[2017] It Happened at Two in the Morning

by Alan Hruska

  The locus of social activity in Ashaway, Kentucky, is the big Stop and Shop that Charlie pointed out on the drive-by. Tom takes control of the cart, which makes Elena very uncomfortable. Her discomfort mounts when he gathers in packages of sliced ham and cheese.

  “That’s processed food,” she says, as if pointing out something he might not have noticed.

  “Unhealthy, you’re saying.”

  “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t care what you ate, but we’re living off a limited budget.”

  “You can buy all the organic substances you like,” he says.

  “Not if you exhaust all our money on junk food.”

  “If you want to shop efficiently, this stuff lasts a lot longer. Look around you. Couple of hundred people here. What do you think’s in all those carts circling these twenty-eight aisles? Food processed to stay edible practically forever.”

  “Not in my cart,” she says grabbing it away from him. Barreling down the same aisle they’d come from, she tosses his packages back on the shelf.

  Catching up he says, “This is so stereotypical. It’s smug, and it’s uninformed.”

  “I don’t think so,” she says placidly.

  “Organic food’s the biggest scam going.”

  “Look, there,” she says pointing. “Fresh food, off the farms. Fruits, vegetables, grains—delicious and healthy.”

  “Which you’re undertaking to cook? From scratch?”

  “Sure.”

  “When have you?”

  “We’ll get a cookbook.”

  “So the answer is never.”

  “Of course I have,” she says. “But I just steam stuff. You’d probably want something fancier.”

  “It just so happens that I know plenty of recipes.”

  “Like what?”

  “I can do amazing things with pasta sauces.”

  “From a jar, probably.”

  “Well, some from a jar. There’s nothing wrong with jars.”

  “It’s what they put in the jars, dumbbell.”

  “All right, fine,” he says. “You make the sauce, and I’ll make the pasta.”

  “Gluten free.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Are you allergic to wheat?”

  “No,” she admits. “Gluten free’s just healthier. It doesn’t turn to sugar and poison you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Have you ever tasted gluten free?”

  “I’ll say. Tastes like straw. Bad straw. Unfit for horses. Discriminating horses.”

  “Well, I don’t eat processed food,” she says. “You want to spend all our money on that, go ahead. I’ll just starve.”

  “You ate what’s his name’s—Seymour’s—ham and cheese.”

  “That’s pretty low.”

  “How ’bout fish?” he asks.

  “This is a landlocked state, genius.”

  “There are rivers here.”

  “The fresh catch of which you’d expect to find at a supermarket,” she says sarcastically.

  “Let’s ask.” He grabs the cart and wheels it toward the fish counter, Elena straggling behind. Another customer, a tall woman in an ill-fitting dress, is chatting up the carrot-haired, pimply young man behind the counter.

  “Enough for five,” she says. “But don’t slice it too thick.”

  “Got you, Mrs. Roles,” says the fishmonger, slicing and wrapping professionally.

  “Good day to you, Jimmy,” she says, taking the package and nodding to Tom and Elena.

  “And to you, ma’am,” carrottop sings after her. Then to Tom, “What can I do you?”

  “Fresh fish?”

  “It’s all fresh.”

  “Caught today?”

  “That’d be the river trout. Just came in.”

  “Ah,” Tom says, observing the tray behind the glass right in front of him. He turns back to Elena with raised eyebrows.

  She shrugs.

  “How do you cook this?” Tom asks.

  “Take a pan,” the man says, looking directly at Elena. “Put some oil in it. Throw the fish on. Three minutes a side. That’s it.”

  Elena says, “My husband does the cooking.”

  “Yes ma’am,” says the clerk, shifting a pitying glance to Tom.

  The big shingled house on Pine Bluff Avenue has been occupied by Downs families for more than 150 years. There are spacious rooms throughout the first floor, including a large dining room, but Horatio and Jo normally eat on an oak table in the kitchen. Tonight they are about to feast on fresh trout from the Shop and Stop. Horatio is hopeless in the kitchen, but Jo’s a good cook, and they enjoy reviewing the day while she practices her art.

  She removes the fish from the fridge. “Are you in a grilled mood tonight, Mr. Downs, or shall it be broiled?”

  But Horatio, at the moment, is attending more to the situation than the fish. “Doesn’t this depress you a bit, this scene we present, this Norman Rockwell scene of Americana contentment?”

  “I like Norman Rockwell.”

  “I know you do. So do I.”

  “Then what are you talking about, Mr. Downs?”

  “I’m talking about us. In contrast to that young couple who just came here.”

  “Are they a couple?” she asks.

  “I think so,” he says. “Although what stage they’re at, realizing it—well, that’s the question, isn’t it? I think he does, and she … maybe not yet. He’s very bright. That brief he gave me was … quite a nice piece of work. Maybe a little too classy for our judge here.”

  “I think she, Elena, knows … everything.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Jo says. “Quite sure.”

  “Are they killers?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “You’re sure of that, are you?”

  “Absolutely,” he says.

  “I agree with you.”

  He watches her toss the salad.

  She says, “So what is there about them to which we compare unfavorably?”

  “I didn’t say unfavorably, Jo. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “You were depressed by the contrast,” she rejoins.

  “They’re young, just falling in love, in danger, on an adventure—”

  “We’ve had an adventure,” she says.

  “Very true.”

  “Which you’re saying is over?”

  “Of course not!”

  Jo laughs. “Don’t be so defensive.”

  “I’m not. I’m simply saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying. And believe me. You like things just as they are. You wouldn’t change a jot of it.”

  He breathes deeply. “You think so?”

  “I know you.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “So, what’s it to be?”

  “The rest of our lives?”

  “The fish, Mr. Downs. Grilled or broiled?”

  Elena, from a kitchen chair, watches Tom wash the dishes. “I can’t move. How can you move?”

  “You mean, given the fact that you actually slept last night and I didn’t?”

  “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “All-nighters.”

  “Right,” he says. “What lawyers do.”

  “How many can you do?”

  “In a row?”

  “Of course in a row.”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out.” He puts the last dish in the strainer. “There’s one bathroom in this house. It’s upstairs. Do you need assistance?”

  “You’re letting me go first?”

  “Yes.”

  “How gentlemanly.”

  “That’s me.” He holds out his hands to help her up.

  “You cooked the fish very nicely.”

  “Thank you. It’s called grilling, and it wasn’t very difficult.”

  She lifts herself out of the chair. “See,” she says. “Did it in one.”
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  “Excellent. Now the stairs.”

  “Oh, the stairs.”

  He looks at her inquiringly.

  “I can do that,” she says, and starts moving. At the foot of the stairs, she turns. “You’re sleeping down here, right?”

  “Where would you suggest?”

  “The sofa. I already said.”

  “We have been through this. What you insist on calling a sofa is a loveseat that fits about half of me, which leaves the rest of me dangling on the floor. In any event, when you’re done with the bathroom, it’s my turn, which means I’m also going upstairs, and we can finish this conversation then.”

  “Hmm,” she says and starts climbing, with a lot of mumbling to herself.

  She slips into the bathroom. He can hear the click of the lock on the door. After about ten minutes, having finished the dishes, he climbs the stairs and calls out. “Elena, have you fallen asleep in there?”

  “No,” she calls back in a huffy tone.

  “Then why don’t you come out?” he says, opening both windows as wide as they will go.

  “Because I’m not dressed. Can you find my nightgown, please? I thought I brought it in with me, but, obviously, I haven’t.”

  He looks. The package with all their new clothes is on the dresser. He fishes out the new nightgown and raps on the bathroom door. “Found it.”

  The lock snaps; the door cracks open. “Will you stand away, please, and just hand it in?”

  “Arm extended, you mean. So I can’t possibly see anything.”

  “Don’t play with me, man. Just do what I say.”

  Laughing, he does it. She snatches the gown and slams the door. In a moment, the light goes out in the bathroom.

  She calls from inside, “I want you to turn around until I get into bed.”

  “Are you always this modest?”

  “This nightgown is diaphanous.”

  “You bought a diaphanous nightgown?”

  “I couldn’t tell that when it was in the package, obviously.”

  “I don’t believe it. They don’t sell that stuff at Penney’s.”

  “It’s a thin cotton nightgown, Tom. I’m not an exhibitionist. Turn around!”

  “Okay,” he says, still laughing, and does it.

  “You promise?”

  “Elena, for Christ’s sake, get the hell out of the bathroom!”

  The door opens; she darts to the bed and under the covers. “I’m in!”

  “Glory be.”

  He takes less than half the time she did, and comes out in his skivvies into a dark room. “Shove over,” he says. “Your body is safe from me. Even if I were irresistibly attracted to you, I’m far too tired to be a threat. Besides, I’ll sleep on top of the covers. It’s warm enough in here.”

  “You didn’t buy pajamas,” she says resignedly.

  “That’s right,” he says, rolling onto his back.

  “You’re planning to sleep in your underwear?”

  “If that offends you, you have the option to not take notice.”

  “How could I not notice?” she says. “This room is six feet wide.”

  “Elena, grow up! It’s the twenty-first century. You cannot possibly be scandalized by seeing me in boxer shorts.”

  Silence between them. Which allows other sounds to creep in. Crickets predominantly. Then the distant sound of a train horn.

  Elena tosses onto her side.

  Crickets, breathing.

  “Tom?”

  “Christ, Elena! Will you just go to sleep, please? I’m way too tired for pillow talk.”

  “I just realized—”

  “What?” he says crossly.

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “Now you want to know this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Westerly, Rhode Island.”

  “Is that near Newport?” she asks.

  “That’s what you know, Newport? Where all the rich people go?”

  “Is it? Near?”

  “Everything in Rhode Island is near everything else in Rhode Island, and I’ll bet you know why.”

  “Okay, and are your parents still there?”

  “No,” he says. “Spain. Retired schoolteachers, living their dream. Okay?”

  “Hey, that’s great. Wow. Glad I asked.”

  “Now can you sleep?”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  And she does in two minutes.

  He asks, “What in the world do you find so restful about my parents?” But, being totally unconscious, she gives no response.

  Overtired, Tom lies, most of the night, listening to her breathing over the chirping of crickets and the moaning of trains.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ARolls-Royce is conspicuous on any road, at any hour. Lowell Jockery’s, at six-thirty in the morning, heading to the private jetport at Teterboro, draws every eye on the crowded highway. Jockery himself is indifferent to such attention, shrouded in the back seat by tinted windows. Nor can his conversation be overheard, even by the chauffeur. A glass panel divides them. Not to be eavesdropped or spied upon is of course preferred by LJ, but particularly so when in the company of Teddy Stamos. “What’s your guess,” Lowell asks, “as to what he’d say? On the stand? The man’s testimony?”

  “Without coaching?”

  “Unadulterated, yes.”

  “Best case—that he was driving Althus when Riles’s daughter, Elena, called the car. And that it was apparently on her instructions that Althus then told Khalil that Riles wouldn’t be needing him that night.”

  “Hmm,” says Jockery. “Implicates her, possibly. Not him. And that’s what we’d get without payment?”

  “I think so,” Teddy says, “but frankly, sir, Kahlil is hard to read. It’s entirely possible that Riles himself had released the car, and neither Althus nor the daughter had anything to do with it. Khalil may just be trying to play us. The man is cagey.”

  “Persuasive and persuadable,” Jockery muses. “Interesting combination.”

  “Yes.”

  “Suppose we do … refresh his recollection, as he’s suggesting. Would it be plausible? Any history of a relationship between Elena and Julian Althus?”

  “Well, Althus worked for Riles for many years. And she knew her father trusted him.”

  “More than I do,” Lowell says.

  “Ah,” Teddy remarks, not really understanding that statement.

  They drive in silence for another few moments.

  Jockery then says, “So the man wants … a million dollars, was it? That’s fairly steep.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Teddy says. “He’ll take less than half that, and be glad of it.”

  “What’s his bank?”

  “He wants it wire transferred to a bank in Zurich. The Bank Starhofen Von Rolle.”

  “Really!”

  “You know it?”

  “I own it,” says Lowell. “Changes things a bit.”

  “I see that it would, yes.”

  Jockery rubs the top of his forehead with one palm, which creases his satiny scalp into ridges. “Tell you what. Let’s sit on this for a while. If we need his testimony—and there’s a good chance we’ll be able to use it—offer quarter of a mil, half deposited immediately after we work out the whole story, and the rest after he testifies, provided we’re satisfied.”

  “And if we’re not? That initial wire transfer—”

  “Might evaporate.”

  “Without a trail?”

  “Look at me, Teddy. If I want something—or someone—to evaporate, is there likely to be a trail?”

  “Of course not, LJ,” says Teddy, squeezing his buttocks hard in the seat.

  Tom comes out of the bathroom in the morning wrapped in a towel. Elena says sleepily, “You’re ripped.”

  “I work out,” he says.

  “I thought you didn’t have time.”

  “Work and workouts. That’s about all I do have time for. What I haven’t had time for is a life.”

&nbs
p; Sitting on the bed in her nightgown, she frowns. “This is too fucking intimate.”

  “We have a choice?” he says.

  She gets up. “Go ahead! Look!”

  He laughs and turns away. “I obviously have to get to Downs’s office. Which means taking the car. You have this choice. You can drive me and come back, or go wherever, or stay here.”

  “I thought I was to go to Downs’s place too.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We made a package deal,” she says. “I’m to be the receptionist.”

  “Well, that was a bit ambiguous.”

  “I think we should find out, don’t you?”

  “Yes, you’re probably right,” he says. “But hurry. I’ll fix breakfast. You want eggs?”

  “Christ, I’m drowning in it.”

  “What?”

  “The fucking intimacy,” she says. “Yes, eggs. Scrambled. Toast. You can do this?”

  “Can and will. If you make the bed.”

  “Drowning in it!” she says.

  Yasim prepares himself mentally for another plane ride, watching from the jet’s window as Jockery takes leave of someone in the darkened rear of his Rolls-Royce. The billionaire, coming aboard, promptly belts himself into the facing seat, which, for a plane, is lavishly upholstered.

  “Just get here?” Lowell asks.

  “Two minutes before you. I’ve barely touched ground in three days.”

  “Well, this is a short flight.”

  “Oh yes, where we going?”

  “St. Barts,” says LJ, as if mentioning a cab ride uptown.

  “That’s four hours.”

  “Relatively short.”

  A blond supermodel in a flight attendant’s uniform takes their drink orders. “We’ll be taxiing in two minutes, gentlemen, taking off in five.” Her voice has an edge, Yasim thinks, a bit sardonic. Was this aimed at LJ?

  “You like her?” Jockery asks as the young woman leaves.

  “She’s lovely,” Yasim says.

  “For a weekend, quite splendid, but you’d have to win her.”

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Do you indeed?” Jockery says, interested. “Why didn’t you bring her?”

  “I actually suggested that to her.”

  “And, what? Not persuasive? You?”

  “It was a matter of the right clothes, I think. Since I’d no idea where we were going.”

  “Did you tell her with whom you were going?”