by G. M. Ford
Probably a dozen residents hadn’t answered their doors. Some of the apartments were dark and empty. In others, the sounds of shuffling feet or labored breathing had told him someone was there but was not opening the door. On several occasions he’d been told to go away. The only real speed bump was a guy on the ground floor of F building, who’d opened the door wearing a ripped T-shirt with spaghetti stains all over the front, a pair of plaid boxer shorts, and black socks. “What?” he growled from around the unlit cigar butt wedged in the corner of his mouth. “You got business with me, pretty boy?”
Corso started to answer, but the guy cut him off.
“ ’Cause if you don’t, and if you’re trying to sell me some shit I don’t want, I just might have to kick your ass.”
He was about forty, almost as wide as he was tall, his cheeks sporting three days’ worth of stubble. His arms and shoulders were covered with a carpet of curly black hair, thick enough to hide the skin below.
Behind him, the TV was blaring what had to be a porno movie. Bad jazz and a lot of oooing and aahing. “Oh, yeah, baby; don’t stop; don’t stop…that’s it….”Corso was at an angle to the screen. From where he stood the picture looked a lot like a bilge pump operating at high speed.
“I’m not selling anything,” Corso said.
“What then?” the guy demanded.
Corso told him. The shrill TV voice was now demanding it harder and deeper.
“The guy over there?” The guy nodded toward D building.
“Yeah,” Corso said.
“Before my time,” he said. “He was gone by the time I got here. Once in a while, I talk to the old bat who lives in One-D, next door to him. I seen her yesterday. She told me all about how the cops was by and all. You talk to her yet?”
The frenzy on the TV had reached a peak. Either the room had spontaneously ignited or everybody involved was about to get their jollies at the same time.
“Talk to her. She’s got nothing to do but mind everybody’s business.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Getting to the good part now,” he said with a leer. For the first time he smiled, exhibiting a row of thick yellow teeth. “Unless maybe you want to come in for a while, pretty boy.” He hefted and then dropped the package beneath his boxers.
Corso declined, turned quickly, and began striding away.
“Don’t be shy,” the guy rasped at his back. “Ya gotta find your inner self.” Gruff laughter followed Corso up the sidewalk and around the corner, like a pack of dogs.
A plywood ramp and a low metal hand rail had been built over the stairs to 1D, rendering the apartment wheelchair-accessible. He tried the bell but didn’t hear anything, so he knocked. A little brass plate screwed to the door read KILBURN. Corso knocked again. From inside the apartment came the shuffle of feet and the clink of metal.
A bright white halogen light above the stairs tore a hole in the darkness and reduced Corso to squinting and shading his eyes with one hand. The door opened a crack.
“Whadda you want?” a voice said from the darkness. “We don’t allow solicitors here.”
“I’m not selling anything.”
“Does Mr. Pov know you’re here?”
“I know Mr. Pov,” Corso hedged.
“What’s his first name?”
“Nhim,” Corso answered. “Mr. Nhim Pov.”
The door closed and then, after a moment, opened all the way. She had to be ninety. Coke-bottle glasses. Thick silver hair in an old-fashioned pageboy cut. She held the doorknob in one hand and a golf club in the other.
“What do you want?”
“I’m looking into the death of Donald Barth. The man who lived in the apartment next door, up until a few months back.”
She eyed him closely. “You another cop?”
“I’m a writer.”
She peered up at Corso for a minute. “You’re the one writes those crime books.”
“Yes, ma’am. Frank Corso.”
“Seen you on the tube a couple of times.”
“That’s me,” Corso said.
She stepped aside. “Well, don’t be standing out there like an idiot, come in.”
She ushered Corso onto a threadbare green sofa. The floor was covered with twice as much furniture as the room called for, leaving nothing but plastic-covered trails winding among the furnishings. Wasn’t the decor, however, that caught Corso’s eye. It was the walls, nearly every inch of them was covered with framed photographs.
She used the golf club as a cane as she sat down in the brown recliner opposite the couch. “I lived too damn long,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I lived too damn long. Had six children and outlived every damn one of them. Had sixteen grandchildren and outlived five of them too.”
Corso considered saying he was sorry to hear it but rejected the idea.
“It’s not right to outlive everybody who cares about you. It’s unnatural.” She waved the golf club in the air. “You ever see those commercials on the TV? About how one a these days everybody gonna be able to live to a hundred?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have.”
“Well you tell ’em you met Delores Kilburn and she says the whole idea’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I will,” he assured her.
“Cops was here the other day.”
“So I hear.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. I lived next to that pair for five years and never said more that ten words to either of them.” The club waved again. “Some of the most unfriendliest people I ever met. So if you’re looking for some kind of inside dirt, I’m here to tell you, you come to the wrong place.”
She looked at her hand and realized she was still brandishing the golf club. She groaned slightly as she turned around in the chair and leaned it against the wall.
“Poor Mr. Pov’s had enough trouble for three lifetimes.”
“You mean like being in a refugee camp and all?”
“That and everything else.” She leaned forward in the chair. “Lost almost his entire family over there in Cambodia, you know.” She drew a finger across her throat. “Slaughtered by that Pol Pot guy and the Khmer Rouge. Just killed ’em all. His wife and kids, his parents, all of ’em. Just like that.”
“A terrible tragedy,” Corso offered.
“And then his sister’s death.” She waved a hand. “It’s a wonder to me the man could find the strength to go on.”
“Going on is what people do best. It’s why there’s so many of us running around the planet.”
“After all those years. After all the struggle. And to have it end like that.”
“What happened?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No, ma’am.”
She checked the room, as if looking for eavesdroppers. “Took poor Mr. Pov nearly ten years to get his sister Lily over here from Cambodia. All kinda red tape about how they wouldn’t let her go and then how America wouldn’t let her in…and all the money he had to spend and all.”
“And?”
“And he had everything set up. Had her a husband and everything. Nice Cambodian man from Seward Park. Owns a grocery. Drives a nice new Lincoln.”
“I take it the wedding didn’t come off.”
Her eyes narrowed. “She killed herself. Hanged herself in the laundry room.”
“Any idea why?”
She thought it over. “Lily was much younger than Mr. Pov. More Americanized.” She shrugged. “Who knows why those people do things? Live in a whole other world than the rest of us. Got their own idea of right and wrong that don’t make a stick of sense to folks like you and me. They come over here to live, but they’re not like us.” A light flickered in her eyes. She stopped. “Don’t mean to come off as prejudiced or anything. I was right down there with the rest of them at the Cambodian church or whatever they call it, right there on Rainier Avenue, for the funeral.” She looked up at Corso. “Had a hell of a turnout. Mr. Pov’s a bigwi
g in the local Cambodian community, you know. Musta been five hundred people there.” She shook a finger at Corso. “And I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Writer. Those Asians treat an old woman like me a lot better that Americans do. Found me a seat right in the front row. Treated me like I was gold, they did.”
Corso stifled a sigh. “About Mr. and Mrs. Barth.”
“He had her buffaloed. You could see it in her face. Like a deer in the headlights. Afraid of every damn thing she saw. I’d say hello, and she’d just stammer something and turn away, like she was ashamed or something.”
Corso got to his feet. “Thanks for your trouble,” he said.
She held out a hand. Corso stepped over, took her hand, and pulled her up from the chair. “You tell ’em Delores Kilburn says old age is overrated.”
“I will,” Corso assured her.
Corso stood on the front steps and listened to the locks snap behind him. Overhead, the moon floated high in the sky, ducking in and out of a jigsaw of thick black clouds. Corso warmed his hands in his coat pockets as he walked the length of the sidewalk and turned left, back into the center of the complex.
He rang the bell. “Coming,” the voice said from inside.
A moment later, the door opened and Nhim Pov stood in his doorway.
“Ah,” he said. “Mr. Corso.”
Corso fished Donald Barth’s wedding invitation from his pants pocket.
“I wanted to return this,” he said.
“Thank you,” the little man said. “But perhaps you would like to return it yourself.” His eyes crinkled at Corso’s momentary confusion. “His son is here. He’s down at the shed right now.”
18
Thursday, October 19
7:07 p.m.
Corso leaned against the wall and watched as Robert Downs sorted through the remnants of his father’s life. He was a tall thin young man, with a full head of lank brown hair that was going to be gone before he saw forty. The single overhead bulb sent his shadow lurching over the walls and ceiling as he pawed through the dozen cardboard boxes.
Ten minutes later, Downs sat on the patched plastic couch with his head bent forward and his hands hanging down between his knees. “It’s not much, is it?”
“I guess he had all he needed,” Corso offered.
“Not a scrap of paper—” he began.
“Cops probably took all the paperwork.”
Downs tapped his temple. “Of course. I’m not thinking very clearly,” he said.
“You’ve had quite a shock.”
Downs looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. “The manager, Mr….”
“Pov,” Corso said.
“Yes. Mr. Pov showed me the apartment he lived in. There’s an old woman living in there now, but she said it was okay.”
“Nice of her.”
“It was…it wasn’t what I expected.”
“Your father led a simple life.”
“I had no idea. His letters always said he was in building maintenance.”
“He was.”
Robert Downs ran a well-manicured hand through his lank hair. “But I always assumed it was…somehow…” He searched for a phrase, didn’t find anything suitable, and gave up.
“Something a bit more grandiose,” Corso suggested.
Downs nodded. “Like he had his own firm or something.”
“When was the last time you saw your father?”
“You mean like in person?” He read Corso’s expression. “A couple of times he sent a videotape for Christmas, and I saw him that way.”
“In the flesh.”
“When I was eleven. He lived in southern California then. I went out to LA for two weeks. He took me to Disneyland. He had a nice apartment in Santa Monica, just a few blocks off the beach.”
“What year was that?”
“Nineteen eighty-one.”
“Long time.”
Downs agreed. “My mother was bitter,” he said. “She’d have preferred I never saw him again.”
“What was she bitter about?”
“She always claimed he fooled around on her.”
“I take it they didn’t correspond?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I was six or seven before she even admitted I had a father and that he was alive on the West Coast somewhere.” He rolled his eyes. “It took me three years to get her to send me to California.” He looked around again and jammed his hands into his pockets. “How could he live in a place like this?”
“His ex-wife says it’s because he was sending all his money away to keep you in college and medical school.”
His face was the color of ashes. “I had no idea he was living this way,” he complained to the ceiling. “Those apartments…they’re hovels.” He stepped over to the storage unit and pawed at an open box of housewares. “I mean, look at the man’s dishes.” He gestured with the back of his hand. “This is it?” he demanded, of nobody in particular. “This is the total of a man’s life, some broken-down furniture and a few cardboard boxes?”
Something in his tone annoyed Corso. “So then, if you’d known he was living in poverty, you’d have sent him his money back and enrolled in the state university?”
Downs’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to defend himself and then changed his mind. The muscles along his jawline rippled like snakes. He cupped his face in his long fingers and stayed that way for quite a while.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “I was being a first-class asshole, wasn’t I? I mean, who the hell am I to be judging him? After everything he did for me…everything he gave up…and here I am, standing around judging the quality of the guy’s life like I’m Martha Stewart or something.”
Downs turned away from Corso and leaned his forehead against the chain link. He took several deep breaths and then began to cry. Corso watched until the shaking of his shoulders stopped; then he stepped into the storage area, found a roll of paper towels, and tore off a couple.
It took Robert Downs a few minutes to put himself back together. He honked three times into a towel and dropped it onto the floor.
“Why would anybody want to kill my father?” he asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“The police called me yesterday morning.”
“Where were you?”
“Boston. I live in Boston.” He retrieved the other paper towel from his pants pocket and wiped his nose. “They asked me what I wanted done with the body.” He looked to Corso, as if for forgiveness. “They had to say his name twice before I realized who it was they were talking about. That it was my father who was dead. And that I was…that nobody else had come forward for his remains.”
“You know the details?” Corso asked.
“They said he was found in his truck. Buried in a hillside.”
“Shot.”
“That’s what they said.”
“My source says the medical examiner’s office is going to report nine bullet wounds from three different weapons.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Corso agreed. “None of this makes any sense.”
They stood in silence. Somewhere out in the parking lot a car engine shuddered to a stop. A car door closed. They listened as the sound of footsteps faded to black.
“You going back to Boston?” Corso asked.
Downs wandered around in a circle, as if confused. “I’m…I mean, I was….” He looked at his watch.“I’m getting married in three weeks,” he said absently, then reached inside his sport jacket and came out with an airline ticket. “I’ve got a flight back in the morning, but I think…I think I’m going to stay for a while.”
“Might not be a good idea for you to be mucking about in this,” Corso said.
“Why’s that?”
Corso told Downs about Dougherty.
“And you think what happened to your friend was a result of her looking into my father’s death?”
“Yeah, I do.”
>
“How could—”
“I have no idea,” Corso interrupted. “But I’m going to keep turning over rocks until something crawls out.”
“I can’t just leave,” Downs said. “I don’t know why, but I can’t. It’s like I found something and lost it all at the same time.” He looked to Corso for agreement. “You know what I mean?”
Corso said he did. He remembered his own father’s army trunk with the big brass padlock, how his father kept it stored under a tarp in the garage rafters. In the years after he returned from the war, he’d opened it only once, when a friend from his army days had stopped by one hot August afternoon. They sat together all day, stripped down to their undershirts, sweating together in that stifling oven of a garage, talking quietly gether in that stifling oven of a garage, talking quietly and looking at pictures. Together they drank a whole bottle of whiskey and then, late in the afternoon, they’d put their heads together and cried.
He could still hear the dry crack of the wood when, the day after his father’s death, he’d torn the hasp off with a crowbar and rolled back the lid. He could still feel the stinging of his cheeks as he tried to ignore his guilt—the terrible guilt—about the sense of relief he’d felt when the VA doctor told them his father had passed away. About how his first thought hadn’t been about the loss of a father or its effect on those he loved but had, instead, been about the trunk in the rafters and how now, in death, he might solve the riddle of his father in some fashion that had not been possible in life.
“It’s a high-profile case. The cops are giving it the full treatment.”
“That’s what they said.” Downs waved a hand. “There’s nothing I can do, I know that. But…somehow…for some reason I don’t understand, I can’t go back to Boston until I try to sort things out here. Does that sound crazy?”
“Yeah, it does,” Corso said. “But sometimes life’s like that.”
Robert Downs ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Maybe I can help you there.”