by Chris Knopf
Because Appolonia gloried in the ice castle of her mind. A luminous, precisely organized mind that should have been able to recognize that no one can separate themselves entirely, and forever, from the hot and messy, chaotic reality just outside those castle walls.
“Jonathan Eldridge. Your husband.”
Appolonia clamped a hand across her mouth and lurched back into her chair, drawing her feet up off the floor as if the rug had just burst into flames. Her eyes opened to the whites. I sat quietly, waiting for her to catch her breath. She slapped her hand down to her lap.
“You are very cruel. How dare you say such a thing.”
“You didn’t know,” I said, not as a question, but an answer.
“He was killed.”
“Lots of people were killed. And one was damaged in a way that she’ll never fully recover from, even after they put her face back as close as they can to what it used to look like.”
And somebody else would never be the same. Me, as it turns out. I’d have to live with the sight of the orange flames consuming the interior of that black Lexus with its desperate and agonized human cargo, and the jolt of horror when my somnambulant brain finally processed what was happening, the desperate hope clutching my heart as I threw Jackie across the big table, and the regret later that maybe I’d saved her life, but that was all I could save. Only her, and not the four innocent people who were only having a pleasant cocktail on an outdoor deck, and the waitress whose only thought was keeping our drinks filled and picking out which of us was most likely to leave a decent tip. And the manager of the place, counting the till, trying to calculate the size of the impending dinner crowd. All those people who were atomized and sprayed across the harbor shore because I only had time to save a single person.
And myself.
Appolonia nearly jumped out of her chair when the doorbell rang. Sullivan stood up quickly and pulled his Smith & Wesson out of the holster under his arm. He took Belinda by the elbow and propelled her out to the foyer and into the kitchen. I stood up, too, between the door and where Appolonia was sitting. I could hear her behind me, making little breathing sounds and whispering words I couldn’t make out. Sullivan opened the door with his right hand, stepping back and covering the entrance with the gun held in his left.
“Hands where I can see them,” said Sullivan. “Step forward slowly. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I never do anything stupid,” said Butch Ellington as he walked into the living room. “Insane, maybe, but never stupid.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
APPOLONIA SHOT ME a bewildered and angry look.
“It’s him,” I said, grabbing him by the neck and using my thumb to smear back his moustache, revealing the scarred lip. “Look familiar?”
He tried to pull back, but I dug in my grip and brought my mouth up to his ear.
“Tell her,” I said.
His antic eyes were darting around the room, as if searching for a way out, an escape hatch into another dimension.
“Tell her,” I said again and let go of his head. His eyes abruptly stopped their search and focused on me. His face lit into a smile and he made a small bow.
“Signore Aqutia. The eagle has landed.”
“Enough of that crap,” I said to him. “Say it.”
He made another little bow and turned toward Appolonia.
“It’s me, darling,” he said, in a softly modulated version of his voice. “You know that it is. Your Jonathan.”
Appolonia had her hand back up to her mouth and was trying to disappear into her chair. Belinda barreled into the room, pushed passed Sullivan and me and knelt at Appolonia’s feet. Sullivan moved around in front of me and gestured slightly with his revolver, forcing Butch to move back a step. Sullivan patted him down, then took his shoulder and pushed him gently into the love seat while taking out his cell phone and dialing a number.
“Keep your hands flat on the cushions where I can see them. You come with anybody? Anybody outside?” He raised the revolver up to Butch’s eye level to help him remember.
“Why don’t you ask Signore Aquild? He’s apparently omniscient.”
“Keep your insults to yourself,” said Sullivan.
I went over to the window and slipped the edge of my hand between the curtains, just enough to see out. There was an old Jeep Cherokee parked behind the Grand Prix. Charles and Edgar were leaning against the side of the truck, looking relaxed, but focused on the front door. I described the scene to Sullivan, who had the cell phone at his ear.
“Okey-dokey dude,” he said to Eldridge. “Not a twitch, not a wink, not a nod.” Then into the phone, “Hiya, Janet. Got a little situation here. Need you to radio the Riverhead station.”
He went on with a string of code numbers and a description of the neighborhood and the present dispersal of Butch’s crew. Appolonia was now crying, in a steady, forceful way, full and unrestrained. Belinda stroked her arm and spoke to her in soothing tones, telling her everything would be all right, that she would take care of her, that she would not let anything bad happen to her, ignoring the fact that something very bad just had.
“Too elegant to pass up, wasn’t it,” I said to Butch. “The chance to kill two birds with one stone. Jonathan and Osvaldo.”
Butch grinned at me.
“The man was sleeping with my daughter. Starting when she was twelve years old. She refused to testify at the trial. She said it was our fault for letting him in our house. Maybe the hearing was too much for her, I don’t know. The worst betrayal imaginable and I could do nothing about it.”
“He didn’t know that,” I said. “And neither did the DA. The trial was still on. You told Osvaldo you were ready to work out a deal, but he had to meet you. Alone. The arrangements were wacky, but not to Osvaldo. That’s just the way you did things. Everything’s performance art. He was given Jonathan’s Lexus and told to drive over to the Windsong parking lot, get out of the car and play with the dog—you wanted to make sure there were witnesses. And to wait for a call. On the cell phone that came with the car, the obvious way to trigger the firebomb. Only you or someone else was stupid enough to load the bomb that came after with about five times the necessary C-4. Or maybe not so stupid. The fire might not have burned him up enough to destroy his DNA. He had to be vaporized.”
As I spoke I started to lose Butch’s attention. He was watching Appolonia, his eyes filled with their usual gleam of brilliant curiosity.
Sullivan finished his call and clicked the phone shut.
“It’s gonna take a few minutes for backup to get here. What did you tell your boys to do?” he asked Butch.
“To improvise, of course. We’re famous for improv”
“They armed?” Sullivan asked. “They supposed to bust in here if you don’t give them a high sign?”
“I should tell you everything? Please, some imagination.”
Sullivan leaned down and pulled Butch to his feet.
“Grab a lamp cord,” he said to me.
He used it to tie Butch’s hands behind his back. Then shoved him back down on the couch. He took my spot at the window, delicately pulling back a sliver of curtain. I dragged an ottoman over next to Butch and sat down.
“It was getting too hot to sustain, wasn’t it?” I asked him. “You’d finally screwed up by losing your temper at Joyce Whithers after she insulted you at her restaurant. The subtle mockery of the Schnauzer painting wasn’t enough. You had to screw her in the markets. Just like you did to Ivor Fleming when he cheated you and dared suggest you alter your paintings. Joyce wasn’t as easy a mark. She went ballistic, threatened a lawsuit. Your phony gig could never withstand that kind of legal scrutiny. And she knew Fleming. They’d surely compare notes. And far worse than any of that, she knew Appolonia. It was time to bail. But in a way so dramatic all the attention would be on the perpetrators of the crime, away from the victim.”
“I love you, darling,” he said to Appolonia, in the same soothing voice he’d used before. �
�I always did. You know I made you happy”
“While she made you rich.”
I lowered my voice, hoping she wouldn’t hear me from across the room, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying what I said.
“What a godsend. A wealthy, needy, orphaned agoraphobic. You had the prescience to introduce yourself as your old alter ego. Things flowed nicely from there. You told her you were at the Harvard B School. Even took a few courses to beef up your story. Married her and moved her down here from Boston, isolating her from her old friends, while you continued your life as an artistic impresario, complete with entourage. Got Gabe involved to help keep an eye on her when you couldn’t be around. You had a whole team dedicated to sustaining the illusion. At least Charles and Edgar, in on it from the beginning. And why not? You literally owned the goose that laid the golden egg, and there were plenty of eggs to go around.”
“I took splendid care of you, darling,” said Butch to Appolonia. “You’re richer than ever.”
If that was meant to make her feel better, it didn’t work. Her sobs deepened, causing Belinda to almost climb into the chair with her as she gathered a tighter hold. I made him look back at me.
“You did. And yourself as well. And your buddies. Pretty good investment manager for an artist,” I said. “Or is it the other way around? Do you even know anymore?”
“There’s no art in failure. If I were to become you, I’d be the most successful Sam Acquillo that could ever be. I’d be the eagle you wish you were. Flying high above the earth, seeing all below with perfect clarity.”
Before I could grapple with that image I had a new thought.
“What about Dione? She had to know, too. You met her after you came back to Long Island. Sold her on the idea that Jonathan and his life was the greatest work of performance art in history. Did she know you fricasseed the Italian?”
He stared at me, not ready to give that up.
“Of course she did,” I said. “Might’ve been her idea.”
“You’re welcome to burn in hell yourself, Signore Aquild,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s what Appolonia’s Jonathan would have said.”
Sullivan grunted.
“Hey Sam. I’ve got some movement out there.”
I stood up next to him and peeked out the seam in the curtains. Charles had moved away from the truck and was standing out on the lawn, directly in front of the door. His arms were folded, but he was frowning.
“We should make a move while we can still surprise these guys,” said Sullivan.
He told me what he had in mind. I pulled Butch up on his feet, collected the back of his collar in my right hand and gripped his elbow with my left. I shook him a little so he’d register the fact that he couldn’t break free.
“For what it’s worth,” I told him, “I really liked your paintings, the ones at Ivor’s.”
“I’ve renamed them Pearls before Philistines.”
“How about The Wages of Ego. If you’d had better control of yours, you might’ve pulled it off.”
I pushed him into the foyer and waited until Sullivan could reach around us and open the front door. As the door swung into the foyer I walked Butch out onto the stoop. Sullivan came right up behind us and rested his arm on Eldridge’s shoulder, pointing the revolver at Charles, and then Edgar, then back again.
“On your bellies,” he yelled. “First guy to take a step this way takes a bullet.”
Neither moved. They stood and stared, incomprehension and indecision playing across their faces. Time slowed and the world stood motionless but for Sullivan’s arm, pivoting between the two men, now looking at each other, trying to hear each other’s thoughts.
Butch started to quietly hum Semper Fidelis by John Philip Sousa. I snugged up my grip on his shirt enough to choke it off.
“He isn’t worth it,” I said to them, as calmly as I could. “Not anymore.”
“Last chance,” yelled Sullivan. “Do it.”
And they did. Charles first, then Edgar, dropping down to their hands and knees, then lying face down on the ground, arms and legs spread. I did the old schoolyard trick of unlocking Eldridge’s knees from behind, causing him to crumple to a kneeling position, from where I shoved him forward onto his face, hitting the ground hard enough to force out a grunt. I held him there until we saw bright strobe lights reflected off the neighboring houses from a small fleet of patrol cars silently descending on and forever altering Jonathan and Appolonia’s cherished sanctuary.
“You wanted to explore a giant finger up the ass,” I said to him, taking my knee off his back as I stood up to make way for the Riverhead cops. “I think you’ll be getting your wish.”
I went back into the house. Belinda was sitting on the arm of the high-backed chair, cradling Appolonia and stroking her jet-black hair. I expected to be laid waste by the older woman’s expression, but she only looked stricken by grief and uncertainty.
“We have some medicine,” she said to me, “for the especially bad days. She can have a little of that.”
“Can I call anybody?” I asked.
“We have a person we can call. In a minute,” she said to Appolonia. “We can call her in a minute.”
I wanted to tell Appolonia I was sorry, but it wasn’t the right time. And “sorry” felt like too meager a word. So I left them and went back out to join Sullivan.
A swarm of uniformed officers were busy handcuffing Eldridge and his boys, going through their wallets, jotting information down in notebooks and on clipboards and talking on radio receivers tethered by coil cords to their patrol cars. Sullivan was talking to a lieutenant, as designated by an arm patch sewed on her uniform.
“What’re we charging these guys with again?” he asked as I approached.
“That’s a question for Ross, but for now try the murder of Osvaldo Allegre and six other people at the Windsong Restaurant, investment fraud, bigamy and Christ knows how many counts of identity theft, falsifying records, illegal impersonations, and oh, assaulting a police officer,” I said, putting my hand on Sullivan’s shoulder.
“You’re shitting me.”
“Not intentionally. They thought they were assaulting a design engineer. That’s almost legal.”
He looked over to where the uniforms were talking to Edgar and Charles.
“Now I wish I’d shot em.”
“You’d had a big day, you were tired, and full of Burton’s beer. You nodded off in my Adirondacks. They came up behind you and dumped a burlap sack over your head. I doubt Butch was there. He would’ve known it wasn’t me. Anyway, you didn’t go down easy. Like I told you, you got in a few of those rights, might’ve got a grip on one of them through the burlap. Somebody panicked and stuck you with a knife—maybe had one on hand to cut the burlap, or a rope, or both. I don’t know what they had in mind for me, but you were screwing it all up. So they smacked you on the head, peeled off the burlap and left you there.”
“What the hell for?”
“You gotta know artists, Joe. Everything has to say something. Once the original concept was upended, they improvised.”
He looked past me at the uniforms leading Edgar and Charles toward separate cruisers.
“Some freaking artists. Whatever happened to watercolors?”
The Riverhead cops had secured Butch, Charles and Edgar in separate cars. A police van pulled up filled with plainclothesmen who began stringing yellow tape and taking photographs of the scene. I didn’t think Appolonia wanted to see much more of me, and I couldn’t get to Butch, so I said to Sullivan that I knew I’d be spending time with Ross, but needed to stop off at Burton’s on the way to check on Amanda. I asked him to call on his cell to tell them everything was okay.
“It’s not on the way” he said, but didn’t want to push it. He was happy just to be in the moment, in control again, faith restored in himself and his view of the world as a place where things could turn out the way you wanted if you only took a little trouble to make sure of it. A vi
ew of the world I didn’t really believe in, but liked that somebody did.
While I waited for the Riverhead cops to move the Cherokee out of the way I stared at the person sitting in the back of the police cruiser. Looking at him, all I saw was Butch, so that’s who he was in my mind. I hadn’t known Jonathan, not directly, though I might have liked him better. Not that I didn’t like Butch. Probably one of his gifts. He could make you like him. He knew instinctively how to control your perception of him, to trick your senses with distractions and diversions, like a magician, playing emotional sleights of hand. Even now, knowing what he’d done, I couldn’t look at him without feeling the urge to talk to him, to watch him perform and play the rhetorical master of ceremonies.
But moving closer that’s not what I saw. His head was bobbing up and down, and side to side, and his mouth was moving, and though I couldn’t hear it clearly, I could tell he was talking to himself, alone in the car, now essentially alone in the world.
I was assaulted by an unwanted vision of Butch and Jonathan having a conversation with each other. It wasn’t the last time I would see him, but it formed an image I could never fully eradicate from my mind.
—
Isabella let me through the gate at the head of Burton’s quarter-mile driveway without much of a fight. Probably on direct orders. The white pebble drive ran in a straight line between two tall privet hedges that hid the house from view until you made a sharp right turn and were suddenly confronted by a three-story porch and balcony-laden facade. At this point the drive became an oval, inside of which was a natural garden of indigenous wild shrubs and vines entangling pergolas and curved trellises. And strategically placed teak benches, on one of which sat Amanda.
“Eddie’s inside watching Burton paint,” she said when I walked over and sat down next to her.
“Good. Maybe he’ll pick up better work habits.”
“Joe said everything was okay but that’s all he’d say.”
“He’s big on need-to-know.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“I need a drink, and a place to sit, and Burton Lewis in the audience.”