Goldilocks

by Andrew Coburn

“She’s lucky to have such a nephew.”

  “We’re both lucky.”

  Mrs. Whipple smiled. “May I tell you something, you won’t get mad?”

  He smiled back. “I won’t get mad.”

  “You promise?”

  “Sure.”

  All of a sudden a mask slipped away. Mrs. Whipple’s face was bald and shiny. She said, “I think you’re bullshit shoveled high.”

  He needed a telltale second to look his most innocent. “I don’t follow.”

  “Whose idea you call her Auntie? Hers or yours?” Mrs. Whipple’s smile was as smug as it could get, which brought out the creases beneath her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks. “I never would have suspected the old girl, so prim and proper, but the old cliché about the quiet ones is usually true.”

  Henry kept his mouth shut, deferring to her smile. Everything inside him that had gone tight now relaxed.

  “The time she was in the car with you, I never saw anybody looking so guilty.”

  Henry hung his head forward, somewhat contritely. “I guess something like this, you don’t fool anybody.”

  “Not for long, Henry, not the way you two do it.”

  “Just because her husband’s gone doesn’t mean she has to rot.” Henry rose on his toes. “She’s got a right to a life same as the rest of us.”

  “More power to her,” Mrs. Whipple said with amused condescension.

  “I respect her, ma’am. Don’t say anything against her.”

  Beginning to turn away, Mrs. Whipple smiled her sweetest. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  • • •

  The district attorney introduced Barney Cole to the two men seated at the far side of the table, agents Cruickshank and Blue, each clad in a pinstripe suit that would have pleased a Boston banker. Cruickshank, who looked a little like Max Headroom with less of a smile, gripped Cole’s hand. Blue, a slender black man in gold-rimmed glasses, half rose and immediately sank back, indicating that his function was merely to monitor. The district attorney quickly removed himself to a distant chair, which he sat in tentatively, as if his presence were provisional and his departure imminent. Cole sat directly across from Cruickshank, whose demeanor was placid and poised.

  “Relax, Mr. Cole. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

  “I hope not,” Cole said. “This is the age of infection.”

  Without a smile, Cruickshank drew his chair closer to the table. His fair hair seemed molded to his tall head. A deep note crept into his voice, which resonated. “Do you know what this is about?”

  “No,” Cole lied.

  “The district attorney didn’t tell you?”

  From his outpost, the district attorney also lied. “I was vague.”

  “The assault on Louise Leone Baker,” Cruickshank said. “Apparently you were the only eyewitness.”

  “Yes, apparently,” Cole said.

  “You said it was an attempted mugging.”

  Cole seemed to nod, and Cruickshank opened a vinyl folder and extracted a sheet of paper, which he did not look at. “According to the police report, you said a man tried to rip jewelry from Mrs. Baker’s neck.”

  “Yes, that’s what it looked like.”

  “You seem to be hedging.”

  “It was dark.”

  “She was in the light, no?”

  “It happened fast.”

  “Bang, bang. Two shots.”

  “That’s what it sounded like.”

  “That part rings right, Mr. Cole, but I’ll tell you my problem. It’s like I’m doing a puzzle and I have pieces that don’t belong. I hate it when that happens. What do you think, Blue?”

  Cole was suddenly aware that the other agent had been observing him with excruciating care, scrutinizing each movement in his face. “If you have pieces that don’t belong,” Blue said, “you should throw them out.”

  “Yes,” said Cruickshank. “My theory, Mr. Cole, is that it was an attempted assassination that was botched.”

  Cole shrugged. “It’s possible, anything’s possible, but that’s not the way I saw it.”

  “You could be wrong. You’re aware that Mrs. Baker has Mafia connections.”

  “I’ve heard people say that.”

  “You’re an old friend of hers.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see much of her. She lives across the state.”

  “But she’s been sticking around here now, recuperating, I guess. Or else biding her time. What do you think, Blue?”

  Blue kneaded his chin with fingers extraordinarily long and tapered. “Perhaps Mr. Cole knows.”

  “I’m sure you know much more than I do,” Cole said. “I don’t make her my business.”

  “We’d like you to make her your business,” Cruickshank said flatly, with the vestige of a smile. “We’re not asking you to wear a wire or anything dramatic like that. We merely want you to glean as much information from her as you can. We know something’s going to happen, Mr. Cole, surely as all of us are sitting here. We’d like to be on top of it.”

  Cole, in a frozen pose of amiability, said, “I’m a lawyer, gentlemen, not an informer.”

  “We’re all officers of the court,” Cruickshank said, “which is why we find it so easy to talk to you. By the way, you’d be compensated for your time.”

  “Mrs. Baker doesn’t confide in me, and if she did it would probably be privileged.”

  Blue suddenly placed his well-sculpted hands on the table, the fingers fascinating both Cole and the district attorney. He spoke with cold formality. “We don’t want you to answer now. We want you to think about it.”

  Cruickshank returned the sheet of paper to the vinyl folder, and both agents got to their feet, vividly aloof, sartorially correct. Blue gazed down with sphinx eyes through the gold glasses. Cruickshank, slipping the folder under an arm, said, “No need to tell you this is confidential.”

  Blue, moving gracefully past Cole, said, “We’ll be in touch.”

  Left alone, neither Cole nor the district attorney spoke for several seconds. The district attorney was absorbed with his fingernails and then with the front of a thumb. Finally he said, “I want you to know I’m not a part of this.”

  “A piece of the puzzle that doesn’t belong,” Cole said without spirit. “Is that it?”

  “Feds are funny guys, Barney. All my life I’ve never known ‘em to play fair. Christ, they even throw a black guy at you. Did you see his fucking fingers?”

  “They must be expecting something from you, Chugger.”

  “They expect everything. You know why? Because they know everything, all the right and wrong stuff on everybody. True or false, doesn’t matter, it all goes into the files. Christ, they must have bigger computers than the Pentagon.”

  “What do they know about me?”

  “Nothing bad, Barney. Considering you were born and bred in Lawrence, you’re an angel. No, it’s your father and me. They know I went to bat for him. They know I went to bat for a lot of people.” He gave out a harsh laugh. “Christ, if I had gone after those indictments there’d have been nobody left to run the city.”

  “Do they know Scampy was your friend?”

  “Course they know. I told you, they know everything, half of it wrong.”

  “Can they get you on any of it?” Cole asked gently.

  “Naw.” He tugged at the purse of skin under his chin. “But they could throw shit at me come election time.”

  Cole stared off at a row of file cabinets, at the bars and bolts securing them. “I’m sorry, Chugger.”

  “Not your fault, for Christ’s sake. None of it’s your fault.”

  “What do they want you to tell me?”

  “That it would suit everybody, including yourself, if you cooperated.”

  “That’s all?”

  “They don’t threaten, Barney. They insinuate.”

  Cole lifted himself from the chair, tugged at his suit jacket, and smiled distantly. “What’s your advice, Chugger?”

  “Fuc
k the feds. We take care of our own.”

  • • •

  “When are you coming home, Lou?” The voice was plaintive. It could have belonged to a six-year-old, and for a quicksilvery moment she thought it did.

  “Soon as I can, Ben. I promise.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon. My mother’s still not herself. You wouldn’t want me to leave her that way, would you?”

  “You could bring her here. Then we’d both have you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, Ben. Too far from my father’s grave.” She shifted the receiver to her other ear and glanced over her shoulder. A woman was waiting to use the phone. “I’m going to be a while,” she said with a hand over the mouthpiece, and the woman turned away.

  “Where are you, Lou?”

  “In the lobby of a bank, downtown Lawrence. I needed to cash a check, and they know me here. In fact, I still have an account.”

  “You’re really coming back, aren’t you?”

  “Ben,” she said in a disappointed tone.

  “I need you to tell me. Just tell me.”

  “You have my word,” she said forcefully. They continued to talk, she in reassuring tones, but an undercurrent of doubt remained in his voice, along with a suggestion of weariness. “Let me speak to Mrs. Mennick now,” she said.

  Waiting, she gazed over at a man tapping the buttons on a money machine, his posture tense, as if he feared the machine might not accommodate him. The building was old, the lobby floor marble, the walls megalithic, the windows vaulted. She cast her gaze over the expanse to the teller’s window where her father had once cashed checks that did not belong to him and avoided prosecution only because of Scampy’s intervention.

  Mrs. Mennick came on the line.

  “Can you talk?” Louise asked.

  “Yes. He’s gone to the bathroom.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He refused his medication yesterday, but I managed to get it into him today. I have my tricks.”

  A worried expression took hold of Louise’s face. “So does he. Are you going to be able to control him?”

  “I’m doing my best, Mrs. Baker, but it’s you he needs. I’m his nanny, but you’re his mommy.”

  Louise stiffened and did not respond, fearful of what she might say.

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Mennick said. “I didn’t mean to say it exactly like that. It’s just that I see how much he misses you.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Louise said evenly. “But I know you can handle the situation. I’ll be home as soon as I possibly can.”

  “I don’t mean to trouble you,” Mrs. Mennick said quickly. “You’ve been through a lot yourself. And you sound so tired.”

  “Worry about him, Mrs. Mennick, not me.”

  “I worry about you both.”

  “I know you do,” Louise said, lowering her voice, relenting. “I don’t mean to be harsh.”

  “I understand.”

  “You always do.”

  A few minutes later Louise stepped out of the bank into a balmy breeze on Essex Street, where, despite millions of federal dollars spent to prettify it, many buildings stood in varying phases of decay and abandonment. Too many gaps, blank façades, and clouded windows; too many lengths of loneliness, which hollowed her step. Gone were the big stores like Sears and Sutherland’s and the charming ones like Peter’s Sweet Shop and Ritzy’s Diner. Gone were the gimcrack goods of the Racquet Store, where her mother had once bought a toaster her father later hocked for fifty cents. The hockshop was gone too, swallowed by a block of elderly housing.

  Her car was parked around the corner, mere steps away, but her strength ebbed while the discomfort from her wound grew as if she still carried the bullet. She took instant refuge on a sidewalk bench, whose last occupant had left behind a crushed Royal Crown Cola can, which she tossed into the gutter. Collecting herself with measured breaths, she watched the unloading of a senior citizens’ minibus, the progress slow, a jolt forward now and then. An old man spryer than the rest scuttled across the street with no mind to the cars and was nearly struck.

  “Louise.”

  She skewed her head around and saw the narrow figure of Edith Shea in the soiled uniform of a waitress, a hip nearly slicing through the thin nylon where loose change sagged a pocket. Edith smiled. Teeth and gums showed no matter how small the smile. She sat down with a jingle.

  “Terrible what happened to you. I can’t imagine being shot.”

  Louise said, “I still can’t.”

  “I called when you were in the hospital, but they wouldn’t put me through.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t believe you’re waiting for a bus. You’re not, are you?”

  “No.”

  Edith lit a cigarette and held it at shoulder level, her bone of a hand bent back. Her curly hair, salt and pepper, was cropped close to the skull. She touched it with the hand holding the cigarette.

  “I had it cut yesterday. What d’you think of it?”

  “Nice.”

  “No matter what I do, I still come out the same.” She drew carelessly on the cigarette. “You, on the other hand, you’ve been through hell, you’re pale as a ghost, and you sit there looking more beautiful than ever. Not fair.”

  Louise watched a pigeon marbled in greasy colors alight nearby and billow its breast. “I don’t feel beautiful.”

  “God, I used to hate you. So sickeningly gorgeous. In the back seat of the car Daisy used to forget himself and say ‘Lou’ in my ear. Drove me nuts.”

  Louise smiled, watching the pigeon peck at curbside debris. “I think you’re making that up.”

  “Take my word for it. Daisy’s always had a thing for you, and I’ve always had something, more or less, for Barney Cole. How come you didn’t marry Barney?”

  “He wasn’t going anywhere. Scampy was.”

  “But you didn’t marry him either.”

  “It was like a marriage.”

  “Now you’ve got a real one.”

  “Yes.”

  Edith flipped the cigarette away. “We used to be such damn good friends, Lou, but we’re not anymore. I mean, how can we be? Different worlds now. I’d hate to ask how much that dress you’re wearing cost.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Louise said tonelessly. “I still look for bargains. Some things don’t rub off.”

  Edith nodded with a smile. “Yes, in some ways we’re still on the same level. We both married weak men, didn’t we? We’ve both got sickies for husbands.”

  Louise looked at her with fresh interest and, surprising herself, with no anger. “What makes you think that?”

  “Talk I’ve heard. Jesus, Lou, you might live clear across the state now, but you’re a legend here. And why shouldn’t you be, the things you’ve done for people? The time Daisy dipped his fingers into that senile lady’s trust fund, he could’ve been disbarred, gone to prison, if it hadn’t been for you. You’re like a little godmother.”

  “Is that what you think, Edith?”

  “I talk too much, don’t I?”

  “You really do resent me.”

  “No, Lou, not you.“ Edith’s voice stretched thin, as if some fine filament connected their deeper thoughts. “Just the dress you’ve got on. The life you’ve got. I just want a little of it.”

  “There’s a price. Always a price.”

  Edith said, “I’ve paid it.”

  Louise glanced around. A fat man paused on the sidewalk to pant. An old woman appeared with bread for the pigeon. Louise said, “I have to go.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Both women rose and stood at exactly the same height. Louise heard the scuff of a shoe behind her and felt someone had looked at her intently, hungrily, and then moved on.

  Edith said, “I’m not supposed to know it’s there, but Daisy’s got a list hidden in his socks drawer. It’s the people he wants at his funeral. You’re on it.”

  “I’d be hurt if I wasn’t,” Louis
e said.

  Edith abruptly stepped into her and kissed her cheek. “I’ll tell him.”

  Emma Goss shuddered as Henry Witlo gripped the back of her shoulders with both of his hands. Always he seemed to be pushing her somewhere, directing her feet, moving her to his music. The mirror in the bedroom flashed bright. “Look at yourself,” he said, forcing her almost against the glass. “Look at those dark circles. Trouble is you’re not getting enough natural sleep.” His voice was dark, full of reprimand. “And look at your hair. You’re letting yourself go again.”

  She screwed her head to one side and protested, not to him, but to the picture of her husband, which he had moved from the den and placed on the dresser. A kind of static cruised through her brain, as if Harold were trying to communicate back to her through too dense a darkness. Suddenly Henry’s hands slid off her shoulders.

  “Come on, we’re going to bed.”

  “It’s too early,” she said.

  “All the better,” he said, tossing off his shoes, Harold’s.

  “I want to sleep alone.”

  “We’ve been through that.”

  He undressed quickly, his chest bursting our of his shirt, his knees stabbing free of his jeans. It was always the same. She did not know where to put her eyes. He padded to a window and lowered the shade. When he turned around she held Harold’s picture high in front of her.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  He moved toward her with his genitals suspended in exaggerated isolation and stripped the picture from her hands. A terrible inertia, like a final defense, came over her. She watched him perch the picture on the bedside table, Harold’s side.

  “There,” he said. “He wants, he can watch us.” He turned to her. “Come on. You don’t want me to do it for you, do you?”

  She picked at her dress with a grim unnaturalness as if guns were pointed at her, but her fingers were too clumsy for results. Nor could she keep the tears out of her eyes when a commotion of hands fell upon her, as if Henry were more than one person. Racing through her mind when he unlatched her bra was the horrible thought that Harold was helping him.

  “You got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “Plenty of women half your age don’t look as good.”

  Her wraith of hair topped her round loose nakedness. A chill in her spine plummeted into her knees, which knocked against each other as he walked her to the bed. She shivered, and his arms girded her.