One-Way Ticket

by William G. Tapply

  Horowitz gave me a crooked smile and a small shake of his head.

  “We were just talking,” said Evie.

  “She told you,” I said to Horowitz. “About Ed.”

  “It’s a bitch,” he said.

  Evie stood up, “I bet you boys have important things to talk about,” she said. “I’ve got to get packed.” She went around the table, leaned down, and gave Horowitz a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Give my love to Alyse.”

  He looked up at her. “You take care, kiddo.”

  Evie smiled and nodded and went into the house.

  When the screen door snapped shut behind her, I turned to Horowitz. “I don’t know what she sees in you.”

  “That makes us even,” he said. “I don’t know what she sees in you, either.”

  “You shouldn’t’ve come here,” I said. “It always upsets her.”

  “She talks, I listen,” he said. “I think it helps to talk. Poor kid. I feel bad for her.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said. “I know she likes to talk to you. Unlike everybody else, Evie harbors the delusion that you’re a sensitive and caring person. It’s just that whenever you come here, it’s because you need me for something, and she knows it, and it makes her nervous, you being a homicide detective and all.”

  “For the record,” he said, “I never need you. I get by just swell without you. Anyway, as far as I know, we don’t have any homicide to talk about.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Do we?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So who’s punching you in the kidneys, then?”

  I looked at him. “How the hell did you hear about that?”

  He smiled. “So it was a kidney punch.”

  I nodded. “Is that how that cop reported it?”

  “She surmised it. Her point was, you refused medical treatment, and she was covering her ass for not calling the EMTs anyway, in case you subsequently keeled over and died.”

  “Do you read all the police reports?”

  “The magic of computers, Coyne,” he said. “I scan ’em. Part of the job. You never know when something, apparently random, might connect the dots with some other random thing. Your name jumped out at me. Not that I give a shit about you, but I do happen to care about Evie. So I just thought I’d find out what the hell’s going on with you.”

  “That’s good detective work,” I said, “and I appreciate your interest, even if it’s on Evie’s behalf, not mine. But a kidney punch is hardly a homicide.”

  “I like to solve homicide cases,” he said, “but I like to prevent them even better.”

  “I’m in no danger, Roger.”

  “So this was just some random kidney punch, then? Delivered with a smile by some stranger? No message behind it?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t push me, please.”

  “Ah,” he said. “More of your client-privilege bullshit, right?”

  I waved the subject away with the back of my hand.

  Horowitz narrowed his eyes at me. “Evie said something was going on with you, she didn’t know what, so I promised her I’d keep an eye on you while she’s gone, whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re a good friend,” I said’. “But don’t worry about me.”

  He looked at me for a minute, then shrugged. “When she gets back, you can take us all out to dinner. You, Evie, me, and Alyse. Someplace expensive.”

  “She’s leaving this afternoon. I don’t know when she’ll be back. She bought a one-way ticket.”

  “It’s a bitch, all right.” Horowitz nodded, then drained his coffee mug and stood up. “I gotta get to work.”

  I stood up and held out my hand. “Thanks.”

  He gave my hand his usual limp shake. “You feel like talking, give me a call.”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything,” I said.

  We pulled up in front of the curbside check-in at the Northwest Airlines terminal at Logan Airport around two-thirty that afternoon. Evie’s flight was scheduled to take off at four-twenty. She was changing planes in Detroit and would land in San Francisco around nine-thirty. She’d reserved a rental car from Avis to get her from the airport to Ed Banyon’s houseboat in Sausalito.

  I popped the trunk, and we got out of the car. I went around, hefted her two bags from the trunk, and set them on the curb. One was a medium-sized duffel. The other was a carry-on. I was comforted by the fact that Evie had left most of her clothes in her bedroom closet back home. It reassured me that she’d be back.

  We’d brought Henry in the car so he could say good-bye. Evie opened the back door, leaned in, and gave him a hug. “You take good care of Brady,” she said to him.

  He licked her face.

  Then she straightened up, shut the door, and turned to me. “Well,” she said.

  I nodded. “Well.”

  “I’ll call when I land.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  She came to me and put both of her arms around my neck. “Take care of yourself, okay?” she said.

  “Sure. I’ll be fine.”

  She hugged herself hard against me for a moment, then pulled back. “I’ve got to do this, Brady.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish I could tell you…” She looked at me and shook her head.

  “Don’t worry about it, babe. You don’t need to say anything. Give my best to Ed. I. hope everything turns out to be fine.”

  “Right,” she said. “Okay.” She stepped forward, put a hand on my arm, went up on her tiptoes, and kissed me quickly on the mouth. Then she stepped back. “Go now. Please. Just get in the car and drive away.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I went around and slid in behind the wheel. Henry poked his nose against my neck from the backseat. I reached over my shoulder and patted his head. “You can sit up front, if you want,” I said.

  He hopped into the passenger seat and stood there pressing his nose against the windshield.

  “Sit,” I told him. “You’re smudging the window.”

  He sat.

  I turned on the ignition, shifted into first gear, and pulled away from the curb.

  When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that Evie was lugging her two bags to the curbside check-in kiosk.

  Ten

  WHEN HENRY AND I got home from the airport and went inside, a hole opened up in my chest. Evie wasn’t here, and she wouldn’t be. Not tonight. Not for a while. Not for a very long time, maybe.

  I couldn’t help thinking: Maybe not ever.

  I found a bottle of Long Trail ale in the refrigerator and took the portable kitchen phone out back. I sprawled in an Adirondack chair. Henry collapsed on the patio bricks beside me.

  I called Doc Adams in Concord and got his voice mail. I guessed that he and Mary were at their place in Brewster on the Cape, sailing and digging clams and surf casting for stripers and bluefish. I didn’t bother leaving a message.

  Charlie McDevitt wasn’t home, either. When his voice mail clicked on, I said, “It’s me, your wayward fishing partner. Wondering if you’re up for a long-overdue excursion to the Swift or the Deerfield this weekend, Saturday or Sunday, either day, see if we can catch a trout. I’ll meet you at that Italian place near the Concord rotary. You name the time. Give me a call.”

  I couldn’t think of anybody besides Doc or Charlie whose company I’d prefer over my own for a day on a trout river. J. W. Jackson was on Martha’s Vineyard, a long drive and a ferry ride away, and there weren’t any trout on the Vineyard anyway. If Doc or Charlie didn’t get back to me, I’d go by myself. I didn’t want to spend the whole weekend hanging around the house. Henry was excellent company. But he wasn’t Evie.

  I found some leftover Italian sausages in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. They reminded me of the evening—when was it? less than a week ago?—when I’d cooked them on the gas grill out on the back deck. While I’d been performing that manly job, Evie had leaned against the railing to keep me company, si
pping beer and looking sexy. She’d been wearing a pair of high-cut running shorts and a cropped tank top, and she said she was thinking of getting a tattoo here—she tugged down the waistband of her shorts and touched a spot on her hip—or maybe here, lifting her shirt and circling the tip of her finger on the side of her left breast. She had in mind either a daisy or a ladybug. Something colorful, but small and discreet and intimate that only she and I would know about. What did I think?

  The memory of her long golden legs and her flat belly and the way her throat worked when she tilted her head back to drink beer from the bottle and her teasing smile when she touched her body was indelible. We ate the sausages in buns with sauerkraut and chopped onions and mustard and beer, and after we finished, she grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs, and I touched all of the potential tattoo places on her body with my fingers and my tongue.

  I chopped up the sausages, opened a can of baked beans, dumped them in a pot, added the sausages, and got the beans bubbling on the stove. I ate from the pot at the picnic table out back accompanied by half a loaf of not-quite-stale French bread and another bottle of ale. I slipped frequent bites of sausage and hunks of bread to Henry, and when I was done, I put the pot down for him to lick.

  I kept checking my watch. Evie’s plane was supposed to land at nine-thirty California time, which was half past midnight in Boston.

  I took the dishes into the kitchen, brewed myself some coffee, made Henry’s supper, and took a mug of coffee and the portable TV out back. Henry and I watched the Red Sox lose a close one, and then I found an old Steve McQueen movie that was already in progress, which was okay because I’d seen it a few times.

  All Steve McQueen movies are old, come to think of it.

  The movie ended at eleven. I watched the news, then switched over to ESPN, profoundly aware of the fact that I was just waiting for time to pass.

  Charlie McDevitt had not returned my call. I figured he was away for the weekend, too. He would have called if he’d gotten my message.

  At midnight Henry and I went upstairs. I crawled into my empty bed, and when I patted it beside me, Henry hopped up and curled himself into a ball against my hip. He began snoring instantly. I read Moby Dick. Normally I could count on Melville’s overwrought prose and multipage paragraphs of excruciatingly detailed whaling lore to put me to sleep.

  But not tonight. I kept glancing at the clock on the bedside table. When twelve-thirty came and went, I began to play out scenarios. Maybe her flight had been delayed. Maybe she missed her connection in Detroit. Maybe San Francisco was fogged in and her flight had been diverted to Los Angeles. Maybe she forgot that she’d promised to call me. Maybe she was just so preoccupied with her father that she wasn’t even thinking about me.

  Maybe terrorists…

  The phone jarred me awake, and I grabbed it on the first ring.

  “Your little birdie has landed,” said Evie.

  “Ah, yes,” I said in my W. C. Fields voice. “My little chickadee.” I looked at the clock. It was twenty after one.

  “I woke you up. I’m sorry.”

  “I wasn’t really sleeping. Everything okay? Good flight?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Uneventful. A little late getting out of Detroit. I’m in the baggage area. I can barely hear you. There’s about ten thousand people here, and every one of them is yelling in their cell phones. I’m yelling, aren’t I? Are you okay?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “Yes, you’re kind of yelling.”

  “How’s dear old Henry?”

  “He’s right here on the bed with me. He says he misses you.”

  “Give him a hug for me.”

  “I will.”

  “One for you, too, okay?”

  “Okay. Absolutely. You, too. From me.”

  “Okay, here we go,” she said. “The bags are coming out. I gotta go. Be good. Love you.”

  “I love you, top. My best to Ed. Keep in touch, okay?”

  But she was gone.

  Julie had packed Thursday and Friday with meetings and conferences, the price I paid for taking a day off. But I didn’t mind. It helped me divert my mind from Evie’s absence.

  She didn’t call Thursday night. I had all I could do to keep myself from calling her.

  On Friday afternoon I called Robert Lancaster’s cell phone. I’d given him until Friday to address his problem with his family. If he failed to do that—and I had no faith that he would do it, despite his promise—I’d have to decide what my responsibility was.

  Robert’s phone rang five or six times, and then came his voice mail. “It’s Robert. I can’t talk now. Leave a message and I’ll get. back to you.”

  After the recorded instructions and the final beep, I said, “It’s Brady Coyne. I was just wondering how everything’s going. It’s Friday, and I thought maybe you’d gotten together with your family by now and put all your cards on the table, so to speak. I hope so. If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask, okay? Give me a call anyway, please. Any time. I’m worried about you. I’ll have my cell phone with me.” I recited my number, said good-bye, and hung up.

  Evie didn’t call that night. Two or three times in the evening I dialed half of her cell phone number before disconnecting. She’d told me she wouldn’t be calling me every day, and I’d promised I wouldn’t call her. I’d have to get used to it.

  I planned to go fishing on Saturday, but when I woke up, it was raining, so I stayed home. People who don’t fish seem to believe that stormy weather makes for good trout fishing, but they are wrong. The best time to go trout fishing is actually when it’s most comfortable for the fisherman. Early morning and late afternoon during the hot summer months, midday during the cold months, and all day in the temperate months of May and June. Storms bring with them changes in the barometric pressure that often suppress the activity of aquatic life, both the trout and the insects they eat.

  Anyway I didn’t feel like getting wet. Sunday would be better.

  I tried Doc Adams and Charlie McDevitt again, and again they didn’t answer their phones.

  I spent the afternoon feeling sorry for myself. The game at Fenway Park got rained out, so I didn’t even have that for entertainment. I tied some flies, paid some bills, read half of an Elmore Leonard novel, drank some beer.

  Around suppertime I called Dalt Lancaster at his restaurant. He said he was busy and couldn’t really talk. I asked him if everything was all right, and he said that except for the fact that his mother wasn’t speaking to him, everything was fine. Nothing was new.

  He didn’t mention Robert, which meant that Robert had not convened a family council to tell them about his gambling problem. And that meant that I’d have to do it. Paulie Russo was not a patient or forgiving man.

  I thought about going out for supper—I hadn’t been to Skeeter’s for a long time, and he made the best burgers in the city—but it was still raining, so I settled for a microwaved bean burrito and a bottle of beer at my kitchen table.

  My cell phone chirped just as I was swallowing my last bite of burrito. I looked at the screen. It was an unfamiliar number. Not Evie’s. I flipped it open and said, “Hello?”

  “Is this Mr. Coyne?” A woman’s voice. I didn’t recognize it.

  “Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”

  “Rebecca Quinlan. Becca. Remember me? I was with Robert Lancaster? At the Dunkin’ Donuts last week?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Is anything wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  “Robert, you mean.”

  “Well, yes. It’s just, I don’t know where he is. He’s not answering his cell. He cut his classes yesterday. We were supposed to hang out today, but he didn’t show up, and—”

  “Becca,” I said, “suppose I buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Yes. As soon as I can get there. How about that same Dunkin’?”

  “I was right, wasn’
t I?” she said. “Something is wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we can figure it out. Give me fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  By the time I retrieved my car from the garage at the end of Charles Street, drove the rain-slick city streets through Kenmore Square, found a place to park, and walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts on Commonwealth Avenue, it was closer to half an hour.

  Becca Quinlan was sitting by herself in a booth against the wall. She was frowning at a book that lay open on the table and absentmindedly twirling a strand of blond hair with her forefinger. A Red Sox baseball cap sat on the table beside her book, and a backpack lay on the floor beside her.

  I went over and said, “Hi, Becca.”

  She looked up. “Oh, hi.”

  “How do you like your coffee?”

  She waved her hand. “I don’t really drink coffee. You go ahead.”

  “I don’t need it.” I slid in across from her. “Let’s talk.”

  “This is stupid, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I don’t see why,” I said. “You’re worried about Robert. You must care for him. It’s not stupid to worry about the people you care about.”

  “No,” she said, “but I mean, it’s not like he’s required to account for himself all the time. It’s just… it’s Saturday, you know? We always do stuff on Saturday. And it’s been like three days since I even talked to him. We always hang out.”

  “So why me?” I said.

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  “Why did you call me?”

  “Who was I s’pose to call?”

  I shrugged.

  “I mean, he doesn’t get along with his father, he hates his stepfather, his mother is kind of useless, and anyway, I’ve never met any of them. At least I met you. Robert told me he trusted you. You’re a lawyer. He said he had a long talk with you the other night after you told me and Ozzie to go away. He said you gave him good advice. He respects you and trusts you, so I thought… I don’t know. I guess it’s dumb. I just thought you could tell me that he’s okay. I found your number on a card in his room.”

  “You went to his room looking for him?”

  She nodded. “His roommates let me in. He’s got an apartment in Brighton, you know. I’m in a dorm right near here. They didn’t know where he was, either, and I didn’t find any, like, clues. Except your business card. So I called you.”