by Grant Mccrea
Ah, I thought. A test. A game. Fill in the incomplete information.
You know all you need to know, she said quietly.
It sure didn’t feel like it.
I ordered another scotch. I borrowed a long thin cigarette from my mysterious friend. Client. Lover. Ex-lover, more likely. I blew smoke rings. Mine were intentional. And thereby not nearly as interesting. I drifted to the half dream state.
I love those minutes between wake and dream, that state of utmost imaginative freedom, the mind making any association it liked, following the mystery trains wherever they led. With never a consequence, except forgetting, or waking. Or both. I have my best ideas then.
And always forget them, seconds later.
This time I didn’t.
I sat up straight.
Louise, I said.
Yes, she said languidly.
I …
I paused. I had to think about how to go there.
She gave me a sardonic smile. You think you got it? she asked.
I think I do, I said, a bit defensively. Give me a minute.
Her smile dissolved in the cigarette smoke. She drifted away with it.
The other night, I said.
Yes…
She drew it out.
When we …
Yes.
It could have gone farther. Am I right?
Maybe. If you were man enough.
I ignored the insult. If that was what it was.
You and Eloise weren’t so different, were you? I said.
Silence.
In that way, I said.
More silence. She crossed and recrossed her legs. Stubbed out her cigarette. A bit too forcefully.
Louise, I said. I’m just trying to find out what happened to Eloise. Your sister. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it …
She gave me a jaundiced look.
I guess that goes without saying. So I don’t understand why you want to be hostile about it. Unforthcoming. Let’s just figure out what happened. Get the guy. Get some closure.
I hate that word.
I do, too. But I couldn’t think of anything better.
She sighed. Played with her lighter. Flick, on. Blue flame. Flick, off. Repeat.
Okay, she said. What do you want to know?
Uh, how about … everything?
Do you have a few days?
I got what’s left of a relatively short lifetime.
All right. Get me a Kiss on the Cheek.
What?
The bartender will understand.
Ah. I get it. Like a Dirty Bomb. A Multiple Orgasm. Like that.
Something like that.
I went to the bar. Flagged down the unctuous barkeep. A Kiss on the Cheek, please, I said, almost without flinching. He nodded, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Some bleary paunchy white-haired guy asking for a kiss on the cheek. I watched him mix some Woodford Reserve, a bourbon I’d never heard of, but apparently essential to the concoction, grenadine, Rose’s lime, cranberry juice.
I transported the disgusting swirl back to the table.
Louise wasn’t there.
I had a moment of panic. She’d run off. If not to kill herself, at least to transport herself out of my life. Deprive me of vital bits of knowledge. Not to mention those legs. I mean, it’s not that I had a vested interest in solving Eloise’s murder. Apart from making sure that I wasn’t further implicated. But there was something … incomplete, about leaving town without knowing what had happened.
My fears, for once, were not justified. Moments later she sauntered back from the ladies’ room. I saw her purse, a silver and black thing, Dior it looked like, on her chair. I could have saved myself a few skipped heartbeats if I’d noticed it earlier.
She recomposed herself. Placed her hands neatly in her lap. Gave me an expectant look. The good schoolteacher, here for an interview.
I was thinking, I said.
She said nothing.
When you first saw Brendan. And the second time, too. You looked at him … well, not strangely. But longer than seemed natural.
I did?
You did.
Silence.
You knew him, didn’t you?
She sighed. Took a graceful, trembling sip of her ridiculous drink.
Not exactly, she said. I’d seen him around.
In those clubs.
She nodded.
Oh man, I said. Show me a cat and I’ll tell you it’s an armadillo.
Louise raised her eyebrows.
Forget it, I said.
She nodded politely.
I think you were going to say something, I said.
I was?
Yes. I’m quite certain of it. I mean, before you went to the ladies’ room.
Oh.
She lit another cigarette. Held it near her mouth, as though pondering whether to take a drag. Her wrist was lightly angled, her fingers gracefully arranged.
It was a pose. A very nice pose.
But the fingers were shaking.
Cigarettes. They were everywhere. They told stories. What people smoked. How they smoked them. Told you a lot about somebody. I remembered a jury selection once …
Fuck. I was such a goddamn idiot.
Gitanes.
Eloise knew him, too, I said.
She said nothing.
Sisters share things, I said.
She turned her head away. Took a drag of the cigarette.
Friends, I said. Friends with similar interests. Friends who hang out in the same places.
Yes, she said.
Yes.
Another thing we shared, she said, Eloise and I … was a father.
That wouldn’t be entirely unusual.
But this father was.
I see.
Unusual. I don’t want to go into detail. You don’t need to know the details.
Well, I—
It is enough to know that the way in which he was unusual was … imposed. On his daughters. Had a great influence. On who they became.
I nodded. It was what I’d been expecting, somehow, all along, I knew now. I couldn’t give myself any credit. I hadn’t constructed the thought. It had been there, though. Muddling about in the twisted synapses. Looking for the exit door.
They grew up, she said. The daughters. They had lives of their own. But this influence. It never really went away.
So when Vladimir showed up—
Ah, Mr. Redman, she smiled sadly, the great detective.
I shrugged.
Yes. Vladimir. Well, as you may have also discerned, in your haphazard way, Vladimir was, in fact, my husband.
I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth.
Ah, she said. You had not discerned.
I was afraid to respond. Lest I make a further fool of myself. Or, worse, stop the flow.
Yes, she said. That’s where it began. When we met, Vladimir and I, it was, how to say, satisfactory. We were from very different backgrounds, of course. He was a working-class Russian immigrant, upwardly striving and all that. Full of plans and schemes. I was, well, I was who I am. But our connection was on a different level.
Let me guess, I said.
Yes, she interrupted. We each had certain … predilections. That complemented the other’s, very nicely. At least for a time.
Until the time, I’m guessing, that he met your sister.
Louise bit her lip. Fiddled with the snap on her Dior bag.
Not right away, she said. But yes. Once they’d … got to know each other.
He found out that she was even more willing than you to … indulge his predilections, as you like to say.
Yes, Mr. Redman. Exactly.
What’s with the Mr. Redman shit?
Let me tell it my way, Rick. Okay?
Okay. Go ahead. I understand. You need to stay in character.
I said it with a not indiscernible touch of bitterness. Which was not lost on her. She narrowed her eyes. Didn’t take it
further.
So, I said. Vlad the Impaler runs off with sis to Nevada. For a while you let it go. More power to them. But then she stops writing. You get worried. That part was true, yes?
No. Well, not exactly. Not right away.
Ah.
No, Mr. Redman. Actually, we had a business arrangement, Vlad, Eloise and I. And some others.
A business arrangement.
Yes. You don’t need to know the details.
So, Vlad running off with Eloise wasn’t, like, a complete break with you. You weren’t traumatized?
Traumatized? No. Relieved, actually.
I guess I can see that. He was taking you down paths that were, well, at least potentially, frightening.
Yes.
This business arrangement. What was that about?
You don’t need to know.
Maybe not. But these things have a way of becoming relevant.
Silence. Fiddling with a pearl bracelet. I hadn’t noticed the bracelet before. Precisely matched the necklace.
Let me take a leap at it, I said.
I leaned back. Closed my eyes. Sipped my scotch. Things began to float. As they floated, they arranged themselves. In patterns. Some were merely aesthetic. Some were analytic. Some made sense. Some didn’t. One thing. One thing floated into view. That made perfect sense.
Oh.
Louise, I said.
She opened her own closed eyes.
The package.
Yes?
The FedEx package.
I know what package you meant.
That’s a part of it, isn’t it.
Maybe.
And the stuff in the basement. The machinery. It all had something to do with this business you had, with Vladimir and Eloise.
Maybe.
Yes.
Yes.
What was it?
You haven’t figured it out?
I must admit I haven’t. Yes, Virginia, there is a human being. And he’s right over here. And he’s fallible.
She looked at me long and hard.
Rick, she said at last. I haven’t done anything wrong.
I didn’t say you had.
But you’re implying it.
Well, if you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s no harm in telling me, is there.
She pulled at the bottom of her dress. Smoothed it along her thighs.
I suppose I have done some wrong things, she said. But not what you’re thinking.
I’m not thinking anything. I’m asking.
It was stupid, really. Vladimir, and some friends of his …
The Brighton Beach crowd.
Some of them, yes. They had a plan. And they needed financing for it. I provided some of the financing.
I see. This didn’t involve truffles, I gather?
She smiled. No, she said, it didn’t involve truffles. And it never went anywhere. Which is why I can say I didn’t do anything wrong.
I guess you’re only guilty of attempted wrongdoing.
Something like that.
Give me a smoke and tell me the bloody story, Louise. What were you going to do, rob a casino? They only do that in the movies.
Sort of.
You’re kidding me. You were going to hit a casino?
Not me.
Yeah, yeah. You were just the money. But how naïve could you be?
It was actually a pretty good plan.
I’m sure.
Vladimir got the idea from one of the Russian poker players. He was telling Vladimir that there had been a bit of a scandal at the World Series. That when they counted up all the chips at the end of the day, there were more chips than there were at the beginning.
Somebody was slipping extra chips into their stacks.
You are correct, Mr. Redman. So, they announced that from now on for the Main Event they’re going to make unique chips. A special design. You can’t confuse them with any other. With security things embedded in them. Like currency.
Sure. I heard about that. Meanwhile, though, they’d have to be totally vigilant. They knew this was happening. They’d be watching every chip. You’d be walking right into a bear trap.
My dear Mr. Redman, our good friends from Brighton Beach may be unscrupulous, but they are not entirely stupid. Of course, they knew that. That was why they were going to avoid the tournaments. Do it in the cash games. All at once. One night only. They needed a big crew. Have someone at as many tables as possible.
I leaned back. Took a sip of my scotch.
Why did you think you could get away with it in the cash games if it wouldn’t work in the tournament?
The whole idea was to get in and out fast.
Of course. In a tournament the chips don’t turn into money till you cash. You can get up from a cash table any time.
That is right.
Yeah. Just had to wait till the chips circulate a bit. So you’re not taking a stack of counterfeits to the window.
That was exactly it. And they would all be coming in, and cashing out, within a short period.
I get it.
Yes.
The machinery in the basement. The clay. You were making chips.
Not me.
Okay, okay. They were making chips.
They were going to. They were trying to. But they never got it right. That’s why we never went through with it.
Did you get your money back?
That’s why I came here. That’s why I hired you. My only contact with the people behind all this was Eloise, and through her, Vladimir. And when the deal broke down, they vanished. After I found out about the house, the one in Henderson, it seemed clear to me—
They were living large. On your money.
I could only assume. He wasn’t getting rich repairing vintage cars.
I had a faint recollection of something. It came and went. Some kind of déjà vu thing. Or something.
So you hired me, you came here, to track down Eloise, but more importantly Vladimir. To get your money back.
To try to.
Darling, the Russkies never give you your money back.
I’m learning that.
I sighed.
Why did you have to find Vladimir, anyway? Why not go after the other guys?
You just said it, Rick. I was not going to get anything from them. And I never met them, anyway. I did not even know their last names. Or his, even.
That much was true.
Yes. But with him at least I had some leverage. I knew things—
That you could use against him. Or threaten to, anyway.
She was silent.
Louise, I said.
Yes?
Is this what got Eloise—
No, no. No, Rick. I told you.
She paused. Turned away. Put her face in her hands.
Oh, I said.
Yes, she said without turning back. Her voice was muffled.
Time went by.
There was nothing to say. Unless she was going to say it.
She turned her head slightly towards me. She wanted it, Rick, she said.
Wanted it? Wanted to die?
Wanted to die that way. She just kept pushing the limits, goddamn her. Of course, of course, she didn’t consciously want to die like that. But she kept … pushing.
It was going to happen.
It was going to happen.
So that guy, the guy I chased off from her place—
She had hired him, probably.
Oh, Jesus.
Or maybe not. She didn’t always have to hire them, of course. There are lots of men who enjoy …
She broke down. I leaned over. Put my arms around her. Smelled the peach on her skin. Tasted the salt.
She pushed me away. I have to compose myself, she said.
Of course, I said, ever the gentleman.
She got up. Went to the ladies’ room.
I waited twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes was way too long.
I asked a waitres
s to check the ladies’ room. She did. Reported back.
The ladies’ room was empty.
She’d gone. She’d fled. She’d told the truth and gone.
I never saw her again.
But that was okay. I’d got what I needed.
87.
I DRAGGED MYSELF OUTSIDE. I looked at my cell phone. Old habits die hard. No calls. I was vaguely disappointed. Vaguely relieved. I thought about calling Sheila. Then I thought better of it. She’d only tell me everything would be all right.
And I wouldn’t believe her.
I called Butch. He had some news.
About fucking time, I said.
We met at the Velvet Hang. A valedictory meet.
I gave him the Louise, the Eloise download.
Yeah, he nodded.
You knew?
Not everything. But I just came from downtown. They got the guys.
You’re kidding me.
There’s surveillance cameras all over that joint, Rick. And everybody in there’s a regular. Except you, of course.
Fuck. He’d seen the tape.
Shut up, I said.
Okay.
Keep talking.
Okay. Anyway, you already know. It was guys are into this stuff. It was an accident. Sort of. I mean, they didn’t mean to kill her. She kept wanting more.
More, I repeated.
Yeah, more. And, you know the rest. Anyway, they’re going to be charged. Not first degree. Manslaughter. Depraved indifference. Whatever.
Goddamn it.
You think they should get off? They friends of yours?
No, no. Fuck off. That’s not what I meant. I just meant, goddamn it, I can’t believe what a fucking fool I am.
Rick, it’s not about you.
Thanks.
You’re welcome.
So.
So, Butch repeated.
Any word on Brendan?
Let me get you a drink.
I already have one.
Let me get you another one.
That bad, huh?
Yu p.
Butch went to the bar, came back with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
You want, I can wait till you’ve had a few more.
No, no. Pour it on.
Funny you should put it that way, he said.
Just get to the fucking point, man.
Okay. Well, the toxicology stuff, the drug part, it’s not all in yet. But that doesn’t matter.
Why not?
Because it was something else.
Please be so kind as to enlighten me, sir. Before I waste this delicious bottle of bourbon by cracking you over the head with it.
Easy, man.
It’s been a long fucking day.