“They’ve ID’d my car. I can’t keep using it. I’m waiting to get a location on the bastard who is after me, and when I do, I’m going after him, but I’m going to need a car they won’t recognize. I’ll trade you my SUV for your truck, but it will help if the truck doesn’t break down on the way.”
“I don’t want your car. You leave it with that wife of yours. My sister keeps up her harping, your wife will need it to get the hell out of Dodge. But you’re not thinking you might need some backup, are you?”
“Are you offering?”
“I’m just talking here.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
“Dangerous dangerous.”
“Well, maybe I knows a guy what knows a guy.”
“You’re a peach, Harry.”
I’ve told my kids over and again that texting while driving is suicidal and that talking on your phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk. I’ve made it a point of pointing out all the oblivious jackaloons jabbering on their cell phones while driving like idiots. “Look at her, she’s not even looking,” I’ll say as someone cuts me off. “See that guy on the phone? I bet he rear-ends someone before he gets off the highway.” My children know my position on using the cell phone while in the car. They also know my position on fast food (against) and on soda (the devil’s elixir).
Still, there I was, barreling down I-95 with a cup of Coke between my legs, a hamburger in the hand holding the wheel, and a cell phone against my ear. But I had an excuse: I was an asshole.
“Thad Campbell, here.”
“Thad, it’s me.”
“Who?”
“Willing.”
“Jon? Oh my God, Jon. We thought you were dead.”
“Dead? Why would I be dead? I mean, as opposed to, like, in Mexico or something.”
“Is that where you are?”
“No,” I said without being more specific. “Why did you think I was dead?”
“Because you disappeared, all of you did. And the cops have been looking for you.”
“Me?”
“They found your car in some garage by Remnick Pond. Pretty mangled. And they connected it to some accident that almost killed a guy on Chandler Court. And then, what with all that’s been going on at your house, we were all pretty certain something bad had happened.”
“What about my house?”
“It’s been ransacked. More than once. After the cops were called the first time, they found the place a wreck inside. They bound it with cop tape and went door-to-door looking for you. Next thing you know it was ransacked again, even worse.”
“Is it okay? The house, I mean.”
“It’s still standing, if that’s what you mean. But I hope you’re insured. From what I’ve heard, whoever was inside sure didn’t like you much. They slashed every mattress, every piece of furniture, smashed lamps. What the hell is going on, Jon?”
“I’m in the middle of some old business, is all.”
“Something to do with your job?”
“Nothing that rough.”
“What about Caitlin? And the kids? Are they okay? Where are they?”
“Someplace safe. Has anyone been looking for them or me other than the cops?”
“You mean other than the cops and the debt collectors?”
“What debt collectors?”
“It’s about the money you owe.”
“What money?”
“They say you owe gobs of money, hundreds of thousands. They say you skipped off with a fortune. They’re going around asking everyone where you might be.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. We’re pals, remember. But they’re offering cash for information. And they want to know about your friends.”
“You mean like you, Thad?”
“Yeah, I guess. Or that old rummy you hang out with sometimes. The boxer.”
“How do you know about him?”
“Jon, you’re my neighbor, my friend.”
“Did you tell them about the old boxer?”
“No, Jon, no. I didn’t tell them anything. They didn’t look like any debt collectors I’ve ever seen before. But they’re offering money for information.”
“So who sold me out?”
“No one.”
“Are they there now? Are they listening on the other end of the phone?”
“Jon, get hold of yourself. Jon. Come home.”
“That’s what I’m doing right now.”
“Good.”
“I’ll stop off at your place first,” I lied.
“Good idea.”
“Just one more thing, Thad, okay? And be honest with me if you can.”
“Yes, of course. Anything. Any way I can help.”
“Are you sleeping with my wife?”
Thad had just added an hour to my drive, the son of a bitch.
The fastest route to Kitty Hawk was along I-64, right past Williamsburg. I had thought of stopping home, grabbing some fresh clothes, maybe some things for the kids before continuing on. But with the cops looking for me now, along with Clevenger’s collection agents, I wanted nothing to do with the whole damn peninsula. So when I hit Richmond, I didn’t take the exit for Route 64 but instead, like Grant before me, I headed for Petersburg. Then I took 460 toward the coast.
The phone I had been using was one of three little units I had picked up at a 7-Eleven on the way to my grandfather. They weren’t fancy, but they worked well enough and, most importantly, they were disposable. The bastards had found me in Vegas, they had found me in Williamsburg, they had found me in Pitchford. They had proven quite adept at finding me on their own, I didn’t need to help them out with a traceable signal to lead them right up my ass.
Before I threw the first one out, I made one more call.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me. Like it said on the tattoo on Augie’s shoulder, I’m still here, baby.”
“A new number. You’re getting careful in your old age.”
“Are you done searching my house? What did you find, a couple quarters under the cushions of the couch? Some dust mites in the mattresses?”
“We found the plate on the water heater, is what we found. We found the gap in the insulation, a hole big enough to bury a fortune.”
“And what did you find in the gap?”
“It’s only a matter of time, friend.”
“Let me see,” I said, trying to sound jaunty and hard, and succeeding surprisingly well. Clevenger seemed to bring out the worst in me. “My guess is Holmes is either still in the hospital or maybe transferred to the lockup so he can tell the cops all about you. And your two goons in Philly are probably recuperating now in Pitchford Memorial, with two detectives waiting outside their room to have a crack at them. It’s getting dangerous out there for your boys.”
“I don’t need any help to take care of you.”
“That’s good, because at the rate you’re going, you won’t have any.”
“So who was the mother’s helper at your motel last night? You hire some muscle, Frenchy? You buy yourself some protection?”
“I don’t need protection, but let me tell you, your pal Derek sure as hell does.”
He took a moment to light his cigarette, to inhale. The little pause that confirmed everything. “Who’s Derek?” he said finally.
“Don’t kid a kidder, Clevenger, you don’t have the irony for it. I just wanted you to relay a message for me.”
“I’m not your messenger boy.”
“Today you are. Tell him I’m coming. And, Clevenger, you should be there, too. I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”
“Don’t worry, pal. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. For a hooker maybe, but not for the world.”
“Good,” I said. “Someone’s got to answer for Augie, and it’s going to be you.”
“This is personal, is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“So no deal, right? You�
��re going to play it out with blood? Because that’s what I’m hoping for, that’s the way I want it, too.”
It took me a moment to process what he had just said. I was driving too fast, I was getting too angry, I remembered the cackle of his voice while I stood over the body of my dead best friend, and as he spoke of blood all I wanted was to see his, spattered over his face. Which is why it took me a moment to get the whole import of his words.
“What kind of deal?” I said finally.
“Curious as a cat, you are,” said Clevenger. “So here it is. We’ll end it. We’ll call off the dogs. You get your life back, your family back. And whatever you’ve been running from all these years, the ghosts and the demons, it’s over. Safety, security, peace, the whole ball of wax, pal. After twenty-five years of running and hiding, we’re offering you your freedom.”
As I listened to his offer, I slipped neatly into my mortgage-broker guise, as if this was as simple as paying off an ARM before the adjustment became ruinous.
“Terms?” I said.
And then he told me.
It was dark already when I drove along the bridge across the Currituck Sound. I had no clear idea of where exactly I was or onto what street I was headed. I was relying on the RX10’s GPS to get me where I needed to go. But in all honesty, even though I had never been to the Outer Banks before, by the time I hit the end of the bridge I believed I could have done the directing with my GPS off and my eyes closed. The new setting on my internal compass was guiding me unerringly.
Right onto the highway, right again onto a street that swiped a golf course. Follow the road around to the far side, to an old, narrow house wedged between two extravagant mansions and backing up upon the woods on the left. An unpaved drive led toward the narrow house and I took it, parking at the end beside a beat old brown pickup, my lights still on to illuminate the house in front of me. A narrow set of stairs angled its way up to the front porch.
And then the door opened and my son came out onto the front porch and peered down at the car and jumped a bit when he saw it was me and called out behind him. And my daughter stepped through the door with a smile strange to me only because I had seen so little of it lately. And then my wife, her face as inscrutable as a politician’s. I turned off the car, hopped out, ran up the stairs to hug them. My wife pulled away even as my children allowed me to grip them with a fervor that must have surprised them, because it surprised me.
“Can we go home now, please?” said Eric. “Please?”
“Do you have my phone?” said Shelby.
And then Harry came out, grinning and nodding. “There he is, that’s Johnny.”
“Hello, Harry,” I said. “Thanks for taking care of them.”
“It wasn’t me doing the caring,” he said.
And behind Harry a woman, tall and formidable, her gray hair beehived to within an inch of its life. “About time you showed,” she snapped. “I guess them strip bars finally closed.”
“I’ll have you know,” I said, giving Shelby a wink, “I haven’t stepped into a strip club since last night.”
“Oh God,” said Caitlin.
“Come on in, you,” said Harry’s sister, “we’ve been saving supper. And I’ve got some talking I mean to do.”
38. On the Beach
HOW MUCH?” SAID Caitlin.
“A ridiculous amount,” I said.
“How ridiculous?”
“More than enough for them still to be hunting us twenty-five years later.”
We were alone on the beach, my soon-to-be-erstwhile wife and I, sitting in the sand, our legs stretched out in front of us. Behind us was a row of charming beach cottages lit and cozy in the darkness; before us was the light of a crescent moon skittering along the uneven surface of the sea. We had left the kids with Harry and his sister so we could take our walk and have our talk. The talk. We were facing the water because it was easier than facing each other. As I spoke, she remained mostly silent, staring out at the ocean, and I stared out along with her. And what I saw hovering above the luminescent white at the tip of each dark wave surprised the hell out of me. What I saw was my father.
My father was usually as absent from my thoughts as he was from my life. My mother raised me, if you consider benign neglect to qualify as such, and my grandfather loomed large in my imagination as both tyrant and potential savior. My father, by contrast, was a mere shadow that passed by at a far remove. Yet there it was, that shadow, rising over the great heaving sea, faceless really because I knew not his face anymore, stretching his arms out to me.
I never considered before what it must have done to my father to be the son of my grandfather. When everything you touch is a disaster, what choice is there but to reach for the dynamite? I can see now why he married my mother, a Moretti from South Philly who had never even heard of the Philadelphia Country Club. It wasn’t a brilliant love story, because we know how it ended, but it sure was a shove up the old man’s gut. And my grandfather shoved it right back by blandly accepting it all, by having us all over for Sunday supper, by playing the contented patriarch to his new clan as he waited for my father to screw it all up. And of course my father couldn’t help himself from doing just that.
From what my mother told me, my father’s mistress was much like her, his second life much like his first. He was unhappy with his one life, so he re-created it exactly over again and somehow, strangely, was happy with the two. The world trundles on with its morality and its mores, it forces us into molds, and in the end, even if only as rebels, we all succumb. But a secret allows you step outside of the whole damn process. My father’s secret life was his ultimate declaration of independence. Winston Smith in Oceana would have understood. Sometimes the life we end up living is not enough, sometimes we need a secret to give it the grandeur an enterprise like living in this world requires, and I know of what I speak.
I loved the money that I had stolen, my too-big house, my too-expensive car, but my secret was an even richer treat. At home I might have been a boring suburban dad, but I was more. At work I might have been just another fiscal huckster, financing dreams on foundations made of playing cards, but I was more. And even after I lost my job and became just another victim of the recession, in the heart of my secret I was no victim. Whatever anybody thought of me, they had no idea. I was free of their assumptions and judgments. My secret meant that I was free.
But while a secret can be a barrier to keep the wolfish world at bay, there is also something lost in its embrace, and I saw it clearly when I thought about my father. He was living in Vegas, he surely was in the town during some of my visits to Augie. We might have been at the very same craps table or at the very same Applebee’s and not even known it. And so he died alone among the nauseating excess of the unlimited Vegas buffet. The rebellion of my father’s secret life had cost him something, it had cost him me. I might have understood, but I was sick of paying the price.
Through the whole of the dinner the evening I arrived at Kitty Hawk, I was in mourning. Harry’s sister, Mathilda, made us hold hands for a good five minutes as her grace invoked the stern God of retribution before she served a shockingly delicious meat loaf with a side of pickled comments. Harry noisily rued the lack of beer in the house. My son complained about there being no computer or video games. My daughter seemed strangely calm and happy, even cleared the table when we were finished eating, which worried me. Caitlin avoided looking at me, as if I had grown snakes on my head. And I was quiet during it all, feeling a strange sadness, not for my dead dad or over my disillusionment with my grandfather, no. I felt sad because I knew my secret was to die that night.
And then on the beach, sitting next to the woman I still loved but had clearly lost, beneath that crescent moon, I killed it dead. I started with my first day in Pitchford and I told her everything. And as I told it I could feel something inside me deflating, like a pin had pricked the bladder of my entire sense of self. What the hell was I without my secret? I guess I was about to find out.
“Ten, twenty thousand?” she said.
“More.”
“A hundred thousand?”
“Four times that.”
“Jesus.”
“Each.”
“My God, Jonathon. And the stack of bills you gave me on the dock?”
“Originals, yes. There’s probably enough stink of the cocaine still on them to drive a drug dog wild.”
She was calm, calmer than I had imagined she would be if ever she learned. But I don’t think it was because the secret wasn’t big enough, I think it was because she had checked out of whatever we had long ago and this only confirmed that she was absolutely right to do so.
“What did you spend the money on?” she said.
“On us. The family. Whenever we needed something, I took some from my secret stash. A little extra to pay the mortgage, a little extra for the car payment or the vacation. I took what I had to, but only as little as possible to get us the things we wanted, and not enough to draw any attention to us.”
“I thought you had investments.”
“No, my investments are crap. I don’t even have the Midas touch with mufflers. But I had this.”
“This,” she said, nodding, like it almost made sense. “And you thought it was the right thing not to share all this with me?”
“It was just one thing.”
“Oh, come on, Jonathon. It wasn’t just one thing, it was everything.”
And she was absolutely right, she had seen it right away.
“Don’t say you didn’t like it,” I said, “the house and the sporty cars, the vacations in Aruba, your hair appointments at Chez Rochelle. It hasn’t been all bad, the money. It’s how we bought our life.”
“So let me get this straight: it’s not just you who are a fraud and a criminal, you have made our life itself fraudulent and criminal.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, yes it is, on so many levels. I look in the mirror, Jon, and I don’t know who I am anymore. All I see is a shell that has been layered onto me, all the stuff I got because I couldn’t have the one thing I really wanted.”
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