Follow the Sharks (11 page)

“Rub a little lotion on my back, will you? I’m afraid I might have gotten a line where I was wearing the top.” She lay down again. This time she turned her head so that she was facing me. Her eyes were closed. I could see the edge of one breast flattened out under her.

“Don’t try to seduce me, Jan. We have to talk about E.J.”

“Lotion, Brady.”

I squeezed a little worm of the white grease onto my palm and rubbed my hands together. Then I knelt beside her and began to apply it to her back. There was a moist sheen on her dark skin. It was smooth and alive under my fingers as I massaged the flesh of her shoulders and back.

“The legs, too,” she mumbled.

I moved over the backs of her thighs. The sun baked down on the concrete, unrelieved by any breeze. It reflected off the pool, and as I worked over Jan’s body sweat burned in my eyes and gathered under the polo shirt I wore.

“Umm. That feels good. Up the sides, now, please.”

My hands spread the grease over her hips, up her waist, then along her ribcage, steering carefully around her breasts. I heard her chuckle.

“Good ol’ Brady. Good ol’ proper attorney. Never fool around with the clients’ wives. Or the clients’ daughters. Never even fool around with the clients.” She sighed. “That’s fine. That’s good enough. Thank you.”

I sat back on my heels. She rolled over, propped herself up on her elbows, and squinted at me. “Don’t you like what you see?”

“I like it very much,” I said. “Cover yourself up, will you?”

She tilted her head and smiled briefly. Then she shrugged and sat up to pull on a tee shirt. It was much too big for her, and it fell below her hips, giving the illusion that it was all she was wearing. It made her look much sexier.

She picked up the glass and took a long drink. She handed it to me. I sipped then put it down.

“So you’re here on business, then.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not here to comfort the grieving mother.”

“You shouldn’t be grieving, Jan.”

“No?”

“No. You should be helping. You should insist on helping. If we’re going to find E.J….”

She snorted. “Find him? You mean find his body, don’t you? Am I supposed to be out looking for my little boy’s body?”

“We don’t know that he’s dead, Jan. There’s no reason not to assume he’s alive. There are things we can do.”

“The FBI, that guy, Stern, he thinks he’s dead. Right? They’ve given up, haven’t they? And the police, they’re not exactly conducting an all-out hunt for my boy. So what am I supposed to do?”

“Jan—”

“I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m getting the best goddam tan I’ve ever had, that’s what I’m doing. I’m working hard at it, concentrating. And I’m acquiring a real taste for vodka and tonic. And I figure I’m doing as much as anybody.”

“Every policeman in the country has a picture of E.J. Every FBI office has his picture. No one has given up.”

Jan lifted her glass and took a quick swallow. Then she leaned toward me and gripped my leg. “Well,
I
have,” she hissed. “I’ve spent the last week lying here giving up. It wasn’t easy. But I did it. I gave up. I got it through my dumb Eyetalian skull that my boy is gone, and that you and Stern and all the rest of you guys have gone back to your jobs, and that Eddie’s no help at all, and that it’s all over, and that I’ve got to accept all that.” She hitched herself forward until her face was close to mine. Her dark eyes were shining, and her voice went soft. “So don’t come around here trying to give me hope, Brady Coyne. Please don’t do that. It would be an unwelcome gift. I don’t want hope now. I want it over. I just want to forget it all. Help me do that, will you?”

Her hand went to the back of my neck and her mouth found mine. Her lips were soft and I could feel her breasts press against my chest, and in spite of myself I found myself responding to her. A little moan came from her throat. Her mouth moved on mine. Our tongues touched briefly, and then hers flicked and darted, inviting mine to follow. I reached up to hold her face in both of my hands and pulled back from her kiss. Her eyes were wide and dry and staring into mine. I kissed her softly on her lips, then hugged her to me. She buried her face in my shoulder and her arms went around my neck. I held her while she rocked and shuddered in my arms.

I wondered if Sam or Josie were watching from the windows of the house, and if they were, what they were thinking. “Jan, listen to me,” I said into her ear.

“Don’t. Please. Just hold me.”

I pushed her gently away. I had thought she was crying, but her eyes were dry. They were scowling at me. “Okay,” she said. “What, then? Damn you, what do you want from me?”

I stood up and held my hands to her. “Come on. Get up,” I said to her. She staggered a little.

“Let’s sit in the shade. The sun makes me dizzy,” she said.

We moved to a pair of patio chairs by a round table with a pole through the middle and a big flowered umbrella on top. I reached across to take Jan’s hands in mine. She sat there passively and let me hold them. They were lifeless, like her eyes.

“I want you to go on television.”

“Is this that Stern’s idea?”

“No,” I said. “It’s mine.”

“Does the big FBI agent approve?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t talk with him about it.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I know a news director at Channel 5. He’ll get a reporter out here to interview you. Get E J.’s picture on the television, tell your story. Maybe somebody has seen him.”

Jan studied our hands where they lay together in the middle of the table. “I don’t think I could handle that. It might give me hope again.” She peered up at me. “That would be cruel. Don’t you see?”

“I don’t mean to be cruel. I think you
should
have hope. I think it’s reasonable to have hope. I think E.J.’s alive. I really do. I think his sneaker meant just that. That he’s alive somewhere, and that he’ll be coming back to you. But you’ve got to do something, too.”

“But the FBI is looking for his body. Not him. Not E.J. alive, but his dead body. Isn’t that right?”

I shrugged. “They don’t know what they’re looking for. But they haven’t given up. I know that.”

She smiled sadly. “I wish Eddie were here.”

“You haven’t heard from him either?”

“Eddie’s gone. Remember what he said? ‘I’m gone.’”

“I tried to reach him at work,” I told her. “They haven’t seen him, either. But you know Eddie. He’ll probably call. He always has.”

Jan sighed. “Oh, yes. I know Eddie. He runs away from things. He ran away from baseball. He ran away from me and E.J. Now he’s run away from all this. He always talked about Alaska. No, Eddie’s gone. That’s what he does when he stops hoping. I work on my tan and drink vodka tonics. Eddie runs away.” She squeezed my hands and then pulled hers away and leaned back in her chair. “It’s all the same, I guess.”

“Go on television, Jan. Do it.”

“No. I can’t.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I stood up. “I guess I’ll give up, too, then.” I turned to leave.

“Brady, wait.”

I stopped but did not turn to face her.

“Don’t you understand how hard that would be for me?”

I shrugged. “Sure. So give up, then.”

I felt her standing behind me. Her hand touched my shoulder. “You’re right, of course,” she said softly. “I’ve been trying to give up. I don’t want to hope. It hurts too much. I try to tell myself that it’s over, that he’s gone forever, and sometimes it works and I can just be numb. But then when I’m not careful it creeps up on me and I see him smiling and I know I’ll never stop hoping and crying for him.”

I turned to face her. She leaned against me and put her arms around my waist. She tilted back a little so she could look up at me. “Last night I was getting ready for bed,” she said, “and I went to brush my teeth. And there in the holder was his toothbrush. It’s a little green kid-sized toothbrush, and it has old toothpaste all gunked in the bristles. He always hated brushing his teeth. I mean, I see him every day. His room, the furniture he used to sit on. There are pictures of him. His toys are under the sofa. And I don’t think of him as being dead. I should. I think I should. I try to. I try to imagine it. I pretend it’s as if he had never been born. If he’d never been born, I wouldn’t miss him now, see? But it doesn’t work. I can’t make it work. I can’t trick myself that way. So, yeah, I’ll go on television, if you want me to. Just tell me I must. Tell me I have no choice, that you’re making me, that it’s not my decision.”

I kissed her forehead. “You must. I have decided. I’ll arrange it right away.”

Sylvie Szabo and I sprawled side by side on my sofa, our bare feet propped up on a stack of old newspapers atop the coffee table. We were sipping white wine and, like untold millions of other Americans, staring at the six o’clock news on the television. After a brief introductory lesson on feminine hygiene, featuring the relative benefits of pads versus tampons, the anchor people came on and told us all we’d ever need to know about Arthur, the season’s first tropical storm gathering steam two hundred miles southeast of Cuba, the President’s newest tax reform scheme, hostilities in the Mid-East, and a cocaine bust in New Orleans starring a well-known professional football player.

“He was always considered a shifty one,” smirked the anchorman.

“That’s right, Frank,” replied the anchorwoman. “Heh, heh.” She turned to face a different camera. “And now on the local scene, we have this story from Winchester.”

I sat up. “This is it,” I said to Sylvie. She gripped my hand.

On the screen appeared Sam Farina’s house. It looked more opulent on television than it did to the eye, if that was possible, as the camera panned across the broad emerald lawn and lingered meaningfully on Sam’s putting green and then switched to the kidney-shaped swimming pool out back. The reporter, in voice-over, was saying, “This is the home of Salvatore Farina, owner of the Farina Liquor chain. Farina lives in this custom-built seven-bedroom home on the exclusive west side of Winchester with his wife and daughter and, until almost two weeks ago, his ten-year-old grandson. But tragedy now haunts this home. One week ago last Saturday little E.J. Donagan failed to return home from his paper route. He has not been seen since.”

At this point a photograph of E.J. flashed on the screen. The reporter continued, “Little E.J. was kidnapped. The family, working with the Winchester police, the State Police, and the FBI, delivered one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in ransom money. E.J. Donagan, whose father is the former Red Sox pitcher, Eddie Donagan, has not been returned to the family. I talked with Janet Donagan, E.J.’s mother, this afternoon.”

Jan appeared on the screen, sitting on Sam’s living room sofa. The reporter, a young blonde, sat on a chair facing her.

“She looks so sad,” whispered Sylvie.

“Mrs. Donagan,” began the reporter, “what is being done to find your son?”

“I don’t know,” said Jan with a shrug. “We—for a while, they—the FBI, the police—they were here all the time. But now—lately—we don’t see them. I don’t know. I guess they’re looking. I don’t know.”

“You are still hopeful?” The reporter’s voice was soft and spread thickly with sympathy, like honey on toast.

The camera zoomed in on Jan’s face in time to catch the sparkle of panic in her eyes. “Hopeful?” she repeated. “Oh, Jesus! Yes, I’m—we’re trying. I can’t believe…”

E.J.’s picture appeared again. “The FBI and the other authorities declined to be interviewed,” said the reporter, “but the family’s attorney told this reporter that they are prepared to offer a ten-thousand dollar reward for information leading to the return of E.J. Donagan. Or,” she went on after a pause, her voice low and dramatic, “the boy’s body. Call this number if you have seen, or know anything of, E.J. Donagan.” And the phone number of the Winchester police appeared on the screen under E.J.’s picture. After a moment’s silence, the reporter said, “And now back to you, Dorothy and Frank.”

I got up and snapped off the television, then returned to my place beside Sylvie. She snuggled close to me. I turned to her and saw tears glittering in her eyes. “Oh, that is so sad,” she murmured.

I grunted.

“Will they find him?”

“I don’t know. We hope somebody has seen him. It’s been two weeks. He could be anywhere.”

“Oh, Brady…”

I put my arm around Sylvie’s shoulders and stared at the blank television screen. What else could we do now? The news story, as brief and as superficial as it had been, was touching. Jan and I, in talking to the reporter off camera, had refused to discuss the details of the ransom payment or the aborted meeting in the quarry, hoping to allow the kidnappers no opportunity to feel trapped or pursued. We wanted only to get E.J.’s picture on the screen. And while the reporter had been unable to resist the attraction of the tragedy-befalls-the-wealthy aspects of the story, much as they insist on squeezing the most out of every Kennedy catastrophe, she had accomplished what we wanted. I hoped it wouldn’t backfire. The story was out, and there was no way to pull it back.

I was startled by the jangling of my telephone. I went into the kitchen and answered it.

“Helluva show,” came Stern’s sarcastic voice. “Damn nice.”

“Glad you approve.”

“You know what you’ve done, Coyne? You’ve just sealed that boy’s death warrant is what you’ve done. You think if those people still have him they’ll keep him alive now that everybody in the state is drooling over that ten K reward? And are those folks in Winchester prepared to have
People
magazine crawling through their peony beds and taking pictures through telephoto lenses, and having every crackpot after that reward? You just shit the bed, Coyne.”

“I can’t see that what you’ve been doing has accomplished much,” I said lamely.

“You’re not supposed to see it. You’re supposed to go back to your lawbooks and make out some wills or whatever the hell it is you do for a living, and keep your goddam nose out of places where it’s gonna get all bloody. This was the stupidest, most destructive thing you could’ve done.”

“I see,” I said. “Division of labor.”

“Hey, you’ve gotta face them. You’ve gotta live with it. Good luck to you.”