A Perfect Life

by Mike Stewart

  Cannonball decided to trust this man. “Robert Thomas's old boss at the bank told Scott that people around here blamed him. Blamed Scott, I mean.”

  “That, Canon Walker, is bullshit. I don't know what this guy's trying to pull, but nobody—and I mean nobody—ever blamed that boy for getting out alive.”

  A heavy silence settled between the two men. Somewhere on the street a dog barked. Alice's azaleas blew in the breeze—small, pink buds bouncing with each gust. Minutes passed before Cannonball asked, “What about the mother?”

  “Nancy? She's not dead, but she's not much alive either. Pretty woman like that all burned up.” John shook his head. “Bad scars, you know? Don't know whether it was the physical part or something else—her husband ruined, her family . . . God, it kills me just to think about it. Scott was well out of here, I can tell you that. His father dead and a crook. His mother burned and half crazy. His brother . . . his little brother scarred and all-the-way crazy from what they tell me.” He shook his head. “No. Sounds like Scott's done okay for himself. He was well out of here.”

  “What I meant was, where is Scott's mother? Is she in a nursin' home? Is she somewhere where I could visit with her?”

  John raised his hand and pointed at the house next door. “Still lives right there. Got a nurse lives in full time.”

  “I thought it burned.”

  “Gutted. And I mean big time. But they say the bank paid to have it cleaned up and rebuilt for the widow.”

  “Nice of 'em.”

  “I always thought it was kinda curious myself.”

  Cannonball stood to get a better look at the brick Tudor where Scott Thomas's mother lived. “Think she'll talk to me?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Acid had chewed at Kate Billings's stomach for hours. The kid, Sarah, was more than she could take. So Kate had made a show of feeling the little girl's forehead at dinner and proclaiming that the child had a slight fever.

  “I feel fine, Kate.”

  “I'm a nurse, Sarah.” She produced three pink pills. “Take these and you'll keep feeling fine.”

  “But . . .”

  “If you're not going to mind, I'll have to speak with your father about keeping you in bed all weekend until you're better.” Kate smiled. “Come on, Sarah. It's not like I'm poisoning you or anything.”

  Sarah gritted her teeth and clenched her fists beneath the table, but she took the three tablets and washed them down with milk. A half hour later, she was sound asleep on top of the covers in her bedroom. The tablets were just antihistamines, but so are almost all over-the-counter sleeping pills. The kid would be out for hours.

  Now, finally, Kate Billings could think.

  CHAPTER 37

  Winter was slowly wasting away—the salty scents of the Atlantic growing stronger at night, pushing aside auto exhaust and industrial stink. Natalie Friedman drove without speaking. Standing water hissed beneath the Saab's tires. A dense spray—more thick fog than raindrops—washed the windshield between sweeps of wiper blades. The passenger-side window whistled next to Scott's ear where the convertible top didn't seal.

  “So we're just gonna hide and watch?” Natalie gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles glowing white through the car's dim interior.

  “Right.”

  “And you don't think that's exactly what the caller expects you to do?”

  Scott looked out at rows of buildings gone dark for the night. A stuttering stream of windows returning blank stares. “Probably.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “I don't know what else to do.” He shrugged in the dark. “No reason for you to hang around, though.”

  “Don't worry.”

  Scott turned to face Natalie's profile. Her sharp nose and full lips glowed with soft green hues from the wash of dashboard lights. Her pale eyes had gone wide and seemed too green in the reflected the glow of the instrument panel. “Leave, but don't go home. Whoever set this up may go to your place when I don't show up.”

  “I won't.” She glanced over and caught Scott's eyes lingering on her face. Her cheeks colored a bit in the dark car. “How about this? What if we give it a quick drive-by first? I'd like to get a look at things.”

  Scott weighted the idea. “Natalie? That's just exactly what I'd like to do.”

  She nodded her head. “Good.”

  Scott shook his. “It's what I'd like because I'm scared. The truth is, I don't want to get out of this car and I don't want to be left alone. Every chickenshit impulse I have is screaming for you to stay with me as long as possible—which is exactly why you shouldn't do it. I'm scared because I'd have be a moron not to be scared. Somebody—probably Click—is waiting on a dark street for me. We don't know why . . .”

  “We know why.”

  He shrugged again in the dark.

  Natalie said, “He doesn't know my car.”

  “I wouldn't bet my life on it.”

  “I'm driving by.” She used that tone. The discussion was over.

  Scott smiled. “Chickenshit and his trusty sidekick Dumbass.”

  Natalie Friedman didn't smile. “Lean your seat back. The control's on the side of the seat. It'll make you harder to see.”

  “And harder to shoot.”

  “Right.”

  The two were silent again as she steered the car along familiar streets to the hospital. She'd driven the same route every weekday for two years on her way to work. It was as familiar to her as the layout of her living room, as familiar as her parents' backyard in Pennsylvania.

  A block south of the parking garage, she slowed to a crawl.

  “Don't.” Scott's voice was a whisper. “Go the speed limit. You're not driving like someone passing through.”

  She nodded and sped up to twenty-five. Seconds passed. “Look.” Natalie pointed through the windshield at the tall craggy form of Dr. Phil Reynolds. “What the hell's he doing here?”

  Scott's mind raced with disjointed thoughts. “Speed up.”

  “What? You said—”

  “They're going to kill him. We linked Click to Dr. Reynolds through those e-mails. He and I were both invited here tonight. Click is going—”

  “What do you want me to do?” Natalie was almost screaming now.

  He changed his mind. “Pull over here. I'm getting out. When I'm out, you haul ass. I'll get Reynolds inside the hospital.”

  “I can't just—”

  “Do it!”

  Natalie slammed the brake pedal and swerved to the curb. Scott swung open the door and hit the sidewalk before the car quit rolling. Natalie heard the door slam and punched the gas.

  Dr. Reynolds's head had snapped around when the car door banged shut. Now he watched the Saab tear by before glancing back to see Scott charging toward him. The old man's eyes went round. His lips gaped open. He managed to mouth the word “no” a millisecond before a loud shot shattered the night air. The old man teetered in place, staring blankly down at his chest.

  Scott went down hard, rolling once before springing back onto his feet. He sprinted right, cutting through a bed of dormant shrubs, ran to the concrete wall of the parking deck, and dropped onto his stomach behind a line of ornamental hollies. His heart pounded in his ears. His breath shot out in hard bursts, blowing up puffs of dust and dry leaves.

  Holly leaves scratched his neck and hands. Grit caked his teeth. He lay still and listened. But there was nothing. He needed to move. The shooter would have seen where he went down, and he needed to move before a bullet whizzed through the flimsy curtain of holly surrounding him. Scott pushed along the edge of the parking deck, dragging his belly in the dirt, moving toward the exit ramp that lay behind Dr. Reynolds.

  He could see the lighted parking exit only yards away now. He pushed up and got his legs under him. Moving fast, Scott tore through waist-high bushes to the ramp, grabbed the concrete corner of the opening, and swung inside.

  Bam!

  Scott sprang back onto his stomach behind the thic
k wall.

  A car alarm sounded, then someone screamed and screamed again. A woman out on the street, a block down, kept screaming—human wailing adding urgency to urban background noise. Scott got back onto his feet, crouched behind a Ford SUV, and waited.

  Police sirens sounded in the distance, and still he waited. Minutes later, when the blue swirl of police lights began to bathe the parking deck, Scott at last got to his feet. He stepped outside the garage to see Dr. Reynolds's corpse surrounded by five uniformed patrolmen. One of the cops saw Scott and placed a cautionary hand on the butt of his revolver.

  Scott spoke up. “It's okay. I was walking down the sidewalk when he got shot.” He looked down at his torn and soiled clothes. “I dove into the shrubs there and then ran into the deck.”

  The officer seemed to relax. “Just keep your hands where I can see them. I need to pat you down.” He walked toward Scott. “Just procedure. Nothing to worry about. We can walk you right into the hospital here when we're done.”

  “I don't need a hospital.” He stood perfectly still as the officer's hands moved expertly over his waist and pockets. “Is he dead?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  Scott caught sight of Natalie hurrying across the street in his direction. His eyes searched her face.

  “I asked if you knew the guy.”

  Scott turned his attention back to the cop, and he almost said yes. Instead, he tried to hoarsen his voice. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

  “Yeah, well, puke in the bushes if you have to. I need to see some ID.” Scott fished out his wallet and handed over his driver's license. The officer pulled a flashlight from his belt and bounced its beam across the license. “What are you doing out here this time of night?”

  “My girlfriend works in the computer department.” He pointed at Natalie, who was hanging back from the gathering crowd. “That's her.”

  The cop motioned for Natalie to come over, then pointed at Scott. “This your boyfriend?”

  She nodded at the officer and then reached out to squeeze Scott's arm. “You okay?”

  He nodded.

  Her eyes scanned his face, searching for a hint of what to say. “What happened?”

  “He's fine, ma'am. Do you have any ID that says you work here at the hospital?

  “Sure. It's in my car, though.”

  “That's fine, ma'am.” He turned to Scott. “Let's walk over to the car and clear this up so you folks can get on out of here.”

  Five minutes later, Natalie was driving quickly away from the scene. “I can't believe they didn't check us out. You know, run our names or whatever.”

  The streets the two had driven earlier now spun by in reverse order. Scott said, “Good job back there.” He paused, and Natalie's question began to work through the confusion. “They'll get around to checking us out.” He stopped to look out at vacant storefronts. “You know what? Fumbling around Boston, waiting to get shot . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Sucks, doesn't it?”

  Scott turned to look at Natalie's profile. He almost laughed. “Well, yes, it does. I've been thinking, and it looks like I've got three options. We could take your recording of Dr. Reynolds to the cops and hope for the best. Or I could try to kill Click before he kills me.”

  “That's just stupid. If you're going to talk about killing people, you can get the hell out of my car right now.” Her words came fast as she braked the car to the curb. “I mean it. Get the hell out. I'm not going to put up—”

  Scott held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just listing the options. Believe me, I'm not planning to kill anyone. I was just saying . . .”

  “Okay. I get it.” She pulled back out into light traffic. She repeated, “I get it. So, what's the third option?”

  Scott looked out at the dark city streets. “Ever been to North Carolina in the spring?”

  CHAPTER 38

  The house smelled of age, old fabrics and pine disinfectant. Cannonball Walker sat on the edge of a hard, squared-off sofa from the sixties—so old it had come back into style. He held a beaver-felt hat on his lap. Female voices, clear but intertwined and indistinguishable, floated in from the back room. He glanced at his watch and looked up to find the nurse standing in an arched doorway.

  “She say she see you now.”

  Cannonball rose. “Thank you.”

  The old nurse turned. “Mmm-mm. Lucky you know Miz Pongeraytor. Miz Nancy don't meet with anybody. Not usually. Last one came by here got Miz Nancy all beside herself. Askin' questions about her boys.”

  Cannonball stopped in his tracks. “You said ‘the last one.' Who was the last one to bother Mrs. Thomas?”

  The nurse looked him up and down. “I don't know who he was. Showed up here a few weeks ago askin' about Scott and Bobby. All I knows is Miz Nancy got into a state, and, right after that, Bobby he disappeared and ain't been seen since.” She turned and clunked away ahead of the bluesman, leading him through a hallway to a back den, then turned to glare. “Don't you be long, you hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “Good.” The nurse shoved his shoulder a little with her own as she exited the room.

  Cannonball glanced back, then turned to face Nancy Thomas and caught his breath up short—not because she was scarred and burned, he'd been ready for that, but because she wasn't. The still-beautiful woman stared at the old man through perfect blue irises. She sat in a wicker rocker. A small white turban covered her hair. A blue-flowered, zippered gown enveloped her from neck to ankles.

  Scott Thomas's mother reached out a hand to point at an old recliner—and that's when he saw. Her hand shone in the dim light like a wax claw. As Cannonball made his way across the room and eased down into the chair, his eyes took in more detail. Both of the woman's hands, both dainty feet in white sandals, and what he could see of her ankles and wrists were all discolored, all as hard and shiny as pine resin. Her gown had a Nehru collar, but, as she turned slightly to face him, an irregular swath of scarring showed along the back of her neck and disappeared into the turban.

  As far as he could tell, an unscarred face was all Nancy Thomas had left. Everything else, from horribly disfigured hands and feet to her aristocratic neck—maybe even her scalp—seemed to have been engulfed in the fire that took her husband and destroyed her family.

  She didn't speak. Her blue eyes roamed the old man's face.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “You Alice's new husband?” Her voice sounded smooth and Southern, but still managed a flat mechanical tone.

  “Alice . . . ?”

  Now she snapped. “Alice Pongeraytor. Next door, dumbass. Next door. You her new husband? Is that it? That it? You her new husband? John's dead, they tell me. John's dead, and now she's got herself something new. That it?”

  Cannonball fingered his hat. “John's fine. I just talked with him. Alice is fine. My name is Canon Walker. I wanted to talk to you.”

  Nancy leaned back in her chair, closed those blue eyes, and said, “Talk.”

  Cannonball wished he'd given this more consideration. His only thought now being that this was the hardest money he'd ever earned.

  Can't just bust out telling her I'm here for her boy, he thought. Can't ask about her crooked husband.

  He let some quiet settle into the room, and she started to hum. He almost interrupted, then something caught his ear and instead he began to sing—low and quiet so only she could hear.

  “May the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by. There's a better home a waitin' in the sky, Lord, in the sky. In the sky, Lord, in the sky.”

  The woman smiled. “You can sing.”

  Cannonball nodded.

  “Keep going. Sing something else.” She motioned impatiently with her shiny claw. “Go on. Sing something.”

  Cannonball looked out a window at the eaves of the house next door, and he began to sing “Amazing Grace” in a soft, rusted baritone. Nancy Thomas sat perfectly
still—nothing moving but those cold blue irises, ticking from side to side as if jerked by each beat of her heart.

  Just as he finished, she interrupted. “They played that at my funeral.”

  He smiled, trying to convey comfort. “You mean your husband's funeral.”

  “Same thing.” Nancy tossed her sandals with her toes and began to bounce the balls of her feet against the rug, like a child with a full bladder. “Thought you understood. Husband's funeral. My funeral. All the same. Robert's dead, shrinking away in a casket, in a vault, in the ground, under the grass, beneath the sky, by and by, Lord, by and by. He's gone. I'm here. It was our funeral. But, me, I can't die. Won't ever die. Lazarus, that's me. I'm Lady Lazarus. The Highlander. Swoop!” She cut her scarred claw through the air. “There went your head. I'm Duncan McLeod of the Clan of McLeod, and I cannot die.” She paused. “Sing something else.” Leaning forward in her rocker now: “You're a negro fellow, aren't you? Tell me what you are.”

  Cannonball cleared his throat and told the truth. “I'm a friend of your son's. I'm a friend of Scott's.”

  She let out a cackling laugh—high-pitched and disconcerting in the quiet room. “Lord Lazarus himself. My son. My son. My son. My son. Got away. Nothing to bear, nothing to hide. Got clean away. Outliving us all. Swoosh!” Nancy swung her claw through the air again. “Out of here. Off to there. Never seen again. Over the rainbow and down the drain.”

  This was getting him nowhere. Cannonball studied her face and asked the question. “Who set the fire that killed your husband?”

  Nancy grew still again, her gaze drifting to her bare feet.

  “Mrs. Thomas?”

  “My shoes are gone.”

  Cannonball stood, picked up her white, strapped sandals off the rug, and knelt in front of her. Nancy Thomas held out one small, scarred foot and then the other for the old bluesman, and he gently placed the sandals on her feet. She smiled down at him.

  Still on one knee, Cannonball spoke softly. “Bobby is in Boston with Scott. He won't talk. He just—”