Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  After a long pause, Jordan asked, “Why did you tell me that?”

  “Because you needed to hear it. Real estate’s one of those things, it’s like waitressing, the kind of work nobody really wants to do, but they say they’re just doing it until they can do what they really want to do, whatever that is. Except they never get around to it. They get all cozy in real estate and they stay with it until they’ve got nothing left in them.”

  “Okay. Okay, so what do you want to do? What are you hot for, Marvin?”

  “You really wanna know?”

  “Sure,”

  “Well … I like to sneak around.”

  Jordan laughed. “You sure as hell can’t do that for a living.”

  “You wanna bet?”

  They didn’t bet, but if they had, Jordan would have lost. …

  Eighteen months later, without the benefit of much formal training and no professional experience, Jordan got a part in a play.

  It was small, but it was great. The play, set in a deceptively Utopian future society, was about two men, one young, one old. In need of some extra money, the young man takes a job living with and caring for the old man, who is very rich and who is the product of a very different world. It didn’t sound like much, but the development of their relationship—in which the old man tries to show the young man the truth about the decayed, corrupt, godless and falsely “enlightened” society in which he lived—moved gradually from contempt to a deep respect, was powerfully written. Jordan was certain he’d been chosen for the part of the young man.

  He was wrong. He played the old man, and he played it well. The play was a critical success, and Jordan was singled out, but despite good reviews, it closed after only a few weeks. But Jordan learned something.

  He learned that he never wanted to step foot on a stage again. He’d hated each and every tense, sweaty, tedious second of it.

  But he didn’t feel any differently about acting itself; it was just the work involved in being part of a play that he’d hated. He enjoyed—even loved—the acting itself, the process of remaking himself into someone else—a stooped, trembling old man—and fooling the audience into believing him. It was like putting on a magic show, performing sleight of hand, but instead of using cards and cups and balls, he used his behavior, his speech, and his body. It was that which he loved and wanted to do, but didn’t know how to do it without getting on stage.

  That was when Marvin did something that, had they made their bet, would have made him the winner.

  “You’re doing what?” Jordan asked him one day nearly a year after his experience on stage.

  “Quitting,” Marvin said, emptying his desk drawers into a cardboard box. “Adios, au revoir, goodnight.”

  “But, you can’t just … you mean you’re just … quitting?”

  “Just quitting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m too good at this shit. It’s too easy. Before I know it, my hands’ll be too shaky to hold a brush.”

  “So what’re you going to do?”

  “What I’ve always wanted to do. I’m gonna sneak around.”

  “For a living?”

  “For a living.” He got the last of his things out of his office, then slapped Jordan’s shoulder and said, “We’ll be in touch. I’m gonna be pretty busy for a while, getting things set up, but I’ll—”

  “Getting what set up?”

  “Well, if I told you, I wouldn’t be sneaky, would I? Take care, Jordy.”

  Six weeks later, Jordan was offered a better job at a bigger real estate firm on Van Ness and took it.

  Jordan’s father had died suddenly of a heart attack when Jordan was in high school, but his mother’s end was lonely and gradual and he made frequent trips from San Francisco to Redding to spend time with her until her death of kidney failure.

  Shortly after starting his new job, Jordan met and fell flat on his face for Teri Cole. She was an aspiring model, tall, shapely, silky and exactly the kind of woman Jordan knew did not fall for guys like him.

  Jordan had never had much luck with the opposite sex, for which he blamed the strict religious upbringing that had given him a sort of nagging fear of all things real and imagined, a cowardliness, a painful shyness that lent him the appearance of a puppy with its tail tucked between its legs. And, just as a cowed pup is more likely to be kicked than an aggressive one, Jordan had been the target for a lot of pain in his relations with women from high school onward. He’d worked hard to overcome his insecurity and thought that perhaps he’d succeeded enough to attract and have a healthy relationship with Teri Cole.

  He put his all into the pursuit, approaching it the same way he might approach a performance.

  They were married eight months later.

  They were divorced three shaky years later—years in which he’d never felt truly loved by his wife, years filled with suspicions and more fears—after he came home early from a daylong business trip to find her in bed with a male photographer and another female model.

  After his divorce he buried himself in his work and spent much of his spare time going to plays—alone. He envied the actors their opportunity to act, but did not envy what he knew they had to endure to do it.

  He grew restless, sometimes wondering if he was living in the wrong city, if perhaps he should move to Los Angeles and take a shot at movies and television or to New York to try the stage. Ultimately, such thoughts led to the same conclusion: he would stay where he was and keep doing what he was doing. Maybe his life wasn’t a thrill a minute and maybe he wasn’t completely happy, but he was getting by and doing fine, and who was ever completely happy anyway.

  Nearly four years after quitting Kiley-Jessup, Marvin showed up in Jordan’s office, looking dapper in a dark suit and tie, his old horn-rims replaced with tinted wire-rim glasses.

  “Marvin, look at you. You’re not even Italian. What do I call you now, the Weasel? The Icepick, maybe? How about Guido?”

  “You got lunch soon?”

  “Just leaving.”

  “Come with me.”

  Minutes later, they were getting out of a cab. “The Tenderloin?” Jordan asked. “What are we here for, a hit? We gonna rough somebody up a little?” “Don’t be a smartass. In here.”

  He led Jordan to the top floor of a dimly lighted grey three-story building and to a door with a small sign on it that read:

  ACKROYD INVESTIGATIONS

  “You sneak around!” Jordan exclaimed with genuine surprise.

  “That’s right. C’mon in, I’ll order lunch.”

  The office was small and a little dingy, but neat and tidy.

  “Do you actually have clients?” Jordan asked over pizza.

  “Hell, yes. I do some process serving, too. No secretary yet, but I’ve been interviewing. Look at this.” He handed Jordan a catalog of security and surveillance equipment.

  “You can actually buy this stuff? I mean … anybody can?”

  “Sure. Look at here.” He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a long thin black tube with a microphone shaped like a sausage on the end. “Directional mike.” Cracking the window behind him, he aimed the microphone at two elderly women on the sidewalk across the street, then handed Jordan a small earphone plugged into the base of the tube.

  “Oh, no, no,” one of the women was saying, her voice insect like in Jordan’s ear, “she didn’t have diabetes, she had glaucoma. Was Mrs. Gaper had the diabetes … fat old sow …”

  “Amazing. Do you use it a lot?”

  “Well … I haven’t yet. But I will.”

  “Amazing. All of this stuff.” He thumbed through the catalog some more.

  “Big business, too. I know the guy runs this mail-order place—” He gestured toward the catalog. “—right here in San Francisco. Name’s Jim Rale.” He took the magazine from
Jordan and browsed slowly, a small fascinated smile on his lips. “Such toys …”

  Jordan took a big bite of pizza and said, “So, what’s happening? How’s business?”

  “S’okay. Business is … okay.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

  “Well …” He shrugged, thumbed the pages. “Look at this. A little thinger that goes on your phone and disguises your voice when you talk. That something?”

  “Amazing. So what’s wrong? I thought this was what you wanted to do.”

  “That makes it all the worse. See, it’s like you and your play. You found out you didn’t like all the stuff you gotta do in a play—except for the acting—but even so, you were great, you really were. Now, me, I find out I don’t much like all the stuff involved in this. I don’t think I’m even any good at it.” He slapped the magazine down on his desk.

  “Well, you must’ve sunk a lot of money into—how did you afford this?”

  “My dad died.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. You should’ve—”

  Marvin waved a hand. “Hardly knew him.”

  “Oh. Well, I am sorry.”

  Smiling suddenly, Marvin lifted his hands and said, “Oh, well, I got what I wanted and maybe it won’t work out. Maybe it will. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll do something else.” He picked up the catalog again. …

  They didn’t see each other for four months after that.

  One day, Marvin called him at his office.

  “Hey, Jordy, I’ve got a problem you can help me with.”

  “Need a house?”

  “No, no. I need an old man.”

  “Come again?”

  “Actually, what I need is an operative.”

  “A what?”

  “Let me talk, okay? I’ve got this client, see, an old lady in her eighties, one Elizabeth Carmichael. Name sound familiar?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It should. She owns a chain of restaurants that stretch from coast to coast, plus she’s got her shriveled little fingers in just about everything else you can imagine. I’ve only talked to her once, but that was enough to know she’s a nasty old broad, real mean-spirited. The rest of the time I deal with her lawyer—a fellow named Tomkey—because she’s bedridden. And rich, needless to say. She’s filthy rich. Aside from her restaurants and who knows what else, she’s got a bundle of money stashed in her house. A lot of money. You know, stuffed in mattresses, that kinda thing. Tomkey’s been trying to convince her to invest it, put it someplace safe, but apparently she wants it close to her, like maybe she’s planning to take it with her. Anyway, one day she gets the idea her husband’s taking her money a little at a time. You know, just whittling it away. So she had Tomkey call me.”

  “Why didn’t she just call the police?”

  “Who knows. Anyway, Tomkey doesn’t sound too thrilled with the situation, because, like I said, he’s been trying to get her to put the money away. But she doesn’t want to put it away. She wants to catch her husband red-handed. Tomkey didn’t come right out and say it, but I think she’s gonna go so far as to press charges, really let the old man have it. Vindictive biddy. So … that’s where we come in.”

  “We? What we?”

  “He’s old, this guy, eighty-seven, but he gets around, really active for his age, hangs out with a bunch of old guys just like himself. They spend all day walking around, sitting on park benches, feeding pigeons, having a beer here or there. At least, as far as I can tell.”

  “You followed them?”

  “’Course. But the problem is, I can’t get at him. I mean, I can’t just walk up and say, ‘Hiya, I’d like to have a word with you about your old lady’s money.’ I don’t exactly fit in with his little crowd, you know, so … that’s why I need you.”

  “You want me to go up and say, ‘Hiya, I’d like to have a word—’”

  “No, no. Remember your play a couple years back? You were so damned good, Jordy, you really were. I mean, if I didn’t know you, I’d have sworn you were really an old man, really. And I just thought, since you were so good—”

  “No.”

  “—but wait, if you’ll just listen, I’ll—”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “—just gimme a second to—”

  “Marv, I can’t do that. In front of an audience it’s one thing, but just one guy, or a few guys? In a park, for crying out loud? Or on the street? Trying to pass myself off as an old man? Come on.

  “There’s no stage. No director. Nobody else to fuck up their lines. No long rehearsals or hot lights. If I remember correctly, you didn’t much like all that.”

  Jordan mulled that over for a moment.

  “Think about it,” Marvin went on, “you did what you thought you wanted to do—acted in a play—and hated it, but you still want to act. So maybe this is a way you can have the best of both worlds, you know? Acting for a private audience, your own boss, none of the other bullshit. And like I said, I’m not so good at this myself. I could use some help. I’ve got a couple operatives here and there, I use them once in a while. But none of them can do what you can. Maybe … maybe you could just, you know, give it a try?”

  Jordan thought.

  “It would be a big help to me. Even if it was just this once.”

  Jordan thought some more then said, “Okay. Sure. Why not? I’ll give it a try.”

  First, he spent the next morning with Marvin, trailing Mr. Carmichael and four of his cronies. When they reached Golden Gate Park, Jordan asked, “Is that the bench they always sit on?”

  “Same one every time.”

  “They stay here long?”

  “A few hours, the rest of the afternoon far as I can tell. I haven’t stuck with them all day.”

  Then he gave a shopping list to Marvin, who returned the next day with the two bags of makeup supplies necessary to transform Jordan into an old man.

  Jordan was up at dawn the following morning, and within three hours, he was eighty years old. He put on the green pants, yellow shirt and brown sweater Marvin had bought at the Salvation Army, all baggy and faded; he used the cane he’d kept from the play as a souvenir, and spent an hour hobbling around his living room, getting into it, until he was ready.

  He waited for them on the bench in Golden Gate Park, first feeling nervous and foolish, then more and more confident, until—

  —they came.

  And it worked.

  The old men—there were five of them—were like little boys. They acted giddy, as if the simple act of sitting on a park bench was no less fun than going to a carnival. They accepted Jordan as one of their own and invited him to spend the rest of the day with them.

  “Oh?” Jordan said. “What’re your plans?”

  “Sit here awhile,” Mr. Carmichael said, “go have a beer at the pub, maybe a coffee at the diner, then—” He grinned like a mischievous child, “—off to the tracks.”

  “Tracks?”

  “Racetracks. Horses.” Mr. Carmichael’s small round face brightened when he said those two words. His eyes opened wide and sparkled as if he had just uttered two magic words that could wipe away any problem known to man. Then he chuckled behind a gnarled, liver-spotted hand.

  It was contagious; Jordan almost laughed with him. “Ah. I see. Well, no, I, uh … I’m on a pretty small pension, y’know, and—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Carmichael nudged him with an elbow. “I got an allowance.”

  They did have a beer, and then coffee, and each of them had a slice of banana cream pie, talking about the horses all the while, about sports and a little politics.

  And Carmichael picked up the tab.

  They took a cab to the track—all of them talking at once as they piled in, like schoolchildren boarding a bus—Carmichael paid the fare, and when they were outside the gates at Bay Meadows
, the others gathered around him expectantly, and Jordan followed suit. Carmichael handed each of them a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Good luck, boys,” he laughed.

  “That’s some allowance,” Jordan said.

  Carmichael waved a hand and said, “Enjoy.”

  When he left them, Jordan was frowning through his makeup. Suddenly he did not feel right about what he was doing. They were such kind old fellows, so innocent. They had been so good to Jordan, so eager for him to join them in their harmless fun. How could he tell Marvin what he’d learned? Marvin would then pass the information on to Mrs. Carmichael who, from the sound of it, would then try to press charges—and probably press hard, from what Marvin had said—against her husband. Against that round-faced little fellow who probably had more fun on his jaunts with his buddies than he’d had during his entire marriage.

  Then again, Marvin was his best friend and had asked him to do this for him. Jordan would have to lie to get out of it. He frowned all the way to Marvin’s office.

  Still in makeup, Jordan caught Marvin preparing to leave his office that evening. “You were right, Marv,” he said.

  “Look at you, you’re great, Jordy, great! You look—whatta you mean, I’m right?”

  “You aren’t any good at this. You didn’t stick with them long enough.”

  “Huh?”

  “They go to the track. Every day, late afternoon, they go blow their money—excuse me, Mrs. Carmichael’s money—on the horses.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  The phone rang and Marvin held up an index finger for Jordan to wait a moment as he took the call. He listened for a moment, then grinned and said, “Mr. Tomkey, you’re just the man I wanted to talk to. One of my operatives has just come back from—”