Round Robin

by Joseph Flynn

  “I pray every day that He will not.”

  “I will learn to pray, too. I will pray that we will always be together.”

  Manfred took his daughter in his arms so she would not see him weep.

  “Vati?”

  “What?”

  “May I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Could we... ”

  “Could we what?”

  “Could we find a new place to live?” Bianca asked. “I do not like it here.”

  Manfred brooded for two days. He brooded as only a German can. His barometric pressure dropped so low it was only a matter of time before storm clouds gathered around his head. Sturm und Drang was the forecast for his soul.

  How could he fail to do anything within his powers to make his daughter happy?

  Yet ... he didn’t want to go.

  He didn’t think it was because he actually loved Robin. No, he was sure he didn’t love her, but he found her ... worthy. Of him. And of much more than she would ever allow herself to be without his help. She was strong in many ways, but he could help her understand that strength was more than simply lashing out. It was also the ability to absorb the worst blows the world could deal out to you and not let that punishment change who you were inside Not let it disfigure your character.

  As he ruminated, a ray of levity momentarily penetrated his gloom. This Robin had humor. True, her wit often had the bite of a fresh radish, but he enjoyed radishes. A crisp radish and a good strong beer — as he might consider himself — made a wonderful combination. Moreover, she was a passable cook. And with her improving physique and new hairstyle, she was becoming very ansehnlich.

  Achh! Who was he kidding?

  Of course, he loved Robin.

  And one of the most important reasons to stay was he had to prove himself worthy of her.

  But how could he persuade Bianca to stay? And how ... how could he convince her that Robin should be her new mother?

  For that matter, how could he win over Robin to the idea of making Bianca her own child?

  These were weighty problems to say the least. Fortunately for Manfred, he was one of the world’s great power lifters. He racked the three-hundred-pound barbell he’d been bench-pressing for the past quarter-hour and went to his office to start making phone calls.

  That afternoon the group gathered, at David Solomonovich’s suggestion, at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Outside it was eighteen degrees and a powdery snow was falling. Inside the huge glass structure of the flower house, the heat and humidity of the tropics prevailed. The scents of dozens of exotic blooms filled the air.

  Manfred, Bianca, David, Nancy and Dan Phinney gathered at a bench next to a wishing pond that was carpeted with coins. Bianca ran her fingers through the water, then she turned and looked at the adults who surrounded her. Her father and Mr. Phinney stood on either side of her. David and Nancy stood in front of her.

  Bianca knew instinctively they were forming a united front — against her.

  “This is a beautiful place you have brought me to,” she told them. “What have I done?”

  Manfred took her hand and sat with her on a nearby bench.

  “It is beautiful here. Does it remind you of any other place?”

  Bianca had no intention of playing coy.

  “The Magic Garden.”

  Manfred nodded.

  He asked, “Why would anyone build her own Magic Garden when this beautiful place is only a few kilometers away?”

  “I don’t know,” Bianca said. “Why?”

  Manfred didn’t know either, but he was betting that Nancy or Dan Phinney did and that one of them would see where he was going and would help him out. He looked at Nancy and then at Dan.

  They looked at each other.

  Uneasily.

  Then Nancy sucked it up and went down on one knee in front of Bianca.

  “When Robin was young, she was very beautiful, and very gentle, and very giving. Unfortunately, she was also far too trusting. Even when she was twenty years old, she probably didn’t know as much about who to trust as you do now.”

  Nancy glanced over at her father, wanting to know that she was about to do the right thing. He nodded his assent.

  “Robin wound up trusting the wrong person. He turned out to be a monster, and he hurt her terribly.”

  Perhaps because she’d so recently been through her own monstrous encounter, Bianca was able to empathize, and was curious.

  “Is that why she built her Magic Garden? To hide in it?”

  Nancy nodded.

  “What did the monster do to her?”

  “He ... stole something from her.”

  Things were moving onto very delicate ground, and Nancy knew she couldn’t even look to her father for help now. Whatever she said from this point on would have to be her responsibility. And from the way both Manfred and David had inclined themselves toward her, Nancy knew that the kid wasn’t the only one who was interested in this story.

  “What?” Bianca asked. “What did the monster steal?”

  Nancy needed a minute to decide how to answer.

  “He stole Robin’s ability to ever like herself. Or forgive herself. He might as well have cast an evil spell on her.”

  David drew a sharp breath, and everyone looked at him.

  Not that he had ever said a word about it, not that he ever could, but Nancy’s words made him think of his idea that some evil sonofabitch had turned Robin into a frog. Now, Robin’s own sister was telling him that he’d been right.

  Only what could he say to the four people who were staring at him?

  Bianca took him off the hook. Sort of.

  She said, “David made a drawing of Robin. He says it’s how she looks inside. Maybe it’s how she looked before the monster cast his spell.”

  Everyone returned their attention to the boy.

  The drawing was in his art pad that was in his backpack which was on his back. Of course, the other drawings were there, too. The erotic ones he wasn’t going to let anyone see.

  “Just a minute,” David said.

  He moved a few steps away, and obscured by a screen of green leaves he was out of sight for several seconds. When he returned, hoping with all his heart that he wasn’t blushing, he held the drawing of Robin in his hand. He’d torn it out of the art pad.

  He handed it to Bianca and the others crowded around for a look.

  Nancy and Dan Phinney looked at the image and then, in wonder, at the boy who had rendered it.

  “The drawing is pretty,” Bianca said, “but maybe David just made it the way he wanted it to look. He has a crush on Robin.”

  At that, David did blush.

  But nobody noticed because, without a word, Danny Phinney took his wallet out of his hip pocket and opened it to the photo he’d carried for decades. Robin’s high school graduation picture. He held it up next to the drawing David had done.

  David leaned in to look at the photo and now it was his turn to be astounded.

  The images were all but identical.

  Manfred pulled Bianca up onto his lap.

  He asked, “Do you know what I was going to do before I heard that Horst had ... made sure that you never had to worry about that terrible man who frightened you?”

  “What?” Bianca asked.

  “I was going to go back to Germany to see him myself.”

  “To kill him?”

  “To make sure that he never frightened you, or any other child, ever again. To do that, I had to ask Robin if she would care for you while I was gone — just as she cared for you when you came to her door so sure that man was chasing you.”

  Bianca beetled her brow and stared at the hands she folded on her lap. She didn’t want to look at her father.

  “Do you think it is right that as soon as you are safe we should leave someone else who needs help?”

  “No,” Bianca said in a tiny, grudging voice.

  “Should we stay and help her?”r />
  Bianca considered. Thoughts raced through her mind as she weighed not just what was right but what would be acceptable to her father and the others. Her expressions betrayed the great struggle being waged within. Finally, her face settled and she looked at Manfred.

  “If we stay, will you bring me here whenever I want, so this can be my Magic Garden?”

  Manfred nodded.

  “Very well,” Bianca conceded. “We can stay. For a little while anyway.”

  Manfred hugged his daughter. He kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear how proud he was of her. Then he looked at Nancy.

  “It is time Robin confronted her monster, no?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yes.”

  “Dan?” Manfred asked.

  “High time,” Dan Phinney said.

  “Does my vote count?” David asked.

  “Of course,” said Bianca.

  “Then I say Robin will never be free until she does.”

  “Very well then,” Manfred said. “I will find him.”

  Chapter 27

  “I’ve found something,” Aubrey Tannis said when he called Tone.

  “For the money you’re charging me,” Tone told his high-rent gumshoe, “you better find the Titanic if that’s I want. So whattya got?”

  “The Titanic has been found.”

  “Hey,” Tone snapped into the phone. “I’m paying you to tell me I’m a dummy?”

  “I doubt you’d need to pay anyone for that.”

  Tone couldn’t believe it. Here he’d shafted Iggy Gross, just signed a three-year deal at a half-mil a year to be senior sports editor at a network affiliate, was even getting unexpected, and completely personalized, filthy French postcards from Montreal, and this dipstick was busting his chops?

  He didn’t need it.

  “You want to crack wise, send me a refund.”

  Aubrey Tannis cleared his throat.

  “What I’ve found is an anomaly.”

  “A what? Is that like making it with animals or something?”

  Sometimes Tone worried that he only seemed smart when he had Iggy Gross around to look completely stupid.

  “An anomaly is something that’s out of the ordinary.”

  Okay, so now Tone knew. And he liked the way the guy had been polite about explaining, not snotty. The creep remembered who held the whip hand.

  “And that’s a big deal? That’s all you have to tell me?”

  “I think it’s where I’ll find what you’re looking for. You see, the anomaly occurred when Ms. Phinney was nineteen and twenty years of age. Shortly before that time, she was described as a likable, conscientious college student. Afterwards, she began her present line of work, which, as you well know, calls for a considerably more abrasive personality.”

  There was a little shot in there, but Tone let it slide.

  “So what are you saying?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that at a very volatile time of life Ms. Phinney seems to have been jolted off one track in life and onto another. I’ve narrowed down the time-period to perhaps six months. During that time, I think it’s safe to say, the event occurred that made her the woman she is today. Now, do you understand why I called you?”

  “Okay, you’ve got a point.”

  “Two, actually. That’s the first. The second, just as salient, is that the fee you’ve paid so far has been expended. If you wish me to continue, you’ll have to remit another check. Of course, if you find my services disagreeable, you can find someone new and start over.”

  The SOB was hitting back, Tone knew, but at this point, so freaking what?

  “We’re close, that’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “We’re close,” Aubrey Tannis agreed.

  “Okay, all right. No hard feelings then.”

  “And the check?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll get your money.”

  What the hell, Tone had plenty of dough now.

  And he could practically taste it — he was going to give Robin a shafting she’d never turn around on him.

  Maybe it was fear of Robin, or maybe he just had a cold in his nose, but something knocked Iggy Gross off the air that morning. Well, it knocked his live show off the air, anyway. In its place was a rerun of the program where Iggy had invited listeners over eighteen years of age to drop by the station, examine through his studio window the bare derrieres of three professional strippers and then comment on the relative merits of each and what made the perfect female backside. That particular show was a perennial favorite and always got good ratings.

  Even so, the buzz around town was that Iggy was already running scared, especially since Robin had made it clear that the only venue for the contest would be Screaming Mimi’s, her home turf. By lunchtime, the media picked up a rumor that Iggy’d had a nervous breakdown. A reporter and photographer, looking for comments and art, arrived at Mimi’s just in time to see a group of regulars present Robin with a satin robe that bore the legend Heavyweight Champ.

  Always knowing the value of psyching out the opposition, Robin even put the thing on for the photographer and held up her fists, although more in the fashion of John L. Sullivan than a modern-day pugilist.

  All day long, the patrons and staff at Mimi’s complimented Robin, predicted a glorious victory, and expressed the fervent hope that somewhere they’d be able to find fools simple-minded enough to put their money on Iggy.

  Being the object of public adoration was something completely unprecedented in Robin’s life ... but she thought she could get used to it.

  The close of her day was also out of the ordinary. Her father didn’t come to pick her up, Nancy did.

  “Where’s Dad?” Robin asked as Nancy drove her home.

  “He said he was feeling a little tired today. He asked me to come get you. I’m glad, because I think I would have come anyway.”

  “Why?”

  Because Nancy didn’t believe in letting secrets clutter up her mind anymore that she believed in leaving dirty dishes in her sink. In either case, you left crap like that lying around, it started to stink.

  Nancy glanced at Robin.

  “Let me ask you straight out: How much does Manfred mean to you?”

  Robin was glad that Nancy had put her eyes back on the road after she’d asked the question.

  “You know how I feel,” Robin said.

  “I’ve got an idea how you feel, but why don’t you tell me in your own words?”

  “He means a lot to me.”

  “You love him?”

  Robin didn’t answer.

  “Okay,” Nancy said, “let’s take small steps first. You want to keep him around?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know there’s a price for everything?”

  “Better than most.”

  “You know that I love you and want what’s best for you?”

  “Yes.”

  Robin meant it. Nancy did love her. Maybe even more than her dad, because Nancy had to take a lot of guff from Robin that her father never did, and she was still there every time Robin needed her.

  Even so, that last question made Robin distinctly uneasy.

  Nancy double-parked in front of Robin’s house and turned her emergency blinkers on.

  She turned and looked directly at Robin.

  “I told,” Nancy said.

  “You told what? To who?”

  “I told Manfred and Bianca that there had been someone in your life once who’d hurt you very badly. I called the guy a monster. I did it because Bianca wanted to leave your house, and Manfred was looking for any reason he could find to persuade her to stay. You might not know if you love him, but I can tell you for a fact he loves you.”

  Robin’s face was as blank as a mannequin’s.

  “Did you tell him everything?”

  “No ... but you should.”

  Robin popped her seatbelt off and pushed open the car door. She got out and looked like she was going to close the door, but she leaned back in the
car.

  “You had no right,” Robin said, her chin quivering with anger. “You had no right to say a single word!”

  “Sometimes you do things anyway,” Nancy replied.

  Robin had no way to respond to that except to slam the door on her sister.

  Nancy lowered the window and called to Robin.

  “There’s something else I have to tell you.”

  But Robin didn’t turn back, she just kept walking and went into her house.

  All right, Nancy thought, I tried.

  When Manfred found Phil Leeds — the sonofabitch Robin had hated all these years — and dropped him into her lap she would just have to deal with it.

  At school that day, Manfred shifted his schedule around so he could have the afternoon off, and he left Bianca in the care of Dan and Patty Phinney who would watch her until he came to pick her up. Freed from his other concerns, Manfred went hunting.

  He’d been given two names by Nancy. Phil Leeds was the man he was looking for, and Jeri Whitman, a former friend of Robin’s, was a woman who might point him in the right direction. Nancy had also given Manfred a twenty-year-old phone number for Jeri Whitman’s parents, and that was where he started.

  An elderly woman answered the phone.

  “Is this Mrs. Whitman?” Manfred asked.

  He tried as hard as possible to diminish his accent and sound harmless, thinking this was how a professional like Warner would do it.

  “Yes.”

  “Is Jeri at home, please?”

  “She hasn’t been at home since I used to go out dancing on Saturday nights, and that was before I got arthritis in both my ankles and my husband died. Which was fifteen years ago. Which oughta give you some idea of how long it’s been since Jeri’s been at home.” After a pause, she added, “She still drops the baby off once in a while, though.”

  “Would you know where I could reach her?”

  “Why?”

  “An old friend of hers asked me to look her up.”

  “Not one of those bums who never gave her a penny of child support, I bet.”

  Manfred instinctively felt the need to leaven his act with a grain of truth.

  “The friend’s name is Robin Phinney.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus! Poor Robin. How is that girl?”

  “She could be better.”