He did not have the names of the owners but said he would look them up in the registry and get back to me. Nothing much, I thought, except for the logo. Even with this, I brushed aside Melinda’s cautionary advice, got on the phone with Ben, and asked to meet him. Even I could see that the information from Jane and Wainaina was not breaking news, but I wanted any excuse to urge Ben to have the file on Kasla opened and ask if he could give me more details about the Palmer and Kasla connection before I confronted Zack.
Twenty minutes later, Ben was sitting across from me at a Starbucks close to his precinct in the Bronx. As he munched his croissant with his coffee, I told him what I had garnered so far, and my hopes.
“I see where you are going with this,” Ben said, looking at me quizzically. “The Kasla file, as I told you, has been closed. We can’t chase ghosts, suspicions, and gossip. Mugure, what are you really looking for? You aren’t cut out for this investigative stuff. It could mean trouble.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I am coming to you?”
“You don’t have anything concrete. Names of agencies in Kenya with eyeglasses for logos? A little piece of paper with your child’s name written on the back is not exactly evidence of a kidnapping ring. “
“I have not said a thing about rings and kidnapping,” I said, my frustration and irritation matching his skepticism. “What about the threats? The phone call warning me to stop asking questions? At the very least, you can investigate how the Kasla premises became a curio shop.”
“I don’t know.” He paused and looked at me again, and it dawned on me what he was implying.
“Are you saying I lied about that phone call?” I asked in a slightly tremulous voice.
“No, no. It’s not that. But I have to be candid. I told you about Edward and Palmer representing Kasla. What has Zack told you about it? Quite frankly, I thought that was why you wanted to see me.”
I felt his scrutiny: It was as if I were under investigation. I felt foolish and awkward. “I have not yet talked to him about it.”
“Why? It would seem his responses would be a good starting point. Charity begins at home, that kind of thing. What about the telephone threat? Have you talked to him about it?”
“I thought I’d dig up a few facts first. I hoped you would give me a few concrete details. Something written, for instance. I did not want to spread fear to the entire family.”
“Shall I talk to him about it?” he suddenly asked, ignoring my requests.
“Ben, I know you are trying to be helpful,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “I will talk to him myself. I am sure he will tell me everything about the Edward and Palmer connection. And what he does not know, he can dig up in the firm’s archives. I promise to share with you whatever I find out. But leave it to me. For now.”
He stood there looking at me in a way that he had not done before. His unfinished croissant gaped up like a fish’s pouting mouth. He was about to say something and then changed his mind, got up, and walked away slowly, as if debating whether to come back or simply continue. I sat there, confused. Was I going crazy? I got up and ordered another coffee, a venti, and sipped it slowly.
Oh God, I was picking up Kobi from school, I remembered. In a panic, I looked at the time and realized I had fifteen minutes to get there. I ran over to the car, some meters from the café. I was backing out when I saw a car come out of nowhere. I tried to step on the gas and engage first gear to move forward again, out of the way. It was too late. BOOM. Darkness.
I woke up in a strange place. I could barely make out the figures surrounding my bed except their white overcoats.
“She’s coming around,” I heard someone say.
It took me a while to figure out that I was in a hospital bed, surrounded by a doctor and nurses. My head felt as if it were a bag of heavy metal attached to my body and rattling when I moved. The collision came back to me. I tried to get up but felt a sharp pain on my side. “Kobi! I must get him from school, I must—”
“Take it easy,” a familiar voice said.
It was Zack. Thank God. He bent and hugged me. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Sore. All over.”
“I’m glad you are not seriously injured. No broken ribs, says the doctor, but what happened?” he asked.
“I remember backing out and seeing a car come straight toward me,” I said as the day’s events became clearer.
“You think they did it on purpose?” Zack asked, looking puzzled.
“Zack, it was not an accident,” I said.
“I hope the police catch him.”
I said nothing. The concern in his voice made me feel guilty about the doubts I harbored. The guilt followed me home. I was grateful that I was not badly hurt. Kobi’s joyful smile was enough to lighten the ache and the gloom.
• • •
I thought about Ben. Minutes after our first meeting in his office, I’d gotten the phone threat. I had made the sensible decision to quit. Then, out of the blue, he’d volunteered some information that led to our meeting at Starbucks. Moments after our meeting, a car had hit me. In my mind, I went over his glances, gestures, and silences. To Ben, I was a black damsel imprisoned in a white castle. Could he try to accomplish his self-avowed mission by scaring me, making me suspicious of Zack, bringing about an irrevocable division between man and wife? How could I trust the story about Edward and Palmer?
I must tell Zack everything. Yes. Build trust. Then ask him about Palmer and the Kasla agency. The heart-to-heart must take place on a day when he was not going to the office. The weekend of my return was the best time to unburden myself. Rosie had offered to take Kobi for the weekend to give me space.
On Saturday, Zack attended a fund-raiser to which we had been invited. We agreed he would make an appearance, offer excuses for me, and come back quickly. The fact was, I was scared to be left home alone. Sensing my fears, Zack asked me to lock the entire house from the inside.
He called every half hour till I told him he should not have gone to the event if he was going to spend every minute checking up on me. But his solicitous calls quelled my lingering doubts about him and increased my determination to confess everything.
I was watching the nightly news when I heard a car in the driveway. My heart skipped a beat. I quickly switched off the TV and picked up the phone, ready to hit the 911 button. I crawled on all fours toward the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen knife, and went to the window to peep. It was a police car. Relief. Speak of the devil. Ben was standing right outside my door and pressing the bell. I put the knife down where I could reach it quickly if needed. Then I opened the door.
“Ben, you should have called to say you were coming. I was going to stab you with a kitchen knife,” I said. “Can I get you something to drink?” I gestured for him to take a seat.
“Yes, some water would be nice.”
I pulled a bottle from the fridge and gave it to him along with a glass. I watched him carefully as he took the first sip.
“I came to tell you we caught the guy who hit you,” he said.
“You did?”
He looked at my anxious self and smiled. “Well, let’s see,” he started, as if amused by a thought. “He is seventy-five years old, with bad eyesight. He lives in the nursing home up the block from the café. This man stole the car from the nursing home. He is not supposed to drive, and his mental condition is questionable. You’ll think this is bizarre, but he escaped from the scene of your accident only to crash again thirty minutes later on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading to Newark.” He broke into a smile. “Remarkable for a guy that old, on medication, who usually cannot see beyond his nose.” He drank the rest of the water.
Ben left me with more questions than answers. Did he expect me to believe that cock-and-bull story? I called Zack but felt silly, and instead of telling him to come home, which was what I wan
ted, I said, “Honey, just calling to assure you I’m fine, and to tell you that I love you. Have a good time.”
7
I should have told him about my fears, I thought as soon as I hung up. The more I revisited Ben’s story, the more tense I became. I checked the doors and windows to make sure they were all secure. I pulled down the blinds and switched on the lights in all the rooms to suggest multiple human presences. I wondered if I should go for Zack’s gun, but I quickly dismissed the thought: Even if I could access it, I had never used a gun. I kept the kitchen knife near the sofa.
My other friend, gin and tonic, was beckoning me, but I decided against the foolishness. I had to remain fully alert for whatever would follow Ben’s departure. I decided coffee would calm my nerves. Drink it slowly. Yes, and perhaps watch a DVD. I had bought a few of The Real Housewives of New Jersey but had not had the time to watch any, given that I was chasing “criminals.”
I put on the coffee machine and then inserted the DVD. I recalled the episode in the film Home Alone when Macaulay Culkin, playing Kevin McCallister, wards off intruders by turning on the TV: “Get the hell out of here,” the TV character threatens, his voice followed by the sound of gunfire. The intruders trip over themselves in flight. I did not expect gunfire in the DVD, but I thought the conversation might deter an intruder. I increased the volume.
I needed to use the bathroom, though. I pressed the pause button. I was coming back to my seat when I heard a car outside. “Oh, no, not the Ben thing again,” I said as I picked up the kitchen knife. The intruder tried the door handle first and then rang the bell. I held my breath. I heard him trying a key. I gripped the knife with grim determination. He pushed the door open . . .
“Zack!” I said, and let go of the knife. I felt tears at the edges of my eyes as I clung to him with a mixture of relief and remorse all the way to the sofa. “Hold me tight, Zack,” I said, as if to convince myself that all was well.
“What were you doing with the knife?” he asked, trying to calm me and probably himself.
“Zack,” I said, slightly distraught, “I wanted you to come home right away. Then I felt silly and said the opposite of what I truly felt!”
“The tone of your voice betrayed you,” Zack said. “The tremor told me you were trying to control your fear. So I left the party and drove home like a madman.”
“Thank you, Zack. They say the man was unstable.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Ben was here,” I said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry. Please make me a gin and tonic.”
Ever the gentleman, he made two. “Okay, what is it, Mugure?”
I told him about Ben’s visit and the story he had spun about a mentally unstable seventy-five-year-old, successfully hijacking a car from a nursing home and hitting me.
“Oh my, really?” said Zack. “I am glad they caught him.”
“But do you believe the story?”
“Why not?’
“Zack, I don’t trust Ben.”
“Why? He is your friend. You introduced him to me.”
I realized that to tell him why, I would have to talk about the pattern of bad things that followed each encounter with Ben. That would mean disclosing the prior meetings with Ben and the doubts that had led to them. I realized I was not quite ready to tell all.
“I don’t think Ben approved of my marrying you, a white guy. He has strong views on black pride.”
“Look, Mugure. I don’t know Ben very well, but I don’t think he would go that far. Whatever his racist private views are, he is a sworn public servant. You can’t jump to conclusions on the basis of a story.”
“Zack, why are you always protecting people?” I was going to give the example of Mark and then stopped.
“Mugure. Let’s make it simple. I will find out whether the story is true. We are a big firm, and we have our contacts.”
“Zack, thank you.”
I felt relief and afterward tried to see the positive side of Ben’s visit. I had been able to tell Zack of my fears without having to disclose everything. I could build on it without having to start from the beginning.
Zack was true to his word. The following evening he came home with what he or his people had been able to find out.
“It’s true, Mugure. Apparently, the man died on the way to the hospital.”
“Oh,” I said, not knowing how to react.
I was relieved. Zack seized on that and tried to make me laugh by filling me in on the party the night before, dwelling on the famous twins who had dominated our wedding. The whole idea of designer twins—the version that always got people’s attention—was so ridiculous that I had to laugh every time Zack told the story, even now.
The talk drifted to stories of the many women who had surgical alterations in order to look like a Barbie doll. Imagine if real body parts were made to order and customized to meet the different idiosyncrasies; wouldn’t such women flock to the market? It was grotesque humor, but it somehow made me laugh before we retired to bed and, for the first time in a little while, made love. I did not reach the heavens, as before.
Though I did not tell him, my every caress was an unspoken promise to give up digging up the truth about Kobi’s past, to let go whatever it was that Zack, Melinda, Ben, and my good sense had urged me to let go.
Come to think of it, what exactly had I been looking for? An answer to why there had been some contradictory information about Kobi? And what was it that had me all worked up? The closure of Kasla? Its transformation into a curio shop? There was the strange phone call and then the car accident, but the call may have been a prank, and the car accident had been explained. When all was said and done, the fact remained that I had not heard by hint or rumor the slightest negative thing about Kobi’s adoption.
For the next few days, I confined myself to the house and to taking Kobi to school, soccer games, and slumber parties. Whenever the phone rang, I checked the caller ID and answered only Zack’s or Rosie’s calls. I was not bored. TV programs kept me company; I watched enough Roots reruns to last me a lifetime. I didn’t like repetitive opinion journalism, but I was hooked on The Rachel Maddow Show. She had a tongue that bit; a tone that stung; and a smile that softened the bite and the sting.
It was during this time that I began to enjoy being in the house alone, dressing how I liked, and when Rosie was not around, even walking about nude. Mostly, I wore see-through tops and blue jeans and watched Oprah go on about living one’s best life. A remarkable woman. I often wondered how she had made it in a white world and how she felt having such a large following of white people eating out of her hands.
Suddenly, as I went back to the living room to watch Oprah, I felt the weight of the emptiness in the house. I missed Kobi and Zack. I couldn’t wait to pick up Kobi and hear all about his latest adventures. I felt a chill. Then I caught sight of Zack’s coat hanging by the hall closet. I walked over and put it on, then turned the coffee machine on. Coffee would give me one kind of warmth; his coat, another. At that moment I wanted him to hold me tight, tight, and never let me go, squeeze out all my doubts. I held the jacket close to me.
I liked its smell, the smell of Zack, and in it, I felt at one with him. I put my hands in the pockets, like he usually did, and walked like he usually did, hands in the coat pockets. My right hand felt some paper. I pulled it out. It had “Mark” scribbled on it and then crossed out.
“Honey?” I heard Zack calling as he opened the door and entered.
Were I not so upset, I would have appreciated the fun in the situation: me standing there, dressed like him! But I was seething with anger, so I just stood there looking at him, not knowing where to start.
“So . . . Mark, huh?” I grunted, throwing the tiny piece of paper at him.
It floated in the air briefly and then landed at h
is feet. He stood still. He seemed afraid—well, more confused. Then he bent down and picked it up and read it. I didn’t want to scream and shout, but I came close. I could feel myself shaking. “What’s going on between you and Mark?” I asked coldly.
He didn’t say anything but put his briefcase down and wiped his forehead with his forearm. It may have been caused by his slow reaction, but something inside me broke.
“Zack, you must tell me everything. About the gunman who once threatened you at the club, about your relationship with Melinda, about Alaska Enterprises. Do you understand? Everything! That is, if you want this marriage to survive. And don’t take me as completely ignorant. No, Zack. You are making a mistake, a big mistake, to underestimate me. I know that Edward and Palmer was retained by Kasla.”
He stood there, almost frozen. He walked toward the kitchen. I followed him. He pulled out a kitchen chair and slumped in it. He pointed at another chair and mumbled for me to sit. I did, not because I wanted to but because I was feeling weak in the knees. I had to be strong.
“Let’s talk,” he said. “I was going to bring up much of what you just raised later on, but now is as good a time as any. You have to believe me. That gunman. I honestly don’t know him. I had never seen him before or since. I just took his gun-toting craziness as case of mistaken identity. As for the agency and our law firm, we are a big enterprise with many branches. Not all the lawyers in a firm know each and every case, because most cases don’t go beyond the letter-writing stage. I told you I would get to the bottom of this. I only recently—actually, the day of your accident—learned that the agency had retained my firm. One letter from the firm, with all the weight our name carries, was enough to make the state desist. Which means it was not a case that generated much talk in the office. I am still looking into it. That and the whole Kasla saga.”
Zack came across as sincere and forthright. There wasn’t much more I could ask. Ben had given me so little, and Wainaina had not come up with anything extra from Kenya. Besides, I didn’t want to rant about Ben. Let me keep my sources to myself, I resolved.
The Fall of Saints Page 6