by Lev Raphael
Juno would have snorted at the appellation, enjoying and dismissing it both. When I didn’t answer, Mrs.
Fennebresque’s shiny face softened, and she nodded
sympathetically. “Lover’s quarrel. It happens to everyone.” In the momentary silence I steeled myself for a barrage of romantic advice. But Mrs. Fennebresque was a merchant, after all, and she said “Here to buy that gun?” as if I were about to purchase an engagement ring.
I nodded and handed her the permit, leaned on the
counter. She brought out the .22 I’d looked at before, and we discussed ammunition, the best local firing range, private instruction, gun safety, all of it happening with such a sense of unreality I could have been paralyzed in a hospital bed watching myself be attended to. I felt both helpless and remote.
I thought of Stefan’s warning. I had never responded to anyone as I had to Cash. Stefan was right to ask what would have happened if I’d had a gun.
“Now, tell me something—are you sure you’re ready for this?” Mrs. Fennebresque said, bringing me out of my fog.
“No, I’m not sure.”
She patted my hand, and if she were taller, she might have reached over to pinch one of my cheeks. “Your permit’s good for ten days,” she said. “Why not think about it some more?”
“Okay.”
“And have a Merry Christmas!”
I plunged back into the cold, wondering if she were at all concerned about the fight she imagined I’d had with Juno and wanted us to cool off without a gun in the mix. But would that kind of concern even register with her?
As I used the remote door opener, Mrs. Fennebresque
came bustling out of the store. “You forgot your permit,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I nodded and took the form from her, and she hurried
back into her store, hugging herself against the cold. I drove home, not knowing whether I should feel relieved or annoyed at myself or anything particular. I knew that Stefan would be pleased I hadn’t bought a gun the day after roughing up Cash, hadn’t bought a gun at all. But did that make him right or me wrong?
Stefan had gone to the gym and left me a message, so I had the house to myself—not exactly a welcome prospect, since I felt somewhat exposed. Was this whole gun thing completely quixotic, or was it realistic and important? And why didn’t I know? I drifted through the house as if I were a weekend guest, curiously examining pictures and books and views. I should have been grading papers and preparing for the end of the semester, but my contretemps with Juno and Cash, and my abortive attempt to buy a gun, left me feeling too unsettled. A swim would have helped, but snow was starting to come down heavily, and I didn’t feel like venturing out into it.
I made extra-strong hot cocoa, spiked it with rum, and built a fire instead, glad that we had stacked so much wood from out back in the garage. It would catch with no problem.
I sat in the living room, starting to unwind as the logs smoked, crackled, and then glittered with flame. Was there anything more quintessentially human than sitting and watching a fire? The only thing I could picture was staring at waves smacking a shoreline.
A few years before, when I had mistakenly thought my
relationship with Stefan was in danger, I had sat up late one night, staring into the fire, recalling how Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady stayed up late in her Roman palace, taking stock, reflecting on the ways in which a life and marriage that had seemed open and free had shrunk so horribly that she felt trapped in “the house of dumbness, the house of deafness, the house of suffocation.”
It had felt like a turning point, and perhaps it was. I had lost some illusions about Stefan, which was probably a good thing, though at the time I had felt bereft. And where was I now? Our relationship was strong, Sharon had survived her surgery, Stefan had a film deal in the making that might revive his writing career, and what did I have? A job in a department that for the most part loathed me, a department where my friends were either absent (Lucille) or crazed (Juno). And for the first time in my adult life I had used force on someone else —and enjoyed it. I didn’t think I’d ever stop enjoying it.
Feeling my bruised cheek, I wondered what was next. I couldn’t just wait for something to happen, I had to make it happen.
Maybe my parents had been right all along. Maybe I
should have gone into publishing. It wasn’t too late to get to know my father’s business. I might even be able to help Stefan down the road, make useful contacts. But it felt like giving in and giving up.
When the doorbell rang, I was so grateful for the
interruption I would have put up with even a pair of
Mormons. After the previous night, though, I checked
carefully before opening the door—to find Peter De Jonge.
“They said you were at home.”
“They were right. Come on in.”
He studiously stamped his feet on the welcome mat and shook snow off his FuBu parka. He spotted the fire and smiled, and I took his coat from him, hung it on the rack, and waved him into the living room. He sauntered over as if he were trying for a gang-banger’s strut. The oversize clothes, short hair, and sideburns helped, but he would never have been mistaken for Detroit’s white rapper Eminem. He was too handsome, for one, and probably too smart.
“Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head and sat down in the chair closest to the fire. “It’s a weird time in EAR,” he began, puzzling me, since I’d thought he wanted to talk to me about being involved with crime at the university.
“It’s always weird.”
He hesitated. “Dr. Borowski, Stefan, told me how good you are at figuring things out.”
Right.
“And there’s something going on back home, down in
Neptune.”
“What?”
“I can’t say. I don’t really know.”
“But you have suspicions, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t say?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. I don’t want to prejudice you.”
“How?”
He evaded that question. “I’m asking you to come down to Neptune and investigate. I’d pay. My wife’s family is rich.”
“They don’t know you’re Jewish?”
“No one does.”
“Kids?” I asked.
He nodded. “Two boys.”
“And they don’t know either? Is this connected?”
“I want you to investigate.”
“Investigate what—investigate whom?”
“You’ll know when you get there.”
“But why don’t you hire a private investigator?”
“Because I don’t think I could trust anyone I hired down there, and I think you’d be able to ferret things out without anyone being suspicious. I also know some of what’s been happening to you and Juno.”
“All that’s over.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve been following people around, here and in Neptune. There’s a lot more going on than you think.
The Diversity Tree? Whiteness Studies? The provost’s
ambassadors? Don’t you think all of that is suspicious?” he said with a faint challenge in his tone.
I knew he wouldn’t bleat out the specifics even if I squeezed him like a doggy toy, so I just waited.
“I think it’s all connected. And I think I know who beat you up at Parker Hall.”
“Well, so do I.” And as I was about to trump him by
blurting out Cash’s name, suddenly it hit me that when I was crushing Cash into Juno’s door, his cologne had smelled completely unlike what I’d smelled in Parker Hall, something much crisper, fruitier. It must have been someone else.
I could tell from his expression that he’d watched my confidence fade. “You really think you know who did it?” I asked.
He nodded, eyes unblinking. “It’s not someone from
> EAR,” was all he would say.
That meant I was still in danger, and it might also mean Juno was, too. Cash might have had an accomplice. Even though I was still pissed off at Juno, I wanted her to be safe.
I breathed out. “Okay. You want to hire me to investigate someone or something. You won’t say what or who or why —or anything else. And you think there’s somebody still out there who’s after me? And you’ll tell me who it is if I take on this—this job for you?”
He sat there expectantly, not quite a supplicant, but not Joan of Arc urging her king to be crowned at Rheims, either.
What he was suggesting was so vague it couldn’t even be classed as crazy.
I did the only thing I could do. I said yes.
About the Author
LEV RAPHAEL has been a radio talk show host, a DJ, a
newspaper columnist, and also an academic, which is where he learned how crazy universities can be behind those pretty, ivied walls. Widely in demand as a speaker about his work, he has keynoted several international conferences and done hundreds of invited talks and readings across Europe and North America. He’s published twenty-one books in genres from memoir to mystery and seen his work translated into a dozen languages, some of which he can’t identify without using Google. His fiction and essays are studied at colleges and universities across the U.S.—which means he’s become homework. Who knew? His literary papers were recently purchased for the Michigan State University archives; call that earning a certain share of dusty immortality. He blogs mostly about books on the Huffington Post and reviews books for Bibliobuffet.com. Follow him on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/LevRaphael. His web site is http://www.levraphael.com and his Facebook page is http://facebook.com/levraphael.
Document Outline
Copyright Page
Other Nick Hoffman titles
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Author