They waited, Julio and the driver warm and dry in the cab, Eddie cold and wet in the trees. Eddie didn’t know what they were waiting for; he was waiting for Floyd K. Messer, although he couldn’t have given a logical reason why.
The night lost its blackness. Shadows firmed into solid shapes—the trees, the truck, the driver standing beside it, pissing against the wheel, a small car parked nearby. The eastern sky turned silver for a moment, then settled on dark gray. In the growing light, Eddie saw that the truck was parked at one end of a long, narrow dirt strip cut through the woods.
The driver, on his way back to the cab, went still, his head tilted up. Then Eddie heard it too, a plane coming from the south. Julio climbed from the cab into the cargo space, tossed the canvas bags onto the ground.
A white plane with green trim burst out of the clouds, very low, buzzed over the truck and landed not far away. It rolled down the strip, slowed, turned, rolled back. Eddie could see
no one inside but the pilot, and he looked nothing like Messer. The pilot was wearing sunglasses. Maybe the sun was shining somewhere high above.
The plane halted beside the truck. The driver ran to it, swung open a compartment near the tail. Julio threw the canvas bags inside. The plane was already moving again by the time the driver closed the compartment. No one said a word.
The plane sped down the runway, lifted off, rose into the clouds, went silent, vanished.
“What a prick,” Julio said in English.
“They’re all like that,” the driver replied.
“Monday?” said Julio.
“Monday.”
The driver got into the truck, Julio into the car. They drove away.
Outside: Day 6
24
“H
ow do you want to play this?” said Max Switzer, picking at his sandy mustache.
Karen de Vere hated when he did that, hated working with Max at all; he had no touch. Drawing his stupid gun on Eddie Nye, for example. He reminded her of her ex-husband, making his insufferable way up the ladder of Whiteshoe and Silverspoon, or whatever the hell it was. “It’s a no-brainer,” she said, with an edge in her voice; she heard it and sharpened it as she continued. “I say I’ve changed my mind.”
“And ask for the money back?”
“Bull’s-eye. It’s called a sting.”
“Then what happens?”
“Everyone fucks up in his or her own way, as always.”
Eddie entered Jack’s suite at the Palazzo. No one was there. Raleigh’s beer cans, the empty glasses, the pinkened towel, the cigar ashes; all gone. Tidy, quiet, peaceful; like the hotel room it was, ready for the next guest. Eddie searched for a note Jack might have left him, found none. He went into the bedroom, checked the fax, read a page about an engineering company in Dubai that wanted investors. “Jack—thar’s gold in them thar sands,” someone had scrawled at the bottom.
Eddie opened the closet. Jack’s suits still hung there by the dozen; shoes for every occasion lay in formation on the floor. He was out, not gone. Eddie kicked off the tassel loafers, chose a pair of sneakers. Lacing them up, he remembered that most inmates only tied their shoes tight when there was fighting to be done; it was one of the little things you looked for.
Eddie walked into the sitting room, looked out the window
at a low sky of unbroken cloud. The first drops began to fall as he watched, thin streaks like scratches on gray slate, almost invisible. Down in the park a jogger in blue passed a jogger in red, was passed in turn by a jogger in green. Then a black dog trailing its leash zipped by all of them.
Eddie left the Palazzo and took a cab to Brainy’s. Brainy’s was closed, as he had expected. He walked the nearby streets in the rain. Everything looked different: because it was day, because he was sober, because he had a purpose. Not to take up where he’d left off; he knew he couldn’t do that. But he also knew he had to go back fifteen years, to revisit his life—as a spectator, perhaps, or an investigator. There were questions that had to be answered, questions raised by Evelyn Andrea Manning Packer Nye; partly by what she’d said, partly by how she’d ended up.
Eddie found the used bookstore. This time he noted its name: Gold’s Books—Fine, Used, and Rare. The paperback bin was empty because of the rain. Eddie went in. The bell tinkled. The boy in the skullcap was reading at the desk. He looked up. There was a pimple on his forehead, making Eddie think of those high-caste Indians.
“Another holiday?” Eddie said.
“It’s Sunday.”
He would have to learn to keep track of the days again.
“We’re not really open,” the boy went on. “I just come here because it’s … quieter.”
Eddie listened. The sounds of the city were barely audible, as if all the books could somehow muffle them.
“What’s your name?” Eddie said.
The boy hesitated.
“Mine’s Ed. Ed Nye.”
“Pinchas,” said the boy, and again Eddie imagined what would happen to him in prison, again felt his stomach turn.
“I need some help,” Eddie said. “I’ll pay you for it.”
The boy closed his book:
The Comedians
. “I’m not really an expert when it comes to poetry,” he said.
“This isn’t about poetry.”
“Is it legal?”
Eddie laughed. “Why do you ask that?”
The boy bit his lip.
How to put him at ease? Eddie didn’t know. He smiled. “Go on,” he said.
“Don’t take this personally.”
“I won’t.”
“But you do look like someone who might do something illegal.”
“Like a hit man, you said.”
“Maybe not so much like a hit man, the way your hair’s growing in.”
Gray. “I’ll tell you something,” Eddie said, perhaps more forcefully than he’d intended, because the boy shrank in his chair: “I’ve never done anything illegal in my life.” In his mind it was true: the three men he’d killed had been in self-defense, and he hadn’t known what had been hidden away on
Fearless
. He’d done nothing illegal, but the look had rubbed off on him anyway.
“Nothing?” said Pinchas. His Adam’s apple bobbed, as though a bubble that couldn’t be suppressed was on its way up. “I’ve broken the law myself.”
“You have?”
Pinchas looked down, nodded.
“What did you do?”
“I shoplifted … an object.”
“What was it?”
The boy was silent. From outside came the strangely muted noise of the city. Pinchas spoke. “You won’t tell anybody?”
“Except the FBI.”
Pinchas didn’t laugh, but he got up, moved into the shadows at the back of the store, climbed the stepladder, and reached up to the top of the highest shelf. He returned with something wrapped in tissue paper.
What? Surely not a watch, or jewelry, or an electronic gadget. A rare book, maybe? Or something Jewish that Eddie knew nothing about. That would be it.
Pinchas unwrapped the tissue paper. Inside was a brand-new Minnesota Twins baseball cap. Pinchas didn’t touch it. Slowly his gaze came up, met Eddie’s.
“You stole it?”
“From Herman’s. I walked in, stuck it under my jacket, and walked out. Like I was an automaton or something. I couldn’t help it.”
“But why?”
Pinchas stared down at the cap.
“Couldn’t you have asked your parents to buy it for you?”
“You don’t understand.”
Was the boy poor? Eddie saw nothing to indicate that. “What about saving your own money?”
“It wasn’t the money,” Pinchas said. “It was the act of buying I couldn’t do. That would make it official. Like I consciously made a decision to … possess it. This way it’s just something that happened. The will of …” His voice trailed off.
Eddie picked up the cap. It was made of wool, just like the real ones, but smaller. “Let’s see it on you.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “I can’t.”
“You mean you haven’t tried it on yet?”
Pinchas shook his head quickly from side to side.
Eddie held it out. “Just slide into your automaton mode.”
This time a smile appeared on Pinchas’s face; but quickly vanished. He didn’t move for a few moments. Then, slowly, he took off his skullcap, laid it gently on the desk; it left a circular imprint on his hair. He accepted the Minnesota Twins cap from Eddie in both hands and put it on. It was too big for him, made him appear even younger, nothing like a ball player.
“How do I look?” Pinchas asked.
“Just like Canseco,” Eddie said. He’d watched a thousand games in the rec room.
“I don’t like Canseco,” Pinchas said. “Kirby Puckett’s my favorite.” He went to the dusty window, bent forward, peered at his reflection. He tilted the cap at an angle and came back. He was walking differently, perhaps in imitation of Kirby Puckett or some other slugger.
“What position do you play?” Eddie asked.
“Play?”
“In baseball.”
“Oh,” said the boy, “I’ve never actually played. There’s no
time, with the store, and Yeshiva, and Talmud-Torah at night. And even if there was, my parents … they want the best for me. That’s the beauty of this country for them. They’re free to live a life that has nothing to do with it.”
Eddie wasn’t following this too well. “You look like a second baseman,” he said.
“I do?” Pinchas smiled. This time it stayed on his face a little longer. He tugged at the bill of his cap, making a small adjustment. Then he shot Eddie a glance. “I’m sorry for saying you looked like a criminal.”
“A natural mistake,” Eddie said. “I did the penance first, that’s all.”
Pinchas frowned. “Before the crime?”
“The crime that happened had nothing to do with me,” Eddie said. “That’s where I need your help.”
“Help you do what?”
“Find a hospice,” Eddie said.
“Where people go to die?”
“Is there another kind? The problem is I don’t know which one this person is in.”
“Are you going to do something to him?”
“Would that make sense?”
Pause. Then Pinchas started laughing. Eddie laughed too. Pinchas turned to the computer, switched it on. “What kind of hospice?” he said, tapping the keys. “AIDS, cancer, normal dying?”
“We’ll have to try them all.”
Ten minutes later, Pinchas tore off a two-page printout and handed it to Eddie. He picked up the phone and dialed St. Sebastian’s Home, the first one on the list.
Eddie: “I’m trying to find an old friend of mine who’s not well. I thought he might be with you.”
Woman: “What’s his name?”
Eddie: “JFK. That’s what he called himself.”
Woman: “I’ll need his real name.”
Eddie: “I don’t know it.”
Woman: “Sorry.”
Eddie went through similar conversations eight times. The ninth time, a man answered. “The Caring Place,” he said.
Eddie went through his spiel.
“Do you mean Mr. Kidd, by any chance?” asked the man.
“Possibly.”
“We had a Junior Fairbanks Kidd,” said the man. “At least that’s what it said on his passport.”
“A Bahamian passport?” asked Eddie.
“That’s right.”
“You said
had
.”
“Mr. Kidd left last week.”
“Where did he go?”
“He said he was going home.”
“Does that mean he was better?”
“Better? More reconciled, perhaps. More in tune with the end rhythms of his life.”
Eddie hung up.
Pinchas was watching him from under the bill of his Twins cap. “You’ve seen the world, haven’t you?” he said.
“Parts.”
“That’s why you’re interested in ‘The Mariner.’ All that sailing.”
Eddie shook his head. “I’m interested in it …” He paused. Why? An answer came: “because it’s a beautiful thing that doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t make sense?”
“Because the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. How can it when the nature of the crime’s a mystery?”
The boy looked puzzled. “Have you read the Bible?” he asked. “I’m talking about the Old Testament.”
“No.”
“That’s why you can ask a question like that.”
They looked at each other for a few moments. Eddie laid the printout on the desk. “What do I owe you?”
“For what?”
“The computer time.”
“Not a thing.”
Pinchas took off the Twins cap, put on the skullcap. He was rewrapping the Twins cap in tissue paper when Eddie left.
25
N
ow when Eddie walked into the suite, Jack was there, pacing by the window, smoking a cigarette. He wore a double-breasted suit, a white shirt, and a silk tie, but his feet were bare.
“It’s you,” he said. “Where’d you fuck off to?”
“Just taking a virtual-reality check,” Eddie said. “Not my thing.”
Jack nodded, but absent, blank. He paced, glanced out the window, let cigarette ash flutter down to the rug.
“What’s wrong?” Eddie said.
“Nothing.”
Eddie noticed that Jack’s feet, once high-arched and strong, had changed. They were almost flat now, and the toenails were thick and yellowed with fungus.
“I don’t believe you,” Eddie said.
Jack rounded on him. “Nothing’s wrong that you can help with. Let’s put it that way.”
Eddie nodded. He took out what was left of the $350 and laid it on the TV. “I’ll send you the clothes.” He moved toward the door.
Jack bounded toward him, spun him around, held him by the shoulders. He was still strong.
“I don’t need any shit from you, bro.”
For a moment Eddie just stood there, like a rabbit mesmerized by a predator, like an inmate who knew the pecking order. Then he raised his hands, placed them on Jack’s chest, and pushed him away. Not too hard—Jack was his brother; but he didn’t want to be handled.
Not too hard, maybe, but it was hard enough to send Jack to
the floor. He bounced up, came at Eddie with his hand raised for a backswing across the face. Eddie was tired of that; he caught Jack’s wrist in midair and held it. Jack wasn’t like Raleigh. He was much stronger, much tougher. Still, he couldn’t move his arm at all. When he saw that, he showed he was much smarter too—the resistance went out of him completely and at once.
Eddie released him. Jack gave him a long look. “You’ve changed.”