by Ingrid Black
“How could I forget you, Saxon? The thought of talking to you again has been the only thing which has kept me going.”
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t call back.”
“You jump to conclusions too quickly. Things take time.”
“You have to admit, it’s not like we were ever best buddies.”
“No,” he said, “we weren’t. That’s true. But we were both friends of JJ. I thought if I managed to get you back in touch with him, you might be able to help him.”
“Help him?”
“He’s in a dark place right now. He needs all the friends he can get.”
“Why don’t you get in touch with him yourself?”
“It’s too late for that now. Too much was said. I wish they hadn’t been, but they were. You can’t simply wave a magic wand and make everything right again.” He stopped. “Where the hell are you? I can hardly hear you speak.”
“I’m on a tram,” I said.
“Dublin has trams?”
“Yeah, they have electricity and everything these days.”
“Sarcastic as always, I hear. I guess you just want me to shut up and tell you what I found out about Kaminski?” said Piper.
“That’s the general idea.”
“Then I’ll get straight to the point. I’m afraid the news isn’t good. I haven’t been able to find out where JJ is. He hasn’t been back to his apartment in Brooklyn for five months, and he’s not been getting his mail forwarded anywhere either.”
“Terrific,” I said sarcastically. “You must be losing your touch.”
“Hold on there,” Piper replied. “I said I didn’t know where he is, I didn’t say I didn’t find out where he went after New York.” He paused, like he was waiting for applause.
“Are you going to tell me,” I said, “or do we have to play twenty questions?”
“He went to Texas.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah, Texas, you know, 28th State of the Union, big place, lots of oil?”
“I’ve heard of it, thanks for the geography lesson. Why’d he go there?”
“Maybe he liked the climate. Maybe he inherited an oil well. Or it could just be because the guy he suspected of killing his wife lived in Huntsville.”
“What kind of person lives in Huntsville?”
“The kind who works as a guard on Death Row,” said Piper.
“You’re joking?”
“Do you hear me laughing? He worked at the Terrell Unit. Ten years dedicated service. You want my opinion, Kaminski went down there to try and trace him down.”
“For what purpose?”
“I wouldn’t like to speculate,” said Piper.
“OK, so you’re telling me he’s in Texas?”
“I’m telling you he was in Texas. He was renting a cheap room on the outskirts of Huntsville. One day he cleared out and he hasn’t been seen there since.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I spoke to the landlord of the house where he was staying. He told me Kaminski was a little wired, a little nervous, drank a bit too much, but was harmless enough. He didn’t know where he’d gone. Kaminski certainly didn’t tell him where he was going, didn’t even say he was going. One week, the landlord went round for the rental money and he wasn’t there.”
“And he definitely didn’t return to New York?”
“Not that his old neighbours know. I left word for them to contact me if he turns up again. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. But I wouldn’t go getting my hopes up.”
“What about the guard on Death Row?”
“That’s the thing,” said Piper carefully. “He’s gone AWOL too. I spoke to the local cops down there. They told me he didn’t turn up for work one morning about three months ago. When they went to search his house, they found him gone.”
A chill took hold of me, like it was January in July.
“Kaminski caught up with him then?” I whispered.
“Like I say, I wouldn’t like to speculate. The cops say they’d spoken to Kaminski a couple of weeks before. The guard had made a complaint. Said Kaminski was harassing him. They’d tried to warn him off, and as far as they were concerned it had had the desired effect. No more complaints. Then the complainant vanishes into thin air.”
“They didn’t bring in JJ again?”
“They brought him in alright, but they didn’t have anything on him. Plus there was some doubt about the other guy’s disappearance. Seems like he packed a case before he vanished, which suggests he intended to leave town. He also had some serious money issues. So they had to let Kaminski go. Apparently, he promised to stay in town in case they needed to speak to him again. Next thing, he vanished as well.”
“Christ, what a mess.”
“You said it,” agreed Piper. “So now you see why Kaminski might have good reason to want to make himself hard to find. And whatever he did, I hope it stays that way.”
“Even if he’s got blood on his hands?”
“Not innocent blood,” he pointed out.
“You’ve only got Kaminski’s word for it that this man killed his wife.”
“That’ll have to be good enough for me.”
“It wasn’t good enough when he called you afterwards.”
“I didn’t say I felt good about it, did I?”
“Wasn’t good enough for the FBI either.”
“You and I both know,” said Piper, “that the FBI make mistakes. Every day. I’ve made plenty of them myself. But look, if you’re so interested, why not fly to Huntsville and pick up the trail yourself?”
“It’s not that important,” I said casually, knowing that he was testing me to see how urgently I wanted to track down Kaminski. “I doubt he’d be in much of a mood to discuss a few old cases over a beer for my book. And you said it yourself - if he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”
“I just wish I could’ve been more help.”
“You were help enough. I appreciate it.”
“So do I get to buy you a drink sometime?” asked Piper.
“What are you going to do – send it by courier?”
“I meant next time we’re in the same general time zone.”
“I know what you meant, I was being sarcastic. Bad habit.”
“One of many.”
“You said it.”
It was getting near my stop now. I was about to end the call and make my way down to the door, when a thought suddenly struck me.
“Hey, Piper, can I ask you one more thing?”
“Shoot.”
“What was the name of the guard Kaminski suspected of killing his wife?”
That empty laugh of his rattled in my ear.
“It was Buck Randall III, if you can believe that.”
Believe it?
I would’ve put good money on it.
**********
I returned to my apartment, but working was impossible. Thinking was impossible. The only thing that was possible was baking - and not the cakes and cookies type of baking either.
What was baking was me.
The heat in my apartment was hostile, offensive. It was playing rough with me in my own sitting room. Pushing me around, refusing to let me settle. I tried sitting out on the balcony, looking down at the traffic, but the heat seemed to strike off the ground and upwards and hit me straight between the eyes. Its aim was clinical and precise as a laser.
The city was heating up and the people were trapped in its embrace. I couldn’t bear it and retreated inside, lay down on the couch with an electric fan turning, pointing at my face. I tried to close my eyes and sleep, but there were too many thoughts in my head.
Through the window drifted the sound of one of the summer concerts that were held most days in St Stephen’s Green. Today it was loud and unwelcome but I could hardly close the windows, without any air conditioning to keep the interior bearable.
Instead I had to put up with it.
I was supposed to be reading a script which
had been sent to me. A couple of years ago, they’d made a TV movie from one of the cases in my first book. The film had made me look good, not least because the actress they got to play me was more attractive than I’d ever hope to be. It’s nice to be flattered. They also made me look good in the sense that I was now being credited with singlehandedly solving every crime I’d ever come into contact with.
It had been far more complex than that, but what do complexities matter when it comes to the movies? I was the photogenic one - correction: the actress playing me was the photogenic one - and hence by the infallible logic of Hollywood she had to be the one who caught the bad guy. I wasn’t complaining. They’d paid me more for the film rights than I considered they were worth, and I’d sold a lot of copies of the movie tie-in edition after it was shown, mainly I suspect because they’d put a picture of the actress who played me on the front cover. I should get her to stand in for me all the time. I’d make a fortune.
Fitzgerald probably wouldn’t complain either.
Now they were in the process of making a sequel, which, if this latest script was anything to go by, had left the realms of reality behind and departed for Fantasy Island. Not that I was objecting to that either. I’m with Katharine Hepburn on that score: Never complain, never explain. The fact that a second film had come with a second cheque didn’t hurt either. Plus I’d managed to negotiate a percentage of the profits of the film. Assuming that there were any. It wasn’t a large percentage, but it was large enough to make me not care whether they made a film claiming I’d personally captured Jack the Ripper.
I was supposed to be reading the new script and making suggestions. That had been my job on the last film too. My name was listed on the credits as an Expert Consultant. Or was it Special Advisor? One or the other. Special Agent to Special Adviser in a few short years.
Did that count as progress or retreat? My mind changed day to day on that question. Sometimes minute to minute.
In the end, I flung the script aside impatiently, and lay back on my couch, eyes closed, trying and failing to imagine the breeze from the fan was a breeze from the sea.
I was confused.
No surprise there. Confusion is my natural state of mind. But today I was confused like I’d never been confused before.
I don’t know why I should’ve been feeling so defeated. The pieces were finally fitting into shape. Kaminski’s wife – Jenkins Howler - the Death Row guard he suspected of killing his wife – the spinster in Dublin who’d fallen for the condemned man – Kaminski in Dublin.
The components were all there, but they wouldn’t form any kind of pattern that made sense.
In the end, I knew the only thing I could do was to go round to the hotel and ask him right out what he was doing in Dublin. That had been the plan all along, after all. It’s just that breaking and entering had somehow gotten in the way. It generally does.
This time would be different. From what Piper had told me, Kaminski needed a friend. Maybe I could help him out. Maybe I could help him face down whatever demons it was had brought him to Dublin.
At the very least, I could have a drink with him and take a human interest in what was happening with his life. All this running around was pathetic. It wasn’t for him or for the truth, I was just trying to cover up some emptiness in my own life.
And if he was on the run from whatever bad things he’d done?
I’d have to deal with that dilemma when it arose.
It didn’t take long to get round to the hotel. Everything inside was exactly the same. The same shabby lobby. The same music playing on the intercom. Most of all, the same sulky receptionist. She must’ve remembered me from last time, but kept up the act all the same.
“Good afternoon, Madam, can I help you?”
Talk about having a stick up her ass.
“I’d like to speak to Mr Randall, please.”
“I’m afraid you’re too late, Madam.”
“Too late?”
“Mr Randall checked out this morning.”
She seemed aggrieved, glowering at me like it was my fault.
I guess it was.
“He’s gone?” I repeated blankly.
“I’m afraid so. He meant to stay till the end of the week, but said something had come up and he had to return to the States. Is your name” – she turned to check something on a sheet of paper on the desk behind her – “Mrs Kaminski?”
That sinking feeling in my stomach sank a little lower.
He had some nerve.
“That’s me,” I said.
I swore her eye dropped to my hand to see if I was wearing a ring. What was she going to do – demand to see a picture of me in my wedding dress?
“He left something here for you to pick up,” she said tightly. “I told him you came here looking for him. He said he was sorry to have missed you, but to give this to you if you turned up again.” And she slid open a drawer in the desk and lifted out an envelope.
Handed it to me.
For the attention of Mrs Kaminski.
I recognised his handwriting at once.
“Sorry you missed him,” the blonde smiled slyly.
I knew what she was thinking – if you could describe what went on in her head as thinking. She had me pegged as some flaky, lovesick female chasing the handsome but melancholy and reluctant Buck Randall III. If so, she clearly had me confused with herself.
I didn’t bother answering her. I simply took the envelope and went through the revolving door to the steps outside. I stood in the sunshine and tore the envelope open.
I knew without looking what would be inside.
Sure enough, it was the same leaflet from the theatre that I’d placed in an envelope the day before and left for JJ. Or half of it, at any rate. He’d torn it in two, and along the plain edge of one half of the leaflet, he’d written me a message: Saxon. Looks like our paths are destined not to cross. Hope you found what you were looking for in my room. - Buck.
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey, you! Lady!” he said.
I’d only that moment carried my drink over to my table in this, the latest of a string of bars I’d been re-acquainting myself with that day, and now I was looking up to find the barman on the other side of the room pointing at me accusingly.
Me, a lady?
He’d obviously never met me before.
“You can’t smoke in here,” he said.
I looked down at my hand. I was in the process of lighting a rather fine cigar which, according to the store owner in Smithfield who had them shipped in for me from the States, comprised 50 per cent Dominican and 50 per cent long filter Cuban tobacco exported before the 1962 embargo, though they could’ve been made from dried Patagonian llama dung and I’d still have smoked them, they tasted so good. Though perhaps only on special occasions. And now, after one solitary puff, I was being told to put it out.
“You want to get me fined?” he said when I began to protest.
I held up my hand in apology.
“OK, OK, I’m sorry,” I said, “I forgot.”
I stubbed it out, feeling as I did so that I was committing an unforgivable crime against perfection, like scribbling with a ballpoint on the Mona Lisa.
That was a sure sign I’d had too much to drink. Not only too drunk to argue, but too drunk to remember that you couldn’t smoke in this city anymore.
Actually, that’s not strictly true. You could smoke, just not in any of the bars or restaurants. The city had taken a lead from Manhattan and imposed a public ban on tobacco. If you wanted to smoke and drink at the same time these days in Dublin, you had to stand outside, on rooftop terraces or crowded into courtyards with the other social renegades.
The rationale behind the ban was to protect employees in bars and restaurants from the effects of passive smoke. My opinion was that if employees didn’t want to breathe in someone else’s smoke, they shouldn’t get a job in a bar, they should go work in a kindergarten or something. But who listened to me
? Grace thought the new rule was great, waxing lyrical about how you could go into bars and restaurants and, for the first time in years, not find them wreathed in second-hand smoke. But then she was the kind of woman who wanted to eat organic fruit and knew the carbohydrate and fibre concentration of just about every meal she ever ate. Me, I thought they’d ruined the whole atmosphere of bars - an opinion intensified by drinking, after which nothing seems as good as it used to be anymore.
And I was feeling sorry enough for myself as it was.
I got to my feet, took my bottle of Budweiser and wandered out to the beer garden. It was a small place, not much more room than it took to raise an elbow to bring the cigar to my lips, but it was enough. I lit up for a second time. At least it was warm out here tonight.
Tonight?
Well, nearly. Shadows were creeping in. I could almost see stars.
Where had the day gone?
The only company in the garden was an old man sitting on the wall, smoking a pipe. We nodded at one another with the quiet, unspoken solidarity of a despised minority.
The two last smokers in a city of people determined to be the healthiest on the planet.
I wished now I’d come somewhere else for a drink. There were a few places in Dublin where they knew how to treat a lady who wanted a quiet cigar. There was nowhere you could smoke inside, but there were establishments which put aside great spaces outside where you could destroy your lungs in comfort. It wasn’t so great in winter, when the ice on the pipes had frozen or the terraces were ankle deep in the city’s trademark rain, but right now, with the temperature on the barometer heading high, it could be fantastic.
You got a better quality of people out here too.
Leave the interior for the saints who wanted to feel pious in the worship of their own bodily purity, and come out here with the people who simply wanted to have a good time and be left alone long enough to enjoy life without interference or disapproval.
Though I had to admit that, just this minute, me and the old guy were going to be pushed to make a party of it. He looked like the last party he’d been at was in 1947.
I sat down on the edge of the wall and regarded the area round me, lit brightly by overhanging lamps. It seemed like a metaphor for all that had gone wrong the last twenty four hours or so. I’d always thought of Dublin as a city of shadows. Not the hard edged shadows that the sun was casting on the summer streets each afternoon, when the edges of them were was so sharp on the ground that you felt you should step over them to avoid cutting yourself.