by A. C. Fuller
He turned toward her and tried to make out her shape in the darkness. “But what about Santiago? Even if we can’t get Bice, or Rak, at least we can get Santiago off. Isn’t that worth doing?”
“That video isn’t going to get Santiago off. Like you said, you need some evidence on Rak. Maybe the police get him on the Downton murder, but that’s not necessarily going to get Santiago off.”
They were both quiet. “Look,” she said after a few minutes. “It’s over, okay?”
“Maybe you’re right, but I’m gonna try anyway.”
They lay without speaking for a few more minutes. Finally, Camila said, “Do you hear the waves on the beach? They’re faint.”
Alex listened. “No, I don’t.”
“Remember what you said about being a little kid, running around, loving everyone and everything? It’s still there. You just need to relax a little.”
“I don’t know how to relax without falling apart.”
“Then maybe you need to fall apart.”
He awoke when her chilled and swollen ankle brushed against his calf. It felt cold and hot at the same time. He felt her soft skin glide across his thighs as she lay on top of him. He realized that she was naked. He’d never wanted anyone so badly.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
When she kissed him he wanted to object, but he found himself kissing her back. He wrapped his arms around her and began to roll on top of her, then stopped when he felt her cold, swollen ankle press up against his leg. They lay entwined on their sides, kissing desperately. Suddenly, she pulled away from him and leaned back. For a moment, he was devastated. Then she brought her good leg up and gripped the band of his boxers with her toes. Alex raised his hips to assist her as she pulled them down.
His body sank into the bed.
He was powerless, his mind blank.
Chapter 58
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Alex slept hard. When he awoke, he rolled over and reached for her but she was gone. He walked naked into the bathroom, looking for her. He opened the curtains that led to the balcony and looked out. He sat on the bed and put on his boxers, then opened the front door. Pono Grady sat on a chair, reading a newspaper.
“Where did she go?” Alex asked.
“Don’t know. She left an hour or two ago. I told her I’d send an officer with her but she wouldn’t wait. I can’t make people be safe. Plus, we’re spread pretty thin as it is.”
“What time is it?”
“About seven.”
Alex looked out at the parking lot, hoping to see her but knowing he wouldn’t.
“Your story made the front page,” Grady said.
Alex looked at the paper in Grady’s hands.
“Couple people saw the little guy you described, but we haven’t found him. We did confirm with the NYPD that a guy named Dimitri Rak is under investigation for the murder of some basketball guy last week. Matches your description. So we’re gonna keep an eye on you.”
“Thanks.” Alex walked into the room and looked around. There was a note on the desk.
Heading to Des Moines. I’m sorry.
-Cam
He put on his shorts and walked past Grady. “I’m going to the fitness center.”
“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”
As Grady watched from a chair, Alex jogged for ten minutes to warm up, then set the treadmill at nine miles per hour, telling himself he would run a 5K. After five minutes, he was dripping with sweat. He wore the t-shirt he’d been wearing when Camila had climbed on top of him. He breathed in the smell of his sweat mingled with a scent he couldn’t exactly identify, but knew was hers.
He looked down at the flashing numbers. A mile and a half. Almost halfway there. He thought of the crash, imagined his parents burning inside their car as a light rain fell on Bainbridge Island. His chest felt weak and all he heard was the pounding of his feet. The sun was bright on the beach, which he could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I will finish this,” he said to himself. He choked back a few tears and glanced at the numbers again. Almost two miles.
He listened to the thumping of his feet and tried to picture her at the airport. He turned up the speed. The thumping grew faster and he turned all his focus to his feet and his legs. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.
He turned up the speed again. Only a half mile to go. The sensation in his head and torso disappeared and he felt only the pounding of his feet. Don’t stop.
A few seconds later, he gave up and collapsed on the edge of the treadmill, panting with his head in his hands.
When he’d cooled down, he walked up to the room and showered. When he came out of the bathroom, he called Camila but her phone went straight to voice mail. He figured she might be on the plane by now. He looked at the clock: 9:45 a.m. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, then leaned on his side, picked up the phone, and dialed room service. “Hello, do you have any pudding left from last night’s dinner service?”
Chapter 59
After finishing two plates of macadamia nut pancakes, a chocolate-chip muffin, and a vanilla latte, Alex sat on the balcony, staring at the beach and eating a bowl of chocolate pudding. Once he’d licked the bowl clean, he walked around the room for a few minutes, looked at his phone, and did five pushups before collapsing onto the floor.
By noon he was asleep.
He awoke four hours later to the digitized, Muzak version of In Bloom. His head ached and he fumbled around the sheets for his phone. “Hello?”
“We’ve been f-f-fired. Both of us.”
He recognized the hurried voice of James Stacy. “What?”
“You and me, we’ve been fired.”
Alex sat up in bed. “Let me call you back.”
He walked into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and pushed his cheeks in with his palms. “Damn,” he said softly.
He walked down to the business center, trailed by Grady, who then waited just outside the door. He opened his e-mail and clicked on one from a New York Standard address he didn’t recognize.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Employment Termination
Date: September 15, 2002 10:02:15 AM EST
Dear Mr. Vane,
We regret to inform you that your employment with the Standard Media Corporation has been terminated. This action is being taken due to a prolonged absence from work and a failure to contact your direct supervisor, Samuel Baxton, during this absence.
A formal letter of termination has also been sent to your residence.
Sincerely,
Tracy Meyers
Human Resources Director, Standard Media
Next he opened an e-mail from James, sent only half an hour earlier. He clicked an attached PDF of the phone bills he had faxed James the day before, then dialed his phone as he scanned James’s handwritten notes in the margins.
When James picked up, Alex said, “So, I get why I’ve been fired, but how did they justify getting rid of you?”
“The Colonel was real nice about it. Said that the c-c-company is trying to tighten up its books for the m-merger. They were happy with my work but couldn’t fund a full-time researcher. I guess all their old reporters are going to have to learn how to use the Internet.”
Alex got up and paced the business center. His head hurt and he rubbed his eyes. “You got fired because of the video, because of me.”
“But I don’t know anything.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain later.” He sat back down at the computer. “I’m looking at the PDF. Do you have Martin’s phone bills in front of you?”
“Yeah.”
Next to each phone number that Alex had not crossed out, James had written a name or location.
“Talk me through this,” Alex said.
“I’m still stuck on why they fired me. Even if I knew s
omething, which I don’t, why would they f-fire me?”
“I promise I’ll explain soon.”
James inhaled deeply. “Okay . . . from the top of the list, the first call you didn’t cross out is from August twenty-eighth.”
“Yeah, that one I knew. That’s from Mac Hollinger.”
“Yeah, it’s listed to Sonia Hollinger. Next call is August twenty-ninth. That’s Shen’s grocery on Fourteenth Street. Then, later that day, the 845 area code, that’s his daughter’s cell phone. Next c-c-call is from the thirtieth, that’s a movie theater in the Village.”
Alex scanned down the list, confirming that the notes James had written in the margins of the bill matched what he was saying. Most of the calls were routine, but Alex noted a couple he wanted to follow up on.
When they got to September fifth, James said, “It took me a while to track this one down because payphones are listed s-separately.”
“What is it?” Alex asked. “Where’s the pay phone?”
“Well, it d-doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a phone that used to be at the World Trade Center Plaza. Incoming call that lasted only a m-minute.”
“So Martin got a call from the World Trade Center Plaza on September fifth? What day was that?”
“Wednesday.”
The call happened at 11 a.m. Alex thought it could have been a call from Hollinger to arrange a lunch with Martin. He filed it in the back of his mind. “Ok,” he said.
“You circled eight c-calls between the fifth and the eleventh of September. Two were r-restaurants, one was his daughter’s cell again, one was a dry cleaner on Fourth Street, two were a b-b-bank. Chase Bank in the Village.”
“And the other two?”
“One was to Morgan Tubbs. He’s a t-teacher at Tulane.”
“Makes sense. Martin was a professor, and I assume they talk to each other.”
“Then it gets s-strange.”
Alex looked at the next call. “September eleventh, 9:37 a.m., an incoming call for a tenth of a minute.”
“Probably an answering m-machine hang-up. That’s from the s-same pay phone that c-called him September fifth. The one outside the t-t-t-t—” James coughed so loudly that Alex pulled the phone a few inches away from his ear. “The one outside the towers.”
Alex stood up. “What?” He remembered what Camila had told him in the park: that a caller who hadn’t left a message had woken her and Martin up on the morning of 9/11.
“What I’m saying is, someone called Martin from the payphone outside the t-towers about an hour after the first p-plane hit.”
Alex’s mouth opened slowly. There was a black expanse where his mind had been a moment before. He saw Macintosh Hollinger emerging from the World Trade Center, alive. Then the distorted, metallic voice came to him: There are three.
James was still speaking. “There’s no way of knowing if the call came from the same person, but it’s odd, right? That someone would call Martin from that phone right after the t-towers were hit? I mean—”
“James, I need to call you back.”
Chapter 60
Camila looked at the caller ID from the passenger seat of her mother’s green station wagon. Alex Vane. She put the phone in her purse as her mother turned the car into the driveway of her childhood home.
“How was the flight from New York?” her mother asked.
“You already asked me that. The flight was fine. What’s Papa doing tonight?”
“And tell me again what happened to your ankle, dear. I’m just so worried about you.”
“I tripped on the stairs. What’s Papa doing tonight?”
Her mother shut the car’s engine off and turned toward her. She’d developed lines on her forehead and below her eyes, and wore thick makeup that reminded Camila of a spray tan. “Watching football. He was watching the news about Iraq, but it upsets him. I wish he wouldn’t watch the news. The hospice lady came earlier today. Bathed him nicely. We gave him new meds so he’s more comfortable now.”
“Mama, can we go in?”
“Yes, dear, let’s go in. But don’t expect much from him, Cam. I know you’ve had your issues with how he was when you were a child, but now is not the time to address those concerns. You know how quiet he is these days, right, Cam?”
“Mama, it’s okay. I’m okay now.”
They got out of the car. Camila stopped and stared. The small house had a newness that surprised her. No flood of memories or past associations. The steps and the windows and the yard all looked familiar, but they no longer had the quality of memory.
“The leaves are about to come off the oak,” her mother said, pointing at the tree on the side of the house. Camila nodded and limped up the steps.
The house smelled of bacon and lavender air freshener. Her father sat half-reclined in a tattered blue chair in the living room watching football with the sound off. She stared for a moment at the thick, rust-brown carpet and remembered playing on it as a girl.
He looked up when she walked in. “Oh, it’s you. Hi. I can’t get up.” Camila tried to meet his dark eyes, which were set far back in his head, but he looked down at his lap. He smiled for a moment before looking back at the screen.
Camila went to him and kissed his cheek, which was prickly and cold. Then she walked into the kitchen with her mother and put her bag on the floor. The kitchen was warm, with beige cabinets and an orange electric stove from the seventies.
Her mother opened the fridge and rooted around for something. “So, why did you finally decide to come?” she asked, her head in the fridge. “I’d given up on you.”
“I came to see Daddy.”
“You missed your cousins.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Her mother pulled her head out of the fridge and closed the door. She held a plastic jug of milk and a small can of chocolate syrup with drips down the side. She looked at Camila. “Why didn’t you come sooner?”
Camila looked at the hardening chocolate running down the sides of the can and recalled licking drips off a similar can as a girl. “I was working, then I got into something. I don’t know. It’s not important now.”
Her mother poured a tall glass of milk and emptied the can of syrup into it. She scowled at the can, shaking it, then threw it away. After stirring the milk with a long metal spoon, she popped a straw in it and handed the glass to Camila. “Will you take it to him?”
Camila took the chocolate milk into the living room. Her father was slouched in his chair. On the TV she saw a blur of silver and black running after a blur of yellow and black. Her father’s hair had thinned and his scalp looked greasy. The table next to him was piled with pill bottles and small paper cups.
She pulled up a footstool and sat next to him. “Papa, I brought your milk. Papa?”
He opened his eyes, which looked weary and kind. “You look tired, Cam,” he said.
Her chest tightened. She took his hand. “Do you want some milk, Papa?”
“Chocolate milk. I drink chocolate milk now.”
“That’s what I mean.”
She leaned over him, resting her elbow on his thigh. It was thin and hard. She held up the glass and positioned the long purple straw. He sucked slowly and she felt his thigh relax.
“Do you like the chocolate milk, Papa?”
“It needs more chocolate. Tell your mother to get more chocolate at the IGA.” He sat up a little straighter and looked at the TV. “Damned Steelers.”
“You want the sound on?” she asked.
He said nothing.
“Which ones are the Steelers?”
“They’re in black and yellow.”
She saw that they were losing by twenty. “But it says they’re from Pittsburgh. Why are you rooting for them?”
“Because the Raiders are evil. They beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead and kept them out of the playoffs. Gotta root against the Raiders.”
“When was that?” she asked. “I mean, when did the Raiders beat them in the playoffs?”
She looked at the TV again, then back at her father. She was still holding the chocolate milk and her hand was wet and cold. “Papa, see how there are two clocks on the screen, both counting down? One has minutes and seconds, but the other just has seconds and resets every so often. Why are there two clocks?”
He looked into her eyes but said nothing. She could feel the irritation in him as he turned his head toward the kitchen. “Agnes.” He tried to call into the kitchen but his voice didn’t carry. He turned slowly back to Camila. “One is the game clock and one is the play clock.”
She took his bony hand. “What’s the difference?”
“One tells you how long to go in the game and one tells you how long the team with the ball has to run their next play.” He closed his eyes as he spoke. His breaths were heavy. She let go of his hand and held up the chocolate milk. He sipped weakly.
He looked toward the kitchen as Camila’s mother walked out. “I need something for the pain,” he said, letting go of Camila’s hand and reaching toward his wife. Her mother made a small pile of pills and took the chocolate milk from her.
Tears welled in Camila’s eyes as she watched her mother feed him pills. She stood. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she said. “I really am.”
She went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, then peeked into the living room, where her father was sleeping and her mother was dusting a large wooden cross on the mantle over the fireplace.
Taking her tea outside, she sat on the ground under the white oak. She rubbed her ankle gently, thinking about Alex Vane and her father and her father’s mother. She tilted her head back and stared up at the tree. The leaves were bright yellow, illuminated by a flood light on the garage door. She picked up a couple of leaves from the grass around her, then rubbed them together. They crackled between her fingers.
When her phone rang, she silenced it without taking it out of her pocket.