by Tom Kakonis
And yet, miraculously, that’s exactly what happened. Their line stalled, his slowly advanced, and when the two vehicles were parallel he presented them with a fierce, scowling face. Neither occupant took the slightest notice of him. The man drummed the wheel impatiently, pinch of a cigarette dangling from his lips; the woman, dumpy blond with a butch hairdo, appeared to be yammering tirelessly. Marshall muttered “Assholes” again, but softly this time, and under his breath. And as if that barely articulated obscenity somehow reached her above the roar of the traffic and across the gap between them, penetrating closed windows, both cars, the woman turned and inspected him with about the same level of curiosity one inspects the progress of a pesky bug climbing up a pane of glass, and was about to turn away when her eyes fell on the poster in the Volvo’s window and they steepened and her jaw fell open and she mouthed—not to Marshall but to her astonished-seeming self—the unmistakable words: “I know that kid.”
Still gaping at the poster, she elbow-jabbed the driver, an urgent demand on his attention. Exasperatedly he turned, squinted. His face darkened, and he looked away quickly.
Marshall was dumbstruck, paralytic. And as in some bizarre dream where events, jeering at logic, occur capriciously and perversely and outside one’s control, their line began to move and his didn’t, and they edged out ahead, first a single car length, then another. The woman’s mouth was going rat-a-tat now, hands flying, miming some agitated show of incredulous confusion. Her head swiveled between gradually receding Volvo and driver, who pointedly ignored her, pulled their car into the bay, flung coins into the chute and, the instant the gate lifted, took off squealing, not a look back.
And Marshall, with the sudden wild panic of a drowning victim going under for the last time, commanded his leaden nerve ends to act! act! He fumbled with the window and stuck his head out and called after them, “What?—what?—what?—you know him?—where is he?—wait!”
His voice was swallowed up in the whoosh of vehicles bolting through the gates.
And Lori, startled out of her private reverie, exclaimed, “What is it? Jeff? Is it Jeffie?”
Marshall could see the car merging into the streams of traffic on the other side of the toll booths. The one directly in front of him was by now idled opposite the change chute. Its driver appeared to be an elderly matronly lady, somebody’s kindly grandmother. Slowly, infuriatingly slow, an arthritic claw came through the window and released some coins. One of them missed the chute. The door swung open and she shuffled out and stooped over in that lock-kneed, ass-aloft posture of stiffening age and recovered the errant coin.
Marshall laid on the horn. “Move it!” he bawled.
Lori was frantically tugging his sleeve. “Tell me, Marsh. What did you see? Tell me!”
“Goddammit, move!”
Taking her time, the sweet granny dropped the coin in the chute. She paused long enough to glare at him defiantly and to elevate a gnarled middle finger, then climbed back into her car and sped away. He swung the Volvo into the bay, threw in his own coins, and in the split second it took for the gate to rise he pounded the wheel furiously, muttering, “Up, damn it! Up up up!” He stomped on the pedal, and the car lurched forward, picking up speed.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
Lori shrilling at him. Swarms of vehicles zooming around him. Sun blinding him. Had to concentrate, center himself, think, remember. “Notepad in the glove compartment,” he said. “Get it.”
“Was it Jeff? Did you see—”
“Just get it.”
“But I don’t—”
“Get the goddam pad!”
She got it.
“You want to help? You want to find him? Write this down. Illinois plate, letters AZ or AS in it, Z or S, one or the other, Buick or a Mercury, four-door, I think, about an ’88, ’89—Christ, I don’t know, somewhere in there, bronze color, lot of rust on it. Man and a woman, forty, say, maybe a little older, hard to tell, woman had blond hair, cut short, man I couldn’t see much of, big, I remember, heavy…”
He trailed off, run out of remembering. Lori scribbled silently. She looked chastened, hurt, bewildered. And not a little frightened at his driving. But he was oblivious to it, eyes fastened on the road, jaws clenched, yellow-knuckling the wheel, weaving in and out of lanes dangerously, blazing down the highway in a maddened, futile effort at catch-up. In a sensible Volvo station wagon. Rolling representation of everything he was: cautious, timid, sheltered, unseasoned in conflict, unschooled in strife.
Might as well be chasing the wind. The Buick or Mercury or whatever the fuck it was, nowhere in sight. Swept up in the glut of traffic. Vanished utterly. Like those heat waves in the near distance will vanish at your approach. Like some hallucination appeared magically, and as mysteriously gone. The car, the woman with her soundless declaration dangling a flimsy thread of hope, the whole encounter, all of it a figment of his fevered imagination, something he had willed into being. A sop to his incapacity and his helpless grief.
Except it was no hallucination, and he knew it. No. Rather his own craven failure to act—freezing there like a stricken fawn in that critical sliver of a moment—had forfeited the single opportunity gifted to him. That and his wicked luck.
He turned off at the next exit ramp. Pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. Killed the engine. He sat stiffly, stiff as that irascible old granny back there, as if he were holding himself in. His face worked through shifting attitudes of defeat and stunned disbelief and self-loathing, but when he spoke it was in the voice of a man more bemused than enraged. “I lost them. Jesus God, I can’t believe it. I lost them.”
The bronze, rust-cankered Mercury chugged down Maple Avenue, deliberately slow now, though for no apparent reason since the suburban Sunday traffic was relatively light. Sweat beaded on the driver’s forehead and over his lip, and moons of it dampened the pits of his T-shirt. His complexion, normally ruddy as boiled beef, was gone pallid, gray. His dark eyes flicked nervously at the rearview mirror. He lit a steadying cigarette. And to revive a conversation silenced back on the tollway with a sharp barked command, he said, for something to say, “Hot out.”
Got only more of the silence.
So he came at it another angle. “We decide to keep this heap, I’m gonna have to work on the air condition.”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Waz.”
“Look, Della, I’m tellin’ you—”
“And I’m telling you, kid on that poster looked just like Davie. Like in exactly like. Dead ringer.”
She was pressed up against the door, staring stonily through the windshield, letting him know by word and tone and sulky set of her dimpled chin he wasn’t going to get off that easy. Talking about weather and cars and air conditioners, for chrissake. Like it never even happened.
“How the hell you know that?” he said, steaming up again. “We couldn’t of been there half a minute, tops. Less’n that. You didn’t get no good look at it.”
“Know what I seen.”
“You been watchin’ too much tube. Goddam soap operas gettin’ to you.”
“That might be,” she said pettishly. “Still know what I seen.”
“Okay. Good. You see whatever fuck you wanta see. But I don’t want you go sayin’ nothin’ to Buck or Norma. Either of ’em. Okay?”
“You better just tell me what’s going on, Waz.”
“Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on,” he sputtered on a mighty, spittle-winged exhalation, stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette in a choleric fit of temper. “Which is what I’m tellin’ you right now. Which is how it is and that’s all it is. You understand what I’m sayin’ here?”
Della gave him a wary sidelong glance. “I understand,” she said, even though she didn’t. What she understood better was that hair-trigger temper of his, and the note of finality in his voice.
“So let’s just stuff a sock in it, huh?”
They had turned off Maple now and were coming down a quiet street lined
with trees and homes modest but well tended. A frame two-story with a manicured lawn and an abundance of shrubbery occupied a corner lot just ahead. Before Waz arrived at it he brought the car almost to a crawl and said again, emphatically, one last time, “Okay?”
She nodded.
“Wanna hear you say it.”
“Awright, awright. You happy now?”
“Not a word.”
“What’d I just say?”
“Okay.”
A winged eagle was painted into the wall over the garage door, and above it the straightforward announcement: THE BUCKLEYS. A Pontiac of about the same vintage as the Mercury was parked in the drive, blue-jeaned male buttocks protruding from under its raised hood. Waz swung in next to it, hopped out, and with a labored heartiness called, “Yo, Buck, this GM junker givin’ you grief again?”
Buck slid out from beneath the hood, grinned, drawled, “This junker still be clickin’ off the miles when they tryin’ to peddle your Merc there for parts.”
Waz’s knob-knuckled hand was outthrust in greeting, and seeing it, Buck looked at his own grease-smeared palm, hesitated. Waz grabbed it anyway and they shook vigorously, the clasp turning quickly into another of their habitual little contests of strength, each trying to outmuscle the other. Della, who had stepped out her side of the car and fallen in behind Waz, had to smile in spite of herself, as if she were watching a couple of unruly kids. Eventually Waz released his grip, admitting grudgingly, “Okay, you win.”
“Always do,” Buck said, and then, acknowledging Della, he held out grimy arms and beckoned her. “Della, honey, you come on over here. I’ll protect you from this ape.”
“God knows I need it.” She slipped inside the extended arms and gave him a cautious hug.
“Where you two been? Lookin’ for you ’bout an hour ago.”
“Uh, traffic on the East-West kinda thick,” Waz said vaguely. He didn’t dare look at Della, but he heard her make one of her little sniffing sounds.
“East-West? What you doin’ up there?”
“Went over to Aurora. Check out a Honda Diaz tryin’ to con me into buyin’.”
“Diaz?”
“Y’know, Vic the Spic.”
“Machine shop Vic?”
“That’s the one.”
“He’s okay. Knows his cars.”
“So do I.”
“So you gonna buy?”
“No way. Stay with the Merc, pro’ly.”
“Big mistake.”
“Least I know what I’m drivin’. An’ it ain’t rice.”
“Yeah, well,” Buck said thoughtfully, “something to that too.”
“Damn straight, somethin’ to it. Gooks cop any more our jobs, we’ll all be feedin’ on your basic fish-eye burgers.”
Della, satisfied her filmy pink blouse was unstained from the quick embrace, tapped a heel on the asphalt. “You two planning to spend the day out here solving the world trade problems?”
Buck winked at his buddy. “I dunno, either that or go inside. What you think, Waz?”
Waz winked back, shrugged. “Six a one to me.”
“Let’s try inside awhile.”
He dropped the Pontiac’s hood and led them up the steps and onto a roofed porch strung with hanging flower baskets and through the door into an immaculately ordered living room furnished with sofa, pair of matching chairs, La-Z-Boy, and sturdy wooden coffee and end tables. A big console TV dominated one wall, a bookcase the other, one shelf of which held a set of Comptons encyclopedias, some well-thumbed volumes on auto and home repair, a stack of photo albums and a few paperbacks, another a row of polished bowling trophies, and the rest a variety of collectibles: ceramic figurines, commemorative plates, carnival glass, couple of antique Jim Beam bottles. A framed painting of a brooding Jesus hung above the entrance to the kitchen. “Norma’s around somewhere,” Buck said. “Been cleanin’ the place up.”
“What’s to clean?” Della remarked.
“Well, can get a little messy. With the boy now, y’know.”
“You want messy, try teenagers.”
“Can’t wait.”
A door closed on the second floor, and there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs behind them. “That’s her now,” Buck said.
Seeing them, Norma’s face ignited in a smile, genuine flush of pleasure in it. “Dell, Waz—you made it!” She crossed the room and the two women embraced, Della elevating onto tiptoes and reaching upward to accommodate her friend’s height. “We were getting worried,” Norma said to her.
“Talk to him about that,” Della said, indicating Waz.
“Hey, Norma. How’s she goin’?”
Norma disengaged herself and stepped over and gave him a warm hug. “Going great, Waz. But what I want to know is why you two been such strangers.”
“You know how it goes. No rest, you’re wicked.”
“We wanted to give you some time to get settled,” Della explained. “Y’know, used to things. How’s he doing anyway, Davie?”
Now Norma’s face took on a look of pure motherly bliss. “Wonderful, Dell. Just wonderful. He’s such a sweet kid.”
Della looked around expectantly. “Where’s he at?”
“Oh, he’s asleep yet. I was just up checking on him. Dale took him down to the park this morning and got him all worn out.”
She beamed at Buck, who stood there sporting a proud father grin.
“Which park’s that?” Waz wanted to know. “Hummer?”
“No, that one over on Fifty-fifth,” Buck said. “They put in a little merry-go-round, just for the summer.”
Waz had a crooked smile stuck on his face. “Merry-go-round,” he said absently. “That’s nice.”
“Kid loves it.”
“Yeah, that’s good too. Listen, Bucker, you offerin’ beer, or we got to drink outta the garden hose?”
“You know where it’s at. Help yourself.” He started up the stairs, adding by way of over-the-shoulder explanation, “Gonna shower. Switch on the TV there, Waz. Game’ll be on in a minute.”
“Some host,” Norma said, mock disgust. She tried to steer them toward chairs. “Sit, sit. I’ll get it.”
Waz waved her back. “You heard him. I’m doin’ the honors. Norma? Dell? What’re you drinkin’?”
“Too early for me,” Della said.
“Nothing for me either, thanks.”
“Couple wimp ladies,” Waz said, still smiling, let them know it was all in good fun.
They settled onto the couch, and he went into the kitchen, got a can of Bud out of the fridge, popped it, and took a long, gurgly swallow. He lit a cigarette. Listened carefully to the voices trailing in from the living room.
“So how’s Heather? Little Mike?” Norma, asking about their kids.
Della responding. “Both doing real good. Well, good as you can expect, teen years.”
“Seems like an age since I saw them last.”
“Heather’s trying out for cheerleader this year. And ‘little’ Mike, he’s not so little anymore. Size of his old man, and just as ornery.”
“It’s hard to believe they’re in high school already.”
“They grow up fast.”
Waz kept on listening. So far, so good.
Till Della had to put in, “You’ll find that out with Davie.”
“I know. These are the precious years.”
“Sure glad everything worked out.”
“Thanks, Dell. So am I.”
“He playing with the neighborhood kids? Got any little friends yet?”
“Not yet. He’s awfully shy. It takes time.”
Della’s voice lowering now, almost a whisper. He had to lean over toward the door to catch the words. “How about—you don’t mind my asking—uh, before? He seem to remember anything from before?”
Goddam her. Couldn’t leave it alone. Norma’s reply he missed altogether. Too low to hear. His stuck-on smile had long since come undone, and in its place was the pained expression of a deeply tr
oubled man.
Wilcox was gazing at the yellow legal pad laid out on the table in front of him. He massaged his temples, kneaded them, actually, as though the circular motions, wide and deep, might erase a serious migraine. He led a crowded life, full of faces, all of them distressed to one degree or another, most of them blurred, forgettable. These two he remembered, but not very clearly. Took awhile into the agitated, disjointed account for it to come back to him. Now he studied the skimpy notes recorded off that account and said, “All this happened—when again?”
“Like I said, about an hour ago. Ninety minutes. No more than that.”
“And where abouts?”
“On the East-West Tollway. At a toll plaza near the 355 junction, I think.”
“You think?”
“Could have been farther. Closer to the Tri-State maybe. I’m not exactly sure, but I could find it easy enough.”
“I see. Tell me, Mr. Quinn, why’d you come here?”
Marshall was perched on the edge of his seat, staring at him anxiously. They were in the same cramped little cubicle, the air just as sluggish and thick as that first time. Lori, sitting to his left, just as dreamily remote as then; Wilcox, across the table, just as impassive. Neither of them seemed to grasp the significance of the extraordinary event back there on the highway. And since he did, it was with a certain chagrin—better make that humiliation—he felt obliged to admit, “I got turned around coming into the city. Lost, I suppose. Yes, lost. Couldn’t find Harrison. We were driving down this side street, and I looked over and there was your precinct station. Anyway, Detective Thornton probably wouldn’t have been there even if…” He had the uncomfortable sense of talking too much and too fast, explaining too much, serving up more answer than there was question. He broke off, let it go.