Mid-Life Friends and Illusions

by Jeffrey Freeman

  At the next stop, Samuel, freed from the jaws when the doors opened, stepped off. Instantly people shoved by him in both directions. He elbowed his way back in. Commuters were jammed against each other, trying not to breathe directly in anyone’s face. The crowd pressed a shapely young woman’s backside against him. He and she pretended not to notice when the sideways movement of train jolted their bodies together. No one spoke. Some held on to overhead straps, a few of them trying reading a folded newspaper or novel.

  Samuel was wedged in a corner between the doors and a glass wall at the end of a row of seats. As the train picked up speed, the woman was knocked against him repeatedly. It was sensual for him. He was sure that if she recognized him as a senator, she might consider filing for harassment. He concentrated on speculating what might be in the Czeiler file.

  The chaotic rush at the end of the ride was also governed by commuter protocol. Speed walk with the crowd of three or four lanes across going in your direction. Don’t try to buck the one lane in the opposite direction. Stay in your lane until you reached the surface or there was a full one-person-opening in a faster lane next to you. For godsakes, don’t stumble or fall. You might take several people with you and it was near certain that more than one person would walk on you before you could regain your feet. Of course, there was often that one person, usually a man, who felt entitled to do things his way, darting in and out, with or against the flow, causing anger, resentment, and envy among the crowd. Twice a day, tens of thousands of commuters endured the ritual. The only way to avoid it was to come to work as soon as the Metro opened at five-thirty A.M. and leave after seven P.M. When it snowed or rained heavily, all bets were off regarding timing.

  Sara was seated in the dining room. She was easy to spot. Her wine glass was nearly empty of red.

  “You do this everyday?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Commute.”

  “Just about.”

  The waiter handed him a menu. He handed it back.

  “Caesar salad.”

  She held up her glass.

  After the waiter had brought her another cabernet, she smiled at Samuel. “This is nice,” she said.

  “It’s been awhile since you’ve wanted to have dinner with me.” He munched on the salad. “You’re not eating?”

  “I had a shrimp cocktail waiting for you.” Her smile grew.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” She told him the entire encounter with Howard that afternoon. “The man has character,” she ended.

  He breathed through his open mouth, considering what to say, trying desperately not to recall the night before. Finally, he said not what he was tempted to but only, “I’m glad you noticed.”

  “I fucked him, before,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  His eyes darted around the room. No one seemed to have overheard. He chewed a bite of salad, giving himself time to compose. He felt the redness start from the top of his head and spread rapidly downward over his whole body.

  “And do you intend to inflict details upon me?” he asked.

  “No,” she smiled. “I’ll let you imagine.”

  He choked on a piece of lettuce. Coughed. Took a drink of water.

  “Why, daddy, you didn’t think I’d be that vulgar, did you?”

  The redness burned all the way to his toes.

  After a couple bites of salad that he chewed particularly fine, he asked, “You’re leaving in the morning?”

  “I told you that. Have we run out of conversation already?”

  “No. I, ah, … what?”

  She smiled, sipped her wine. “Tell me your version of the accident.”

  The morning brought a cold rain. Howard was waiting when Samuel walked in, shaking rain from his overcoat. Howard took the over coat and handed him a towel. Samuel didn’t like hats and clung to the out-dated notion that real men didn’t carry umbrellas.

  “Sara get off okay?” Samuel asked.

  “I have no idea,” Howard replied, a little surprised by the question.

  “Good,” Samuel said, a coldness in his voice. “Let’s go to work. Tell me what you found out about Martín Czeiler.”

  “I would like to dig a little deeper. Can we do it after lunch?”

  Samuel stared at him. It wasn’t like Howard not to be prepared. Maybe there was something he wasn’t telling, something that had occupied his evening, something Samuel didn’t really want to know. “Fine,” he said. Then added, “Oh, while you’re checking on things. There was a saying, a motto maybe, inscribed over the entrance to Bensen and Bensen. ‘Post Proelia Praemia.’ See if you can find out what it means.”

  It was just past one p.m. when Jean walked in carrying a foot-square box a couple inches thick wrapped in brown paper. “This just came by courier. It’s marked personal.” She held it out toward Samuel and stood waiting.

  “It’s been through screening?”

  “No, it hasn’t. Do you want me to send it?”

  He strained to see the return address. “Bensen and Bensen, Houston, Texas,” was all he needed to see.

  “How did it get past …” It didn’t matter. “Thank you, Jean,” he said.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes.” He swallowed involuntarily.

  She gently placed the box on the edge of his desk and left, closing the door behind her.

  He momentarily reconsidered his decision. Then, one hand at arm’s length holding the package, he slit open the paper wrapping with a letter opener. He paused, half-expecting an explosion of some sort—white or black powder. Nothing.

  He wiped the sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand. He snorted a half-laugh at his own ridiculousness. What was the point? If the box did contain chemicals or a bomb, opening it in this manner was not going to provide any real protection. He pulled it closer, slit the tape sealing the top, and removed it. He pulled out the contents one at a time and laid them in separate piles on the desk. Memos and letters, copied newspaper clippings, and eight by ten photographs.

  Howard rapidly opened the office door and just as quickly closed it behind him. “That the package from Walter Bensen?”

  Samuel looked up, slightly perturbed. “Yes. Did you find out more on Martín Czeiler?”

  “Probably not as much as what is in that box. How did it get past security?”

  “I don’t know.” Samuel leaned back. “Tell me what you found.”

  Howard pulled one of the Champlain chairs close. He flipped open a small notebook. “He owns the Capri Nuevo in Miami Beach. Lives there. Has a third of the top floor to himself.” His eyes darted down the page. “Yada yada,” he said as he flipped through two more pages. “Oh, yes, he keeps close contact with a number of Cuban acquaintances in Little Havana, especially in the Calle Ocho district. Unlike a number of his employees, he hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket since he moved to Florida in 1989.”

  “Where’s he from originally?” Samuel interrupted.

  “New York.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Howard glanced at his notes. “Brooklyn.”

  “Are there a lot of Cubans there?”

  “Some. More in New Jersey.”

  “So he could have known some Cubans growing up?”

  “Most likely if he came from the better parts of Brooklyn.”

  “Well, did he?”

  Howard shook his head. “I haven’t been able to get an address. With everything on the Internet, this man has some how managed to remain relatively unknown until coming to Florida.”

  “So we have no idea where he got the money to buy an expensive hotel?”

  “Buy and renovate. It was a little rundown when he acquired it in,” Howard again checked his notes. “1991.”

  Samuel placed all the documents back in the box. “Here,” he said, pushing the box in Howard’s direction. “You go through it. See how much of it you can verify. Walter isn’t above gliding th
e lily.”

  The box slid farther than Samuel had intended. Howard grabbed for it, dropping his notebook in the process. The box tilted precariously on the corner of the desk. Howard saved it from going over the edge. A couple of paper spilled out and floated to the floor.

  Howard slid the box solidly on the desk, then bent to pick up the errant papers. “Speaking of Walter, I found the meaning of that inscription. ‘After the battle come the rewards.’”

  There was a light rap on the door before it opened. Jean stood in the doorway. “Ed’s on the phone. Jack Thomas agreed to the debate.”

  Samuel smiled as he picked up the phone. Jean held the door open for Howard to make his exit but he stayed seated, the two papers in hand.

  “Yes, Ed?” Samuel said.

  “Well, you got it. Just what you asked for. One debate. Winna take all.”

  “By thunda, that’s just dandy.” Samuel’s smile shot through the phone line.

  “Just one thing. He’s agreeable but only if’n it’s on the thurtieth.”

  “Why? That’s more than a month before the election. Oh, no, I get it. He wants to have time to recover if it doesn’t go his way.”

  “Not Septemba, Octoba.”

  Samuel flipped his desk calendar to October. Thursday. The day before Halloween. Hell night. He liked the irony. And it wouldn’t give Thomas time to recover before the election. “He must be feeling pretty cock-sure of himself.”

  “Ayaught.”

  “I don’t see a downside for us.”

  “Nought.”

  “Lock it in. Wait. Where?”

  “Burlington.”

  “He’s coming our way? Why? Does he know something we don’t?”

  “Cain’t say.”

  “Well, set it up then.” Samuel paused. “Unless you think better.”

  “Nought.”

  “Okay. See if you can find out why he’s dealing us aces.”

  “Ayaught.”

  Samuel slowly replaced the receiver, his forehead furrowed with suspicion. “What have you got there?” he asked, indicating the papers in Howard’s hand.

  “Well, I think.” He reached for Samuel’s magnifying glass. His eyesight had been changing for the past couple of years but his vanity wouldn’t allow him to be seen with reading glasses or, God forbid, bifocals. Everyone in the office knew he kept a pair of drugstore reading glasses in his center desk drawer but no one ever mentioned them. Somehow, keeping a magnifying glass on the desk was less demeaning in Samuel’s mind.

  Howard held a newspaper clipping of a photograph and part of an article on Martín Czeiler. He slid the magnifier to the edge of the photo, moved it in and out several times trying to get the best focus. “I think,” he continued, “that that is Senator Ramirez.”

  Samuel took the clipping and magnifier.

  “In the corner, almost out of sight,” Samuel said, pointing at the spot.

  Samuel closed one eye to get better focus. After a moment, he laid both items on the desk. Now he even more puzzled. “Why would Ted Ramirez be meeting with this Czeiler guy?” he asked as much of himself as of Howard.

  Howard was silent.

  Chapter Eight.

  There were a few vacant seats on the second leg of Sara’s flight back to Burlington. The Washington to New York leg had been completely full. She had jammed herself against the window and bulkhead to get as far from the smell of the grossly overweight man in the seat next to her. Now she had elbowroom enough to put the finishing touches on her story of Senator Winter’s car accident. She would be able to email it to her editor from the Burlington airport in time to make Thursday’s deadline for the weekly edition that came out Friday morning.

  There was no good way to get to White River Junction, except to drive. She could have driven the four plus hours from St. Pierre to Hartford, Connecticut and then flown back to Bradley Field from Washington. White River Junction would then be about halfway home. It was strange that she never thought of her apartment as home; only the house she had grown up in was home. Today she wanted to get home to talk with her mother. With that as her priority she had booked the round-trip from Burlington. With luck, her editor wouldn’t make her drive down to White River Junction. If she had to, she could make the drive and still be home in St. Pierre by dusk or shortly thereafter.

  When she pulled into the driveway she was thinking luck was on her side today. She had missed the rush hour traffic and the sun was still up, though barely. Then she saw the dark green Bronco with the gold sheriff’s star facing her.

  She sat for a moment, engine running, considering whether to block the Bronco so she could confront Sheriff Lampson, quiz him about being at her mother’s home when he knew her father was not. Despite her estrangement with Samuel, it aroused feelings of jealousy and anger seeing any other man near her mother.

  She decided to leave room for the Bronco to pass, parking her eight-year old, rusting Subaru partly on the grass.

  Art Lampson smiled at her as he walked from the kitchen door. He touched the brim of his brown Smokey-the-bear-hat with a two-finger salute.

  Sara forced a closed-lips smile back. Jesus, she thought, who the hell wears a hat like that if you don’t have to? State Police have no choice. Their uniforms are issued. But even their broad brimmed hats didn’t look this ridiculous. Lampson looked more like a forest ranger than a sheriff. Perhaps her emotions were making her overly critical. They were definitely making her curious.

  “What was he doing here?” Sara demanded even before the kitchen door banged shut behind her.

  “Hello to you, too,” Jane shot back, annoyed at being grilled in her own home.

  “Sorry.”

  Jane pulled a bottle of Chardonnay from wine rack. She held the corkscrew tip against the foil, turning the bottle. The cork made a popping sound as she extracted it. “Glass?” she asked.

  “Sure, why not.”

  Jane half-filled a pear shaped glass with the golden liquid. She held the tip of the bottle on the rim. “Are you staying or driving back?”

  “Staying.”

  Jane filled the glass. She led the way to the living room. Sara picked up her glass and followed.

  Jane smiled peacefully as she savored the comfort of her rocker. Sara pulled Samuel’s footstool close. In more refined homes the well-worn, deep brown colored, leather-covered object would be referred to as an ottoman. In this house it was a footstool, handed down from Samuel’s grandfather, Henry.

  Jane held out her glass. “Cheers.”

  From her position of sitting at her mother’s feet, Sara held her glass up momentarily, responded, “Salud,” before taking a sip. She glanced at the fireplace. “No fire?”

  “Too warm.” This time of year, the weather, like people, could quickly change from cold to warm and back again. It appeared that they might be in for a day or more of Indian summer. “Are learning Spanish?”

  “No. Are you going to tell me?” Sara asked staring over the rim of her glass.

  “Art?” Jane smiled. “He brought a copy of the accident report.”

  Sara squinched her eyebrows in disbelief. “Say what?”

  “It’s flattering I suppose. Just to know he’s still interested after all these years.”

  “But you’re not. Are you?”

  “No. But it’s nice to know you’re still attractive.” Jane took a long, slow sip.

  “Mother, you’ll be attractive on your death bed.”

  “Thank you, dear. That’s comforting, I suppose. In a way.” She sat the wineglass on the side table. “Now tell me, why are you here?”

  Sara stared at her, thinking, considering. She stood, glass in hand, and walked to the fireplace, turning her back on her mother. “It’s cold in here. Mind if I light a fire?”

  She started to place her glass on the birdseye mantle. A gasp from Jane stopped her. The damp glass might leave a water mark.

  “It’s warm in here,” Jane proclaimed. “And yes, I do mind. And, yes, I want to
know what’s bothering you.”

  Sara turned to face her. She put the glass to her lips, then away without drinking. “Don’t you usually drink merlot?” She took a step toward the kitchen.

  “Sara.”

  Her mother’s tone stopped her cold. She turned to face her straight on. She took a full drink of chardonnay. Jane reached for her own glass and took a small drink while studying her daughter’s face.

  “What happened to George?” Sara asked.

  “George? Nothing yet. Other than Olin Huff confiscating his rifle. He’ll be charged with something or other in a day or two. Is that what’s bothering you? The ricochet?”

  “He wasn’t shooting at coyotes. He was trying to kill me.”

  “What?” Jane came out of her rocker with a suddenness that surprised them both. In two steps, she was standing toe-to-toe with Sara. “What are you talking about?”

  Sara looked her directly in the eye. Bit her lip. Swallowed. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  Sara took another sip of wine. Hand shaking, she said, “Years ago, when I was twelve, he did things.”

  The blood drained from Jane’s face. Shocked, she drew back, drawing Sara’s hands with her. As in a dream, she seemed to float backwards to her rocker, pulling Sara to her. As in earlier days, Jane wrapped both arms around Sara holding her tenderly to her chest. Jane gently pushed with her feet, barely setting the rocker in motion. The old chair creaked as though it might break under the weight of both of them but it held.

  After a few minutes, Jane stopped rocking. She stroked the back of Sara’s hair. “Tell me,” she whispered in her ear.

  “Did you find anything?” Samuel asked.

  Howard stood holding the open box from Walter. “Nothing we did not already know, just more details. Except for this.” He pulled a small newspaper clipping from the box and handed it to Samuel. “It seems Mister Czeiler was interested in adding gambling to his ventures.”