‘Okay,’ Paul said. ‘But we’re going to need some cash.’
I dug a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to Angie, who was closer. She examined the bill in my hand. ‘Is this some sort of a joke?’ she asked. She had that wry look in her eye, the one that said You know I’m kidding, right? I dug out another ten and handed it over. ‘I suppose we’ll be able to get something with this,’ she said.
‘Jeez,’ Paul said to his sister as they walked away. ‘I thought twenty was good. Nice going.’
There’s an Italian place down around the corner where Sarah and I sometimes go for a sit-down dinner. But they do a bit of takeout and delivery on the side, so I ordered two veal et limone with sides of pasta and arranged to have them delivered at seven.
I put on some Errol Garner (the Lawrence Jones influence), set the table with a cloth and napkins and everything, turned down the lights, lit some candles, and awaited Sarah’s arrival.
Her car pulled into the drive at six-thirty, and I met her at the door with a glass of wine.
Her eyes darted about, caught the candles, the elegantly set table in the dining room off the kitchen.
‘Well,’ she said, dropping her purse and taking the glass of chilled wine from my hand.
‘I love you, Sarah,’ I said. ‘I’m a dipshit, a pain in the neck, a busybody, an asshole of the first order. Ask anybody. I can supply references. I’m sorry for the things I’ve put you through. God knows how I do it. Up until three years ago, I’d barely had a parking ticket, and then, it’s like, I don’t know, I got cursed with catastrophe. And the only thing that’s gotten me through all this has been you. I love you more than anything in the world, Sarah.’
She studied my face, took a sip of her wine. ‘Is this whole speech just designed to get me into the sack?’
‘Not specifically, but if it works out that way, I won’t pretend that I’m sorry.’ I set my wine down and took a step towards her, put my hands on the sides of her shoulders. ‘I want to start over. This is the night where my life, where our life together, takes a new turn. No more troubles. No more craziness. From here on, we’re going to lead the most boring lives in the world. Want an adventure? I’ll take you to Home Depot. That’s as wild as it’s going to get around here from now on.’
Sarah put her wine glass next to mine and slipped her arms around me. ‘I love you.’
And we just stood there for a couple of minutes, until Sarah whispered, ‘Let’s go upstairs.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘the food’s going to arrive in twenty minutes.’
She moved back, smiled at me. ‘How much time do you think you’re going to need, really?’
I nodded, took her hand, and turned her in the direction of the stairs. ‘You’ve got a point,’ I said.
She reached up and lightly touched my forehead. ‘What happened to your eyebrows? There’s, like, half of them missing.’
‘I’ll tell you all about it over dinner,’ I said, and took her upstairs.
And over veal and pasta, I did. She said very little, stopped me only a couple of times to ask questions.
‘Jesus,’ she said when I finished.
I had left a couple of parts out. I did not give Sarah the details of Trixie’s confession. I hadn’t decided what to do yet with that bit of information.
And I also left out the part where Trixie opened up about her fondness for me. There was no need to get into all that, either.
Later, sitting with Sarah on the couch, I said, ‘I think I may quit the paper.’
Sarah turned and looked at me. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, I don’t even know if Magnuson’ll take me back, take me off suspension, but if he does, I don’t know whether it’s right for me. And my being there, it’s not working for you, either. You’re going places. I mean, you lost the foreign editor thing this time, because of me, but there’ll be other opportunities. You’ve got more of a future there than I do.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘The thing is, Sarah, I don’t know whether I have what it takes.’ I paused. ‘I don’t know whether I can tell the whole story.’
‘What do you mean? About what?’
‘About … anything. To be a half-decent journalist, you have to be willing to let all the secrets out, to tell everything. I haven’t been doing that. Not with some of the stories I’ve already done, not with the one about what happened up at my father’s place, and not with what’s happened this past week.’
‘You’re just too close to these things. They’ve all been too personal. It’s different.’
I shrugged, looked down. ‘It’ll all sort itself out. As long as I’ve got you, it doesn’t matter to me what I’m doing.’
We hadn’t planned to make a dramatic entrance, but when Sarah and I walked into the kitchen, my arm hanging lightly around her nightshirted shoulder, her arm loose around my waist, thumb tucked into the waistband of my pajamas, I guess we made quite a picture for the kids, who were sitting at the table, eating toast and drinking coffee.
‘Ooohhh, check it out,’ Angie said.
‘I’m gonna be sick,’ Paul said. ‘Guys, get a room.’
‘Where do you think we just came from?’ I said.
Paul grimaced. I poured coffee for Sarah and me, opened the cupboard looking for cereal.
‘How about eggs?’ Sarah asked. Sarah makes great eggs.
‘Won’t you be late to Home!?’ I asked. She was the one heading off to work, not me.
‘Fuck Frieda,’ she said.
‘But my heart belongs to you,’ I said. Paul and Angie exchanged glances.
Sarah was leaning into the open fridge. ‘You want eggs or not?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want eggs.’
And so she made eggs. With cheese, and Canadian bacon, and toast and jam.
‘I won’t be around for dinner,’ Angie said. ‘Late lecture, then I’m hanging out with some friends.’
‘Me neither,’ said Paul. ‘After school, a bunch of us are going to this thing, and then we’re getting something to eat, and then we’re doing this other thing. So like, I could use a bit of cash. ’Cause I don’t have a job anymore, you know.’
The kids vanished. Sarah and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table, ate our breakfast, drank our coffee, glanced at the headlines in the Metropolitan. I didn’t even read Dick Colby’s story about me and Trixie and her arrest in Martin Benson’s death. Instead, I went to the comics page and read Sherman’s Lagoon.
We were alone, together, and things just seemed so right. That morning seemed like the dawn of something much more than another day. It had the aura of a new beginning. Handcuffed in a basement with a corpse, duct-taped in a barn in Kelton, tossed about by cops in a dead-of-night raid – all these things seemed like distant memories.
Things were good.
I should have savored the moment even more. It wasn’t going to last.
THIRTY-TWO
Once I’d seen Sarah off to work and was dressed, I hopped into Trixie’s car (I had to sort out this business of getting my car back from Kelton, maybe on the weekend) and drove to Bayside Park. I pulled into the same spot I’d been in three days earlier. I didn’t feel the need, this time, to put Lawrence on alert. The first time, I didn’t quite know what to expect from Brian Sandler, but felt confident now that he posed no personal risk to me.
I looked out over the lake, switched on the radio. It was a phone-in show, where everyday nincompoops got to sound off on important political matters because it was considerably cheaper to produce a radio show that relied on nincompoops rather than people who actually knew what they were talking about.
We’d agreed to meet at nine, and I’d arrived five minutes early. I’d brought along a notebook to take down more information from him, as well as the scrap of paper on which I’d jotted down his various phone numbers.
I wondered what the hell I was doing.
I was on suspension. I wasn’t even sure I was goi
ng back. Yet here I was, waiting to meet with a man who had a hell of a story to tell, a story that couldn’t help but end up getting splashed across page one. Provided, of course, Bertrand Magnuson allowed me to write it.
My original thinking had been that I could use this story as leverage to get my job back. And not just any job, but my feature-writing job in the newsroom.
But there was another person who could use some help restoring a reputation and getting back into the newsroom. I could take all this stuff I was getting from Brian Sandler and hand it over to Sarah. Let her write it, take the credit, get the hell out of Home!
I’d have to tell Sandler, of course. I didn’t want to mislead him. I’d tell him about the suspension, but not to worry, my wife was a seasoned journalist. She’d been an investigative reporter before moving up the ranks and becoming an editor. She’d do a better job putting this story together than I would, truth be known.
That’s what I’d tell Sandler.
If he ever showed up.
I glanced at the digital dashboard clock. It was 9:15. Okay, not really late. There were any number of reasons why he might be fifteen minutes late.
But it was harder to explain being thirty minutes late.
At 9:31 a.m. I dug out the slip of paper with Sandler’s phone numbers on it. With my own cell phone, I tried his cell. It rang four times, then went to his voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. Next, I tried his line at the city health department, and again, I got his voicemail. I wasn’t interested in leaving a message there, either. The only number I had left for him was home, and I punched it in.
After three rings, I figured no one was going to answer, but after the fourth, someone picked up.
‘Hello.’ Quiet, sullen. A young voice, it sounded like. Male.
‘Hi. I’m looking for Brian? Brian Sandler?’
‘Who’s calling?’
Should I say? Had Sandler told anyone he was talking to me, that he’d made arrangements to speak to a (suspended) writer from the Metropolitan?
‘Just a friend,’ I said.
‘Well, he’s not here. This is his son. Can I help you?’
‘Maybe you could tell me where I could reach him. I have his cell and office numbers, and tried both of them, but he’s not picking up.’
‘He’s in the hospital,’ the son said.
‘What? When?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘What happened? Is he sick? Was he in an accident?’
The boy paused. ‘He got all burned.’
My stomach felt weak. ‘I’m so sorry. Listen, is your mother there? Could I speak to her please?’
‘My mom’s at the hospital. Me and my sister are waiting for my uncle and then he’s going to take us to see him.’
‘Which hospital?’
‘The Mercy one?’
‘Okay. Listen, I hope your dad gets better real soon, okay?’
‘Okay.’
I put the phone in my pocket, turned the ignition, and drove from Bayside Park to Mercy General Hospital. I parked in one of the short-term metered spots near the emergency entrance and ran into the building, approached the information desk.
‘Brian Sandler,’ I said. ‘He would have been admitted yesterday?’
I was directed to the west wing of the third floor, room 361. When the elevator doors opened, I got my bearings, saw which way the room numbers were running, went down the end of one hall, hung left down another, and found the room. It would have been difficult to miss.
It was the one with a cop posted at the door.
‘Is this Brian Sandler’s room?’ I asked the officer. He gave me half a nod. ‘Look, my name’s Zack Walker, I’m with the Metropolitan. Technically, at the moment I’m sort of on a leave, but Mr Sandler and I were supposed to meet this morning, and when he didn’t show up I called his home and found out he was here. What’s happened to him?’
‘Sorry,’ said the cop, ‘but I’m not authorized to make any comment, I’m just keeping out visitors.’
‘Why are you here? They usually put you guys on the door if you think the patient’s going to try to escape or you think someone’s going to come in here and kill him.’
‘Look, pal, if you need a quote or something from somebody, you’ll have to get it from the detective in charge or public relations.’
‘Is Sandler’s wife here?’
‘She’s off talking to the doctor someplace. She’ll probably be back in a bit.’
I glanced through the half-open door, saw a pair of hands that looked like they were inside enormous white oven mitts. Half of Sandler’s face was shielded by the privacy curtain, but the half that was visible was covered in bandages, except for one eye, which was closed.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘What did they do to him?’ The cop kept his lip shut. ‘Just off the record, what the hell happened to him?’
The cop considered whether to speak, then said, ‘Someone put this guy’s face and hands into a goddamn fucking deep fryer. It’s a wonder he’s still alive. When they get the bandages off his face and he has a look in the mirror, he’ll be sorry he survived.’
‘Is he able to talk at all?’
‘Be a lot easier if he had lips. They haven’t been able to get much out of him so far.’
‘Who’s in charge of the investigation?’ I said. ‘I need to talk to him, or her, or whoever it is.’ I didn’t have much doubt who was behind this, and I was more than happy to tell all.
The cop dictated a name and number, which I scribbled into my notebook. I thanked him and headed back to my car. Driving home, I dialed the number he’d given me.
‘Hi. This is Detective Herlich. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
‘Yeah, hi, my name is Zack Walker and I think I can tell you what happened to Brian Sandler. Look, I’m heading home, I’ll give you that number.’ Which I did, and broke off.
Sandler’s instincts were right. His boss, Ellinger, must have suspected Sandler was up to something after he’d dropped by his office and asked all those questions. And then, and I was guessing here but it all seemed to make sense, Ellinger put in a call to the Gorkins, who brought Sandler in for a visit with the deep fryer.
I imagined Mrs Gorkin and her girls must have had a few questions for him before they dunked him into the sizzling grease. Like what he was up to, whether he was going to play along, whether he was going to the police.
Whether he was going to the media.
Shit.
I decided that when I got home, I would put in a call to Lawrence Jones. Get a few tips on how to watch my back. Maybe drop enough hints, act frightened enough, that he’d come over and babysit me until I told Detective Herlich everything I knew about the Gorkins and Sandler. Herlich was welcome to hear the audio file as well. Wouldn’t take long, once he had all of that, I figured, before arrest warrants would be sworn out for the Gorkins, they’d be in custody, and I could let Lawrence go home and listen to his jazz collection or surprise philandering husbands in motel rooms.
I parked Trixie’s car in our driveway, got out my keys as I mounted the front porch steps, and opened the front door.
The twins were on me in an instant.
I spotted the one on the stairs first, and would have turned to run, but her clone had been hiding behind the door and slammed it shut once I stepped inside. She came up behind me and encircled me in her meaty, pasty white arms while the other one came at me like I was in a bullring waving a red flag.
I tightened the muscles in my stomach when I saw the fist coming, but I am not exactly a hundred-crunches-a-day kind of guy, and when she drove her hand into me I turned into a rag doll. The one holding me let go and I dropped to the floor, desperately trying to catch my breath.
‘Oh God oh God oh God,’ I said.
It took a moment before I was able to breathe again, but even once I had air going in and out of my lungs, I didn’t have the strength to get back up. I rolled over onto my back and saw that the twins had
now been joined by their mother, who looked down contemptuously at me.
‘Where is file?’ she asked me.
‘Give me a sec,’ I said, still gasping. ‘I can barely breathe.’
‘Give him minute, Momma,’ said one of the twins.
I had a moment now to take them all in. The three of them standing there, looking like a trio of linebackers without the helmets. All short and squat and one of them getting on a bit in years, but no less threatening than the other two. Mrs Gorkin, gray hair brushed back, hook-nosed, a bit of hair on her upper lip, wore a drab dress that would have showed its grease stains to more advantage if it weren’t black.
The twins, both around five feet, about four hundred pounds between them, had short, bristly blonde hair. They were both in jeans, one in a red sweater, the other in blue.
I sat up, waved a finger at the twins. ‘So, who’s who here?’
The one in the red sweater said, ‘I am Ludmilla.’
The one in the blue sweater said, ‘I am Gavrilla.’
Ludmilla said, ‘We are twins.’
I nodded. ‘Ludmilla. Gavrilla.’ I turned and looked at their mother. ‘And Mrs Gorkin. Nice to see you again.’ I took another breath. ‘I’d just like to say, right now, that I’m really, really sorry about what happened at your place the other day. My son, he seemed to think there might be something wrong with the burgers, and some people heard us talking, and, well, you know the rest. So I can totally understand you being upset about that. Believe me, if I had it to do all over again, I’d just forget about it.’
Mrs Gorkin said, ‘We are not here about dat.’
I feigned bafflement. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’re here to offer my son his job back.’
Mrs Gorkin said, ‘Stop being stupid!’
‘I’m not trying to be stupid. I’m just trying to figure out what it is you want.’ I’d always thought playing dumb came naturally to me, but Mrs Gorkin didn’t seem to be buying it.
‘Momma wants the file,’ said Ludmilla.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. The thing is, I didn’t care if they had the file. I was more worried about what they might do to me if they knew I’d heard it.
Bad News: A Zack Walker Mystery #4 Page 25