by Greg Enslen
“A bakery?” Mike asked. “We just had breakfast.”
Gary remembered locking his bike up at a bike rack in front of the place, but the rack was gone now, evaporated into the past.
“No, I used to come here as a kid,” Gary said, and climbed from the car. He looked around for a moment, taking in the quiet downtown streets and the caboose and the sunny sky, and then turned and pulled the door open. A small bell attached to the door jingled as he headed inside.
It was just as he remembered it.
On the left was the bakery, with a huge case of cookies and cakes and brownies that his mom had loved.
But there was something else here, too. Something he shouldn’t be trying to remember—
The headache came, unbidden.
An old woman stepped from behind the glass case of cookies and pies and walked over to him—the headache had come on so suddenly that he was bent over in pain, leaning against the windows just inside the door.
“Are you okay, son?”
Gary looked up—her face was a little older, but he remembered her. And with that memory the headache grew tighter across his forehead, like heavy bands of rubber squeezing together, trying to crush his head. He put his hands up to his temples and massaged them, willing himself not to pass out—not when he was making progress.
The little bell on the door jingled as Mike stepped into the bakery.
“You okay, buddy?”
Gary shook his head, massaging his temples as he lowered himself into one of the small chairs near the door. He was trying to not think about the smells or the memories locked inside this pleasant place.
Mike looked over to the old woman.
“He’s...he’s not feeling well. Do you have some water?”
She smiled.
“Of course—he scared the tar out of me, though, coming in here and then acting like he was having a heart attack. Let me get that water, son,” the woman said, disappearing behind the counter. She reappeared only moments later with a plastic glass of water, handing it to Gary, who took it without looking up.
He thanked her and sipped from it slowly. After a minute, he felt better.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Mike and the woman. “My mother and I used to come in here, and I guess the memory was a little too much for me.”
Mike nodded, glancing at the woman as she stared at Gary.
“You say you and your mother used to come in here, boy?” she asked.
Gary nodded and handed her back the half-empty glass of water. “Yeah, ten years ago. There was a travel store next door, where that hardware store is now. My mom used to love the chocolate-iced brownies. Coming here was always a big treat—she would buy me a dozen of those chocolate chip cookies,” he said, pointing in the direction of the glass case. “They were great.”
Gary looked up at her and saw Mike behind her, his eyes wide. He knew what his friend was thinking—they were supposed to be keeping a low profile, checking things out. But Gary could see the old woman trying to remember. What if she suddenly shouted out his name, and it wasn’t Gary? Would that prove anything? Gary thought it was worth the risk.
“Gary, let’s go,” Mike said suddenly, taking Gary’s arm to help him from the store. Clearly he didn’t agree with Gary spilling the beans. “I think we’ve taken up enough of this nice lady’s time, don’t you?”
If Gary was going to go through with it, he needed to do it now.
No matter what the cost.
“Yes, ma’am, I used to come in here a lot. My mother’s name was Gloria O’Toole. My father worked for the Lucianos as an accountant.”
The woman stepped back and gave a little gasp. Mike had a completely different reaction—he let go of Gary’s arm and backed away, rolling his eyes.
“You...are you the young man whose mother was killed in that car bomb?” the old woman asked, her hand on her throat. “Your father, was he the accountant that testified against the Luciano family, got the old man sent to jail?”
Gary stood and slowly nodded, looking around the store and trying to push back the edges of the headache.
“Yes, that was my father. After the trial, my father and I were moved to California by the FBI. Witness Protection Program.” Gary stopped for a long moment and tried not to look at Mike, who was shooting him daggers.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” Mike said.
Gary turned and looked directly at the old woman.
“Do you remember me?”
The old woman tapped her chest absentmindedly, looking from Gary to Mike and then back.
“Of course I remember your name, son,” she said. “Everyone in this town knew your name, you and your family. After you disappeared, everyone thought you were dead or the FBI had packed you off—guess that’s what happened. That was a bad time in this town, but it got better after the trial. Your father was good to stand up to them, even if it cost him his wife and—”
Gary interrupted her. “What...what is my name?”
The old lady looked at Gary, then back at Mike.
“What is this foolishness?” she asked, shaking her head. “What do you mean? I’ve got a store to run here, and I don’t have time to fool with you, boy,” she said, turning to leave.
One of Gary’s hands shot out and clamped on her arm, hard, keeping her in place and spinning her halfway around.
“What’s my name?”
The lady shrieked and tried to pull away, but his grip was too tight. Mike grabbed at Gary’s hand, but the woman shouted first.
“O’Toole, for God’s sake, let go of me!” she shouted, clawing at his hand. “Your name is Chris O’Toole, you stupid boy!”
Gary let go instantly, both hands going to his temples. It was bad, worse than he’d thought it would be. He bent over suddenly, as if someone had kicked him violently in the chest. The deck of tarot cards fell from his jacket pocket, spilling all over the tile floor of the bakery. He’d been preparing for it, but when she’d said it and—
Out of the corner of his eye, Gary saw the old woman turn and walk behind the counter, grabbing the phone. Mike walked over to her.
“You get away from me, son,” she said to Mike. “I’m calling the police.”
Gary saw Mike walk up to her—even though he was in pain, his mind was still keeping track of what was going on around him. But he knew he needed to leave this place, to clear his head.
“Look, my friend and I aren’t going to hurt you, ma’am.” he said, smiling. “Please, hang up the phone. I promise, we’re on our way out the door. Let me check on my friend, and then we’ll leave.”
She looked at him for a long moment and then put the phone back up on its hook.
“I’m sorry I grabbed your arm, ma’am,” Gary said, standing up slowly and putting one hand on the door. “Mike, I’m going to get some air. Can you get my cards?”
Mike nodded, and Gary turned and fled the bakery, the little bell jingling as he stepped out into the sun.
Chapter 37
“Wake up.” Someone was whispering in her ear.
Judy sat up slowly, her back killing her.
She realized that she’d slept the whole night on the front porch. There was a moment of confusion and then she felt the pain in her side and along her face and remembered what had happened last night—the burning of her paintings. The last thing she could remember was that strange and colorful smoke drifting away into the night sky.
Vincent was standing over her.
“Clean up the house—the place is a wreck. I’ll be home around 9 p.m., and I want this place looking nice—we may be having guests. And clean up that mess on the front lawn,” he said, smiling at her.
She nodded, her jaw feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Behind Vincent was the girl from last night, looking nervous. Vincent turned to see what Judy was looking at and told the girl to go outside and wait by the car.
“Now, listen. When I get home with my friends, I want to
see this place spotless. As for that other crap last night, we’ll have a long and interesting discussion about that soon,” he said, smiling in that way that made her stomach turn.
He walked away, stepping on her broken easel as he left. Vincent was wearing his favorite boots, the ones with alternating strips of leather and rattlesnake skin. They had short metal chains that looped beneath the arch of the boot, and she listened to the sound of those little chains jingling as Vincent walked away.
Chapter 38
Gary was gone, and Mike needed to calm this woman down before she got the cops involved.
“Okay, I know what you just saw was strange,” Mike began, “but there’s an explanation for it.”
She looked from Mike to Gary, who was standing outside the bakery, then slowly nodded.
“You see, he’s been away from this place for a long time,” Mike continued. “Since he’s been gone...well, let’s just say that he has a different opinion of himself. Most of what happened to him here, he can’t remember. He’s remembering it now, but some of it isn’t coming easily, and his mind is fighting it.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “You mean he doesn’t remember anything that happened to him here in O’Fallon?”
“Something like that,” Mike said, nodding. “It’s all coming back to him, but there are parts of it he can’t remember. Like his name.”
“Oh, you’re kidding. Is this some kind of joke?”
Mike stared back at her. “No, I’m completely serious. He almost wrecked the car yesterday—he’d seen the Arch for the first time in ten years, and it brought back memories. I think parts of his mind are blocked off, and it doesn’t want to recover these old memories. He gets terrible headaches—see how he’s hurting?”
She looked at Gary outside for a long moment, and then nodded. “Sounds crazy, but I don’t remember the last time I saw a boy that shade of white. He looks like he needs to see the inside of a hospital, and the sooner the better.”
She looked at Mike, continuing.
“That was a nasty business, when old man Luciano went to jail. Chris’s father put him away,” nodding at Gary. “The old man died in prison a couple years after that.”
Mike nodded. “There are parts of the story we know, and others we’re trying to find out. It’s been a long time, but he’s back to visit and get some answers. Seeing the places where he grew up is putting a lot of strain on him—try not to think too badly of him, okay?”
The woman slowly smiled and patted him on the arm.
“That’s just fine, son. Mike, right? I had a brother named Mike, but he passed on couple of years ago. You just see to your friend there, okay?”
She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked at him.
“One more question. When you were trying to get him to leave, you called him ‘Gary.’”
Mike nodded. “He thinks his name is Gary. Gary Foreman. Somewhere along the line he was hypnotized to forget his old name. Evidently there was a girl back here he thought he was in love with, and his father had Gary’s memory of her suppressed to keep him from destroying the case and getting more people killed.”
She looked at him curiously. “Wow, now that does sound like a load of bunk.”
Mike nodded. “I know. I’m still trying to believe it all myself.”
The woman smiled. “It is a stretch. But she was broken up when he went away.”
“Who?” Mike asked.
“Judy, Judy Nelson,” she said. “Chris’s girlfriend when he disappeared. Actually, they were engaged, I think.”
“You know her?” Mike looked at the woman.
“Of course I know her,” the woman said. “She used to work here. I think this is where they met.”
Chapter 39
Judy moved slowly around the house—now that she was up and moving around, her arm didn’t hurt as much.
She wanted to go upstairs and change clothes, but the idea of going into that bedroom, where her husband and that girl...no, she could get along for a few more hours in the paint-streaked white shirt and blue jeans she was still wearing from yesterday.
Judy gathered up the bits and pieces of her art equipment that had been strewn around the living room during last night’s fight and spent a few futile minutes trying to scrape off the blue streak of pain that ran down one wall. He had hit her so hard that the paintbrush had just flown through the air.
She tried not to remember that feeling in the pit of her stomach of complete and utter surprise, when she had been painting and blissfully unaware of his presence.
A part of her mind offered up excuses for him, his surprise at walking in on her engaged in an activity that had nothing to do with him, his overreaction to this new sign of her independence, something he had never tolerated on any level. She knew that he had been surprised, but why couldn’t he have been pleasantly surprised? The years had changed him—if she’d shown an interest in painting when they were first dating, maybe he would’ve been supportive.
But he’d changed, sometime around his trip to Sacramento—he’d returned different, and angry, and getting kicked from the family had been the nail in his coffin. Maybe he was incapable of empathy now.
Either way, she would not excuse him. And she knew now, without her paintings or even the prospect of painting in the future, she had nothing to live for. Sometime over the next week he would search the entire house and find the other twenty or so paintings in the attic, along with all of the art supplies that she’d surreptitiously bought in town. And he would be watching her like a hawk, trying to catch her painting.
But without her paintings, she was nothing.
Chapter 40
“And she quit just a few days later,” the woman said, finishing up.
Wow. It was crazy.
Judy Nelson, the girl from the picture, had worked in the bakery for several years—in fact, it had been here that Gary and Judy had met. Gary had been buying brownies with his mother, and it had been Judy’s first day and she’d screwed up the order. He’d said a few kind words to her and that was how it had all started.
Judy and Gary had been dating for almost a year when the trial started, and Judy had talked daily about the progress of the trial and the danger to the O’Tooles. When Gary’s mother had been killed, Judy had come into the bakery hysterical. Evidently, all Judy could talk about was the end of the trial, when things would get back to normal.
Then, one day Judy had come in, seemingly stunned. She had seen Gary at the courthouse and shouted hello, but he had looked right at her and not recognized her. Then he’d turned and walked away, climbing into a waiting car.
But his father had looked at her—she’d seen him getting into the other side of the government car, and he’d looked right at her with a pained expression before being pushed into the car by a burly FBI agent.
What happened next had become a part of the town’s scant mythology. After the trial, no one had heard from the O’Tooles—they were gone. There had been discussion about what had happened to them—the theories revolved around two major options. The most popular theory was that the FBI had whisked them away to some secret location, protecting them from the vengeful Luciano family. Of course, the other rumor was that the Luciano family had somehow found them and had them killed.
Mike had listened as she told the story, occasionally glancing outside at Gary, who was leaning on their rental car and rubbing his head. The fact that the girl had worked here might explain Gary’s reaction to coming into the bakery. But it also might explain why he’d wanted to stop here in the first place, which might mean that some of the memories were coming back.
The woman finished up by telling Mike about the girl’s marriage to Vincent Luciano.
“They got married a couple years out of high school, and he pretty much locked her up in that house out west of town. He’s not very nice to her, if you know what I mean. She’s always got bruises when she stops by.”
Mike got the hint. He couldn
’t understand how any man could treat a woman that way—it took a person with no self-esteem, but that didn’t help the victim.
He excused himself for a moment and went outside to check on Gary, stopping on the way out to collect the fallen tarot cards that littered the floor by the door.
“You doing okay?” Mike asked Gary.
Gary was sitting on the rear bumper of the car, still rubbing his temples. “I’ve felt better. It’s like this place, just being in there, was giving me a headache.”
“I know,” Mike said, handing him the deck of tarot cards. “This is not a good place for you to be. I need to talk to this lady a little more, and then we’ll leave.”
Gary looked up. “Why? Does she know something? Does she know the girl?”
“I’m not sure,” he lied. “Can I have the picture? And what was that doctor’s name we’re looking for?”
Gary handed him the picture. “Martin. Dr. Frank Martin. He had an office near the post office.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Mike walked back inside and over to the counter, where the woman was transferring donuts from a baking rack onto a display tray.
“Is this her?” Mike asked her, showing her the photograph.
The old woman put on her glasses and looked at the picture, nodding. “Yes, that’s her. The picture looks like it’s from when she was working here.”
Mike nodded and put the picture away.
“Do you know where she is now?” Mike asked. “Or do you remember a doctor in this town named Martin? Dr. Frank Martin?”
The woman looked at him, her face suddenly serious.
“Listen carefully, son,” she said, her voice low. “You don’t want to mess with this—you need to leave that girl alone. You need to leave all of this alone—tell your friend that she moved away or something. Don’t get involved.”