when he opened his eyes were the eyes of a woman. He knew she was a woman and wondered how he knew this when he didn’t seem to know anything else. Yes, the first thing he’d been aware of after the stroke was that the eyes belonged to a woman and that he was a man. But there was more. Despite the weight hold ing back the flickers, he gathered the woman was fond of him, and this made him fond of her. Then, because she must have known him be fore the stroke, he presumed they had been together and shared many things flickering in the darkness.

  Immediately after the stroke, lying on his back in the hospital, words had been elusive. But even though words were elusive, concepts began coming back. The first concept was that of love. He knew the woman at his bedside loved him, and he loved her. As if love between them existed in his blood rather than in the cells of his tormented brain. Another concept that made its way to the surface was motiva tion. He wanted to poke holes in the cloak that had descended over him. He wanted to search for flickers from the past and bring them closer so he could examine them. In order to be able to initiate this search, he realized early on that he must live and not let the stroke take him down.

  She stayed with him during those early days. She was the one who had given him the test to see if he’d had a stroke—Have the person try to smile, raise both arms, speak a simple sentence. She was the one who looked into his eyes and stroked his head where another thing called a stroke had assailed him. She explained things, like the same word—stroke—standing for her act of caressing his head, and also standing for what had happened inside his head. This and many other things he had tried to comprehend. His initial comprehension of the world seemed to take a long time, but he’d gotten through it because of a thing she called desire, a desire he knew had been spawned from the underlying emotion of … love.

  Initially, her love for him was apparent when she was with him, then became apparent when she was not there. At first he wondered if he were being taught how to love. But he soon realized her love un earthed tunnels into the past in which he could explore, tunnels in which he could search, tunnels like blood vessels through which nutri ents destined for brain cells traveled.

  The concept of time came alive because of her. It was measured by the intervals of her presence and absence. One morning, shortly after the stroke, when he was able to take food by mouth and she was there early to feed him, he’d been able to relate this to her by remov ing her watch from her wrist, hiding it in his fist, then revealing it and pointing to her. It was strange during those first days following the stroke. Although he could not remember his wife’s name, he knew he loved her and he knew this thing on her wrist measured time. What made it even stranger was that this business of knowing some things and not others drifted in and out of focus so it was difficult to put it all together into one single frame of reference.

  His first spoken word after the stroke had been her name. He said it in the middle of the night when she was not there. He’d been visu alizing her and the name had floated in like a leaf falling from a tree. When he heard himself say her name aloud that first time, he believed that saying her name would make her appear. The lights would come on in the room and she would be there, her face hovering above him the way it had when he first came awake after the stroke.

  “Jan.”

  It was a wonderful name. The movement of tongue against pal ate while the lower lip juts out slightly and the mouth opens rapidly to allow trapped air to escape for the J, felt sensual. When he suc ceeded in saying her name the next day while she was there, she wept. He wanted to tell her it was all right, that there was no reason to weep. But the conglomeration of words necessary to express this con cept played hide-and-seek in his head and, instead of trying to say she should be happy, he held her and kissed her and drew her atop him.

  “Jan.” He said her name now as he sat in his room wondering where the hell she could be. He repeated her name as he squeezed and released the grip exerciser with his good left hand. He repeated her name as he curled the dumbbell again and again with his good left arm.

  It was his fault. She had not gone with Lydia to the reunion be cause he had opened his big mouth, changing everything. The con sequences and seriousness of the stroke were in the past, yet they were not in the past. The seriousness of the situation had crept up on him. But what could he do? How could a stroker, paranoid because he’s being watched from down the hall, do anything?

  While he waited for Tamara to call back again, he exercised physi cally and mentally. He tried to recall something, anything that would give him a clue to where Jan might have gone. He’d hoped the physi cal exercise would make it easier to keep his thoughts focused. But it was no use. Interspersed with thoughts of Jan he recalled the man at the end of the hall, and this made him think of Dwayne Matusak.

  A bad summer. The constant threat hanging over him. A knock down drag-out fight from which only one would come out alive. At least that’s how he remembered it. Perhaps growing up in a rough neighborhood was why he’d looked to Sergeant Joe Friday for help. Joe Friday, with the 714 badge and the definitive “dum-da-dum-dum” re frain signaling that in the end good wins out over evil. Joe Friday star ing knowingly into his boyhood eyes. (Did Joe Friday have dark eyes? He wasn’t sure.) And at the end of the show, with badge 714 blown up to screen size, in walks the stroke, shooting up his brain despite return fire from Joe’s thirty-eight from behind the medulla oblongata.

  As he continued exercising he could hear the sound of the televi sion down the hall. Something about it not being too early to get your boat order in for the upcoming boating season. He closed his eyes and could see, inside his head, a lone water skier being dragged about. He imagined beings from another world looking down on the planet and assuming this was how these creatures called humans punished those who had committed petty crimes. The channel changed and now the sound was a news report from a war-torn part of the world. As a re sult of this, the beings from another world would assume this was how more serious crimes were punished. The criminals were made to put on uniforms and fight one another. Fighting one another in order to see who can squander more of the planet’s resources. Crazy. A planet that’s had a stroke. But is the stroke ischemic or hemorrhagic? It was hard to tell.

  Finally, when the volume of the television down the hall was low ered, he heard footsteps and the squeak of wheelchair tires on the tile outside his open door. When he opened his eyes and looked up he ex pected to see the man from the end of the hall in his leather jacket, his baseball cap wagging in his hand, but what he saw was Phil and Frank and Joe wheeling past.

  The room had darkened while he exercised and his train of thought had wandered far afield. He turned on his lamp, looked at his watch, and realized the other strokers were coming back from the rehab cen ter to get ready for dinner. How much time had gone by since he re alized Jan was missing? And, for that matter, was she really missing? When Phil wheeled up to his door and motioned for him to get ready for dinner, the phone rang. He motioned Phil away, heard a muttered, “Jesus fuck,” and answered, “Jan?”

  “It’s me, Steve,” said Tamara. “You heard from Jan?”

  “Tam. No.”

  “Okay. Slow, like before. Stop me, or let me know if you want me to repeat anything.”

  “Right.”

  “I filed a missing person report on Jan.”

  “You filed? Why?”

  “I filed it because of some things I’ve found out. Listen for a while and don’t try to talk. After checking on Phil Hogan at the Eighth District, my contact wanted to know what I knew about Phil’s recent activities. I said I knew nothing. Then he told me he talked to his chief and asked if I could put a tail on Phil. So we did, and Phil wasn’t out of the office a half hour before he made contact with a prominent member of the organized crime brotherhood tha
t’s officially not sup posed to exist in Chicago anymore. I don’t know if you remember Max Lamberti, but the organized crime unit’s been after him for years. He’s related to the Gianetti family, Tony Gianetti’s nephew. Suppos edly he took over some of the operation after Gianetti’s murder back in eighty-six. Anyway, it wasn’t long after this that I heard about a fatal traffic accident in Orland Park this afternoon. Gianetti’s son was killed and I think it’s becoming too much for coincidence. His full name is Antonio Gianetti Junior. His attorney was killed with him. William Brown, known as Buster Brown downtown.”

  Tamara paused to let this sink in, but Steve’s mind was working too fast to respond.

  “So,” said Tamara, “I called in a missing person report on Jan. There’s probably nothing to it. Most likely she’s at a shopping mall or stuck in traffic, her phone switched off or broken. Even so, I decided not to take any chances. Jan contacted Phil Hogan, Phil seems to have something going on with Lamberti, and now Lamberti’s cousin and his attorney are dead. It’s being reported as an accident, but I talked to the Orland Park chief and he says the accident is under investigation and they might at least file a manslaughter charge.

  “So it’s like this, Steve. On the remote chance Jan’s ruffled some feathers, I thought it best to reel her in. If there’s nothing to all this, which there probably isn’t, you can help me explain it to her later.”

  Steve held onto the phone tightly with both hands, closed his eyes, worked his jaw, trembled, but was unable to say anything. He wanted to suggest logical steps, to say things that would start an investiga tion in the right direction. The names Max Lamberti and Marjorie Gianetti and Antonio Gianetti Junior and Rickie Deveno and Rickie Justice and Dino Justice floated in his brain, but he could not say them. He wanted to tell Tamara about Marjorie and how this all started. He wanted to tell Tamara he should have known better than getting Jan involved in something like this. And now Jan grabbing onto this thing because she wanted to create a case for him. A new case for Steve Babe, the failed detective who most likely brought on his own stroke and deserved whatever he got. He’s so selfish he drags Jan into a goddamn fantasy so once again he can be who he used to be.